“When you’ve come out here during a ball... who usually accompanies you?” he asked, trying not to sound jealous.
Rose turned and regarded him with an expression of bemusement. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy?” she teased.
David’s gaze darted to a nearby tree and then to a daffodil. “If you do?” He clasped his hands together and rested his elbows on his knees.
Giving a start, Rose angled her body to better face him. “I would be surprised since I have known you almost my entire life, and you’ve never seemed the jealous type before.” She paused a moment before asking, “Did something happen while you were in Turkey?”
He straightened. “Did it? I mean... did someone court you? Make you an offer?”
Inhaling softly, Rose was torn between showing annoyance at hearing his query or removing herself to the ballroom. “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, I was courted by someone.” She almost enjoyed seeing the future viscount’s reaction. “He was a fortune hunter, though, and I declined his offer.”
“A duke’s son?” he asked. “A prince or—”
“He was the third son of the an earl, if you really must know. He’s left for the Continent, apparently chased out by all his vowels.” She said this last with a good deal of derision, and for a moment, David was glad he hadn’t accepted any of the offers he’d had to join some other gentlemen in the card room that was due to open at any moment.
Then he remembered what happened to young ladies who were courted by older men, sometimes before they were betrothed. “Did he take your virtue?”
“David Bennett-Jones!” she scolded. “I am a duke’s daughter. My father would have shot him if he’d tried anything like that.”
Looking suitably chagrined, David dipped his head. “I am sorry that happened to you,” he said. “I mean... the courting. By a fortune hunter.”
“Why areyousorry?” she challenged, unable to suppress the subsequenthuffshe’d struggled so hard to hide all night whenever her dance partners had attempted inane conversations.
He inhaled and let the breath out in awhoosh, his frustration evident. “You deserve better, my lady. You deserve the best,” he amended.
Rose inhaled softly at hearing his words. “It’s kind of you to say so.”
“Which is why I never asked if I might court you,” he said, ignoring her comment.
Holding her breath at hearing his confession, Rose stared at him in shock. “You are better, David. Better than most of those reprobates in that ballroom. At least... you were before you left on your Grand Tour,” she added in a quieter voice.
Although he was heartened to hear her assessment of him, David shook his head. “I am a viscount’s son. I am never going to be more than a viscount.”
Rose’s gaze darted to the same daffodil that he had been staring at earlier. “You say that as if it’s a poor circumstance.”
“Isn’t it?”
Unable to discern his meaning, she glanced over at him, studying his profile by the dim light of a nearby lantern. Understanding suddenly dawned on her.
She was a duke’s daughter. He would never be more than a viscount.
“There are far worse situations in which to find yourself, David,” she argued. “You could be a pauper. Or a tailor. Or one of the Fitzwilliam twins,” she said in a quiet voice.
David gave a start. “What’s wrong with the Fitzwilliam twins?” he asked in alarm.
She scoffed. “Nothing, really. But I still can’t tell them apart. I cannot even imagine being courted by one of them. I’d never be sure which one was taking me riding and which one was meeting me in a rose garden for a tryst.”
Despite her serious expression, David couldn’t suppress the chuckle that erupted a moment later. “So you learned what happened with their mother, I take it?” he commented, remembering a story his mother had told him about the boys’ father and his twin brother.
“I beg your pardon?” Rose asked, her eyes rounding.
David’s grin slowly faded. “Lady Norwick... the original Fitzwilliam twins? The younger twin apparently courted her but she ended up married to the older twin. She couldn’t tell them apart,” he explained with a shrug.
“How awful!” Rose replied, her eyes rounded in shock.
“Oh, it turned out all right in the end,” David assured her. “She ended up married to the right one when the wrong one died in some sort of traffic accident. The current Earl of Norwick is the one who fathered Duncan and David, and it’s Duncan who will inherit.”
Rose stared at David for a long moment before she said, “In the end, a man’s title doesn’t really matter.”
