Anne slowly tiptoed across the passage, then paused near the door.
“No, that’s not why I came,” Rosa was saying.
“What else am I to think when a beautiful young woman enters my bedchamber?”
“That I wish to speak with you in private—that’s all.”
His voice was a velvet purr. “But now you are here...”
A scuffle. A scrape of chair legs. Something falling to the floor.
Anne tensed. Should she knock? Barge in? Would Rosa thank her for interfering or not?
“Mr. Dalby, stop,” Rosa implored. “Listen to me. Just because I allowed you to sway me once before does not mean I am that sort of woman. You assured me you loved me and would marry me. Do you not remember? When we parted, you said you would call on me again, but I never heard from you.”
His voice changed, lost its alluring smoothness. “Of course not. I was already married.”
Her voice changed as well. Became sharper. “A fact you neglected to mention while you were seducing me.”
Anne pressed a hand to her mouth to cover a gasp.
“It was not something I wished to dwell upon.”
“Clearly. But now you are free. And I am prepared to give you a second chance. I came to Painswick hoping you would honor the promise you made to me then.”
“To marry you?” He laughed, though it was a harsh, repellent sound. “I knew you had an ulterior motive for coming here. As pretty as you are, I’m afraid I must decline.” Thenonce again his voice deepened to a husky register. “Although you might try to convince me....”
The man her sister had once thought charming now sounded like a sly serpent. Anne raised her hand to knock when the sharp sound of a slap reverberated through the wood.
The door jerked open, and Anne backed away, but not fast enough.
Rosa hesitated upon finding her hovering nearby—her face aflame, her features tight with anger. She met Anne’s gaze almost defiantly, then whirled and stalked away, back to Lady Celia’s dressing room. Mr. Dalby came to the open door, the imprint of a hand reddening his cheek. Seeing Anne there, he too held her gaze, green eyes glimmering, a sardonic quirk on his lips. Then he reached out and slammed the door in her face.
Sickening realization washed over Anne. Her sister Fanny had clearly not been the only woman Mr. Dalby had mistreated. At least Mr. Dalby had broken it off with Fanny before things went too far. And he had not been married at the time he’d broken her heart. Poor Rosa. How many other women had the man injured, one way or another?
Anne had just made it back to her own room when the moaning started.
She rushed to Lady Celia’s bedside. “My lady! What is it?”
“Oooh. I am going to be sick....” The woman began climbing from bed, and Anne assisted her.
“Something you ate, or ...? Oh, dear.”
Anne grabbed a clean chamber pot just as Lady Celia retched. Louie lifted his head from his basket and whined in sympathy.
“That beef tea. Knew it tasted off—fishy. I can’t have shellfish. Everyone in the house knows that. Did you prepare it yourself?”
“The cook did, or perhaps her kitchen maid—that’s who heated it when I requested your dinner.”
“Mrs. Pratt has been with me for ages. Loyal. Don’t know the kitchen maid well.”
She retched again, the violence of the convulsion racking her already-frail body. Poor woman!
Drawn by the commotion, Rosa tentatively entered the mistress’s bedchamber, eyes wide to see Lady Celia on all fours, head bent over a pot, countenance a waxy green.
“Rosa, good. Please stay with her a moment,” Anne said. “I need to fetch something from the medicine chest. Best if she expels as much as possible first, as unpleasant as it is. Then I’ll give her something for her stomach.”
While she was at it, Anne closed Louie inside her room, away from the waste and chaos.
