“Jane was wise enough only to listen,” Dorian answered. “We both knew what I must do and there was nothing either of us could say to change the situation. But tell me, what manner of woman do you really think Rose Williams?”
Cassius accepted the change of direction without resistance, evidently understanding all the reasons why Dorian might not wish to speak of Jane here and now. The Duke of Ravenhill had other matters on his mind. At the same time, he was always fiercely conscious in places like this of the need to protect his connection with Jane Chatham, for her own sake.
“Rose is shy and sweet-tempered, but fun-loving, and a great reader of romantic novels. I can see that she has led a very sheltered life, even by the standards normally applied to young ladies. You must excuse her some ignorance of the real world. Josephine tells me that at Westvale Park, Rose is not even permitted to read the more respectable gossip sheets.”
“I hate the way most families of the ton raise their daughters,” remarked Dorian with feeling. “As though ignorance of the facts of life was any sort of virtue!”
He leaned over and stoked the fire as he spoke, throwing on another small log and taking his temper out on the embers, before looking back to Cassius again.
“Shy is an interesting descriptor, however,” Dorian mused. “I cannot say that Lady Rose has ever been shy with me. She refused every innocent overture I made at Ashbourne Castle, you know, sometimes in the coolest and wittiest manner. She was the only woman at your house party who would partner me neither in dancing nor cards, nor even sit beside me to listen to the pianoforte.”
“We did rather warn her off you,” Cassius admitted with a rueful smile. “Not that it seemed to do much good in the end.”
The Duke of Ravenhill took no offense at this admission. As he had said, he had little in common with Lady Rose anyway and would not have suffered greatly from the lack of her company, even if her determination to avoid him had intrigued him a little.
“Shy,” he said to himself, shaking his head in rejection of the word. “I do believe Rose is overwhelmed at times. If her eldest brother didn’t talk over her all the time, perhaps other people could hear her voice more clearly. At Ravenhill House she may read whatever she wishes, and I shall let her practice the art of civil conversation.”
“That sounds like a good beginning,” Cassius commented with approval. “I suspect marriage to any woman as sheltered as Lady Rose has been should better begin in the drawing room than the bedroom.”
“I have no bedroom plans at all for Lady Rose presently,” the Duke of Ravenhill said firmly, prompting a raised eyebrow from his friend. “It would seem wrong to seduce a woman who does not even know the meaning of seduction.”
“She will be your wife, Dorian,” the Duke of Ashbourne pointed out. “Is it not your job to teach her that lesson and make it a sweet one?”
Dorian shook his head.
“I have no taste for innocence. If a woman wants me, she must be able to make her desires clear.”
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” Cassius murmured as he drained his glass. “I see trouble ahead on that road, Dorian. What about your own desires?”
“What of them?” Dorian asked, of no one in particular and looked back into the fire.
Soon after, the clock struck seven and the Duke of Ashbourne excused himself to return home, leaving Dorian alone with his thoughts once more.
The question of his own desires was one he had not yet fully faced, let alone answered. It would need to be answered soon enough. The Duke of Ravenhill knew himself and knew the strong passions that ran in his blood, demanding fulfillment with a force that could overcome his own reason as much as his lovers’.
Lady Rose was very beautiful and would be living in his house, if in a separate and distant suite. Her innocence might be defense enough against ravishment for now, but if her desire was ever fully awakened, he would have to change his course, one way or another.
Of course, if it was as simple as showing his wife the delights of physical pleasure, there would be no problem. Dorian was confident that they could both enjoy such an introduction in due course.
Then what exactly was the problem? Closing his eyes, Dorian admitted to himself that it was all bound up in the question of marriage.
With his present lovers, any of them could come and go as they pleased. There was no obligation, no expectation and certainly no vows or promises – only mutual pleasure, basic respect and sometimes friendship. It was a set up in which he could see clearly and feel confident.
In a marriage, however, the very permanence of the structure carried a sense of oppression. People might fall out of love as easily as they fell into it, after all, and love could even turn to hate. The thought of ever being tied to someone who hated him, but was unable to leave, turned Cassius’ stomach.
Briefly and unwillingly, his thoughts turned to his own parents, once a famous love match and later descended into a vicious struggle for what looked like mutual destruction. The rows, the infidelity and the raging emotions had not made for a happy home. When they died together in a boating accident seven years earlier, Dorian had grieved but also felt relief that their terrible marriage was finally over.
No, he would not wish such a fate on himself or on Lady Rose, whom he had sworn to protect. Still, as Cassius had pointed out, she was very beautiful and she was to be his wife. Dorian already knew how soft the skin of Rose’s throat felt under his lips and recalled vividly the sound she had made before she jumped back from him.
It had not been a cry of fear or revulsion. While surprised and a little indignant, it had been essentially a sound of pleasure at his touch. He knew such sounds well enough. Dorian could not deny that this realization excited him a little, just as the cry itself had done in the rose garden.
What sensual potential lay beneath Rose’s surface? One day he was sure he would find out…
His mind now made up on the question of desire, Dorian rose without looking back at his abandoned drink. If his new wife ever showed him her desires, he would fulfill them, but he must also keep her at sufficient distance to protect them both. Whatever happened, they must not fall in love. It would be the beginning of the end.
Chapter Seven
Rose’s wedding was the end of a dream.
