He was alone. And soon he would be alone in a marriage.
But for the moment all that matter was here. This girl. Rose. The most beautiful flower. He could fill a whole house with roses for her.
Robert leaned in, thinking he could almost smell the scent of the delicious flower on her skin.
Such thoughts were dangerous. It was why he hated the country. The lack of distraction allowed for the mind to wander, and when it was allowed to do such things, it wandered to things like her, things he could not have. She, the daughter of a farmer, and he, the son of a duke. Now duke himself.
She was unaware of the thoughts that rioted through him, and so he did his best to cast them aside and answer her question.
Who was he? What was his story?
“There’s not much to tell,” he said. “I went into service as my father before me and his father before him.”
Reggie, the stable hand whose presence leaning against a beam near the door had all but been forgotten, snorted at Robert’s modest description of himself. Robert in turn scowled at the young man, hoping the interaction would go unnoticed by Rose who was staring into her glass again.
“I see. And do you like it here?” she asked before supping once more.
“Service, you mean? Yes, I suppose I do,” Robert answered tentatively.
“It’s just that… Well, I’ve heard things. You know, about working here.” She wasn’t looking at him still, and he wished that she would, wished she would turn to him with those pale blue eyes so that he could read what was in them, as nothing else about her gave any insight.
“Like what?” Robert asked casually, trying to keep his curiosity from revealing itself.
“That the servants all live in fear of the master.”
He heard Reggie stifle a snort and Robert nearly choked himself.
Rose’s eyebrows rose in what could only be interpreted as cold curiosity at the sudden spell, her eyes drifting first over to Reggie before settling upon Robert. He felt suddenly as though she could see everything, could see right through him. He felt exposed, and it was he who turned away from her now.
She continued, choosing her words carefully, but Robert could still feel her eyes on him, like scalding hot water. “I’ve heard that he rules with an iron fist, that he is cold. Nothing specific, per se, but it certainly doesn’t sound a pleasurable employ.” Her voice cracked in the slightest and Robert turned just in time to see her cheeks pink. She drew the glass up to her lips once more in an effort to hide whatever she felt, her hands now shaking under the weight of the cup.
“Here, let me,” he said, placing a hand over hers and guiding the glass to her full lower lip. And for some reason he didn’t want to let go.
It was the smoothness of her skin that tempted him, he was sure. It was for no other reason that he wished to remain touching her. But, of course, he wouldn’t—couldn’t—and so he drew back.
Robert frowned, feeling the vein in his forehead pulse as he did, as the words she had spoken sunk in.
Were his servants unhappy? Was there gossip in the village about he being cruel to them? He didn’t think so. How could it possibly be? He had always taken care to treat those in his employ well. That is, when he was home, which wasn’t very often, or at all. Really, he’d had no interaction with his servants here at the castle until recently, other than their pay. He was certain he had done nothing which could warrant such an account of his character as master.
The gossip must be unfounded, he decided, but even untrue gossip spread just as wildly as if it were real. Perhaps, more so.
“Lord Brighton?” he inquired, trying to set aside his anxious thoughts. “Is that to whom you are referring?” The words came out slightly brisker than he would have been comfortable with. He cleared his throat, trying to get the muscles to relax and for his voice to resume to normal, to passive. She could not know that he cared so greatly what she thought. And if she did, she clearly didn’t reveal it.
“Yes,” she answered, her eyebrows drawing down over her nose and suspicion rising in her now steady gaze.
“Personally, I’ve always found Lord Brighton to be an… amiable master,” he said carefully, stopping for a deep, thoughtful breath as he tried to conjure up the right words.
Another cough from Reggie sounded, which Robert suspected was to cover up a chuckle.
The girl hummed. Though, why he still insisted on calling her a girl, he did not know. She was certainly beautiful beyond compare. She was tall without being too tall. She had a lovely figure and her breasts… Well, they definitely were not those of a mere girl. Though certainly a female, none of the words in Robert’s vocabulary fit her, save for one.
The only word that could describe her was lady, and that she definitely was not.
And so, he settled on calling her girl. Perhaps, if he continued calling her such it would put him off of her, would remind him that she was untouchable. They were from different classes and it simply would not work.
Men like him took mistresses often—some employing more than one at a time—and Robert certainly wasn’t about to deny that he too had engaged in such relationships. He was a red-blooded male, after all.
But that wasn’t the problem.
He didn’t want this girl to be his mistress. She was so prim and proper, even as the daughter of a farmer, sitting on a bale of hay in the stables, talking to a lowly stable hand. Already he could tell that she was meant for so much more than what that life would offer her. He somehow knew that life as his mistress would destroy her spirit, and really, he must confess, her spirit was what he was truly drawn toward, even as it was buried deep in a temple hidden behind a barely cracked shell.
But the role of his mistress was all he could offer her.
No, the reason why he needed to make sure that his mind and body were completely synchronized, convinced that she was, indeed, a young girl—a girl untouchable because of her age, not merely her class—was because he knew that if he didn’t, he would fall in love with her. He could feel it already tugging at the strings of his heart.
Love. The emotion he had sworn never to succumb to.
And yet, his hands were still tingling from their brief touches, his ears were ringing in what sounded like music—or, for heavens sake!, church bells. His mind was struggling to stay clear, his voice kept getting caught, his emotions were a jumble. And that wasn’t even including what the sight of her did to him.
His entire body, it seemed, was desperate for her, but not purely in the carnal way as it had been with all of his previous lovers. He could already see himself enjoying a blissful life with her. The two of them eating breakfast together, eyeing each other across the table, reading to each other before the fireplace in the evenings, raising their children who had her pink mouth and hair the richest color of gold.
He could feel himself falling in love with every cell of his being. And with every cell of his being he resisted it.
Rose was untouchable. She was a girl. Not a woman, not a lady. A girl. Not of his own class, and not for him.
When Robert pulled himself from his contemplations, he saw Rose staring quite determinedly at him. Again, he was struck. Struck by those pale eyes that seemed to see everything and reveal nothing.
He cleared his throat uneasily, uncomfortable with her close scrutiny, attempting to give his lips something to do other than kiss hers, which were red and swollen from her earlier chewing.
She didn’t say anything, just continued in her examination. He shifted in his seat, trying to conceal his longing for her. Coughing again, he decided to change the subject. “I know just about everyone from the village,” he said. “But I have not met you. Who is your father?”
She continued staring at him for a brief moment, her expression not wavering in the slightest, before she answered, her sentence fractured. “Oh, um… He’s not from this village, but the next one over.” The glass, nearly empty, rose to her lips once more. Robert closed his eyes so as not to watch.
How could she make something so mundane look so erotic? It was going to kill him.
“And you walked all the way here?” Robert couldn’t keep the strain out of his voice. His entire body was straining.
“Yes. Though, it was foolish of me to venture such a distance. Papa will be quite unhappy.” Her voice was like liquid. It was perfection.
She was perfection.
No. No, he reminded himself forcefully.
“It’s a father’s prerogative to wish to protect his daughter,” Robert said briskly. He needed to take control of the situation. He would not let himself be made so off balanced by this lady. Woman.
Girl, he reminded himself, clenching his jaw shut.
“And now I can see why,” she replied.
Luckily for Robert she was not looking at him. Though her voice didn’t help much to ease his desire for her. Every time she spoke it was like she was kissing his ears.
“Clearing one’s head is not for the faint of heart,” she said. “I suppose I cleared it a bit too much and it nearly made me lose it altogether.”
He almost didn’t hear what she said, he was so busy listening to—or rather, trying hard not to listen to—the way that she said it. Almost, but not quite. He had enough sense to pay attention when females spoke, for in his experience they did not take kindly to being ignored.
“Pray, tell me Rose, what was it that you needed to clear that had you walking all the way out here?” Once again he could not control his voice. To his horror, it slipped to a low, seductive growl that he had used on many a woman, knowing that it made their skin tingle and their blood warm to him.
Rose was no ordinary woman. No ordinary lady. No ordinary girl. And he didn’t want to seduce her. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He needed to close his heart to her, steel himself against the power she didn’t know she had over him.
All the energy and life which had surfaced in Rose for a moment as they spoke, was once again drained from her eyes, but this time she didn’t work to recover it. Rose answered slowly, her voice full of misery, which Robert discovered he liked less than the controlled, emotionless tone she had employed for nearly the whole of their conversation. “I suffer from an arranged marriage, one that was settled even before my birth. In a few days, I will finally meet him again—for the first time in over a decade—and in a few months we will be wed.”
Her back, he noticed, was ramrod straight, but her voice was quivering in the slightest and her hands were still shaking in her lap. He grasped them and she looked up, deep into his eyes as she finished her story, undeniable tears beginning to well up in those beautiful eyes which now appeared to be the deepest of greys, not the lightest of blues.
“I… I just feel…” her voice cracked. “I don’t know. I have no choice in the matter, so I suppose it doesn’t matter how I feel.”
“Of course it does,” Robert said fervently, “and you do have a choice. You cannot be forced into a marriage not of your choosing. If you meet this man and he is not to your liking, you do not have to marry him.” He grasped her hands tighter, trying to squeeze belief into her, and into himself.
He held her gaze, transfixed by her, until she broke the spell.
“You don’t understand,” she countered, shaking her head as if trying to dispel the wicked seed he had planted there. “If I do not marry him, my father will disown me. He will take away my dowry and no man will ever look twice in my direction. You may think this foolish, but he could kick me out of the house if I refuse. I will have nowhere to go. I will be ruined.”
“I beg your pardon, but your dowry cannot be of any substantial sum—you are the daughter of a farmer, are you not? And if your father were so heartless as to throw you out, then he doesn’t deserve you. Besides, you could always seek employment. In service, for example. Here, even. Your mother clearly raised you impeccably well—you no doubt possess all the requirements for a housemaid, or even a lady’s maid or governess.”
His speech was full of fervor. He desperately felt for this girl, for he too was suffering from a similar fate. He knew what it was like to have the whole world at your finger tips. To be able to do anything one wanted, and yet to have a future in front of you that was not of your choosing. To have a life that you did not create for yourself.
Their lives might be different in every way, but both were without a future.
He knew how miserable he was at the prospect of his own arranged marriage and he did not want the same for Rose. He had only known her a short while, but he already knew that she did not deserve that life. She deserved estates and grand ballrooms, and fine jewels and all the best clothes. She deserved statues to be erected in her honor. She did not deserve to be forced into a marriage she did not want with a man who would never be worthy of her.
He didn’t know her, and yet he felt all this. She could not become the wife of, what, a meager farmer? No, she needed to become his…
No. She could not be his. She would never be his.
But neither could she be anyone else’s.
That thought, though, had him even more concerned.
The girl turned away from him then, and Robert was instantly ashamed at having encouraged such a lovely girl to give up her life of freedom—or as close to freedom as any female could come—and very likely her dreams of finding love, to instead enter into the dull life of service. If the choice were up to Robert, he would choose service over an arranged marriage to someone he didn’t know. But she was not him. He hardly knew the girl.
He didn’t know the girl.
It was the almost-there pain in her eyes that broke something inside of him. He was being selfish. He did not want her to marry the mystery man to whom she was betrothed. He didn’t want her marrying anyone. And so it seemed only natural to him that she must seek employment. So what if it was at his house and the mere sight of her was a daily torture? At least she would be there, just barely out of reach but not completely gone. That was far more favorable to him.
It just wasn’t fair or favorable to her.
“I wish it were that simple,” the girl answered bleakly, dabbing tears from the corners of her eyes. Robert moved to offer her a handkerchief, remembering belatedly that he was not wearing his own clothes and found no purchase in the empty pocket at his breast.
“You do not know what it is like. There are expectations. I am the eldest; I have four sisters behind me. If I do not marry well, if I do not hold to my engagement, then their prospects will suffer.”
“You mean to say that your parents have forced upon you an arranged marriage, but not your younger siblings?” Robert asked, aghast.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re right,” Robert answered, nearly as bleakly, “I do not understand.” But Robert knew it was a lie. He understood all too well. Parents could be cruel and life could be unfair. Would his own sister have suffered the same fate as he, forced into a marriage against her will, had it not been for his father’s bed-bound years of illness and early demise? Would he have resented his sister if she hadn’t been married off to a stranger just as he?
He couldn’t stomach to ponder the thought.
“You see?” she said pointedly. “I cannot go against my father. I was raised to be obliging, to bear my responsibilities with dignity and grace. This is what I was raised to do. This is my burden. And it’s really not so bad compared to what others have to face in their lifetime. But don’t you realize, this is the worst thing that I can imagine?”
“I do,” Robert answered, his lips pressing together in a grim line. Staring somewhat vacantly at the wall opposite, he wished that he didn’t understand her distress.
“You do?” The girl sniffled, pulling a handkerchief of her own out of a pocket in her skirts and patting it against her nose.
He paused, remembering who he was now, who was talking to this girl. For a moment, he had been lost in thought. For a moment, he had been about to spill the truth, tell her that he suffered the same fate as she, that he would soon mee
t his future bride and face his bleak future.
He wanted to tell Rose that she was intoxicating, that just the scent, the sight, the presence of her was unbearably irresistible. He wanted to spill out his heart to her, even as he was still trying to deny what was happening within him.
People did not fall in love upon first sight. This was not love.
But Rose was not speaking to Lord Brighton. Just Robert. It’s what allowed her to be so candid with him, what allowed her to be so open, so honest. She would never speak of such things in the presence of a duke. She would not speak at all. She would not so much as be seen. And so, Robert, the stable hand, answered.
“Well, not personally,” he said deliberately. “Lord Brighton is expected to marry a woman that he has not seen since childhood.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about that,” her voice was passive, but Robert didn’t miss her spine—which had slumped slightly forward—stiffen into the straightest of lines. “The daughter of an acquainted family, is it?”
She was not looking at him, and he wished that she would. He felt empty without her seeing stare. She wasn’t seeing through him, she was seeing him, and he wanted that back. He wanted her to see him now. Always.
Not always.
Robert pressed his eyes shut, trying to force his thoughts back into the darkness of his mind. “Something of that nature,” he said stiffly. “Their fathers were allies of sorts.”
Robert’s tone turned cold, his demeanor bleak, as he added, “The daughter was traded for property.”
Chapter 5
Rose inhaled sharply, drawing his attention from the same portion of wall upon which she was gazing. But she didn’t look to him, didn’t see the question in his eyes.
He didn’t understand her response, what it meant. He didn’t understand her at all.
He couldn’t imagine why she would care anyways. Sure, she was being married off, but that was different; Rose wasn’t being branded by the father of her betrothed. Her arrangement had likely been settled on the heads of cows, not placed on a table of cards by two men with egos larger than brains. At least she had been respectably sold.
Rose by Another Name (The Blythe Series Book 1) Page 4
