She was careful from then on not to reach out to him. Cowardly perhaps. She was marrying the man, but she could only take so much hurt and rejection.
“Miss Hughes, you’ve a caller.”
She looked up from the same page she had stared at blindly for the last half hour. Aunt Peregrine was out meeting with the milliner. Aurelia accompanied her. Rosalie had begged off and, for once, stayed behind. She should have guessed her solitude would be short-lived.
“Your mother, Her Grace, the Duchess of Banbury.”
Her stomach sank. She had not seen her mother since Dec fetched her home. “Show her in.” It was inevitable. She would have to face her eventually, and Melisande would have heard of the news by now.
Her mother breezed into the room, a vision in an emerald green day dress trimmed in black ermine. At least she was alone. No Horley. There was that.
“Rosalie,” she exclaimed, kissing her on the cheek before settling into the armchair across from her. “So good to see you! I believe congratulations are in order.” She nodded to the waiting maid. “Biscuits, please. Bring a variety.”
With a nod, the maid curtsied and backed out of the room.
“Well.” Melisande untied the strings from her bonnet, a confection that was mostly ribbons and black feathers to match her stylish dress. “You’ve won quite the coup. A duke! And my title, no less.” She shook her head cheerfully. While her manner was all smiles and warm cheer, there was a certain light in her eyes that made Rosalie uneasy. “Seems you’ll have my leftovers. In more ways than one.”
Rosalie straightened. “I’m sure I don’t understand.”
“Well, I’ll become the Dowager Duchess of Banbury. A dowager.” She shuddered. “Can you imagine? It sounds so old.”
Rosalie gave a wincing smile.
Melisande continued. “You shall become the Duchess of Banbury. A title which used to be mine. And you’ll have Declan.” Her smile grew tight and wide then. “Who also used to be mine.”
Rosalie angled her head, her folded hands tightening in her lap. “Your meaning still eludes me.”
Just then the maid rolled into the room with the tray service. Silence fell as she positioned it between the two of them and poured them each their tea. Rosalie’s foot tapped anxiously beneath her skirts.
“I’ll serve, thank you,” she said.
The maid bobbed her head and backed out of the room, once again leaving them alone.
Melisande leaned forward and selected several biscuits. She bit into a pink frosted one with a moan. “Delicious.” Her gaze fastened on Rosalie. She licked a bit of icing from her finger with slow deliberation. “Just like Declan.”
Silence stretched between them before Rosalie whispered, “You lie.”
“Oh.” Melisande feigned a wounded look and tsked. “A mother doesn’t lie to her child.”
Rosalie laughed. She held her side, rocking where she sat even though humor was the last thing she felt.
It cracked her mother’s facade of composure. “What is so funny?” she snapped.
“You. Acting the loving mother.” Her laughter died and she leveled her gaze on Melisande. “Let’s end with the pretense of caring mother. Why are you here?” Clearly it was only to cause trouble.
Melisande blinked wide eyes. “I thought you should know the man you’re marrying . . . well, I had him first.”
Rosalie struggled to keep her expression blank, but her right eyelid flickered wildly. “Get out.”
Her mother gathered her bonnet and rose with a satisfied sigh. At the door, she paused and turned in a half circle, smiling back at Rosalie. “Congratulations again.” With that parting remark, she left.
Rosalie fell sideways on the sofa, burying her face in a pillow to muffle her cries.
Her mother was a beast. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Dec hated her mother. He wouldn’t have . . . he couldn’t have been with her. Sitting up, she dashed the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, resolving to find out.
Dec looked up from his desk as Rosalie barged into the room. He stood at once, alarmed at the sight of her. She looked pale, ashen. Her eyes, however, looked haunted. Large topazes in her bloodless face.
“Rosalie? What’s wrong? Why are you here?”
“Is it true? Did you—” She choked on the words, struggling, it seemed, to spit them out.
“Did you and my mother . . .”
Bile rose in his throat. He knew what it was that she couldn’t say. He understood.
She continued, “Never mind. You don’t need to say it. I can tell by your face it’s true.”
“Who told you?” Will and Max knew, but he couldn’t imagine either one of them told her. That left one obvious culprit.
“She did, of course. She relished every moment in the telling.”
He schooled his features to reveal nothing, donning the familiar mask he wore, carefully blocking out anything he might be feeling. “Of course she did.”
“Not even a denial.” She visibly swallowed. He knew she needed to hear him deny it. More than she even realized, she wanted him to say it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. They couldn’t have been intimate. Not him and her own mother.
“I’m going to be sick.” Turning, she started to flee, but he was there, his hand on her arm, forcing her around.
“And there you are. Just like my father,” he snarled, his mask cracking. He could feel it slipping, emotion bleeding through. Just like it always did with her. “Thinking the worst.”
“You deny nothing! What am I supposed to think?” She searched his face. “Am I wrong? Please, tell me! Is it not true?”
“You would believe me if I were to say it was not?” He snorted. “That would make you the exception. He never believed me either.”
She hesitated, bewilderment flickering on her face. “He who? Who did you tell? Who didn’t believe you?” Again she was wondering, doubting, hoping that perhaps it was all a lie, some twisted machination of her mother.
His heart slowed to a dull thud in her ears. “My father. I told him what happened.” He laughed brokenly, bitterly. “I rather had to. When he walked in on us.”
“What?”
“She hunted me, Rosalie. From the moment she married my father, she was always there with the smiles and long glances. The lingering touches. I was ten and four when she came to my room. I told her to stop—” He stopped to swallow.
He felt her stare, watching him struggle with the words, watching him remember it like it was some sort of bad dream. He gave a rough laugh. “I was just . . . inexperienced. It was rather bewildering . . . waking up with your stepmother’s mouth on your cock.”
She blinked at his harsh language . . . at the harsher, uglier image that filled her mind. He saw that. Saw it in the reflection of her eyes. She covered her mouth with her hand, speaking through her fingers. “She did that to you?”
His voice came out flatly, controlled and monotone. “I didn’t understand what was happening at first. I had never—” Again he broke off, shaking his head, squeezing his eyes tight against the memory.
He reopened his eyes.
She stared at him, eyes so wide. “Fourteen. You were so young. When I was that age . . . I still slept with a doll.” She looked down as though recalling herself then. “An old rag doll my father gave me.” Her gaze snapped back up, fiery and bright, full of wrath. “You were just a boy.”
“Man enough.” His lips twisted. “In my father’s eyes, at any rate. He said I should have known better. Hell, he saw me as the instigator. Rather absurd now when I think on it. When she was in my bed? Had I dragged her there? He was deluding himself.” He shook his head and squared his shoulders. “No matter. It’s all in the past now.”
Except it wasn’t. It was here now. Between them. In her eyes and in the tension lining his shoulde
rs. It was in the distance he felt welling between them.
His mind worked, thinking back to all those years, struggling with fragments of memory that he had fought to bury.
“That’s when he stopped letting you come home from school.”
He nodded. It was all falling neatly into place for her now. He had been fourteen when he stopped coming home from school. The duke’s sudden disinterest in his son. The son he once doted on. His only heir. She understood why now.
Her face scrunched up bitterly. “My mother . . . what she did to you. That’s why your father gave you the cut?”
“The cut? That’s a gentle euphemism, but yes. I was dead to him after that. Your mother did nothing wrong, of course. She was his innocent young bride that his wretched beast of a son had abused. I was a monster in his eyes. If he could have disinherited me, he would have. You should have seen Melisande. She wept such copious tears. She really should have been on the stage. If he could have called me out and withstood the scandal of killing his own son, he would have.”
She blinked at the shock of this. “No, that can’t be. He would not have gone to such—”
“He told me that, Rosalie. That’s not dramatic supposition. Those were his own words.”
The last bit of color bled from her face as it all sank in for her. Her mother had taken so much from him. His youth. His father. The ability to feel, to touch a woman without the memory of her.
She shuddered. “How you must have felt when I turned up in your drawing room.” He watched her throat work as she fought to swallow. “Dear God. You hated me.”
He could practically track her thoughts crossing her expressive face as realization sank deeper, grinding into her. Her throat worked as she swallowed. “You must hate that you are marrying me. Her own daughter.”
He stared at her for a long moment, feeling raw and battered inside. Exposed. Finally, he said, “I made my choice when I came to your bed.”
Her face crumpled. “That’s not a denial.”
Turning, she fled the room. He watched her go.
Chapter 23
Pushing back her hood, Rosalie strode past her mother’s butler with hard, echoing steps. “Is my mother in the drawing room?”
“M-Miss Hughes,” he stammered, hurrying after her. “Yes, she is. Shall I announce you?”
“That’s not necessary, thank you.” The drawing room’s double doors stood ajar and she strode inside.
Her mother and Horley looked up from the tea service. Melisande paused, her cup halfway to her lips. Sunlight poured into the room from the window, bathing her in golden light. Her dark hair gleamed like ebony. She looked poised and beautiful, her porcelain skin ageless.
“Rosalie, what a pleasant surprise.” From the way her lips curled into a smile, Rosalie’s presence was no surprise at all. “Tea?”
Horley popped a biscuit whole into his mouth, watching her as he chewed, crumbs dropping from his lips to rain upon his trousers. She wished she could read the thoughts behind his hawk gaze, and then decided it was probably for the best that she could not. He slouched inelegantly in his chair, legs sprawled wide, one arm stretched along the back of the chair. Her mother. Once again with a younger man. Her stomach churned.
“I know.”
Her mother arched a brow and took a dainty sip.
“But then you wanted me to know, didn’t you?” she added. “Did you think I would blame him? Hate him?”
“I think it only right that you know the truth if you’re going to enter into matrimony with—”
“The truth. That’s quite amusing considering what you told me was more fabrication than fact. What you did to him . . . you’re sick.”
“Is that what he told you?” Horley snorted. “Of course. He wouldn’t want to admit he dipped his wick in his stepmother . . . no matter how tempting a morsel she is. He was above such behavior, is that it? Unlike every other randy lad of his age.”
“Peter,” Melisande chided, although her eyes sparkled. She was enjoying this. Enjoying Rosalie thinking that Dec had been her willing lover.
Rosalie flattened her hands against her sides and strove for composure. “It never happened. Not like that.”
Horley snorted.
Rosalie turned her glare on him. “This doesn’t concern you. Why are you even here?”
“Rosalie.” Melisande frowned. “Don’t speak to Peter in such a manner.”
She inhaled thinly through her nose. It didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t even want to argue the point with her mother. She didn’t even want to be in the same room with her anymore—much less with Horley. It ended here. That’s why she had come. She would have her say and then leave.
And never look back.
“You aren’t part of my life anymore.” She didn’t bother adding that Melisande hadn’t been for several years. All that time at school her mother had no use for her, and suddenly now, because she served a purpose, she wanted a place in her life.
Rosalie wouldn’t let her. She wouldn’t allow her mother’s poison to contaminate her life—or touch Dec again. He deserved that much. She wanted them to have a chance—a chance to be something real to each other—and she had a better chance of that happening without her mother lurking around.
Melisande set her teacup down with a soft click. “You’re pretty satisfied with yourself, aren’t you? Soon to be Duchess of Banbury. You’ll have my title. And Declan. And now you think you can tell me what to do.”
She ignored the jibe, managing a calm tone. “This is farewell. Don’t call on me again. If you see me on the street, keep walking.”
Melisande laughed sharply. “You think he’s yours? Has he already had his way with you? Did he whisper sweet words? He’ll never love you, silly girl. In fact, I think the odds of your marriage happening are very slim indeed.”
As the bilious words dripped from her mother’s tongue, Rosalie ordered herself to turn away. To leave and not rise to the bait. Melisande had no power over her. She couldn’t prevent her from marrying Dec. And yet she paused, her feet planted to the carpet. “What do you mean?”
Melisande’s gaze slid to Horley. With a nod, as though sending him some manner of signal, he moved for the door.
At first Rosalie thought he was leaving, and she was glad. None of this was his concern.
“Well,” Melisande continued. “If you were to marry someone else first, that would certainly impede your marriage.”
The drawing room doors clicked shut, but Horley had not left. Instead he remained, locking his hands in front of him and positioning himself in front of the doors as though blocking her escape.
Her mother was still talking. “I think a marriage to another man would put an end to Dec wanting to marry you. For the obvious reasons. Men can be rather possessive. They don’t want to share. Especially men like Declan.”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
“No. Indeed not. I’ve given it a great deal of thought. Peter and I both have.”
Her gaze flicked to him. Of course, he was involved in this. It should serve as no surprise that he had been plotting ways to make her life more difficult. Or rather ways to make his life less difficult.
She breathed in and out over the niggle of panic starting in her belly. Her mother was spouting empty threats. She shook her head. “I’m marrying Dec.” Quite finished, she turned for the drawing room doors, stopping hard at the sight of Horley still standing there, blocking her way.
“No,” he pronounced. “You’re not.”
She looked back between her mother and her lover. Her chest felt compressed, like some great weight was pushing down on it. “Mother?”
“I’m sorry, Rosalie.” Melisande lifted her chin. “It’s hardly a situation I wanted.” Her eyes sparked almost angrily, accusingly. “But you’ve forced my hand.”
Rosalie shook her head, utterly bewildered. Horley smiled a slow, slithering grin. He smoothed a hand over his slick, pomaded hair.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m giving Peter to you.” She waved a hand wildly. “He’s unmarried. Titled. It’s a perfectly acceptable arrangement. We’ll leave for Scotland. Peter heard of a preacher on the border that doesn’t ask too many questions . . . he doesn’t even mind whether or not all the right words are uttered.”
Cold washed down her spine. “Such as the bride saying ‘I do’?” she asked through suddenly numb lips.
“Precisely.”
Her stomach dropped. “Are you mad?”
“It’s not the most ideal situation.” Melisande’s lips quivered at the corners. “But Peter has persuaded me that it’s for the best. A perfect solution.”
Peter. How she loathed his very name. “I won’t do it!”
“You don’t have a choice,” Horley replied silkily, suddenly in front of her.
“So you will force me? Hold a pistol to my head and make me marry you?” She jerked back a step, yanking her arm clear of his encroaching fingers.
“Stop being so dramatic, Rosalie. We need your dowry.” Melisande’s lips pursed as though she loathed admitting it. “It’s ridiculous how much Declan granted you. It will last us two lifetimes.”
The blasted dowry. She wished Dec had never seen fit to announce that to the world.
“He’ll never give the dowry to you,” she argued. “This will all be for nothing.”
“Oh, he will. He’d never let you suffer side by side with us in penury. Nor would he wish you shamed before the world.” Her mother looked her up and down. “He cares too much for you. And he’s too honorable.”
The truth of her mother’s words sank like rocks into the pit of her stomach. Melisande was right. She tried to convince herself that even if she was forced into marriage with Horley, it would mean nothing to Dec. He’d still want her. If Horley forced her into consummating the marriage, Dec would come to her the moment he was able. He would rescue her. She told herself that.