“She doesn’t have to,” he told himself aloud. She was just there to bring her family connections and access to the stable.
He sighed. A sudden invasion of chattering, energetic guests was not something he liked. He looked out of the window and tensed, seeing a coach approaching.
His stomach knotted and he wondered briefly who it was. It could be the Rothwell coach. He stiffened, his body tensing in apprehension and some strange feeling he could not name. He turned from the window and went to the door. He had guests to greet.
Chapter 4
“...and how delightful it will be to have such varied company! I can hardly wait to dance with so many new people! How truly grand it shall be!” Georgina’s excited voice filled the coach, her tone thrumming with anticipation. Her brown eyes were wide with delight, her red velvet dress warming the spicy chestnut tones of her hair.
“The duke’s house will be very grand, I expect,” Isabel, more practical, interjected. “Will we be suitably dressed, sister?” Her pretty, soft face was pale, her black hair—identical to their father—making it seem paler still. Rosalyn glanced from her sisters towards Sebastian. He chuckled.
“I assure you, dear sister, that your dresses would be suitable for London. And further north, almost certainly.” He grinned, catching Rosalyn’s eye. “They’re more distant from the centre of fashion up here in the Midlands than we are.”
Rosalyn acknowledged his kind words with a smile. He understood, clearly, how nervous she was.
Both of her sisters were simply too excited about the prospect of three weeks at the duke’s country estate. At eighteen, Georgina was full of life and excitement, newly debuted into society. Isabel, two years younger, had debuted the same year since Papa thought it unfair that the two could not enjoy parties together. Rosalyn agreed. Isabel was very quiet and serious, and having her debut with her lively, spirited elder sister would make it more pleasant for her.
"We’re almost there!” Georgina called out. “Look! I think I can see something.” She gestured through the window, pointing at the top of the hill. Sebastian let out a loud exclamation.
“Oh! Look. I think that it is on the hilltop there. There are some turrets to be seen, there, if you look.”
Rosalyn’s stomach was tied in a queasy knot. She looked out of the window and saw turrets there, just visible above the snow-covered trees.
The duke’s home slowly appeared, and her stomach knotted up even more with apprehension. The place was even more grim and imposing than she had imagined. It was three floors high and made of grey stone and had evidently been added to over the centuries; part of it fairly modern, with a facade based on Roman designs. The section behind it was more like a fortress than a manor, though the architecture came from only a hundred years before. It sported several ornamental turrets, built in a time when turrets were revived as a fashionable feature. Trees clustered about the grim, grey building, their bare branches reaching up against the grey sky. The section behind truly was old. It could have been built in the Dark Ages, to judge from its grim appearance. Small windows, barely more than a few inches across, dotted the thick, ancient stone. Rosalyn shivered and drew her pelisse tighter about her.
It looks so foreboding,she thought with a shudder.A grim, dark sort of a place.
Papa alighted first. Rosalyn took their father’s hand, jumping down. Her ankles jarred on the stone of the drive. She winced, feeling the cold even through the soles of her white outdoor boots.
“Looks quite large,” Sebastian commented, his breath a plume of steam in the icy air.
“Mm.” Rosalyn watched her own breath in the cold air, focusing on that for a second before looking up at the imposing, frightening structure, to calm her nerves.
“Ah. That must be his grace,” Sebastian said, the title said with some irony. Rosalyn had to smile. Sebastian had barely exchanged a word with the duke when he visited, and evidently, he had found him as rude and displeasing as Rosalyn herselfhad. “And his mother, I suppose,” he added, squinting up at the stairs. “And someone else, too.” His voice softened with those words, and Rosalyn gazed up, studying the three on the steps. Her palms were suddenly wet with nervous perspiration, her heart thudding.
The duke stood there, his tall, imposing form drawing her eye immediately. He was wearing a black tailcoat and a matching top-hat, and she could not see the expression on his face—they were still too far away—but his posture was stiff and unbending, radiating cold displeasure. She shivered.
Beside him stood a woman with elegantly styled white hair partly covered with a grey turban headdress—quite the fashion for older married ladies and widows alike. She wore a dark grey dress and her expression, as Rosalyn walked nearer, seemed even colder than the duke’s. Her steel-blue eyes barely even focused on the group as they approached the foot of the stairs. Sebastian halted where he stood beside Rosalyn and she frowned, then saw that his eyes were focusing on the third person on the steps. She followed his gaze and spotted a slim young woman with the same longer face as the duke’s, her pale blonde hair bright against the dark stone behind. She wore a dark grey pelisse, a white gown just visible below. Her eyes were soft blue, and her expression was shy and hesitant when she studied Sebastian. Rosalyn smiled.
While she had never experienced real attraction before, the spark of something she instantly recognised seemed to pass from Sebastian to the young woman. Her grin widened as their group moved forward, and the young woman instinctively stepped closer to her brother, the duke. She went hesitantly up the stairs with her family to the large terrace. She was glad of Sebastian’s protective presence beside her, shielding her from the dowager duchess’ steely blue gaze.
“Your Grace! Good afternoon,” Papa greeted the duke formally. He bowed. “Good afternoon, Your Grace,” he added, turning to the duchess. “My lady,” he addressed the young woman, bowing to her. “I believe we have not had the honour of an introduction.”
“Good afternoon, my lord,” the duke greeted Papa. He nodded to Sebastian. “Mr Rothwell, Miss Rothwell.” He acknowledged Rosalyn with a mere tilt of the head. His eyes met hers for a moment and she looked away, her stomach twisting with some emotion she could not place. Her heart was racing.
The duke turned to her father. “I have not had the honour of meeting your other daughters,” he added. “So, I regrettably cannot greet them by name. May I have the honour of introducing you to my mother, the dowager Duchess of Stallenwood, and to my sister, Lady Harriet?” he gestured to the two women beside him. “I suggest we all come in from the cold,” he added, stepping back so that Rosalyn and her family could proceed into the manor.
Rosalyn walked stiffly, conscious of the gaze of the duke and his mother as she passed by them. Their eyes were cold, assessing. Her heart twisted, her stomach tying itself in knots.
“This is pleasant,” Papa commented, either ignoring the frosty unwelcoming gaze of the duke and his mother, or oblivious to it. “Now, I can make the proper introductions. Your Grace, may I have the honour of introducing my younger daughters? This is Miss Georgina Rothwell, my second-eldest daughter, and Miss Isabel Rothwell, my youngest.”
“Good afternoon,” the duke said coldly. His gaze slid past the two sisters and Rosalyn turned to them to apologise for his rudeness, but they were both looking around, barely aware of him, and she had to smile. They had both curtseyed politely, but the duke could have been eight feet tall and cast in bronze and they would not even have noticed. His home was clearly muchmore interesting than he was. Georgina was gazing round-eyed up at the high ceiling, while Isabel was studying the columns by the door in a way that made Rosalyn know she was assessing the age of the place.
“The ball will commence at eight of the clock,” the dowager duchess said, the first time she had spoken since they all arrived. “I presume you would wish to settle into your chambers and perhaps take some tea before readying for the ball?”
Her words sounded polite, but there was a forceful coldness behind them, and the message was clear.Go up to your rooms,she was saying.Our other guests will be arriving, and I am otherwise occupied.
Her gaze met the duchess’ for a second, but the older woman barely acknowledged her; her own gaze sliding away in a way that suggested she had no interest in knowing her.
