“During your outing with the Duke of Hanover, I presume.”
Her mouth opened. “How…how did you know about that?”
“Just because I am confined to this room doesn’t mean I am not aware of what my granddaughter is doing or who she is cavorting with,” Lady Ellinwood said haughtily.
“We–we weren’tcavorting. He asked me to drive him into the village to pick up some…some medicine, and I could hardly refuse.” Rosemary took a deep breath. Standing up to her grandmother was no small task, but if it made a difference in her health, then she had to do it. “Speaking of being confined to the room, Dr. Shaw said something that I found quite interesting–”
“You went without a proper chaperone.”
“What?”
“Into the village. You went into the village with the duke without a proper chaperone.” Lady Ellinwood lowered her spectacles to the edge of her nose and stared at Rosemary over them without blinking. “You were alone together in the carriage to and from. Did anything untoward happen?”
“Untoward?” Rosemary shook her head. “I don’t–”
“Did he say or do anything inappropriate?” Reaching across the mattress, her grandmother grasped her wrist, her fingers cold and surprisingly strong given her supposed infirmity. “You can tell me, Rosemary. If the duke has done something, if he has compromised your reputation somehow, then wemustinsist that he make amends.”
“Grandmother.” As she snatched her hand away, everything became clear. And while she was disappointed in her grandmother for putting on such a farce–for that was precisely what it was, what all this was–she was more disappointed in herself for not seeing it earlier.
Rosemary was aware that people considered her to be naïve. The odd little wallflower, sitting in her corner with her books. Occasionally they stared, and whispered, and giggled, but they never bothered her because she wasn’t a threat to them. And it did not cause her distress, because she knew herself. She knew that yes, all right, maybe shewasodd. At least by the standards of theton. But she was also intelligent, and observant, and while she was admittedly ignorant about some things–such as passion–she wasn’t nearly as unsophisticated and guileless as everyone thought.
Except in this…in this shehadbeen naïve.
Naïve to the lengths Lady Ellinwood would go to secure a husband for her granddaughter. A husband so far beyond Rosemary’s reach that the very idea the Duke of Hanover would ever be interested in her enoughtocompromise her reputation was laughable.
Allowing herself to be fooled by her grandmother’s scheme, however, was not.
“Is that why we’re still here, then?” she asked. “Is that why you’ve been pretending to be ill? Because you wanted to make a match with the Duke of Hanover?”
“Don’t you dare take that tone with me, Child. I was ill. Iamill. It is called being old and it is very inconvenient.”
Lady Ellinwood was a difficult woman. A hard woman. A resentful woman. A woman who didn’t possess an affectionate bone in her body and had the unfortunate habit of moving people around to suit her purposes as she would pieces on a chess board. But Rosemary loved her just the same, for deep down–verydeep down–she knew that her love was reciprocated. Even if it was an emotion her grandmother was incapable of displaying.
“I was worried for you!” Kneeling beside the bed, she rested her chin on her folded arms and gazed imploringly at the woman who had raised her like a daughter and had never, not once, made her feel as if she were a burden. “Please don’t do that again. If you’d told me the truth, I’d have been able to tell you that the duke has no interest in me whatsoever. This was a ploy destined to fail from the start.”
“Not even ahintof unseemly behavior?” her grandmother sighed.
She thought of the kiss.
The kiss that Sterling was pretending had never happened.
“No. Not even a hint. Can we return to London now?”
“You need to marrysomeone, Rosemary.” Lady Ellinwood’s lips compressed to form a long, thin line of disapproval. “I am not going to be around forever, and when I am gone, the money will soon follow. You need to be prepared. I would not like all of my hard work to be squandered away should you end up as a governess or a school teacher.”
“Wouldn’t it be amusing ifmenhad to marrywomenin order to secure their future?” Rosemary grinned. “What a different place the world would be if we were allowed to be in charge of our own destinies. To inherit estates and have grand political aspirations and dowries that were given to us instead of us giving them away.”
Lady Ellinwood sighed. “You are, and always have been, a strange child. I fear it is to your detriment, as no husband wants a wife with such peculiar ideas.”
And no duke would ever want to marry a wallflower,she added silently.
It was true.
Never, in a thousand years, would Sterling ever consider marrying someone likeher. Someone whose own grandmother considered her to be strange. Such a fact was no great revelation. But whatdidcause her some surprise was the tiny quiver of disappointment she felt at the knowledge that her grandmother’s plan (feign prolonged gout so that her granddaughter was stuck under the same roof as a duke), while well-intentioned, had failed.
Miserably.
“But alas,” Lady Ellinwood went on, “I’m sure we can findsomeonethis Season that is willing to overlook all of your eccentric qualities.”
