Lady Rosalyn’s life was written in black and white, had been since the day she was born. And that future was entwined with Rose’s. This was her future. And it was daunting, unfair not to have any choice in the matter.
This small escape out of the confines of her life was all she would have to hold onto for the rest of her life.
She was supposed to have another year to prepare for it all, but that had been stolen away as well, and now she had only two days before her life was forever changed.
Though, Rose supposed, it would not require a very great deal of adjustment on her part. She was, after all, little more than being traded, transferred from one jail keeper to another. How much worse could it be? As it was, her mother’s servants were as loyal as they could come and paid well to make sure that every one of Rose’s actions were reported back to Lady Blythe. And yet, Rose could not ignore the fear that her husband’s servants would be worse still.
Not only that, but when she married, Rose would be under scrutiny by everyone she had contact with. Husband, family, acquaintances, and servants alike. As it was now, she only had to endure the scorn of her mother.
She would have no friends when she married. But why that should bother her, she didn’t know. It wasn’t as though she had any friends as it was.
However, her lack of friends now wasn’t so surprising. She had, after all, been locked away at their country estate in Lincolnshire for the past seventeen years, which afforded little opportunities for her to forge the bonds of friendship with those of her own class—and her mama was quick to dissuade any acquaintances with those below worthy of their notice. The only friends she had ever known were her sisters and she was to be leaving them. Alone. With their mama. A fact for which she felt no small amount of guilt.
But all that wasn’t the point. The point was that she was supposed to have another year. Maybe it would have been just like the other seventeen years of her life, but still, it would have been another year. That’s what she was prepared for—making her bow at the age of eighteen, with marriage to the duke to follow. That year had vanished when her mama abruptly decided that Rose would make her debut this year.
Lord Brighton was dragging their daughter—and, more importantly, their good name—through the mud, carrying on as he was, dallying with whores around town when the whole of the ton knew that he was meant to marry Rose. It was a disgrace and, her parents had decided, Rose needed the protection of his good name before Lord Brighton further disgraced theirs. Hang their daughter and her reputation. Hang her happiness. Hang her feelings of being married off to a misogynist happy to jump into bed with anyone willing, displaying not even a modicum of discretion.
All that was of consideration was the Blythe name. Their reputation. Not their daughter’s.
Which left Rose feeling rather dissatisfied.
Rose had heard much about her duke-to-be, though none of it firsthand. However, if one were to believe everything one read in a scandal sheet, every week the duke was caught up in a new disrepute. And while Rose did not submit to the belief that everything one read was true, she had read enough to believe there must be some measure of truth to the gossip columns’ speculation on the man.
Lord Brighton was a scoundrel at best, known for his wickedness. He spent his time in London where he gambled, and enjoyed entertainment that involved bed sheets. While he generally didn’t appear to take an active role in the aristocracy, they certainly accepted him, while simultaneously fearing him. He was said to have an icicle stare that could freeze a beating heart, and Rose believed it. The description of the man sounded just the same as the boy she had known. Cold to the core, with not a care for anyone but himself.
Maybe all she knew of him was based off years old memory and gossip, but she knew that theirs would not be an ordinary marriage. Well, by ton standards, it probably would be just that. But not by her own.
His kind was not the type to tolerate a wife, no matter how perfectly she had been cultivated for the role of a duchess. She could practically see it now—his disdainful gaze gliding over her before shipping her off to the country while he remained in London, doing as he pleased, shackling her to a lonely life she never wanted, making her into her mother.
No. Not her mother. Never that.
She took a deep breath in and exhaled heavily, letting her shoulders sag under the enormous weight she carried. The poor posture was quite unbecoming for a lady, for a duchess-to-be. It was good she wasn’t playing the part of one.
She turned on her heels, decidedly depressed, and stalked away from Brighton Castle, the place that would become her home upon her marriage to Lord Brighton.
She shouldn’t have come here and she couldn’t understand why she had. She hadn’t done so deliberately, she reminded herself. It was like she was in a daze, only half-awake, and when she pulled herself from it and opened her eyes, there she was, standing before Brighton Castle.
It didn’t help with her nerves, and did nothing to calm her spirits.
Rose walked back down along the path, covered by the canopy of trees. The cloud cover that had come with the morning receded as the afternoon approached, causing little rays of sunlight to burst through the breaks in the leaves and fall down upon her, invigoratingly warm.
It had been an eternity since she had felt the sun so fully, and when she came upon an opening in the canopy, allowing for a large swath of light to beam down upon the path, she couldn’t resist throwing off her bonnet and sinking down on her back beside it, face turned up towards the sky and the warmth of the golden rays. Behind her lids, lit orange, the outline of the bright sun burned, a black splotch.
She took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh scent of grass, twirling the cool blades between her fingertips.
It was there, in that moment, that time stopped. For Rose, that is. The rest of the world continued to plunder on despite her, as she soon discovered when she heard the sound of horse hooves pounding on the path, too late.
Chapter 3
Her eyes snapped open just in time to see a horse’s figure rounding the bend in the trail, feet away from her. She had hardly enough time—or sense—to roll out of the way as the rider tried desperately to stop the barreling stampede of hooves from trampling her. The path was narrow and the fine mare took up nearly the width of it, and she had to roll all the way up to the brush to avoid her death.
The rider was pushing the horse so fast that if Rose hadn’t opened her eyes precisely when she did and had the quick wit to roll aside, she would have been crushed beneath the horse’s feet.
The devil of the man! How could he be so careless? She would say as much to him as soon as she recovered herself, but for the life of her she couldn’t seem to move at present, could hardly breathe.
It seemed the air had been knocked out of her chest. Or was it stuck inside? She wasn’t quite sure which it was—it certainly felt like both. Her heart was racing faster than the horse’s hooves had been, while her mind had come to an abrupt halt.
Death had just been upon her, and yet, her life did not flash before her eyes. She didn’t have time to ponder the meaning of this—the notion that perhaps she had nothing really remarkable worth remembering—for the man was dismounting and then was at her side, talking to her, snapping his fingers in front of her face. And Lord, his hands were on her! A hand clasped her shoulder. Sparks radiated from the juncture, and she took a shuddering breath.
“Are you alright, miss?” He sounded as though he was talking through water, his words all slurred and distant in her ringing ears.
Rose couldn’t help but gape unbecomingly as she stared up, transfixed by the man kneeling above her. She must have hit her head for he was the most divine thing she had ever laid eyes upon. His dark hair was windblown in the most attractive fashion, falling in dark locks over his temples. His jaw was strong, pronounced, his nose straight, his eyes the most piercing shade of blue she could imagine. And with the sun shining gold behind him, he looked like an angel sent from
Heaven.
Maybe she had died and this was heaven. What a thought!
“Miss?” he asked again, drowning out the ringing in her ears. “Are you alright?” His crisp voice, which somehow managed to make the trees and bushes along the path grow narrower—if that were possible—mixed with concern and kindness, brought on the realization that she was, in fact, not dead.
Rose paused for another moment longer. Finally, she closed her mouth, and her eyes, in an attempt to compose herself before saying, “I believe so.” The words sounded muddled, as though she were talking through a mouth of food. The thought concerned her, as did the sudden tickle of pain at her temple. She moved her hand up to the spot at the same moment the man moved his. Their fingers collided so poetically that she was certain that not a single poet in history had ever captured in words the electricity that this touch ignited in her, body and soul.
Rose felt the warm liquid on her fingers from the wound on her head. She noted the expression of concern that had doubled in the man’s hardened jaw, his blue eyes that appeared to grow deeper, warier, and his dark brows which now pinched together.
She cleared her throat, dropping her hand to the ground indelicately and rubbing the blood off onto the grass, saying in a more assuring, collected tone, “Yes, I believe I am quite well.”
She attempted to sit up and found the world turning a bit more than it should.
“No. No, lie back. I insist,” the man said, punctuating his words by sliding a hand around her back to assist her in relaxing down the few inches she had managed to lift herself.
They were so close now she could feel the man’s breath on her, smell the scent of him—horse and leather and sandalwood. It made her tingle all over. But she wouldn’t lay back. She couldn’t. Who knew what would happen if she did. She was alone in the forest with a stranger.
A man.
“No,” she pleaded, placing a hand on his chest, but was unable to summon the force to physically push him away from her. “I really must be going. I told my father I was only going on a short stroll,” she said, quickly weaving a false story in the vain hopes that he would let her go. She was more than a little bit shocked by how composed she managed to sound even as she felt certain he might kill her, or worse.
“I have diverted long enough,” she continued. “He will worry if I do not soon return, and will likely have the whole village sent out to find me. I’m quite well, I assure you.”
She thought her head might spin off at the sensation of his touch and the nearness of him but, to her astonishment, she retained control of her tongue—her voice, poised, the words flowing like velvet over granite out of her mouth.
The man’s lips twisted in a curious frown, but he knelt back from her, granting her the space to sit up more fully, then stood himself, offering an ungloved hand to assist her. Rose accepted it, the first time she had ever held a man’s hand, flesh to flesh. For the first time she noticed his shirt sleeves, pushed half way up his corded arms, and the tendons in his outstretched forearm bulging from his skin. He was a man who worked for a living. And yet, his hands were smooth and warm. It was most contradictory.
And his touch. It was exhilarating, or would have been if the world would stand still and let her enjoy the feel of it.
And her knees were weak. But not from the touch.
Her head throbbed vehemently and a haze clouded her emotions, dulling everything but him. She fell forward into his arms, finding herself chest to chest with this stranger, all firm muscles beneath his dusty, wrinkled uniform. Her head lay upon his chest and, before she knew it, he had plucked her up into his arms. She hardly noticed his placing her upon his horse and then settling into the saddle behind her so that she was sprawled across his lap.
Everything that happened seemed to be seen between blinks, snapshots. A hand clasping the reins; the strong arm across her back; the entire length of her body pushed up against his warmth; his beautiful, concerned face lowering towards her; his voice like honey draining from his mouth to her ears. She felt she could swoon again. “Where do you live, miss? I will escort you home, then fetch the doctor.”
“Nooo,” she moaned, her eyes half closed. The world was starting to go black, like that black splotch of the sun, burned into her retinas, was expanding. She held her hooded stare firmly on his face, desperate not to let the world fade. “Oh, no. Papa must not see me like this.”
Rose’s head began a slow revolution backwards, stopped only by his warm hand gliding it back to rest upon his shoulder.
The man hesitated. “Then, I shall take you to the castle.”
“No!” she practically screamed. “I mean,” she started, forcing composure into her fading voice, which was a most difficult task considering her tongue seemed to have tripled in size and knotted around itself, “that would be a terrible imposition. I do not know them and they owe me no assistance. Let me down here. I am feeling much restored now and will be well enough to walk.” It didn’t matter that she felt no such thing. She simply could not be taken to the castle. She would be ruined.
Answering her plea for release, he murmured, “I cannot. You can hardly hold up your head and that gash is an awful fright. You may likely need stitches. And... it won’t be an imposition.” Though his hesitation at the last was once again lost on her as her head seemed to expand to the size of a watermelon all at once.
“I, uh, work in the stables,” the stranger went on, ignorant of Rose’s inner turmoil. “I know the master well and he will be happy to offer you assistance, as it was on his property that you were nearly killed.”
“The master is there? At the castle?” she gasped, the darkness clearing for a moment.
Lord Brighton had hardly been in residence at the castle in the last three years—or the last decade, for that matter—having been away at school, then university until his father died. And then gossip through the vine placed him in London ever since. True, he was to be attending a house party on her family’s estate in no more than two days’ time, yet the idea of him actually being at his home was so foreign that she practically gaped.
“Well,” he said carefully, bringing the horse to a slow canter, “he is technically away at the moment, but he will be returning shortly.”
“Oh, no. No, you must not take me there.” Her eyes closed and the light dimmed from her mind, and she had no protest left in her.
*****
He had wanted to curse most wickedly when he’d rode up upon the girl lying, sprawled out, in the middle of the path. But years of practicing proper etiquette ensured that he kept the words contained to his mind in the presence of a female.
However, it did nothing to dissuade his temper.
He was furious with the girl for ruining his mid-morning ride, the most freedom he experienced trapped here in the country, loosed from the responsibilities and the attire of a gentleman.
Except, that wasn’t the truth. He wasn’t furious with girl. He was furious with himself for acting so foolishly. He had been burning his horse’s lungs, galloping as fast as the mare would take him on the narrow trail.
How damned irresponsible of him. He should have foreseen this happening. Anyone could have been walking here. His mother. Sister.
But why the devil had she been lying on the path? It had made her much harder to see, and avoid.
The thought hit him a moment later, all his anger melting down into the soles of his boots as fear caught hold that perhaps she wasn’t lying at all. Perhaps she had fallen and was already injured prior to his arrival.
As he’d knelt over her, her eyes lidded, and noticed the gash just above her brow, he could have kicked himself. The rock upon which her head had hit was just to her side. There was no time to ponder if she had fallen prior to his appearance and hit it then, or struck the rock when she rolled out of his way. It didn’t matter. The guilt burned through him all the same. And now, he had her saddled sideways across his lap, all heat and sheer beauty, as he took her back to his house.
&nb
sp; Lord, what had he done?
He couldn’t take her back to his house. His house was a castle. His mother and sister, what would they think? He wasn’t dressed as a gentleman should. He was wearing the uniform the stable hands employed by him wore.
He was a man, a duke, and entirely capable of making his own decisions, of dressing how he wished and doing whatever he pleased. He did not require his mother’s approval—at least, not that he’d admit. And yet, he kept this secret from her. From them. The two most important people in his life.
There was no reason to keep it a secret, to shield them from the truth.
Lie.
He knew exactly why he shielded them.
Robert wasn’t happy. That’s not to say that he was unhappy, just that he wasn’t happy. He had everything in the world—doting mother, adoring sister, houses, lands, riches and anything that that money could buy—all in the palm of his hand.
What he was lacking was a future.
His future had been decided when he was but a child of six. The dice were cast, his future the product of an unfortunate wager.
Everything he had was given to him, not earned. His fortune, estate, responsibility, the title that he bore. Even his to-be-wife. None of it was built by him. None of it was chosen.
And therein lied the problem. He had everything anyone could ask for, and nothing that he wanted. Naturally, he wanted his mother and sister, but the rest of it could hang. He could have nothing but the two of them and he would be happy, because he would have a life open to the possibility of change. Right now, all he had was a life of certainty.
Without a choice in the future, it took the meaning out of it all.
That wasn’t to say that he hated all of it. Wasn’t to say that he didn’t appreciate it, didn’t respect the legacy he had inherited. But was it too much to ask that he be given a future to look forward to? A wife whom he had chosen and desired?
Rose by Another Name (The Blythe Series Book 1) Page 2
