Through the portrait gallery and down the corridor to the staircase, her heart pounding against her ribs, and up to the third floor where her bedchamber awaited, praying all the while Max wouldn’t find her.
She couldn’t bear to see him now, nor could she bear to stay at Grantham Lodge for another moment. As soon as she could find Abby, they were leaving here, despite the darkness and the cold. It had been a mistake—a tragic mistake—to come here in the first place.
But there’d be plenty of time to think about her mistakes, once she’d left Grantham Lodge far behind.
There’d be plenty of time to fall apart, then.
A lifetime.
* * *
Max’s dance with Lady Emily dragged on for an eternity. Once he was free, he immediately went in search of Rose, but she was nowhere to be found. He paced from one end of the ballroom to the other, searching for golden hair or a green silk gown, but she seemed to have disappeared after her dance with Dunwitty.
He was waiting near the entrance when the next dance ended. Francesca, pink cheeked and smiling after a vigorous country dance with her husband, joined him there, while Basingstoke hurried off to fetch her a glass of lemonade. “You’re scowling again, Grantham, but I suppose I would be, too, after a dance with such a sour-faced Lady Emily.”
“I can’t find Miss St. Claire.”
“The last I saw of her, she was dancing with Lord Dunwitty, but that was quite some time ago.” She frowned. “Now I think of it, I haven’t seen him recently, either.”
Damn it. How had he not noticed Dunwitty was missing, as well? “I need to find her.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll see if she’s in the ladies’ retiring room, shall I? You might check her bedchamber, Grantham. Perhaps she became fatigued and went to bed.”
“Perhaps.” But he didn’t think so. She hadn’t appeared at all fatigued when they’d danced together. She’d spun in his arms as if she could have remained there all night, gazing up at him with sparkling green eyes.
He strode from the ballroom toward the staircase, a vague sense of foreboding niggling at him. He might not care much for Dunwitty, but the man was a gentleman. He’d never take liberties with Rose, or hurt her in any way, unless . . .
He stopped, one foot on the bottom stair.
No, surely not. Dunwitty despised him heartily enough, but he wouldn’t blurt out the private details of their arrangement to Rose before Max had a chance to speak to her himself.
Would he?
He darted up the stairs, but when he reached the landing, he hesitated. Rose’s bedchamber was down the corridor, but he hadn’t gone more than two steps up when a strange flash of intuition made him turn around, and . . .
No. No, no, no.
There, two floors below was Rose. She was hurrying through the entryway, her cloak thrown hastily over her shoulders, and Abby Hinde was with her, standing at the open door with a valise in her hand.
“Rose!”
She froze, then slowly she turned, and the look on her face . . . dear God, he’d never forget it. She was as pale as the snowflakes drifting through the open door, as pale as the marble floor they landed on, and as cold as the drops of melted snow they left behind.
His Rose, with her smiling lips, looked at him with eyes as frigid as two green chips of ice. In an instant, he was at the bottom of the stairs, his hands wrapped around her shoulders. “Rose, please wait. Come and talk to me, give me a chance to explain.”
“Explain what, Your Grace?”
Your Grace. Not Max any longer, but Your Grace.
“I know Dunwitty told you, Rose.” She was no dissembler. He could see the truth on her face as surely as if she’d spoken it aloud.
And there, in the green eyes he’d grown to love, was an ocean of hurt.
God, he had to make her understand—
“There’s nothing to explain, Your Grace. Lord Dunwitty made it all perfectly clear. The house party, the ball, the sleigh ride . . .” She waved a hand around as if encompassing all of Grantham Lodge. “It was all an elaborate ruse to take Hammond Court from me.”
Beside her, Abby gasped. “What?Rose, what are you saying?”
