Robert could decide to turn his back on the accord their parents had struck, but these people were his neighbors, essentially, and it would cause a war that would not end for generations if he did not honor the arrangement. These people would make his life insufferable if he didn’t marry their daughter. It didn’t matter if he made their daughter’s life insufferable, as long as she was married and out from under their roof.
Besides, Robert needed her. Her father and his made sure of that.
Parents disgusted him. He never wanted to be one, especially not while he was so young, but once again, he hadn’t a choice. He had a duty—to beget offspring, to beget an heir. He could not turn his back on that.
Robert vacated the castle again as soon as Agatha had departed his company. There was but one year until she would be offered up to Society as a prospect for marriage. It was frightening. Time was running out, as it always was.
Time was running down to when he himself would make the trek down to the alter at Saint George’s.
Robert closed his eyes and inhaled the brisk air of morning. He needed an escape from the truth of it. He needed a stiff drink, followed by a dozen others. He needed a warm bed and a willing body. Unable to satisfy those desires under the same country roof he shared with his mother and sister, he at the very least needed a ride where he wouldn’t have to think about anything but speed and the wind slicing on his face.
But he was without a horse. Without the one he wanted.
Rose’s basket in hand, Robert hopped into the carriage waiting beyond the doors of his castle.
He could think no longer. He needed to find the girl.
Rose.
He needed to find her to make sure she was well. Horses could be replaced, no matter how expensive they were. But Rose was one of a kind, she could not be replaced. He didn’t need to know her well to know this.
He needed to see her, to know that she was safe, and not because he just wanted to see her again. He closed his eyes, picturing her pale, soft skin and paler eyes. When he opened them he was tossed back into the present. It was almost like a dream. It certainly felt as though it were, as though his unsaid upward pleas were answered.
Robert’s mental image of Rose materialized in the middle of the street, meshing and moving with the crowd, her back straight, chin elevated in that way all ladies seemed to use as armor, a way of hiding their true emotions by making themselves appear superior. On them, it looked arrogant, ridiculous.
On her…
Well, he couldn’t tear his eyes from her, hadn’t even the mind to jump from his carriage and go to her he was so transfixed.
He no sooner spotted her than Reggie was at the door to his carriage, panting from exertion.
“Your Grace, she’s returned the horse! There she is now,” Reggie pointed. “I tried to make her stay, but I couldn’t very well grab her.”
“No, you did well, Reggie,” Robert responded absently, unable to tear his eyes away from Rose. Painstakingly turning his attention to Reggie, he said in a rush, “Quick, hop inside and take off your trousers. Switch clothes with me.”
“Your Grace?” Reggie exclaimed, looking, and sounding, not a small amount appalled.
“Now,” commanded Robert, thrusting open the carriage door.
He had told himself that all he needed was to see Rose again, make sure that she was okay, alive, unhurt. But now that he had seen her, he couldn’t resist speaking with her, breathing in her scent. He needed out of the carriage and into the street. With her. Not as Lord Brighton, but as Robert, the young stable hand whom she had spoken with, whom she had laughed with, whom she had shared the secrets of her heart with.
Rose hadn’t stolen from Robert, she’d stolen from Lord Brighton, and so Robert held no resentment. Robert was smitten. He wanted to be Robert. And so he was, closing the curtains in the carriage and shedding Lord Brighton’s identity for another’s.
Reggie consented, though not entirely convinced. “I don’t know about this, your Grace,” Reggie said as he flexed awkwardly in Robert’s tailored black suit.
“Just sit tight in here and keep the curtains drawn,” Robert said, descending from the carriage, thankful for their closeness in size. Rose’s basket in hand, he looked about the street for a sign of her but, in the minutes it had taken for him to change, she had disappeared. He could have kicked himself. Despite the early hour, the streets were packed from the festivities of the festival, and Rose seemed to have been swallowed up by the crowd of men and women and children, all moving in different directions.
He stood, a statue off to the side of it all for a moment, then he plunged in, scouring the faces for hers, Reggie’s brown cap pulled down to nearly cover his eyes. He was in the middle of the throng when he spotted her coming out of the inn, looking breathtaking, even in a too-short wool dress, with her golden locks pulled back beneath a bonnet.
Her dress, like the one from the day prior, was nothing particularly special, or special at all. It was a brown dress, cut plainly and ill-fitting. The boots that the raised hemline revealed, however, were something else entirely. The polished leather boots were adorned with intricate golden embroidery that, if she were to take off her bonnet and let down her locks, would match the color of her hair to perfection.
Robert longed to run his fingers through that glorious hair.
He pushed his way through the crowded street toward her, closing the gap without a word in her direction to ward scaring her off. She reminded him of a wild animal, like at any moment her eyes would grow wide with terror and she would flee as she had done the afternoon before. He could not risk losing her again.
But, where the devil had that thought come from?
He wasn’t losing her. He’d never had her.
And he shouldn’t want her.
He was behind her, close enough to reach out and touch, grab hold of the tendril of hair falling out from under her bonnet, when, finally, he said her name. “Rose.” The word was deliciously sweet on his lips.
Rose. A beautiful flower with an intoxicating scent.
This girl was intoxicating.
She swiveled on her heels as though she had been struck. Robert watched the rise and fall of her chest as her eyes rounded enormously in surprise. The girl quite literally gaped at him for the slightest moment before pushing her lips back together into a line and squaring her jaw.
And all at once she was dignity personified.
“I’ve heard you’ve returned the horse,” he said.
Inwardly, he was battling emotions. Anger that she had stolen one of his most prized possessions. Relief that she was indeed alive and without a broken neck, lying lifeless on his property. Fear that she had now returned the horse, and he was about to return her basket, and now he would never see her again.
He was trying to keep all the emotion contained beneath the surface, determined not to let it spill over into his voice. As it happens, that was quite difficult, as he wanted to yell and cry and sigh all at once. To his dismay, in an attempt to keep the emotion at bay, the words came out sounding brisk, harsh even.
Her grasp tightened on the well-worn cloak folded in her arms. “I had every intention of doing so,” she replied coolly, lifting her chin a hair’s breadth higher.
Robert was battling a whirl of emotions, and in it all he didn’t care about the horse. Not really. Rose, however, didn’t even have the decency to look apologetic for having stolen it. And that was most definitely irritating.
He nodded. “No doubt,” he said, raising a brow, his voice that of a man’s lost in the desert. Dry. Though, one look into her eyes vanished it all—his irritation, his anger, fear, relief.
A shy smile passed over his lips.
In need of something to fill the silence, Robert settled on the only other topic he could think of because, when it came to looking at her, all other thoughts ceased—and he wasn’t particularly comfortable with having what thoughts prevailed fester into irritation. “Your basket and hat,” he said, at a sudden l
oss to form words. At a sudden loss of emotion. Everything seemed to just stop with her near. Nothing else existed.
How was it that her presence had such an impact on him? Was it merely her beauty, which was undeniable? Or could it be something more?
How could it be? He hardly knew her.
“They were found upon the path where you fell,” he said, unease threading through the words as he remembered their meeting, her in his lap on the horse. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and thrust the basket out towards her, stiffly.
Rose looked from the basket back to Robert twice before extending a hand delicately and retrieving it from him. He wished her hand would brush along his, that they would share some sort of contact, no matter how brief, so that he could feel the electricity he had felt the day before, but Rose was careful to avoid the contact.
Robert was momentarily downcast, but then pushed past the emotion, convincing himself it was misplaced. He shouldn’t feel anything concerning this girl, and that was the truth. “You seem to have recovered significantly,” he said, though she had a noticeable wound on her temple, a physical reminder of their meeting.
“I have, thank you,” she answered as he drank in her appearance. She didn’t flinch or fidget as his eyes roamed over her body. Instead, she stood stoically, like a queen.
He would kneel at her feet and kiss her ring—kiss her feet.
No. He would not.
But as his eyes perused her body, he realized that she didn’t look recovered at all. In fact, she appeared in significantly worse condition than she had the afternoon prior, with several scratches and bruises covering her uncovered arms.
“What happened?” he asked as his eyes settled urgently back on hers. “Did somebody hurt you?” It was his first and only thought upon seeing her thus. Well, his second—after all, his first had been to raise her to the ranks of sovereign. Rose looked as though she had been beaten within an inch of her life. There were the bruises, the scratches, the bloodshot eyes and black bags beneath them.
He lifted his hand to her bicep where it looked as though she had been struck by a belt, the pretty porcelain skin now raised and red, with just a tinge of purple beginning to outline the welt. She flinched then, backing away from his caress.
Indeed, what had happened to her?
“I got turned about on my way home last night,” she answered directly into his eyes. “Nobody hurt me. Except for you,” she added, the fingers of one hand touching tentatively the flesh surrounding the scar on her temple.
The words were meant to unsettle. He couldn’t see it in her eyes, which were guarded once more, and her tone was no more forthcoming with emotion than it had been the day before, but Robert knew the words were meant to do just that—just as surely as he knew that the presence she exuded, as though she actually were the sovereign, was a façade.
They were meant to unsettle, and they succeeded.
He would be lying to say he wasn’t affected by them. She had been resting upon the path, which had been foolish of her, but that did not absolve him of the guilt of nearly killing her.
Lord, what if she hadn’t rolled out of the way?
Now she was battered and bruised, and he hadn’t done all that. He wished he could believe her, trust that no one had laid a hand upon her. But what if it wasn’t the truth? What if it was just the armor talking? What if this was what she was protecting herself from to keep from falling apart? What if someone really had hurt her last night upon her return home?
Her father.
He stilled.
He hardly knew the girl, he didn’t know her life, and he couldn’t just assume. And yet, he did. He took a step towards her, arm outstretched to grab her, pull her to his shoulder and let her weep right there in the street. “Rose, you can tell me. I can—”
I can help. The sentence she didn’t allow him to finish.
“Branches can do just as much damage as a whip,” Rose interjected, cutting him off effectively, with a voice forceful and terse. “You can rest assured in the honesty of my guarantee that nobody has laid a hand upon me, sir.” The tone demanded that she be listened to, stopping him from voicing any further concern as her grey eyes bore into his like steel.
The matter was dropped at her insistence, but inwardly, Robert did the opposite. Men could be vicious with their daughters, and she had already all but admitted the day before that hers would be in a fit of rage when she returned home.
Was that why she’d needed to steal the horse? Because she feared her father’s wrath? Was that why she would not allow Robert to bring her home? Would her father have been furious?
Of course he would have. Returning home late from a walk, injured, clearly disheveled, and with a man? No father in his right mind would ever be more ready to draw pistols at dawn.
The thought should have occurred to him yesterday. He should have offered to send her home with one of the maids and note from Lord Brighton, apologizing for Rose’s late return. Then again, maybe there was somewhere deep inside of him that had known.
How could he not?
Indeed, he had to have known that her father would be furious, just as he had known her father would have recognized him. And maybe that was what he wanted. Perhaps her father would have insisted upon he marrying Rose—marry the girl he had known for but a few hours, the girl who had become the object his life suddenly seemed to revolve around. That scenario was a dream in itself.
Alas, that was not what had happened. Dreams were for fairy-tales and happily-ever-afters, not for reality. Not for dukes. What had happened was that she’d stolen his horse, returning home on her own to receive a beating from her father. And now, here she stood wearing her armor, trying to hide the truth from him. How he wished he could protect her from such harm, from the world. From everything. He wished he could sweep her into his arms and hold her there forever. Safe.
The two stood facing each other awkwardly on the sidewalk for a minute longer before they both spoke at once.
“I should be going.”
“Will you join me for the festivities?” He really ought to let her go, Robert thought, but the prospect of her leaving and he never seeing her again was a terrifying one. Just the thought of what she would be returning home to was enough for him to wish to delay her departure.
“Oh, um, I really ought to be getting home,” Rose answered, tripping over her words. For a moment—just a moment—he thought he might have seen something akin to fear in those beautiful grey-blue eyes, the same color of a pale morning sky. But as it was the day before, she quickly veiled the emotion.
“My actions yesterday caused quite the upheaval at my house,” she continued. “I cannot let it happen again.”
Proof! Robert screamed in his mind. She’d acknowledged his worst fears.
The words made Robert inwardly cringe, just thinking about what she called an upheaval, imagining her father’s belt coming down upon her, of his fisted hands marring her soft, pale flesh. He squeezed his own hands into fists at his sides, his knuckles turning white as his nails bit crescent moons into the flesh of his palms.
He would kill the man if he ever laid eyes upon her father.
He searched, but no emotion was found. She was an expert at obscuring all that went on inside that beautiful head, beneath that radiant hair tucked beneath her bonnet.
It was a shame really, on two accounts. One, that hats were the most unfortunate creation for they served to conceal that glorious hair that could only justly be compared with gold. And two, that Rose was so effective at concealing her mind.
Perhaps he was intrigued only because she wouldn’t let him in, which served to pique his interest, but he rather believed that there was much more to her than anyone else saw. She was no ordinary girl, and it was more than just fine training. Her depths were legion, deeper than the ocean itself. She was more than anyone gave her credit for—more than Robert thought anyone ever could be.
And it was all just speculation.
&nbs
p; Robert didn’t know her. And yet he did.
She chose each word with the same care she used to control her expressions, to mask her emotions. She didn’t need a sharp tongue or a sharper tone to drive the words in like a knife. Her mind did all the work for her. Her mind unleashed the words that needed neither volume nor ire, for they held nothing but truth.
“Please?” he asked, setting on her his most charming smile.
He knew he should let her go—the later she returned home the more of her father’s wrath she would no doubt endure—but the thought of this girl being gone, out of his sight, out of his life, was too impossible a task. Just another moment in her presence and he would be satisfied.
He watched as she bit her lip, considering. He could hardly see the movement, though, as she had dipped her head so that her bonnet—which was pulled as low as it could possible go without falling off her head—was doing a splendid job at shadowing the better half of her face.
“I’m not really one for these sorts of affairs,” she said, motioning with her hand to the city center where the masses of people were gathering around the booths and games that had been set up.
“Me either, really,” he lied.
Robert loved the village festivals, where etiquette could be tossed to the wind and joy and laughter and freedom could be found in the company of people who he ordinarily was not privileged enough to mingle with. But he wasn’t himself today.
Today he was simply Robert, and while the social gap seemed to close during these festivals, it was still undeniably there. To these people he was, and always would be, Lord Brighton. His disguise would not last long in the thickening crowd of people.
He adjusted his cap to ensure his own face was hidden in shadows.
“So what did you have in mind Robert?” Rose asked, placing specific enunciation on “did.” He could feel the accusation in the words. He had, after all, been the one to suggest the festival.
Damn.
It was like she saw straight through him and his lies. Like she knew that he would say anything for a moment alone with her. But he didn’t back down. He longed for her presence in a way he never had before. She was young and beautiful and appeared to be living in a skin that didn’t entirely fit. Just as he was. A life where expectations were high and the choices that mattered were made by others, not fate.
Rose by Another Name (The Blythe Series Book 1) Page 8
