“I cannot bear it!” she sobbed to the painting. “How can I bear it?”
“Rose?” called out a deep voice full of concern, and she spun around to see Dorian walking quickly towards her, already in evening dress, with neatly brushed hair.
Rose’s heart pounded and raced as her handsome husband unexpectedly pulled her into his arms and hugged her close to him, kissing her hair and murmuring her name.
“What are you doing here?” she asked through her tears. “I was looking for you all day.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing…but I heard your voice in here and I cannot bear to see you unhappy,” Dorian blurted out and when Rose looked up, his face seemed entirely, bewilderingly, sincere.
Part of Rose wanted to rail against her husband, to demand to know whether he had brought a lover there to this ball tonight, or even to slap his face. Another part of her wanted to nestle in his arms, kiss his lips and do everything that might induce him to take her here on the floor of the gallery.
Neither course of action was possible tonight. The Duke and Duchess of Ravenhill had a ball to host and all personal resolution must be postponed until it was over.
“I need you beside me tonight, Dorian,” Rose told him, her voice sounding surer than she had expected it to come out. “I can’t do this by myself.”
“I won’t leave you,” he promised her, again with that puzzling sincerity that she wanted to believe in but could not, after his recent behavior. “You will be marvelous. You already are.”
As Dorian wiped away her tears, he looked to be in pain himself but nothing of this made sense. Glancing back to Duchess Juliana once more, Rose imagined seeing benediction in the woman’s expression. God knew she needed such blessing right now.
With a deep breath, she took Dorian’s arm and stood up straight. She could do this. She must. Rose was the Duchess of Ravenhill now and it was her duty.
“I am ready,” Rose said. “We should go downstairs.”
Chapter Eighteen
“What an elegantly arranged house, Rose! How lucky you are to be mistress here,” Edwin told her as he arrived with Magnus among the first guests, his eyes approving all that they lighted on in reception rooms and ballroom.
“Luck barely comes into it, I assure you,” Dorian replied as Rose smiled her thanks. “You should have seen some of these rooms before Rose refurbished them. You would have thought yourself back in our grandparents’ time. What you see tonight is Rose’s doing.”
“Well done, Rose!” said Magnus immediately, kissing his sister’s cheek. “Father will be very pleased to hear that you are so much at home. He talks of you often and hopes you are well and happy.”
Rose felt Dorian squeeze her hand as she fully felt the twinge of pain that these words aroused.
“Tell him that I will visit again soon and tell him all about the house myself,” she said to her brothers and then let them move on.
“Your father misses you but he wants you to be happy more than anything else,” Dorian told her kindly before the next guests approached. “He has told me that himself.”
Was Dorian Voss two men instead of one? How could the same man who had almost ignored her since Christmas now be treating her with such care? Rose felt a great wariness that she could not afford to act on until the ball was done.
They welcomed a party of neighbors, then Madeline and her troublesome cousin Francesca, and then the very elderly Marquess and Marchioness of Bretherton who made them both laugh by declaring their mutual enthusiasm for dancing a merry reel and expressing a hope that the musicians did not play too slowly.
Rose was almost enjoying herself by the time a black-haired and very curvaceous woman of Dorian’s age approached and presented her hand to him as though expecting it to be kissed. Dorian only took her fingers lightly and bowed over them, a faint frown on his face.
“Lady Orton,” the woman introduced herself, with a broad smile more to Dorian than to Rose. “You knew me as the Dowager Countess of Vetchworth.”
“Of course,” Dorian responded cordially enough, although his tone and manner leaving Rose unsure of whether it was his recognition or his prior non-recognition that was feigned.
“Lord Orton is still in the cloakroom but I couldn’t wait to see you again. What a surprise to see that announcement of your marriage in TheTimes…I had not thought you the marrying kind. This must be your new little wife. How sweet she is!”
Rose blushed red with humiliation, from her toes to the roots of her hair. Lady Orton was clearly one of Dorian’s many past lovers. Naturally, she was older than Rose, far more confident and outfitted in a silvery silk every bit as elegant as Rose’s blue dress. Had she too been dressed by Madame Delacroix? She had certainly not been dressed by her mother’s dressmaker.
The woman’s eyes seemed to linger on Rose’s present dress with some amusement, likely finding it too simple and girlish for a duchess, or perhaps only finding Rose too simple and girlish for Dorian.
“Lady Orton,” Dorian acknowledged with a cold bow and icy voice. “I dare say we have met, but I have a broad social life and must admit that I cannot presently recall our acquaintance. My wife is Rose, Duchess of Ravenhill. Can you remember that, or must I impress it on Lord Orton too?”
Rose felt a strong, protective arm coming around her back and the black-haired woman stepped back as though she had been slapped.
“Forgive me, Your Graces,” she muttered. “I spoke in error. We thank you for your invitation tonight.”
