Rose by Another Name (The Blythe Series Book 1)

by Melanie Thurlow

  “It’s really too bad,” she continued, her hand coming to rest delicately on her chest, sighing in that fake sorrowful way that signaled a lady wished you to inquire as to her troubles. Robert did nothing but further arch his raised brows, inching them up toward his hairline. Which sparked her to say, rather quickly, “The house is marvelous in the afternoon light. Especially the gallery. But it will be just as marvelous tomorrow, I daresay.”

  “I believe, Lady Blythe, that tomorrow it shall rain.” It was not quite the most appropriate response. A gentleman would have said something like, “I daresay, I must agree with you.” It was a far more gentlemanly trait to agree with a lady than to be contraire. But Robert didn’t feel much the gentleman at present. And it was going to rain, which would change the entire atmosphere, and the lighting.

  “Rain? No, never,” Lady Blythe responded, her eyes going momentarily wide before she turned to the nearest window to inspect the sky. “Not during my house party. I forbid it.”

  He would have been satisfied leaving well enough alone, on not commenting further on the weather, but Lady Blythe was making it quite difficult. What with all her feigned ignorance. It was a good thing that she didn’t need to work for a living, because she would never succeed on the London stage.

  The way she pouted her lips, wrinkled her brow, set her hand to her chest. All that and she was batting her eyes like a debutant, looking up at him, willing him to recant his statement, to agree with her. She was no debutant. She was a woman with five children and she was acting a child herself. It disgusted him in no measurable amount.

  So he said, with just a touch of cruelty, “Ah, but the winds are already starting to change.”

  It wasn’t merely his disgust with her attitude that had him saying such. It was everything. All of his resentment toward this family and what they had taken from him.

  They deserved no less than a little rain. They deserved no less than to be caught up in a great flood without an ark.

  “Well,” she said, her voice clipped, then she promptly changed the subject, and the tone. “It really is most unfortunate that the tour has to be put off, but it’s for the best you know. No one can match Rosalyn’s enthusiasm of our home’s history. The tour is an absolute bore if Rosalyn is not there to conduct it. Perhaps if she is feeling restored later this afternoon she will take you on a private tour.”

  “And does your daughter take sick”—Robert said, putting specific emphasis on the word for a reason, which, coupled with a scrupulous glare, challenged the lady to lie again—“very often?”

  Lady Blythe had the cool manner of an aristocrat, which made her perfectly easy to read. She understood Robert’s unspoken question, the question between the lines. She simply chose to ignore it. “Oh, not at all,” she tittered, batting her eyes like a young girl and not the mother of five. “She is usually the epitome of health.”

  Lady Blythe smiled up at him, and he raised one corner of his upper lip in disgust. It was not polite, but he didn’t wish to be polite. Neither was it his forte to be rude, but he was being lied to and he had no patience for that. It was bad enough that he was being forced to marry Lady Rosalyn. The least she could do was show up. And the least her mother could do was bloody well tell the truth as to her whereabouts.

  “Let’s not mince words, Lady Blythe.” He didn’t lower his tone as they were far enough apart from the other guests so as not to be overheard. “I know that Lady Rosalyn is not ill.”

  “Whatever would make you think that?” Lady Blythe answered composedly.

  Robert looked down his nose at her, disdain threading through him and coursing out his eyes and lips. “First, because that was not a denial. And second, I would have had to be blind not to have seen her riding off on horseback as I arrived.”

  “I see.” And to her credit, Lady Blythe had the grace to look chagrined.

  “I hope you do.” Robert held her gaze for a long moment. She looked like a warrior ready to do battle. But she would be defeated in this. “Would you like to speak privately, or would you rather discuss the matter here?”

  “Privately, of course, your Grace. I will fetch Lord Blythe.”

  Robert looked to the man in question, pursing his lips in dissatisfaction. He was a small man with a slim build, hardly larger than his wife. The man was sporting a black eye that stood out rather abruptly against his light hair and lighter complexion.

  When Robert looked back on the day, on the moment, he wouldn’t be able to put his thumb on exactly what caused unease to thread through him at the sight of this man, but he was rather grateful that it had.

  “Not necessary,” he said, offering the lady an arm and steering her from the room.

  When the door to the morning room shut behind them, he turned to Lady Blythe who did not pretend not to know what he was about. Her lips flapped with no words coming forth for several seconds, before she finally settled on, “How much do you know?”

  To call her tone resigned would have been an understatement, Robert was sure.

  He looked at her directly. “Enough to know she has been sneaking off without your knowledge.”

  Lady Blythe nodded, but it was less of an affirmation of his statement than it was a nervous gesture. Her grey-blue eyes were staring blankly over his shoulder.

  Robert waited patiently for her explanation, a plan—an escape—unfurling in his mind.

  For years he had searched for a way out of the marriage with Lady Rosalyn, but he’d been trapped with no recourse but to accept his fate. Without the land, Brighton Castle was worthless, couldn’t support itself.

  But now Lady Rosalyn had a secret, one that would ruin her, and quite possibly her sisters as well, if word leaked. And if it did, her reputation would be questioned and no one would expect him to hold to their agreement.

  He would keep Lady Rosalyn’s secret for a price. For his land.

  It wasn’t that he enjoyed the idea of blackmailing his neighbors, but really, what other choice did he have?

  Yes, a broken engagement would be a black mark against Lady Rosalyn, but her reputation would recover, she would eventually marry. Which was more than what could be said if word of her recent secret liaisons were spilled.

  Besides, if she or her family received any backlash for the broken engagement they deserved it in entirety.

  Why didn’t Lord and Lady Blythe know where their daughter was? Were they such irresponsible parents as that? Was this the reason for her sudden come-out? What other reason could there be? Was there something more they were hiding from him?

  Robert couldn’t help but believe that there was.

  When Lady Blythe confirmed Robert’s suspicions, her voice was low. “Yes.” Her eyes flicked to his, and she continued directly, “She really is a good girl. It’s merely her nerves, you know. She has never done anything like this before. It’s just nerves.”

  “I have no doubt,” Robert said, his voice dry and his eyes cold.

  Understanding washed over Lady Blythe’s face, immediately replaced by a stony façade. “I see,” she said in a clipped manner.

  And she did. Robert made no attempt to hide his prerogative.

  “You will not marry her. She’s tainted,” she said, her words a statement.

  “They are your words, my lady.”

  “And so, what? You throw her over and leave her to spend her life as a spinster?”

  “It’s either that or she be tossed over by me in the midst of an even larger scandal, one from which not a single one of your daughters will be able to escape,” Robert promised.

  “So, you wish us to what, buy your silence?”

  “Again, Lady Blythe, your words.”

  “I’m not in the position to be making such agreements.”

  “Then I recommend that you convince your husband.”

  “She will do no such thing. This conversation will not leave this room.” Robert spun around on his heels to face his mother, standing just inside the door, her unexpected app
arition leaving him feeling off-balance.

  “Mother—” he began, not sure at all where he was going but certain that she was about to foil a plan that he had begun to set in motion, a plan that could very well give him back his rightful property—his land—and terminate the marriage arrangement his father and Lord Blythe had come to.

  Before Robert could think straight enough to see past his own confusion and annoyance at his mother’s presence, she cut him off with a scolding. “Robert,” she hissed as she crossed the room. “Lady Blythe,” she murmured when she reached Robert’s side, and then, turning back to her son, she chastised him as though he were a schoolboy. “What do you think you are doing?”

  “Mother—” he tried again, but was once again cut off direct.

  “I know exactly what you were doing, and I tell you, Robert Phillip Clarence, I do not approve.”

  “Mother—”

  He really didn’t know why he bothered trying to state his case, to explain his reasoning, for she wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise. Better just to save his breath and let her speak her piece. It was always the easiest of the two options, for she was not simply the typical duchess who allowed others to raise and discipline her children; she was a fierce and loyal mother, and a force to be reckoned with when peeved.

  And she was peeved.

  “I raised you to be better than this,” she exclaimed. “You’re talking of walking out on the woman you are meant to marry.”

  “There’s no way to tell she is even worthy of marriage!” Robert managed to spit out while his mother paused for a breath.

  “Regardless, you would be leaving her to the wolves. Gentlemen do not break engagements, Robert,” she hissed.

  “Unless it is for good cause,” Robert explained.

  “Speculation is not good cause.”

  “It is for me. If I secure our land this way, then I will not be forced into a marriage we both know I do not want. Is that what you want for me, Mother? A life of misery?”

  “Robert, you will cease this line of talk immediately.”

  “Mother—” He really was growing quite impatient. Here he was a duke and he was being schooled by his mother. In front of an audience no-less, an audience comprised of—if his mother got her way, which she generally did—the lady who would become his mother-in-law.

  He huffed his indignation and pursed his lips in dissatisfaction, looking—and sounding—every bit the young boy his mother was treating him.

  Meanwhile, his mother, the formidable Duchess of Brighton, turned back to Lady Blythe who was looking on the scene with one-tenths shock and nine-tenths doe-eyed interest.

  “I do apologize for my son’s errant behavior. I assure you he is quite committed to the marriage arranged between him and your daughter. This little… Er… Outburst—shall we call it?—should be entirely forgotten. It is nothing more than nerves.”

  “I completely understand,” Lady Blythe murmured, though there was a little more than a touch of hesitancy in her tone.

  “Robert, apologize to Lady Blythe at once.”

  Robert felt his muscles tighten, his vision narrow, and his lips settle into a peevish line. “Apologies. For my errant behavior,” he said to Lady Blythe who met his regard directly. A fact which he did not take pleasure in.

  His cold stare tended to level those whom he wished, and he had been so close to leveling her. But then his mother had to intervene and now this woman thought she was untouchable, thought that she had nothing to fear, that behind his icicle gaze Robert had no leg upon which to stand, no spine.

  She was wrong on that account. She had to be.

  He couldn’t marry Lady Rosalyn. For his entire life he’d dreaded the marriage, but now that he was here, now that it loomed so close, he knew that he could not go through with it. He couldn’t do it.

  Lady Blythe may have won this battle, but the war was hardly over. He would wriggle himself out of this marriage and bring his dukedom back to safety if it were the last thing he ever did.

  What he would not do was marry Lady Rosalyn.

  Of that, he was sure.

  *****

  Later that evening, Rose found herself standing in front of the full length mirror in her bedchamber wearing a dressing gown and stays. Lying perfectly over the back of her upholstered chair was the dress her mother ordered.

  The dress her mother ordered two sizes too small.

  There was absolutely no way Rose was going to fit into it. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. Helen had spent the better half of the past half hour trying to squeeze Rose in, to no avail.

  Rose was furious.

  Lady Blythe ordered the dress a month ago, without Rose’s knowledge. It was to be a surprise. It definitely was that. For when Rose discovered it today, delivered to her bedchamber just before the dressing gong rang for supper, she found that her surprise was made for someone much daintier than she. And she was, by no accounts, un-dainty.

  On the bright side, all was not lost. The gown was far too formal and had no business being donned at a country house party anyway. Besides, the tight corset was entirely out of style. She would simply have to pick another frock from her wardrobe, which would cause her mother great dissatisfaction.

  Well, the lady deserved no less.

  Rose’s suddenly vindictive thoughts did nothing to quell her fury with her mother. Her mother knew her measurements. She’d done this on purpose, ordered the dress too small so that she could have yet another reason to berate her daughter, to rebuke Rose for her lack of perfection.

  It was all Rose could do not to tear open the window and discard the silk concoction, sending it flying like a rag dropped at the beginning of a race. She was, after all, in competition with her mother. And her mother had always won, due to Rose’s dutiful submission.

  This time would be no different.

  Rose knew her duty. She loved her sisters well-enough to set aside her own discontent and unhappiness so that their lives would be open to the possibility of happiness. Like it or not, despise as she did her mother’s various methods of torture, Rose would not ruin the dress that had been purchased. Though, neither could she imagine wearing it.

  It simply would not fit.

  There was no knock before the entrance—her mother rarely ever knocked. No, she preferred to enter as an unannounced storm to see what further deficiencies Rose bore when left to her own devices.

  Today, storm was a perfect portrayal of her mother’s foul mood that played out in her pursed lips and, most of all, in her voice, which was so high it was nearly a shriek that could practically cause crystal to crack. “What is the issue?”

  Rose had spent the day avoiding her mother—and the rest of their newly arrived guests—shattered crystal was to be expected by this point.

  As much as she hated to admit it, it was almost a comfort to know someone so well—even if those very traits that she could predict so well were simultaneously the reasons why she disliked her mother so.

  “This dress is too small,” Rose answered, thankful that her voice did nothing to betray her inner nerves. She did not raise her voice to her mother, but neither did she whisper. She was strong, confident and the same showed in her posture which matched her mother’s perfectly—because the key to arguing with one’s mother, Rose discovered, was that there was nothing they disliked more than no argument at all.

  And so, Rose acted nothing less than the cold, conceded duchess she was bred to become.

  Lady Blythe’s lips pursed further than Rose thought possible, putting her in competition with a fish, as she eyed the full length of her daughter, up and down, up and down. Up.

  “Nonsense,” Lady Blythe retorted, her tone taking a complete one-eighty from hysterical to authoritative. “Your stays just need tightening. Helen, tighten her up.”

  She snapped her fingers at the maid and Helen responded obligingly, stepping up to Rose. Which, of course, irritated Rose beyond measure. Helen was her maid and here she was doing her mo
ther’s bidding.

  “I can hardly breathe as it is,” Rose shot off, her voice rising an octave. Though, as soon as she had spoken she could have stomped her foot. This was, of course, the exact reaction her mother was hoping for, just what she needed—a flaw in her daughter that she could exploit, and Rose had handed it over easily. A protest or raised voice was sure to lose any disagreement.

  Rose knew that she would lose in the end, that she would relent. In the end. She would marry the duke, as she was meant. But could she not win one single, solitary battle? In her entire life, was this too much to request? Could she not be allowed to select her own gown?

  It was the beginning of a battle of wits, and already Rose had lost. As if there was ever a possibility that she could have won.

  “If one cannot breathe,” her mother answered between barred teeth, “one cannot speak—or complain. Helen.” Lady Blythe snapped her fingers again, and her voice, summoning the maid to set to work.

  Helen slipped the silk dressing gown from Rose’s shoulders. Even the light touch of the silky fabric made Rose shiver as it whispered over the many bruises that hid themselves beneath it. She murmured in Rose’s ear as she did so that Lady Blythe would not hear, “Sorry, my lady,” before setting to work once more to tighten the restraints, though Rose could not imagine it possible.

  At each tug on the strings, Rose bit down on her knuckles in an attempt to stifle the screams that her bruised and broken ribs conjured from within her. It felt as though, as her stays were being tightened, she was falling apart. Pain was relative, she understood, but Rose could not imagine ever having endured any greater pain than this torture unleashed.

  One tentative hand came to rest upon her chest at the ceaseless pressure, where it felt as though every rib that was not already broken would crack in her chest in unison.

  “Oh, please, you have nothing to complain about,” Lady Blythe spat, all the venom of a rattlesnake in her tone. “Especially after all you have put me through. Always running off to—”

  “I am not always running off,” Rose interrupted. “It’s only been—”

  Rose’s interruption was then interrupted with, “And all day I’ve been forced to endure the scrutiny your actions have caused. I would be surprised if a single one of our guests believed you were actually ill. Any person in their right mind would not have missed greeting their guests and taking tea with them, even if they were on their death bed. It’s disgraceful. And all of it a lie, to boot!”