While he had not expected a response from either of the women at this point—Lydia was seldom out of bed by ten—Robert was nonetheless restless and unsettled. The entire day had already gone askew, and the lack of routine and plans made him chaff. After his mother had awakened and been assessed by Dr. Oakley, most of the household members had managed to snag a few hours of sleep. His father, of course, had never left Emalyn’s side, and Rose had ordered breakfast for them served in the room. A light meal for the rest of the family had been set in the breakfast room of the house, but Robert had only seen Michael so far.
For someone who ran the main floor of a gambling salon, Robert felt oddly discombobulated by a house out of kilter. But while unexpected events were normal for Campion’s hell, not so much for the Ashton family home, which had been run on tidy and neat schedules set by Philip and Emalyn Ashton more than twenty years ago. As a boy, Robert had struggled with the routine, testing every boundary. Now he discovered that he relied on the certainty of it.
He growled as he helped himself to more tea from a pot on the sideboard. “Where is everyone?”
“Mostly still asleep.” Rose’s soft voice sounded from the one of the baize doors the servants used. “Although I think Thomas is in Philip’s study if you need him.” She paused. “I think he slept there.”
Robert thought of a thousand things to say in response, but finally settled on, “Why are you using the servants’ door?”
She gave a soft flash of a smile. “It’s quicker, and I wanted to check to see if anyone else was in here. I’ve been in with Mrs. Hodges this morning. I should get back—”
“Would you care to join me?” Even in a modest and unadorned day gown, Rose’s gentle beauty and manner charmed him. Robert did not want her to leave. Perhaps itwastime for them to talk...
Rose hesitated, then nodded. She dipped a small bit of kedgeree from a chaffing dish, then poured tea and sat down next to him at the table.
“Are you taking over the household for my mother?”
Another hesitation, then a nod. “Yes. While she is indisposed—”
“Indisposed.”
“Robert...”
He looked down at his tea, then rubbed his forehead with one hand. “My apologies. This is... difficult.” He could not put a more accurate word to it.
“I know. I actually feel fortunate to have something specific to do to help.”
Robert examined Rose’s face, the features he knew so well, and he fought an urge to reach out, to smooth the lines around her mouth, the tight skin around her eyes. “Is there a problem between—”
You cannot ask this of her!He stopped and swallowed, as her gaze turned wary and his mind fumbled for something more appropriate. He pushed on in a different direction. “Is there a problem I can help with?”
Her shoulders relaxed as she shook her head. “Not me. Maybe Thomas.” She paused and took a deep breath. “May I ask you something? Something personal?”
Robert stiffened. “Anything. As long as it does not involve Lydia Rowbotham.”
She actually smiled at that. “No. I know all I need to know about that, and your mother has taken the ship’s wheel where our opinions of Lady Lydia are concerned. No...” She took a deep breath and the words came out rapidly, as if she hated saying them. “Did you become Robbie Green only to help me?”
Surprised, Robert’s eyebrows arched as he set down his teacup and leaned back in his chair, his focus on her eyes. When he did not answer right away, Rose looked down at her plate and picked at the remaining bits of kedgeree on her plate. “I suppose that is presumptuous of me.”
He reached for her arm, touched it lightly, then drew away, alarmed by the heat created by a mere touch. “No. No, not at all.” He shrugged one shoulder. “To be honest, given the many ways I’ve tried to woo you over the years, it’s a rather reasonable question.”
She looked up, eyes wide. “Robert, I’m sorry—”
He stopped her. “No. Don’t be. You never—” Robert paused and took a steadying breath. “I never liked being the idle dandy. Not really. I suppose I put on a good show—”
Rose’s eyes gleamed. “Always.”
He returned the grin. “But I was always... restless. Angry at nothing... and everything. I gambled. I raced horses. The women... nothing really helped. Being Robbie Green gave me something to do, somewhere to go every day. It’s why I left here. For a long time, I was more Robbie than Robert. More Covent Garden than Mayfair. It suited me.” He took a sip of tea and cleared his throat. “Although sometimes those two worlds collided in unexpected ways. You have no idea how close I came to killing Roger Bentley.” The man who had attacked Rose five years earlier, who had left her barren, had become the focus of Robert’s rage at the world.
“Oh, dear God,” she whispered, looking away from him, toward one of the windows.
He shrugged again, trying to downplay the words. “Bill Campion persuaded me otherwise.” Robert straightened, allowing a smile to grow, hoping to put Rose more at ease. “He showed me how Robbie could help you in other ways.”
She turned to him again. “With information.”
“Yes. Our letters meant—they were important to me. But they also helped me”—he glanced toward the door of the dining room, as if gazing down the hall toward his father’s study—“truly understand. My brother is a blessed man.”
“But that does not mean you have to—”
