Page 55 of The Duke’s Masked Wallflower

“We had a pleasant walk, until the rain arrived.” Anna sighed, slapping her gloves on Rosalie’s legs. “Are you not going to ask me what we discussed?”

“I fear I know already.”

“Oh, you have changed,” Anna said, sounding impressed. “You remind me of our grandmother.”

“She was a horrible woman.”

“Precisely my point.”

Rosalie opened an eye and found Anna smiling, unserious. “I have not yet met your Mr. Sinclair. I understand he is very steady, very respectable, exactly the sort of man Mother has been praying for since your first season...”

“Why are we speaking of Mr. Sinclair?”

“He was on my mind when I was speaking with the duke. I will tell you plainly, sister, because I think you are too deep in it to see it clearly yourself: that man admires you genuinely.”

Rosalie shot into a sitting position, going cold. “You have no idea what you are talking about. He could not possibly admire me.”

“Have I ever lied to you?”

“No,” Rosalie agreed, thinking but not saying, But you are often wrong about your assessment of people.

“I saw it, little things. I know the signs of infatuation in a man, and he displayed almost all of them. When I spoke to him about you⁠—”

“Please tell me you did not test him.” That was one of Anna’s favorite pastimes, pushing people’s buttons to extract the truth from them.

“Be quiet,” Anna said. She reached over and took her hand. “This is a happy time, and I will not have you ruining it for us all.”

“It is not what you think,” Rosalie replied, and she heard how thin it sounded even as she said it.

“No?” Then you tell me what it is.”

Where on earth would Rosalie begin? The terrace, and the lie, and the arrangement? The shame of it was a weight on her chest. The Duke of Hartmere was humoring her, using her, and she was using him. Whatever Anna thought she had gleaned from their conversation was wrong. Gabriel was only playing the part of an interested suitor.

Even though Rosalie thought part of me wished he was not pretending. And that is only natural, is it not? To genuinely want to be sought out? Like how Anna’s husband fought for her? Like how my father fights for my mother every day?

“Our acquaintance cannot be easily summarized,” Rosalie finally said, which was true enough to pass. “And I am not free to explain why. But I will tell you this much, Anna. It will end soon, or soon enough.”

“Because you prefer Mr. Sinclair?”

Rosalie did not reply.

Anna made a nose of disgust. “You are so sensible and boring. Look at William and me. Look how that turned out. Do you think we were being sensible when we fell in love? Love is never sensible. You must be strategic, yes, but also foolish if you want to make a true-love match.”

There was no point arguing with Anna. But every new thing she said made Rosalie’s heart ache over the lie they were living.

“You want him,” Anna stated. “I can see it in the way you avoid my eye. You despair and predict an early end because you are afraid of admitting your feelings to yourself. One cannot lose something they never gave themselves. You could not lose the Duke of Hartmere if you never accept your love for him fully.”

The word love sent a jolt through Rosalie, and she rose from the bed entirely. “It is not⁠—”

“The only thing that matters, in the end, is your happiness.” Anna took her hand and squeezed it. “I know you, sister, more than anyone else. And you reside in my heart, in a larger chamber than anyone else could ever occupy. And that is why I tell you this: be selfish now. Have you not spent your whole life thinking about others? Nurturing the romances of your friends to the detriment of your own?”

The question called Emily and Thomas to mind, and all her other friends who were married, grateful for Rosalie’s steadfast and unwavering friendship.

“You make it sound simple,” Rosalie murmured.

“If it were simple, it would not be worth the effort,” Anna replied. “But I did not suffer the scorn of the ton, the attacks from women like Beatrice Sinclair, and not learn a trick or two about how to catch a man.

Anna smiled, slowly and conspiratorially, an expression Rosalie remembered from childhood.