Gray pushed to his feet. “I think I’ve heard enough.”
“How did your family lose their money in the first place?” Fitzgilbert asked, ignoring the warning in Gray’s tone and posture. He even smiled up at him in the face of it.
“You had best watch yourself, sir,” Gray growled.
“No.” Fitzgilbert pointed a finger at him, jabbing it like it was a knife. “You best watchyourself, Mr Danford. After all, your brother has as much to lose as I do if this marriage doesn’t go through.”
“My brother would find another match, I assure you.”
“With two broken engagements in just two years? Society could be made to see that in a very unkind light.” Fitzgilbert leaned back, a smug smile across his round face. “I say this only to make you remember your place as quickly as I recall my own.”
“I know exactly what my place is,” Gray said as he turned and walked away.
He stormed out of the room with Fitzgilbert’s chuckle ringing in his ears. Rage bubbled up in him. Rage that this man would threaten his family, but also rage that he could treat his own granddaughters with such distain and disregard. It made everything Rosalinde did make so much more sense.
And it made him wish he could help her, even as he fought to destroy the one thing she wanted most. He only knew he couldn’t have both the things he wanted. At some point he’d have to choose. And someone he cared for would lose.
Gray strode down the hall from the backstairs. He hadn’t wanted to see anyone in his current mindset and so had gone the back route to the main floor. His mind still roiled with thoughts of his encounter with Fitzgilbert. The man’s cruelty and his threats were hardly to be born.
And yet they would have to be, for at least a little longer. Fitzgilbert would be at the supper table in an hour, smugly overseeing this engagement that suited his own purposes.
Which drove Gray even harder to explore the past of Rosalinde and Celia’s mother and see if he could find—
The thought in his head was cut off as he passed by the closed door to the music room. Inside, he could hear someone playing the pianoforte. It was a mournful song, but played impeccably. He was drawn to the sound and leaned toward the door to listen to it longer. But just as the notes wrapped around him, sank into him, there was a crashing, discordant sound of fingers mashing on keys.
He shoved the door open and found that the mysterious player of the music was none other than Rosalinde. And now she sat, head hung over the keys, her shoulders shaking. She obviously had not noticed his entry, his intrusion on her private heartbreak.
He had two options on how to proceed. He could quietly shut the door and never tell her that he’d seen her in such a state—or he could go inside and comfort her.
He was already moving into the room. It was too late to do anything else but whisper, “Rosalinde?”
She jumped at the sound of his voice and staggered to her feet to face him. She swiped at the tears which clung to her cheeks, and refused to meet his eyes.
“G-Gray,” she stammered, her voice thick with tears. “I didn’t hear you there.”
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a handkerchief. He held it out wordlessly. She hesitated, but then took it, her fingers brushing over the monogram his sister had stitched on the cloth some Christmas years ago.
“Thank you,” Rosalinde whispered before she turned away to gather her composure and blow her nose. “I’ll have it washed and return it,” she said as she tucked the handkerchief into her pocket.
“Come for a walk with me,” Gray said, uncertain why those words had burst from his lips. “In the garden.”
Rosalinde wrinkled her brow in confusion. “At dusk, in the cold?”
He nodded. “The night air will do us both some good. As long as you won’t be bothered by the scenery.”
She let out a laugh that was pained. “The garden is brown and dead now. That rather fits my soul at present.”
He moved on her, unable to stop himself. “You are the most alive thing I’ve ever known, Rosalinde.”
She blinked at this compliment and he could see her hesitation. He supposed he’d earned that. After all, he hadn’t been trustworthy, at least not in her eyes. She had to doubt his motives now. Motives he could hardly define they were so twisted in his own mind.
“Please,” he said.
She nodded slowly. “All right.”
He took her arm, guiding her to the foyer where he called for their coats to be brought. He watched as Stenfax’s butler, Taylor, assisted her with the same hooded red cloak she’d been wearing the night she entered the inn. Once he had left them, Gray turned toward her to button her jacket slowly. In silence, she watched every movement of his hands.
Finally, he took her hand and they went down to a parlor with an exit to the terrace and the garden down the stairs below. She was silent the entire time, just watching until they stepped into the cold maze of the dead garden.
