Audace fortuna juvat. Fortune favors the bold.
If he did not risk his own heart, he would never find hers.
Rose awakened to morning light spilling into her room and over the soft white eiderdown comforter that wrapped her in warmth. While Ruark had been away, she had moved her belongings into the blue damask bedchamber, with its flamboyant rococo-style furnishings, but she had continued to sleep in her husband’s bed. Last night she had barred the doors and slept in the blue bedchamber.
With her mind still weighted by slumber, for a heartbeat she’d forgotten her angry tears last night and only remembered that Ruark was home.
Memories of last night banished the warmth she felt. She sat upright, her hair tumbling over her shoulders.
Sighing, she threw off the covers and rose from bed, the hem of her pale cotton nightdress tumbling to her calves.
She padded barefoot across the thick Brussels carpet to test the position of the walnut writing cabinet she had slid in front of the panel door in the wall. She then tested the main door to make sure the key remained in the lock. To her utter disappointment, he had not attempted to break down doors to get to her. She had awaited him to try, too, in a fine, hot temper, daring him to come to her just so she could throw something at his head. How dare he not come to her chambers so she could have the privilege of throwing him out?
Feeling disappointed but secure, she retired to her dressing room to wash. She splashed water from a pitcher into a large delft basin sitting on the washstand against the wall. She cleaned her teeth with teeth powder that she had sprinkled with mint leaves to mask the wretched taste, then began to unbraid her hair. Voices outside drew her to the window. She walked over, pulled aside the mulberry brocade curtain and looked down at the yard. No matter where she slept, her window was always left cracked open at night. A climbing rosebush that wrapped an iron trellis filled the morning air with perfume.
Her melancholy began to ebb as she watched Jack and Jamie playing near the reflecting pool. She had told Mrs. Simpson only yesterday that she loved it here at Stonehaven and she wanted Jack to remain.
“Will your husband abide by that wish?” Mrs. Simpson had asked.
Truthfully, Rose did not know. She suspected that despite his unforgivable behavior the night before, Ruark would allow her the freedom to do most anything within reason.
Then she thought of Jamie Kerr and the possibility that he could be Ruark’s son, and she decided she would find a way to keep Jack with her here.
The two boys were dressed in loose-fitting brown frock coats and breeches, their silk stockings of the finest quality. The silver buckles on their shoes glinted in the morning sunlight. The lads would be accompanying her and McBain today on their rounds.
When Jack looked up and saw her, his face split with a gap-toothed smile. He waved vigorously and she waved back. Jamie, though more subdued, also returned her wave with a smile. The two boys were not quite friends, but Jamie seemed to follow Jack everywhere.
“Look what we got to take with us,” Jack called up to her.
He and Jamie were eating buns from a basket that Jack had gotten from the kitchen. Buns supposed to be going to the pastor’s wife at the village kirk.
She called back for themnotto eat another bun. She would be down momentarily. After they ran off toward the stable, she found herself glad the two were at least getting along.
She decided to ring for Anaya. With her new wardrobe having arrived only two days prior, Rose had learnedwhya lady’s maid was not only appreciated but practical, to overcome the complications of dressing.
Rose yanked shut the curtains, turned and nearly ran into Ruark. She gasped, stepped back and bumped the edge of a chair. He was leaning with his back against thewashstand, his arms folded, amusement in his eyes as if he had been watching her for some time and enjoying the show. Her gaze flew around the room trying to detect how he had got into her dressing room.
“Kathleen set up a table outside,” he said as if he had not walked through locked doors to get inside here. “I thought ’twould be nice to take breakfast in the garden with my wife.”
“How did you get in here?”
“I grew up in this house. There is not a secret passageway or servant’s walkway or door I have not discovered or opened.” Their eyes locked and a few beats of silence passed between them. “I missed you last night,” he said softly.
As if to escape his gaze, she scooted around the chair and hit the wall. He followed her retreat and trapped her, his hand braced against the wall behind her. “Rose, I behaved like an insufferable boor.”
“Aye!” she flung at him. “You ... you did!”
But his admission had snatched the wind from her sails. Last night her anger had formed around a tempest of fury.
This morning, in daylight, the storm had weakened.
She had wanted to speak to him about Jack. She had wanted to talk to him about Jamie. Ever since she had read the entry in the Bible, she had questioned if Jamie could be his son.
Last night was simply too silly to fret over, she told herself. Yet the tears came. “You have apologized,” she said, and attempted to step past him. “And I have another engagement this morning. Now if you will excuse me.”
She’d never questioned the existence of desire but she had never experienced it in its primal form, never reckonedwith its power until his hair brushed her cheek and his words touched her ear. “Last night is an excuse, love. Because that is not why you are angry now.”
“Move aside.”
