Page 18 of The Duke’s Masked Wallflower

“Yes,” Rosalie said, with one last lie. “I do hope so too.”

Six

Alittle while later, Gabriel found his aunt in the small parlor overlooking the garden just off the plant room, seated in the chair that had been his mother’s and staring into space. His heart dropped at the sight of her as he lingered at the threshold between rooms, clearing his throat before entering.

“May I join you?”

Elisabeth did not startle. She rarely did anymore. It was one of the quiet symptoms of whatever plagued her. She turned her head toward him slowly and smiled.

“Gabriel.” A faint smile, more habit than feeling. “I did not hear you come into the house. How was Lord Beaumont and his beloved?”

“Well, on the whole.” He crossed to her and knelt beside the chair, taking her cold hand in both of his. Her rings sat loose on her fingers now. She had lost weight since Italy. He was sure of that now.

“You have not touched your correspondence. When I came in, Morland told me the conservatory beds have gone unplanted for days, though you spoke of nothing else the week you returned. He is waiting for your next instructions.”

“I have not felt... equal to the task, or up to very much of anything, if I am honest with you. I only want to rest, as you asked me to.” She looked toward the window and the gray garden beyond it. “It comes and goes. You know this. It will pass. It always passes.”

“Hm.”

“Perhaps I should go abroad again,” Elisabeth said, so quietly he almost missed it. “The activity did me good, and the company. Here I have only this house and my own thoughts.”

“No.” The word came out quicker than he intended. “No. I... I do not want you to travel again so soon, alone and with no one to—” He stopped himself from saying the rest: With no one to notice if something happens to you. “Stay the Season at least with me. I would rather have you here where I can be near you.”

“You cannot keep me forever in this house simply to watch me, Gabriel, like a caged old bird.” She said it gently, but her fingers tightened briefly around his.

He smiled. “What else would you have me do?”

“Come now. There are so many things you could do.” Elisabeth said, with the ghost of her old dryness returning to her voice. “That is precisely the trouble. You are unmarried, without real occupation beyond the title. If you wish to keep me from feeling I must go traveling for want of purpose, you might consider finding some purpose of your own closer to home.”

Her eyes, tired as they were, found his. “There is a dinner next week. I had thought to send my regrets, but perhaps I shall go after all, if you will escort me. They are old friends, good friends. And perhaps you might look about the room while you are there, and take a real look, a good look, to see what is there.”

Though Gabriel felt he knew the answer, he asked her what she meant anyway.

“You know precisely what,” his aunt replied. “And I will not embarrass either of us by saying it aloud. Think only about the Marquess of Beaumont and what he has achieved. He is like a brother to you, I know. Would it be the worst thing to model yourself after him, when he is so happy? You have always done that. Why stop now?”

By London standards, Lady Peachey’s dinner was a modest affair. There were perhaps thirty guests in total, and the lamplight outside softened every approaching face into an indecipherable canvas of flesh. Gabriel had barely handed his aunt from the carriage before he saw her face, and it came into focus when nobody else’s would.

Miss Rosalie Winthrop stood near the front doors in ivory silk, her auburn hair coiffed simply, her hand resting briefly on the arm of Mr. Edmund Sinclair as they spoke with her mother and father and waited to head indoors.

Something went tight in Gabriel’s chest, sharp enough that he nearly missed his aunt’s murmured request to take her indoors quickly because she was cold. He told himself it was nothing—the usual friction of seeing a woman he’d spent too much time thinking about, now standing comfortably attached to another man’s arm. It was as though the terrace, Vauxhall, none of it had happened at all.

They entered before him and Elisabeth. Inside, Lord and Lady Peachey greeted them and sent them into the drawing room where the rest of the guests were mingling. He dragged his aunt to one of the windows where she could sit on the bench, folding their invitation and slipping it into his pocket.

“Is that you, Your Grace?” Beatrice Levant materialized at his elbow as if she had been watching for his arrival. Her husband was with her, a seemingly genial silver-haired gentleman who walked a half step behind her.

“How good to see you out in company. I had begun to think you had taken a vow of solitude or something equally morbid. Though, of course, we attended your birthday masquerade. But a man such as you must celebrate his birthday. That was a requirement. This is... a choice.”

A choice he was regretting more with each second that passed. “I hope you have been getting on well.”

“Why, yes. Yes, absolutely. This past year has been a whirlwind, but are not all the best things in life sudden and breathtaking?” She introduced her husband. “Mr. Levant, my husband. I am pleased to introduce you to His Grace, the Duke of Hartmere.”

“A pleasure,” the man said in a soft American accent. “Beatrice tells me we are neighbors.”

He nodded, glancing down at his aunt, who was smiling at something in the doorway behind them. He followed the line of her eyes. Miss Winthrop entered with her mother, moving toward her father and Mr. Sinclair.

Mrs. Levant laughed softly. “I know, what a rare sight. Are you acquainted with my cousin, Your Grace? It is much too early in the evening to gossip, I’ll admit. But evidently he is not attempting to hide his latest infatuation. It took us all by surprise when he called yesterday with the news. He has taken quite a fancy to Miss Winthrop. He does like to play the rescuer, just like his poor late wife. She was a wallflower too, you know. But at least they were closer in age when he saved her from the shelf.”

Gabriel scowled. “I hardly think Miss Winthrop is in need of rescuing.”