Here she stopped and blushed. Had Dorian really told his sister everything? Rose had told no one. Jane seemed to read her mind.
“Dorian did not say exactly what transpired in the gardens, only that he approached you thinking that you were another lady whom he knew well, and that your brothers misunderstood what they saw.”
“It is as he said,” Rose confirmed. “Dorian did not know who I was. Only, I knew it was him almost immediately, and I…didn’t want him to stop, despite everything. I think that is why I slapped him afterwards. I had never felt…that, before, and I could not…”
This was more than Rose had ever confessed to anyone else. Jane’s closeness to Dorian and her own confidences had somehow made it possible.
“He kissed you by mistake and you slapped him?” surmised Jane with a chortle and sympathetic expression. “Oh my! Poor Dorian. Poor Rose.”
“No one else saw anything of that, though. My brothers saw us standing together in the lights afterwards and we were doing nothing wrong. Then everything was out of control. I didn’t see Dorian again until he came to my family’s home to propose marriage. That was the last thing any of us expected.”
“Knowing my brother as I do, it was not the last thing I expected. As soon he told me what happened at Ashbourne Castle, I knew exactly how it would be,” Dorian’s sister said steadfastly. “Knowing too how happy he has been, it does not surprise me that he has left you, however.”
“But that makes no sense,” Rose protested.
“Have you ever met anyone so afraid to be loved as Dorian?” Jane asked lightly but pointedly. “I have not. My brother chases desire but not hearts. He does not really understand that for a man and woman to love and be loved by one another can be a wonderful, not terrible, thing.”
“How can that be?”
Jane Chatham shrugged her shoulders.
“We often take our parents’ relationships as our model in life, I suppose, for better or worse. You must have realized how unhappy Dorian’s childhood was. I was luckier. My stepfather loved my mother, even if he had little interest in me. I also suspect your parents were very happy together, weren’t they?”
Rose nodded.
“They’re devoted to one another, even with my father so ill,” she agreed. “Yes, maybe that’s where all my own old romantic notions came from. That was the love I saw at home. But I gave all that up when I got married.”
“Did you?” Jane questioned, with a small smile. “Did you really?”
Hugging herself, Rose looked down at the ground.
“I miss Dorian so very, very much,” the young duchess admitted, with tears in her eyes again.
“Then you must find him and tell him. You must explain to him how things really are, make him listen and understand,” Jane Chatham advised her. “I don’t believe anyone else could. Now, eat another biscuit and drink your tea. You must keep your strength up, you know.”
It was evening before Rose returned to Ravenhill House, having stayed several more hours at Haybridge House and eaten a simple evening meal with Jane Chatham They had talked of their lives, of love and of children, with Rose even promising to be godmother to Jane’s imminent arrival.
By the time she left, Rose felt she had made a new friend. Jane’s birth and social status meant that she would never be able to mix on an equal footing with the families of the ton but Dorian did not care for such things. Why should Rose?
Today, Rose had achieved part of her goal to learn more of her husband’s past and understand him better. However, the road she would have to take to bring him back seemed more arduous than ever.
The company had been generally welcome too after her recent loneliness at Ravenhill House. Rose’s mind strayed to Josephine’s most recent letter, in which she had invited her friend to visit whenever she wished, likely knowing from Cassius about Dorian’s extended absence.
As soon as she arrived home, Rose dispatched a message to Josephine, telling her that she would arrive tomorrow at Ashbourne Castle – the place where all Rose’s greatest troubles, and greatest joys, had begun.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“His Grace, the Duke of Ashbourne is here, Your Grace,” whispered the young manservant urgently. “I know you said that you aren’t here but he says he knows you are here and will not leave until he has seen you.”
The Duke of Ravenhill blinked several times, disoriented by both the nervous prattling of the youth’s voice and by his surroundings. Where was he?
Dorian sat up to find himself on a striped silk sofa in the drawing room of what he vaguely recalled was his London house, half a dust sheet pulled up over himself. The duke vaguely remembered entering the room in last night’s blur of champagne and mental exhaustion, and telling this servant to ignore his presence entirely, and deny it if necessary…
The rest of the furniture in the room was still covered by white dust sheets and wooden shutters were drawn across the windows. Dorian was fully dressed, thank God. The only lightcame in from the airy hallway through the door opened by the servant.
“Cassius Emerton is here? Now?” Dorian said, pushing his dark hair back from his face with a long, weary yawn. “What the devil is he doing calling at this hour? What is he even doing in London?”
“I cannot say, Your Grace, but it is after ten o’clock. Do you want me to send him away?”
