Chapter 1
“It’s going to rain,” Rosamund Hunter said, leaning toward the window of the carriage and looking up to the heavy gray sky.
“Snow,” her brother said, glancing through the opposite window. “It’s going to snow.”
Rosamund looked across at him and laughed. “Even about the weather we must quarrel,” she said. “It has not been a very relaxing journey, has it, Dennis? You will be sorry you came for me at all and did not leave me to rusticate in Lincolnshire.”
“Snow is nothing to laugh at,” Dennis Milford, Viscount March said. “It could seriously delay our journey. We have two more days to go even if the roads remain clear.”
“I would not relish a few days snowbound at an inn, I must confess,” Rosamund said. “We must hope that on this occasion I am right and those clouds shed rain rather than snow.”
“Besides,” her brother said, “I would not have left you in Lincolnshire, Rosa. Not once your year of mourning was decently at an end. And not when Lana and I had found someone else interested in you.”
Rosamund tapped one gloved hand sharply on the window ledge, deciding whether she would take the bait or not. But she could not resist. It was not in the way of things—and never had been—for her and her brother to agree on much. And it had certainly never been their way to agree to disagree. Confrontation was the only way they had been able to approach each other.
“I thought we had said everything that was to be said on that topic yesterday,” she said, not even trying to hide the annoyance from her voice, “and the day before. And the day before that.”
“The Reverend Tobias Strangelove is perfectly eligible,” Lord March said, “and eager to meet you again when we go to Brookfield next month.”
“Poor Toby,” Rosamund said. “He has been at a disadvantage since the day of his birth with a name like that, hasn’t he? I was moderately fond of him, Dennis, when we were growing up. But my feelings never went beyond fondness. Indeed, I always feel the urge to yawn whenever I think of him, which is not a kind thing to say at all, is it? I wish you had not encouraged him in the impression that I might be eager for his addresses. Just as if I were your daughter and not your sister.”
“You must admit that he is closer to you in age than Hunter was,” he said.
“Doubtless there are many thousands of other gentlemen closer to my age that Leonard was,” she said. “It would be tedious to consider them all as prospective husbands, though.”
“You cannot have had much of a life with him,” Lord March said. “I always felt guilty for having allowed you to marry him.”
“What nonsense,” she said. “You had to give your consent, I suppose—I was only seventeen. But I chose Leonard, remember, not you. I do not recall being prepared to take no for an answer. And I had a very good life with him, I thank you.” She spoke curtly. “I know it must be the common belief that I could not have been happy with a man thirty-two years my senior, and one who was portly and quite bald even when I married him. You were probably delighted for me when he released me by dying just eight years later.”
“Not delighted, Rosa,” he said. “How could I be delighted with my brother-in-law dead and you in mourning? Give me credit for some feelings.”
“Well, I was happy with him,” she said defiantly, tears of mingled anger and grief in her eyes. “He was the kindest man ever to live, and I wish he had lived to be ninety. Although even then I would not have been quite sixty.” She sighed.
“Anyway,” Dennis said briskly after reaching across the carriage to pat her on the hand, “it’s time to forget him, Rosa. He has been dead for fifteen months. It’s time to look about you for someone else.”
“I shall do so,” she said, “in my own time and my own way. I don’t need your help, Dennis, thank you. I am your sister, even though I’m fifteen years younger than you. I am not your daughter. You can use all your energies on matchmaking for her, and have clearly been doing just that.”
“My mother-in-law chose my daughter’s husband nine years ago, and Lana and I approved even at that time,” he said, “last year she was old enough for them to ask formally for her and I gave my consent. She is agreeable. Anna does not rebel merely because her parents and her grandparents have chosen an eligible husband for her, you see, Rosa. She trusts us to make a wise choice and to have her best interest at heart.”
“That is very satisfactory for all of you,” Rosamund said dismissively. She looked up to the sky again and shivered. She hoped they would not be stranded by snow at some wayside inn. Such a delay in returning to his wife and daughter would make Dennis a very disagreeable companion, and the two of them would doubtless spend every waking moment quarreling. She had almost forgotten what it was like to bicker. She and Leonard had never done so.
She looked across the carriage at her brother, who was staring moodily from his window. He was putting on weight about the middle and he had begun to comb his hair across the top of his head from a low side parting to hide his thinning fair hair. And yet he was still a good-looking man. And she was fond of him. She always had been, despite the constant quarrels before she had married and gone into Lincolnshire with her husband.
Had they quarreled so much before Papa died when she was ten years old? she wondered. It was hard to remember. Perhaps the antagonism had developed only from the awkward situation that had succeeded his death. Dennis had already been married to Lana and apparently very happy with her. It had been a brilliant match for him, Lana being the daughter of the Marquess of Gilmore and enormously wealthy in her own right. And they had already had an infant daughter. Rosamund had suddenly felt like a stranger in her own home, though Lana had always been kind to her and Dennis had done his best to be a father to her.
That had been the trouble, of course. He had not been content to be her brother. He had tried to take Papa’s place. And she had resented that horribly—and he doubtless had resented having a rebellious young sister on his hands when he had his own family to concern himself with.
Rosamund sighed inwardly. She probably would not have married Leonard at the age of seventeen if life at home had not seemed so intolerable. But she had gone to Bath for a month with Dennis and Lana and Lord and Lady Gilmore, and at the end of the month she had been betrothed. A month later she had been married, five months before her eighteenth birthday.
She had never regretted her decision. She had known that her father had not been a wealthy man and that her dowry was small. She had quarreled loudly with Dennis on several occasions when he had expressed his intentions of adding to that dowry himself. She would not be beholden to him, though of course she could not dream of a brilliant match with her dowry. Sir Leonard Hunter had not been a wealthy man, but he had been well connected and the head of an old, respected family. More to the point, she had liked him, and she had married him.
She was not sorry. They had spent a happy eight years together despite appearances. She would not change her decision even if she could go back now and do so.
“Hunter might at least have left you a decent competence,” Lord March said after they had been silent for a few minutes.
“The property had to be left to his nephew,” she said. “There was not a great deal else. He left me as much as he could and trusted that Felix would provide me with a home and an allowance. He has done so for the past fifteen months.”
“You don’t need to live like a poor relation,” Lord March said.
