“What about Johanna?”Rose asked in a low voice, glancing over at where Christian and Johanna were now dancing.He said something to make Johanna laugh.Matthew felt his chest constrict, though not as much as it had when he and Johanna had first married.
Now he recognized the emotion for what it was—jealousy.He no longer worried that his wife would like one of his friends better than him, though.He just wanted to be the one making her laugh.But he liked hearing her laugh regardless of whether he was the instigator or not.
“Does she seem… different to you?”
Rose glanced over at Johanna again, her feet stepping perfectly into place, despite her distraction.She really was a very good dancer.Perfect for Micah and Ashwin, who may have overestimated their abilities after dancing with her; both of them were now floundering with Emma and Bridget.Matthew winced as Ashwin and Bridget crashed into each other rather than stepping away from each other, and the dance instructor immediately went to untangle them and walk them through the correct steps.
“Different how?”Rose’s tone was guarded, but since she did not immediately deny it, Matthew felt more certain that Rose had noticed it too.
“I cannot put my finger on it, but she has been different ever since the evening of her megrim.It is not in how she behaves.She is doing everything the same as she was before.But she is… different.”He could feel his mounting frustration in his words.“I do not know how to explain it.”
Rose let out a long breath of air as they circled around each other, looking up at him.For the first time, Matthew thought he might actually see approval in her expression when she looked at him, which was a rather lofty feeling.Rose’s approval was not easily won.
“Yes,” she said, nodding her head.She glanced over at Johanna, who was smiling widely at Christian as they danced together, looking for all the world as if everything was just fine.But Matthew knew better.So did Rose.“Yes, she is different.Something is wrong.But she will not tell me what.”
Johanna
“Why is your cousin so…” The Duke of Montagu’s voice trailed off, and he snapped his mouth shut, clenching his jaw so tightly she could practically hear his teeth grinding together.His blond hair waved back from his handsome face, a face that likely caused many a female heart to flutter but had had very little effect on Rose.
Even Johanna thought him one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen, but if Rose had noticed it, she’d never indicated so.Perhaps Rose preferred darker features, rather than Montagu’s blond Adonis.Johanna might recognize him as a gorgeous creature, but she preferred her husband’s dark locks and wide smile to Montagu’s more calculated charm.
“Delightful?”Johanna suggested with an impish smile.
Though her mother’s secret was always hovering in the back of her mind now, it was easier to relax in front of someone who was not her husband or Rose.Though she liked the Duke of Montagu, he did not know her very well.It was unlikely he would realize something was amiss with her.
She thought—hoped—she was fooling Matthew, but sometimes, he looked at her in such a way, she felt certain he suspected something.Rose definitely did.But Johanna was still keeping her mother’s secret, and her mother was still not leaving her room.Not because she was too weak or sick, but because she was too afraid.Which left Dr.Syme and Rose at a loss.They could find nothing wrong with her, yet her mother insisted she remain abed.
Johanna wished she could do the same.It would be so much easier to just avoid everyone rather than having to pretend everything was fine.At least she had quite a bit of practice at it.Her siblings suspected nothing.
“Yes,” Christian said dryly.“Delightful is exactly the word I was looking for.”
She could not help but laugh at his aggrieved tone of voice.
“I think you are perhaps a little too used to ladies falling at your feet for your handsome looks,” Johanna said, smiling up at him as they moved through the steps.Thankfully, this was a dance in which she was well versed, unlike some of the others.Her parents had taught them to her the year before her father passed.“It will take more than a pretty face to turn Rose’s head.”
“I am not trying to turn her head, I am just… trying to be polite.”Christian frowned down at Johanna.“Does she think I am trying to turn her head?”
“I have no idea.But Rose is very guarded when it comes to gentlemen.”Guarded and with very little personal experience.Not from lack of offers, but the majority of the offers were not honorable.
Being illegitimate but acknowledged, raised with her cousins, Rose knew what those offers meant.And from helping Johanna’s mother with the women who visited, seeking potions and other assistance, she knew how hard life could be, especially for mothers of bastards who were unacknowledged.In many ways, Rose had been lucky.
She would not risk a child of hers being less lucky.
“I just wanted to dance with her, not court her,” Christian huffed.“She’s very prickly.”
“With good reason, I assure you.Some gentlemen are not so gentlemanly,” Johanna reminded him gently.
The sudden fire in his eyes and the way he puffed up were completely unexpected.
“Has someone been bothering her?”He growled the words, his head whipping around to look at Rose.Both she and Matthew were focused on their own conversation, thankfully, and did not notice.“Who?I’ll?—”
“No, no.”Johanna patted his chest, just above his scarlet pocket square, to get his attention before Rose could see his reaction and think something terrible.He turned his burning blue gaze back to Johanna, where it smoldered with a kind of protective fire that took her aback in its intensity.“No one has been bothering her.Not here.There were a few men in the past, but not for months.Rose is not one to suffer fools.”
The fire banked almost immediately, and he quite quickly turned back into the affable, charming Duke of Montagu.But Johanna did not think she would forget how quickly he’d turned knight-protector when he’d thought Rose’s honor was being threatened.She should not have forgotten; he had also been there the night she was rescued from the brothel and had participated in guarding her along with Matthew.
Both of them could be quite fierce, despite their normally easygoing demeanors, when the situation called for it.
The dance came to a close, and Johanna curtsied as Christian bowed.
