“I believe my father likes you,” Rose observed as they rushed up the steps.
“Good, because I like your father,” Dorian returned, although with little inflection. “I believe I like all your family. It is so very different to mine.”
Rose had been happy to see the Duke of Ravenhill conversing so long with Ambrosius Williams and wondered what they had spoken of. Whatever the subject, her father seemed cheered by his son-in-law and Rose was grateful for Dorian’s discretion, just as she was grateful for his diplomacy and charm in dealing with her brothers.
Mabel was waiting in the hallway and helped Rose to take off her many outdoor clothes. Once unwrapped, she realized, to her consternation, that Dorian had already vanished.
“Are you sure I cannot help you change for bed, Your Grace?” asked Mabel as she laid out Rose’s nightgown on the bed.
“Not tonight, Mabel,” Rose declined. “I slept in the carriage and will sit up and read for a while, I think.”
Dorian’s disappearing act had bothered her this time. One moment, she had been sleeping companionably on his shoulder in the carriage and the next he had abandoned her without even a simple goodnight. Rose did not suppose she had any moral right to object, in this marriage that was not really a marriage, but it had disappointed her.
Had something offended him? Had Rose said something or done something, or one of her brothers perhaps, without Rose noticing. It seemed unlikely. Dorian had seemed to enjoy the visit to Westvale Park as much as Rose. He had even told her that he liked her whole family, hadn’t he?
So, why run away? Rose cast her mind back over his last words before he withdrew so suddenly.
I like all your family. It is so very different to mine.
Rose sat down at the dressing table and began to unpin her hair as she thought about this. Dorian’s family were all dead, grandparents, parents and even his only cousin. It struck her both that he was utterly alone in the world, and that he was strangely unbothered by this.
Having always been part of a close and loving, if sometimes overprotective, family, Rose could think of nothing more awful than such a fate. Yet, Dorian barely talked of it at all. He had told her only that his parents had died together in a boating accident, and that it was his cousin’s death that had made him Duke of Ravenhill.
So, these small facts were the sum total of Rose’s knowledge of Dorian’s early life and family background. She knew more about the horses in his stables and his love of art than she did about the man she had married. Why did he never speak of family? If he had loved his parents as Rose loved hers, surely he would have done.
Had they been cruel, she speculated? Or even wicked? Did Dorian wish to forget they ever existed?
Or did he only see no reason to confide his deeper feelings in Rose, whom he saw more as a pet than a real wife…
The former explanation made her heart ache for him, and the latter infuriated her. Caught between such conflicting emotions, Rose felt the blood rising in her face.
“It isn’t fair!” she exclaimed out loud to her reflection in the looking glass. “It isn’t!”
Rose was legally Dorian’s wife and the Duchess of Ravenhill. She was a woman who, very naturally, wanted a child. Her father was seriously ill and wished to meet his first grandchild. Surely, she deserved honesty and straight answers from her husband, even if she was far less worldly and could not frame her questions properly.
Briefly, she was tempted to succumb to tears but Rose was tired of crying. It was Josephine’s words that came back to her now and gave her new strength:
…you are a wife now and you have rights, especially if there is to be an heir to the duchy of Ravenhill…
Standing up from the dressing table, Rose took up a candle, set her shoulders and went to the door. She did have rights. Oneway or another, she would have her answers from Dorian Voss tonight. She did not plan to ask – she planned todemand.
After setting off, Rose realized belatedly that she did not even know the way to the Duke of Ravenhill’s suite. All she had to go on was Mabel’s description of it being at the far end of the east wing, not even a definite idea of which floor. How absurd it was that she should not even know where her husband slept. No wonder Josephine seemed baffled.
Never mind. Rose was mistress of this house and could wander its corridors for half the night if she needed to, couldn’t she? Padding quietly in her stockinged feet across the carpeted landings from the west of the house, Rose began her search on the second floor of the east wing. Luckily, her instinct was proved right.
Rose counted six rooms altogether on this section of corridor, with only a wall on the other side. Was it her imagination or were all the doors here larger, heavier and slightly more ornate than others she had passed? Rose stopped at the final door, where a pair of familiar shoes left out for cleaning confirmed that she had found her target.
There was no sound from inside and Rose walked slowly back and forth along the corridor again, deciding whether to knock and potentially wake Dorian, attempt to barge into the room without warning, or search for him elsewhere.
Half of the wall of this passage was hung with portraits of men in historical dress, presumably past Dukes of Ravenhill. The other half was hung with pictures of women from similar eras. Recognizing the impressive Juliana from her other likenesses in the gallery rooms, Rose guessed that some of these rooms had once been assigned to the Duchesses of Ravenhill.
But not to Rose. She felt another pang and then a surge of indignation. Had Dorian Voss deliberately excluded her from the rooms that should have been hers by right? Had he left them empty rather than have her anywhere near to him? Impulsively, she approached one of the doors and laid her hand on the wood, imagining for a moment that she was Duchess Juliana.
Hearing a noise from inside, Rose froze, noticing for the first time a faint glow of candlelight from inside. The room was not empty. But who was in there? Surely, Dorian did not occupy all six rooms. He was not such a dandy as to have many wardrobes. No one could need six private rooms, could they?
Rose put her ear to the door and listened, hearing a sound like soft swishing, and then the creak of a board under someone’s tread. There was definitely someone in there, and Rose’s imagination conjured up the image of a woman in a swishing silk dress. The next moment, the woman wore Lady Lepford’s face and this distressed Rose so much that she felt physically ill.
What had she expected from him? Dorian Voss was a rake and everyone knew it. He might have a whole house full of mistresses for all Rose knew, she reflected miserably. She might have fledback to her own rooms if she had not caught sight of Juliana’s portrait as she turned.
