“You wanted to marry me off to Toby,” she said, “so that I would not be a burden on you.”
He made an impatient sound.
“Tobias is a good catch,” he said. “He will doubtless be a bishop one day. But it is only advice I was giving you, Rosa. You should know that I would never try to force your hand. Did I refuse my consent to your marrying Hunter, even though I disapproved? Did I?”
“No,” she admitted, “though you grumbled and frowned a great deal and made me feel your displeasure. Are you forcing Annabelle into marriage?”
“Forcing her?” he said. “Anna? What utter nonsense, Rosa. One does not have to force a daughter into marrying an earl. And Wetherby is a young and a personable man as well as a very wealthy one. Of course I am not forcing her. Anna is a very biddable girl.”
“Unlike me, your tone says,” she said with a smile. “Very well, Dennis, I will grant that Annabelle is being obedient of her own free will.”
“She is ever eager to do her duty,” he said, “and to bring lasting joy to her mama and papa. And besides, the ultimate choice is to be hers. We are not going to use any coercion.”
Rosamund sighed. “I never brought you joy, did I, Dennis?” she said. “But you were a good brother to me, I must confess. And still are. It was kind of you to come all the way to Lincolnshire in the dead of winter just to bring me home and ensure that I would be part of the family celebrations next month. I shall try to behave myself, I promise. I will even be polite to Toby.”
“And consider marrying him?” he asked hopefully. “Really and truly, Rosa, you could hardly do better for yourself.”
She clucked her tongue impatiently. “I said I would be polite to him,” she said. “Who knows? Perhaps in nine years he has been transformed into a charming and an interesting gentleman. I certainly am not promising to marry him. Perhaps I will find someone else to my taste at Lord Gilmore’s house party. Perhaps I will even run away with the earl myself before he can offer for Annabelle.”
Dennis frowned. “That joke was not in very good taste,” he said.
“No.” She sighed. “It wasn’t, was it? I’m sorry, Dennis. I am so very tired. Aren’t you? I really would not mind having a little sleep.”
“Put your feet up on the other seat, then,” he said, and he picked up a blanket and settled it snugly about her. “I really was almost worried to death about you, you know, Rosa. I’m glad you are safe, though I daresay you had as dull a time of it as I did.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling at him. “Thank you, Dennis. Thank you for everything.”
And she closed her eyes and saw Justin, his blue eyes smiling at her. And felt his arms warm about her and the rough hairs of his chest against her palms. And smelled his cologne. She would never see him again. Even if she ever wanted to communicate with him—even if by some unhappy fate she was with child—she would not be able to do so because she knew only his name, nothing else at all about him. Much as they had talked, she realized, as close as they had grown, he had told her almost nothing about himself.
She would never see him again. Never.
The ache was back in her throat. She rested her head against the squabs, her eyes closed, fighting her tears.
Rosamund found herself over the next few weeks looking forward to the house party at Brookfield, the Marquess of Gilmore’s country home. It was something to focus her mind on when it wished to dwell on other matters. As Dennis’ sister and ward, she had gone there several times as a girl and had always been made welcome by the marquess and marchioness and indeed by the rest of the family too. She had been treated very much like one of them.
Rosamund looked forward to a few weeks during which she hoped there would be enough company and enough entertainment to keep her from brooding. And she looked forward to renewing her acquaintance with people she had not seen for many years, not since she had been a very young girl, in fact. It was hard sometimes to realize that she had been only seventeen years old when she married. Just a child. Younger than Annabelle was now.
And at the house party they were to celebrate Annabelle’s betrothal to the Earl of Wetherby, although that betrothal was not by any means official yet. The earl still had his proposal to make to Annabelle, and she still had to give her free consent. It seemed that Dennis and Lana were indeed not putting any great pressure on her. The reason for the gathering at Brookfield was the marquess’s seventieth birthday.
“Grandmama and his lordship’s mother dreamed of the match years ago,” Annabelle explained to her aunt one afternoon as they were strolling in the bare rose arbor. “I met him at that time, though he was a grown man and I was just a child. We met again last spring when Mama and Papa took me to town for the Season. He danced with me a few times and escorted me to the theater once and took me driving in the park. He made an offer to Papa for me before we came home, and Papa encouraged his suit, though he thought I was still too young at the time to receive a formal offer. He asked his lordship to wait until we went to Grandpapa’s.”
Annabelle had told the story with the grave manner that had been customary with her whenever Rosamund had seen her during her marriage, though she remembered the girl as a sunny-natured child. She was rather lovely with her oval face, large gray eyes, and smooth dark-blond hair looped down over her ears. But she seemed almost too mature for an eighteen-year-old—too accepting of an arranged marriage. She would be screeching her protests if it were she, Rosamund thought.
“Mama and Papa were delighted by the offer,” Annabelle said. “So were Grandmama and Grandpapa.”
“And you?” Rosamund asked. “Are you pleased? Is he a handsome man? I have heard that he is. And is he interesting? Kind? Does he have that certain something? Are you in love with him?”
“He is an earl and well-connected,” Annabelle said. “And everyone approves of him, Aunt Rosa. I trust their judgment.”
The girl was going to accept the offer without question, Rosamund realized, although she had been given apparent freedom of choice. Rosamund wondered how her niece could be so different from herself. She would have bristled and threatened mutiny if a grandparent or parent had even suggested a match for her. Though perhaps not. Perhaps if Papa had lived, she would have listened to his advice. But, then, perhaps he would have advised her against marrying Leonard and she would hate not to have lived through that marriage.
As far as the Earl of Wetherby was concerned, she would just have to wait and see for herself what he was like. He sounded like a paragon from all Lana and Dennis said of him. Perhaps once she saw him she would understand very well why Annabelle was putting up no fight against an arranged marriage.
Yes, she looked forward to the house party. She needed some diversion. She found herself fighting an almost daily battle against depression, and she was not one to suffer such moods. It was all very well to think of him at night. She always did so quite deliberately, reliving his touch, his words, his lovemaking. But not by day. Then she thought of him unwillingly. By day there was only heartache in such thoughts.
For it had been only a temporary liaison, thoroughly satisfactory to them both, something to be remembered with pleasure on occasion but something to be allowed to slip very quickly from constant memory. She spoiled the sweetness of it by dwelling on it and making of it a painful thing.
Moreover, she annoyed herself. She had never thought to find herself lovesick over a man who was unattainable. Gracious heaven, she had even felt a twinge of disappointment when she had discovered that she was not with child.
