This last small correction came as Rose remembered Dorian Voss sending her family from the room in order to obtain her consent to the marriage. He, at least, had listened, even if he did not care for her. It was another small grace for which to be thankful, but could not recompense her for everything else.
“Madeline and I will always listen,” Josephine told her earnestly. “Remember that you always have friends, Rose.”
“This is not at all how I imagined my wedding,” Rose sobbed, encouraged by Josephine’s words and arm about her shoulder. “I dreamed of being so happy, so in love and now it is all lost. I will never love anyone and no one will ever love me.”
Josephine hugged Rose and patted her back with sympathetic noises under the short flood of tears abated.
“Dorian Voss is not a bad man, Rose,” the young duchess said when Rose finally raised her head. “I’ve had several longconversations with Cassius about him and he has known Dorian for many years. I do not believe you will find him a harsh or unreasonable husband. It may be that your marriage will be happier than many others, in its own way.”
“But I do not love him,” Rose said despondently. “He does not love me. How could either of us be happy? We are only marrying because we must.”
“The Duke of Ravenhill is charming and well-liked,” continued Josephine. “Nor can you deny that he is handsome and well-favored physically, can you? How much worse would it be to marry a man who was ill-tempered, cruel and ugly?”
“I know,” acknowledged Rose once more. “I am relieved and I am grateful and I am a fool to cry. My brothers have told me so every day.”
“The Duke of Ravenhill is handsome, charming and well-liked by every available young lady in London, and many older or unavailable ladies too,” Madeline put in tartly, pausing in her perusal of the lace samples. “Once you have finished being sad about your good fortune, you must get used to being envied, Rose.”
“Madeline!” Josephine chided. “Rose is already distressed enough. She does not see the world as you do.”
“It is better that Rose goes into this marriage with her eyes open,” persisted Madeline. “All the good things you say of Dorian Voss are no doubt true and we must respect yourhusband’s opinion, since he knows him best, Josephine. At the same time, we cannot pretend that a man known as the‘Wolf of West London’is an ordinary bridegroom can we? Rose must know his nature.”
“Do not let Madeline upset you with all that ‘Wolf of West London’ nonsense,” urged Josephine when she saw the wide-eyed expression on Rose’s face. “You know the kind of silly things that scandal sheets print. Remember what they said of Cassius and me after he proposed so publicly in Hyde Park. Most of it wasn’t true at all.”
Rose swallowed and nodded. She was not upset. She was only remembering her own sense of Dorian Voss as a wolf-like creature, something wild, keen-eyed and hungry, hunting in the darkness. Thinking again of that touch of teeth at her throat, she inhaled deeply and touched her neck. The mark was gone now and only two people knew it had ever been there.
Would he do that again after they were married, Rose wondered? Her belly quivered at the thought.
“The groom himself aside, in three days time, you will be a duchess, Rose,” said Madeline, trying to offer Rose a realistic comfort. “There are many advantages to high rank, Rose.
“Duchess…” Rose repeated, the word feeling foreign on her lips.
It was a word in a language that she didn’t want to learn but must since she would soon be a citizen of a new country where this was the native tongue.
“Perhaps you will like being so respected and running a grand house of your own like Ravenhill,” continued her friend. “I know that I shall, if I ever get the chance. What do you say, Josephine, Duchess of Ashbourne?”
Josephine laughed and nodded, touching her stomach as she spoke, the tiny bulge of the child she expected not yet visible through her clothes.
“I do like being mistress of Ashbourne Castle and running my own establishment,” she admitted. “I feel so free there, with only Cassius and myself to please. I suppose I may feel differently when this little one arrives and wish myself back home with older sisters to take care of everything.”
Free?It was not a sensation that Rose could imagine. She had never yet really felt free, except in her imagination when she lost herself in a dramatic story full of characters braver and stronger than herself.
“You and Cassius love one another,” observed Rose wistfully and slid back into sadness. “It cannot be the same for me. The Duke of Ravenhill and I are strangers. The thought of running his house only scares me and I do not even know what he will expect.”
“You will not be strangers for long, Rose,” Josephine replied, squeezing her hand. “When you get to know your husband, you will see all the good qualities that Cassius describes. I am sure of it. Give Dorian Voss a chance and pay little heed to gossip. You will be his wife and above such petty sniping or jealousy.”
“None of this is helping us choose lace, is it?” pointed out Madeline, taking a seat on the sofa and beckoning them both over. “Now, I have picked out several options. Tell me what you both think…”
Over the next hour, Rose acceded without enthusiasm to every recommendation from Madeline or Josephine on lace, ribbons and other outstanding details of her trousseau.
Finally waving her friends off in the hallway, Rose only wished that she was leaving with them. Madeline’s younger cousin, Francesca, was shortly due to arrive at Hollington Hall and Josephine was joining the Bennet family for a meal to welcome her. Rose thought fondly of jolly, forgetful old Lord Bennet and Madeline’s equally happy little sister Melinda. How much fun they would all have together!
Rose, however, must remain indoors at Westvale Park, nod to every wedding suggestion from her mother and listen to her brother’s lectures. Even short visits to London were forbidden to her now until the wedding, lest her appearance in parks or other public places should inadvertently stir further gossip. Everyone agreed that the less she was seen, the better.
Unhappily, she turned away from the door and restrained a sigh to see her bustling mother tripping down the stairs purposefully.
“Your father has asked to see you, Rose,” the duchess announced, her face as pinched and tired as it always looked when she came out of the sickroom. “You should go up now. Then he can rest again before luncheon.”
“How is Father today?” Rose enquired, while knowing that the answer was unlikely to ever be encouraging.
