Page 209 of Courting the Wrong Duke

There was something wonderfully anonymous about it.

No one here cared that she was the daughter of the Earl of Eastmere or that her father had disappeared from London under circumstances half the ton had probably begun inventing explanations for. No one watched to see whether Lord William Sinclair escorted her into a room or whether she smiled too often in his direction.

For four days, she had simply been Rosalind.

She stood beside the window now, one hand resting against the frame while morning sunlight warmed her face.

“I think I might stay.”

Behind her came the rustle of paper.

William looked up from the correspondence spread across his lap. He was sitting in an armchair near the bed, dressed properly for the first time since arriving, although the careful way he held himself betrayed the wound beneath his waistcoat.

“Stay where?”

“Wales.”

“Permanently?”

“I am considering it.”

William set the letter aside. “And what precisely would you do here?”

Rosalind glanced back at him. “Anything I liked.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“That is why I find it appealing.”

His mouth curved.

Rosalind turned toward the view again. “It feels rather like freedom. I can walk through the gardens without wondering who has seen me or ride into a village without imagining what story someone will tell about it later. Even the servants know too little about me to expect anything.”

William was quiet for a moment before he said, “I understand.”

Rosalind looked at him and suspected he did, perhaps better than anyone.

Four days earlier he had spoken of an endless road beneath a peach-colored sky, of a place where he might go anywhere he chose.

Her father was alive, William loved her, and for the first time in weeks, Rosalind was not chasing an answer or racing toward some new danger. There was nowhere she needed to run.

“You will have to return eventually,” William said.

“Must I?”

“I have been informed we are fit to travel tomorrow.”

Rosalind turned from the window with a frown. “You nearly fainted yesterday because you stood too quickly.”

“I did not faint. I merely became suspiciously acquainted with the wall.”

“You leaned against it for several minutes.”

“The wall was conveniently positioned.”

“And you claimed to be admiring the wallpaper when there was no wallpaper.”

William considered this apparent flaw in his defense. “Then I was admiring the craftsmanship.”