Rosalind’s heart sank and she discovered that she felt rather sick.
‘Yes. I – I think so,’ she said tonelessly. ‘And there is no need for you to sacrifice yourself. Nor, indeed, would I wish you to. I believe Philip allowed you to understand that I – that I held you responsible, but it isn’t so. No blame attaches to you for you weren’t driving, were you? And if the fault is to be laid at anyone’s door, then it should be mine for failing to heed Philip’s warning.’ She came slowly to her feet and tried to smile. ‘So you owe me nothing and are quite free … and that is all I wanted to say. W-will you pull the bell, please? I’m afraid I don’t know where – ‘
‘In a moment.’ He turned to look at her and, for the first time became aware of her pallor and the desolation in her eyes. He frowned and said sharply, ‘What do you mean – that I’m free and need not sacrifice myself. Did you suppose I intended to?’
Her smile went somewhat awry. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘No. Indeed, I’m hard-pressed to see how I could.’ And there he stopped as the answer drove the breath from his lungs. Then, in a very odd tone, he remarked, ‘I detect the fell hand of Lord Philip. What exactly has he said to you?’
‘Nothing that you haven’t said yourself – or as good as,’ she retorted desperately. Her control was in shreds and she knew it. ‘Please let it alone. I want to go home.’
‘Presently,’ came the inflexible reply. ‘First I want an answer. Just for a moment there you had me wondering if you didn’t suspect me of offering you my hand and heart in an orgy of expiation or some such thing – but, from what you’ve just said, it can’t be that. Oh – I know that I’ve made you no such offer but you must have been aware that I was going to. And though I can well imagine Philip misdoubting my motives, I can’t say I’d have expected you to believe him – and I’m quite sure that I never said anything to cause you to do so. So what in hell’s name is it?’
‘But – but you did,’ averred Rosalind, bewildered. ‘At least, you were going to before you thought better of it.’
He stared at her helplessly, forcing down the desire to take her in his arms – anything that would stop her looking like that. Then, quite without warning, he realised what she meant. He said, ‘Oh God – yes. I see – I think.’ And foolishly, breathlessly, he began to laugh at the unparalleled irony of it.
Rosalind listened, felt something wet on her cheeks and simultaneously realised that she could endure no more. She turned, took two swift steps and collided painfully with a table.
The laughter ceased as if cut with a knife and there was suddenly a hand on her arm and an achingly familiar voice saying unsteadily, ‘My dear – don’t. I can’t stand it.’
But it was too late for the choking sobs were already escaping from her throat; and bending her head over the polished wood where her hands lay, she stopped fighting and gave way to them.
The sound of it tore at Amberley’s heart and, freeing his left arm from the sling, he gathered her close against his chest, his right hand cradling her head with quiet protectiveness. He did not try to speak; indeed, he could not have done so and, above her hair, his eyes were full of anguished tenderness, his face white and set. He remained quite still until the sobs lessened and died and then, producing a handkerchief from his pocket, he proceeded to dry her wet cheeks.
Rosalind submitted docilely to these ministrations, her breath still catching faintly and, when he put the dampened cambric in her hands, she used it for the prosaic and unselfconscious purpose of blowing her nose, before saying huskily, ‘That was very stupid of me. I’m sorry. I can’t think what made me do it.’
‘Can’t you?’ He drew her gently to sit beside him on a sofa and possessed himself of both of her hands. ‘And I thought it was my crassly ill-timed hilarity.’
His voice was bitter and she flinched at the sound of it.
‘Don’t – please! I know you didn’t mean it.’
‘Do you? I’d be happy to think so – but it isn’t true, is it? You are doubtless thinking me all manner of things but never that what I failed so lamentably to say just now was not that my sense of guilt prompted me to marriage … but that it was responsible for making a coward of me.’
She tilted her head and a grave, considering expression entered the violet eyes.
‘A coward? You? I don’t think I understand.’
‘No,’ he agreed, taking the handkerchief from her and turning it over and over between his hands. ‘But that is why, once I realised what had happened, I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell you the truth about the accident. I was afraid, you see, of what your reaction might be … afraid to hear you say all the things I’ve been saying to myself.’
A strange sense of tranquillity entered Rosalind’s heart. She said, ‘That was … foolish of you.’
He smiled faintly. ‘Possibly. But not as foolish as proposing marriage purely in an attempt to placate one’s conscience.’
‘Then you didn’t mean to do so?’
‘No. Coward, I may be – lunatic, I’m not.’ He rose and walked away a little. Then, looking at her, ‘Aren’t you going to ask what my reason was? No – I can see you’re not. Perhaps you don’t care … or would rather not know. I’m sorry if it’s the latter because, having come this far, I think we must finish it. And the truth is what you must already have known before Philip put other ideas in your head.’ He paused and, with a crooked smile, added, ‘I love you … à corps perdu, as my mother would say. And you have no idea how much that is.’
‘Oh I think I have,’ replied Rosalind with a tiny, uncertain laugh. ‘But are you quite sure? It isn’t – you aren’t – ‘
‘Sorry for you?’ he finished crisply. ‘I thought you knew me better than that.’
‘I did … I do.’
‘Then why ask it? If you marry me, I’ll make no more allowances than I did at Oakleigh –less, perhaps. I’m not proposing to be your eyes – though I’d give you mine if I could. But I can’t. And unless you love me, I’ve nothing at all to offer. For the simple fact is that it’s I who need you and not the other way about. But only,’ he repeated, ‘if you love me. I don’t think I can settle for less.’
Very slowly, Rosalind came to her feet. ‘You don’t need to,’ she said simply, stretching out a hand towards him. ‘You’ll never need to. But I wish …’
The grey-green eyes blazed but he did not move. ‘Yes?’
‘I wish you weren’t so far away,’ she complained gently.
His fingers closed around hers with careful restraint. He said, ‘I should warn you that, if I come any closer, I’m likely to behave with a deplorable lack of propriety.’
‘Oh?’ She flushed and stepped towards him, smiling. ‘Then … why don’t you?’
And as though that had been all he had waited for, she was drawn inexorably into his arms, so close that she did not know if it was his heart she could feel beating or her own and with her head tilted easily back by his hand sliding up into her hair. A second passed, then two, three … and in a voice that was no more than a breathed caress, he murmured, ‘Rosalind, my beautiful darling … will you marry me?’
‘Yes. Oh yes. Tomorrow, if y—‘
But the words were lost as his mouth found hers and the floor beneath her feet dissolved.
Her bones melted and she clung to him, lost and drowning under the slow, sweet delight of his kiss; darkness and doubt ceased to exist and the world shrank to the compass of his arms where nothing mattered except the drugging wonder of his nearness and the feel of his hair, tangled in her fingers. And when at last his mouth left hers and she felt the lean hardness of his cheek against her own, she said the thing which, above all others, he had waited to hear.
‘My heart, my soul … I love you.’
*
It was a long time before they were ready to leave privacy behind them and join the others. But finally they went together to receive the blessing that they knew Eloise would give them. And later, with joy still w
rapped about them, Rosalind went confidently in the shelter of Dominic’s arm to find her brother.
Philip released Isabel’s hand and stood up, watching the Marquis bring his sister across the room. And suddenly, seeing the expression in the grey-green eyes as they rested on Rosalind, all the tensions and misunderstandings of the last few weeks seemed to fade into nothing. It was hard to know how he had been so blind; but, because Amberley was Amberley, he realised it need not matter. He smiled and said easily, ‘You appear to have found something you thought lost. Are congratulations in order?’
Quite slowly, the Marquis withdrew his gaze from Rosalind and turned it on his lordship.
‘They are. But I think we would prefer your blessing.’
‘They’re both yours.’ Philip walked half-way towards him and then stopped. ‘And my most sincere apologies, too, for everything I said and did. And thought. I don’t offer you excuses for any of it – I don’t think there can be any. But you may like to know that I’ve learned a valuable lesson. And I sincerely beg your pardon – Rosalind’s too.’
His sister smiled. ‘Mine, you have.’
‘And mine.’ The Marquis relinquished Rosalind’s waist and went to meet Lord Philip. ‘You had every justification for what you thought – more, perhaps than I had for not explaining myself. But, unlike you, I doubt I shall be found to have profited from the experience – so I can only be grateful that others,’ he smiled at Isabel, ‘have better sense than I do myself. In any event, I should be pleased to count myself your friend.’
And, when he held out his hand, Philip grinned and took it without hesitation.
It was the end of formality and soon the new freedom from constraint was as evident in their silences as in their talk. But at length, Isabel said lazily, ‘Philip – you should tell them about Robert.’
Philip laughed and met Amberley’s eye.
‘I found him hovering on the brink of being clapped up for debt so I solved all our problems by acting on a very good piece of advice you once gave me.’
‘Oh?’ The Marquis raised an enquiring brow and settled his arm more closely about Rosalind. ‘And what was that?’
‘I’ve made a present of him to the army. I thought,’ said his lordship innocently, ‘that they might be better able to deal with him.’
Amberley laughed and Rosalind raised her head from his shoulder to say resignedly, ‘And I suppose you also paid his debts?’
‘Oh – that.’ Philip shrugged. ‘Well, yes. I had to. Which reminds me … the silly fool owes Rockliffe a thousand from some wager or other.’
‘Does he?’ The Marquis drew Rosalind’s head back to its resting place. ‘Then you may leave that to me. I feel sure that Rock will be happy to contribute his mite to the general cause … and I really don’t see why he should come off unscathed. Do you?’
‘Not, really. No.’
‘I think,’ observed Rosalind, ‘that you’re both quite unscrupulously devious.’
‘But clever,’ added Isabel, ‘in a ruthless sort of way.’
Amberley looked cheerfully across at Philip.
‘How fortunate we are to be so perfectly understood. But there is just one small detail that still troubles me and that I feel we ought, perhaps, to discuss.’
‘And what is that?’ asked his lordship, his polite tone belied by the laughter in his eyes. ‘You know, I hope, that if there is anything I can do, you have but to name it.’
The Marquis grinned.
‘I’m so glad you said that,’ he replied pleasantly. ‘Because I was just wondering which of us was going to have custody of Broody.’
~ * * * ~
If you have enjoyed ‘The Parfit Knight’
and would like to follow the fortunes of the Duke of Rockliffe,
look out for ‘The Mésalliance’
Also by Stella Riley
‘The Marigold Chain’
Historical Note
White’s Club first opened its doors in 1693 as Mrs White’s Chocolate House. It was still occupying its original premises in Chesterfield Street at the time ‘The Parfit Knight’ is set and did not relocate to St James Street until 1778.
Louis XV died on May 10th 1774 of smallpox. Due to fear of contamination, his body was not embalmed and nor was his heart removed as tradition demanded. Instead, alcohol was poured into the coffin and the remains soaked in quicklime. He was interred under cover of darkness at St Denis Basilica, attended by only one courtier.
Stella Riley
2012
Parfit Knight Page 24
