Page 74 of The Duke’s Masked Wallflower

“You really are glowing,” Rosalie told her, taking Anna into a side hug. “I am so happy to see you like this.”

“William says the same, though I suspect he is required to say as much, for fear I will strike him otherwise. My moods are unpredictable at the best of times, but these last few months...” Anna smiled, unable to help it. “Suffice to say you only like me so much because I am not staying overlong. Marriage suits me, though. Hopefully, motherhood will suit me as well.” She glanced over her shoulder. “It suits your friend Mrs. Harcourt too. She and her husband have been inseparable all morning.”

Rosalie glanced at Emily and waved when she noticed her, hanging off Thomas’s arm as they spoke to the Marquess of Beaumont and his wife. Emily looked happier than Rosalie had ever seen her. There was a glow there too, beneath the Cornwall sunshine.

“It occurred to me, watching you walk down the aisle, that none of us had predictable courtships, did we?” She laughed. “Do you suppose there is something wrong with us? You and His Grace, and your game. And me and William, stealing him out from under another woman’s nose, though she could never have loved him, I know that.”

“Maybe this is what love requires,” Rosalie said, adjusting her bracelets now that her emotions had calmed. “A little daring. You said that once.”

“Yes, well, I say a great many things that should be written down and put into a book for women to read,” she said sarcastically. Anna’s smile faded slightly, some private thought crossing behind her eyes. “Did you hear about Beatrice?”

Rosalie nodded. She had heard the news two weeks prior, in a letter from Emily that had arrived with more glee in its phrasing than the subject strictly warranted. “The divorce, you mean,” she said.

“It was her husband’s doing, apparently. Some scandal in New York involving a woman twice Beatrice’s age. That must have been a shock to her, to learn that age and beauty matter for little in the end.” Anna shook her head slowly. “I ought to feel nothing but satisfaction. God knows she has earned very little sympathy from either of us, and yet...”

“It is still sad. I feel the same,” Rosalie finished. “However much she deserved a taste of her own medicine, no one quite deserves this.”

“I have wondered, you know, whether she would have been happier married to someone she actually wanted, rather than someone chosen to prove a point to the rest of London. First with William, who she wanted because he was handsome. Then with Levant, who she wanted because he was rich...” Anna considered this. “In all the years I have known her, she never once seemed to be choosing for herself. Only choosing against someone else.”

“Which is a poor foundation for any marriage.”

“Yes, a poor foundation for anything, to my mind.” Anna squeezed her arm. “I hope, wherever she ends up after this, that she finds her way to a better life. We can allow that kindness to her, our good wishes, even if she has rarely extended the same good faith to anyone else.”

They fell quiet for a moment, watching the wedding guests scatter across the lawn ahead of the games that morning, until the side terrace door opened behind them and Gabriel emerged. He tugged at his cravat and muttered under his breath, looking like a man who had just escaped a conversational assault.

Rosalie’s heart flipped at the sight of him. They had been betrothed for three months, but he still had this effect on her: of surprise and excitement, of total joy and admiration.

“Your father,” he said, arriving beside Rosalie and snaking his arm around her waist, “has a remarkable talent for talking me into situations I would rather escape.”

“What has he done now?” Rosalie asked, looking up at him while Anna scoffed.

“He is trying to convince me to convince your mother to allow him to join us on our bridal tour.”

“Heavens, no,” Anna said, scowling. “Scoundrel. He knows Mother likes you so much and would not refuse.”

“I only managed to extract myself by claiming a pressing need to find my wife.”

Something in the word ‘wife’ still seemed to catch him slightly with a small, private pleasure. Rosalie blushed and hid her smile behind her handkerchief. Anna rolled her eyes and excused herself to find the baron before he could make more mischief, leaving Rosalie and Gabriel alone for the first time since they had left the chapel.

“Ros,” he said tenderly, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“I am sorry about my father.”

“Oh, you needn’t be. I take it as a mark of his affection.”

“That he has begun using you in his games?”

“Yes, quite.”

“A family trait.”

He laughed. “It would seem... You know, I passed Sinclair and his wife in my escape. He greeted me. They seemed remarkably at ease.”

“Did you speak to them?”

“He congratulated us both, and she said very little, but she was pleasant enough, for an actress.” Gabriel shook his head, something rueful in the gesture. “I did not expect your family to receive either of us with such grace.”

“They know how much I love you. And we can only look forward now,” Rosalie said, turning to place a hand on his chest. “The past has had quite enough of our attention this year. I intend to be selfish with the future instead...”