“Are you going to be my wife, Lady Rose?” he asked her seriously, without any pretense at romance or convention.
“Yes,” Rose told him, the word sounding so strange and sad as it emerged from her lips.
“Then the matter is settled,” the duke said with a sigh and a nod. “I know that you are frightened now but be assured that, for both our sakes, this will be a mere marriage of convenience, Lady Rose. I will make no demands on you that you cannot meet.”
Without knowing why, Rose flinched at the phrase he used:“marriage of convenience.”It was the opposite of all she had ever believed in and wished for since she was a young girl. Tears came to her eyes but the Duke of Ravenhill did not see them, having already turned towards the door in a businesslike manner.
“I will inform your family of your decision,” he said and left Rose alone in the cold, empty drawing room, her heart aching for all the love she would now never know.
Chapter Five
“Betsy, send to the florist that we want bridal party bouquets with the white narcissus, winter honeysuckle and evergreen sprigs,” Duchess Eugenia instructed a middle-aged maid, after examining the flower sample displays on the hall tables at Westvale Park with sharp eyes and quick, slender fingers. “We want some color too, of course, but what? Nothing too dark.”
Standing in the drawing room doorway, Rose knew this question was really for her but said nothing. It seemed nothing to do with her, like all the rest of the ongoing wedding preparations. Maids were constantly coming and going with fabrics, clothing and jewels while footman carried folded trestles, ladders and boxes about the house.
Her mother fussed over details while her brothers brought solicitors, bank clarks and clergymen in and out of the study. Rose herself felt as though she was sitting in the still centre of a terrible storm.
“Pink and yellow,” suggested Lady Madeline Bennet helpfully, observing both the older woman’s indecision and Rose’s silence and coming forward to fill the gap. “They are the colors that suit Rose best, and there are usually at least primroses available in both, even at short notice and in winter.”
The duchess smiled gratefully and nodded, before adding a further clarification to Betsy.
“Tell the florist to add pink and yellow colors with the best of whatever flowers they can get at this time of year, maybe primroses. That will be all, thank you, Betsy.”
“Is there nothing in the Westvale Park glasshouses?” asked Josephine, Duchess of Ashbourne, as the maid hurried away on her errand. “We do have some flowers in Ashbourne Castle’s conservatories but I looked yesterday and they’re not the right colors.”
The Duchess of Westvale shook her head.
“We grow very little here beyond fruit these days. With Ambrose ill over the past year, we have done no entertaining and it seems frivolous to plant anything that the household would not use. I certainly did not foresee a sudden wedding…”
Rose sensed the reproach in her mother’s words and shrank from it all over again. In three days time, she would become the Duchess of Ravenhill and her family’s reputation would be saved, along with her own. Yet how joyless and cold thisprospect seemed. Would her family go back to treating her normally again once she was married, she wondered?
Tears pricked Rose’s eyes when she realized that nothing could ever be normal again. In three days time, she would leave her family home entirely and go to live at Ravenhill House, or maybe the duke’s London residence. She didn’t even know this much, not having seen Dorian Voss alone since the five minute conversation in which she agreed to marry him.
Rose would have backed away into the drawing room entirely to hide her emotional response, if her mother had not turned back to her with another sudden thought.
“Have you looked at the lace samples to add to your wedding gown yet, Rose?”
The young woman shook her head. She had not been able to bring herself to even pick up the sample book. At this admission, Eugenia made a frustrated noise.
“The dressmaker must have your choices this morning if the gown is to be adjusted in time, Rose. I explained this to you. You must pick out lace for nightgowns in your trousseau too, although only one need be ready by the wedding.”
“We will assist Rose,” Josephine said immediately, coming to Rose’s side and taking her arm. “Won’t we, Madeline? Which maid is dealing with your dressmaker?”
The Duchess of Westvale looked relieved at seeing her daughter flanked by her two friends and Rose assumed she understood why. Her mother had always seemed to consider her incapable. Rose supposed she would have preferred a daughter like Madeline, who always said and did the right thing and lived her life in the real world rather than dreams.
“Simmonds, my personal maid,” confirmed the older woman. “Thank you so much, Josephine, and you too Madeline. If I can leave this in your hands, I shall go and speak to the housekeeper about the cakes. It is to be a small, private wedding, but we cannot have people saying it was anything less than fitting for the daughter and wife of a duke…”
A tear escaped Rose’s eye and rolled down her cheek as Josephine ushered her back in to the drawing room and closed the door. The small book of lace samples lay on the table beside a pencil and paper. Madeline picked them up and began to browse the lace.
“Oh Rose, do not cry,” urged Josephine, taking out a handkerchief and dabbing her friend’s face. “It is not all that bad, is it? It is certainly not as bad as it could have been. I was so very worried when Cassius first told me what had occurred.”
“I know,” Rose acknowledged, swallowing further tears and calming herself once more. “I could have been sent away in disgrace to Bath for years. Some families might even have disowned me. I’ve heard all this from Edwin.”
“Your family love you too much to ever send you away or disown you,” Josephine assured her, although Rose no longer felt such confidence after the events of recent days. “They must know it was all a misunderstanding really, even if their hands are tied by wider society’s views.”
Rose shrugged listlessly.
“I don’t know what they think or feel really. It’s as though no one listens to me.Almostno one.”
