To this day, Rosemary suspected that her grandmotherhadknown about Mr. Trinkets…but had decided, for reasons unknown, to look the other way whenever she heard scurrying and loud chirping.
It went without saying that Lady Ellinwood was a complicated woman, her iron demeanor forged by the loss of her husband, son, and daughter-in-law. If she was too strict on occasion, too overbearing, Rosemary understood it was only because she was being protective. And if she’d never made any attempt to coddle her granddaughter, or hug her goodnight, or read her stories or kiss her bruised knees, what was that but another type of protection? A preparation, rather, for the cold, unforgiving world that Rosemary would be forced to face as she grew older. A world that embraced those who swam with the current, but didn’t quite know what to do with the odd ducks who paddled against it.
That night, after tucking Sir Reginald into his box stuffed with bits of cotton and leaves and his favorite toy, a miniature bear that Rosemary had lovingly stitched herself, she combed out her hair and reflected on her conversation with Evie. A conversation that had unearthed a few complications of her own. The largest of which being the envy she’d felt…and the tender nerve that had been exposed when she realized that despite having found her sisters, there was a piece of her that was still on the outside looking in.
She was honored to be Evie’s bridesmaid. Elated to be able to participate in what was sure to be a beautiful day filled with many blessings. But she also couldn’t help but think…why not me? Why am I unlovable? Why am I forever the one left out and left for last?
Courtship, love, marriage–or the notable lack thereof–had never bothered her before. A wise choice, as it turned out, for now it wasallthat her mind wanted to dwell on. But self-pity was not a quality that Rosemary permitted herself to have, and with a brisk yank of the brush through her curls that would have undoubtedly made Evie cringe, she cast such thoughts aside and climbed into bed.
After a long, emotionally draining day, sleep was anything but elusive. As her eyelids grew heavy and her breathing evened, she tumbled straight into slumber. Dreaming, as she had every night since coming to London, of a duke with haunted gray eyes and the devil’s own smile…
London was exactlyas Sterling remembered it. A loud, cluttered juxtaposition of new money and old, purity and sin, decorum and decadence. Over by Fleet Ditch, the poor worked themselves to death in factories that spewed black coal dust into the air while in Grosvenor Square the wealthy sipped champagne out of crystal flutes and congratulated themselves on their success despite having done nothing to earn it. In a ballroom filled with debutantes and their eager mothers, a flashed ankle might mean social ruin, while in the infamous pleasure gardens orgies took place under a full moon.
Before Sebastian died, Sterling had navigated the narrow path between sainthood and sinner with expert skill. He’d cultivated a reputation as a perfect gentleman in public while allowing his wilder appetites to be sated in private. The expectations were never as high for a second born son, but he’d met them nevertheless, as much to avoid disappointing his big brother as to maintain his good name. Then the duel happened and, in his grief, he didn’t just fall off the bloody wagon.
He plunged.
Headfirst.
Into waters dark and deep.
There was a part of him–a terrifyingly large part–that wouldn’t mind drowning in that water. That would be perfectly fine with closing his eyes and holding his breath and sinking all the way to the bottom never to rise above the surface again.
Hell, he was already halfway there. Slowly but surely, he’d been slipping a few inches further every day since Sebastian left him. Smiling above the waves even as his legs failed to tread water underneath. Another few weeks, a month, maybe half a year, and he’d be too far gone to ever claw his way back up to the light.
The only time he’d felt like hewasn’ton the verge of succumbing to the inky depths of oblivion was when he had been at Hawkridge Manor.
With Rosemary.
Fucking, gambling, drinking…he’d turned to every vice he could think of in the hopes of either yanking himself out of the water or putting himself out of his misery once and for all. Anything but this constant, unabating state ofnothingness.
Nothing but the weight of his guilt crushing down on him and the gnawing sounds that the demons made as they picked at his bones.
And then…then there was Rosemary.
His proverbial light in the darkness. His squirrel-loving wallflower who drank gin and drove carriages and boldly asked for kisses in the library. Who had been on the brink of telling him that she loved him before he’d had the good sense to stop her.
The only noble thing he had done these six years past.
Since she left, he’d told himself–commandedhimself–to stop thinking about her.
To stop walking into rooms in search of the faintest remaining hint of citrus.
To forget the sweet, heavenly taste of her lips.
To forget he had evermether.
Which was exactly why he’d come to London. Not because he knew that she was here as well. That was so absurd that it didn’t even deserve comment. No, their being in the same place at the same time was a complete coincidence.Hehad come on the advice of his sister. Whom he hadn’t listened to in over half a decade, but in this instance she was right. If he had any prayer of staying out of Newgate, he had to rehabilitate his image. Beginning with a successful Season.
Balls, dinner parties, attending theater shows where women were fully clothed…everything he detested but needed to do if he wanted to show what a shining pillar of Society he was. A shining pillar that was responsible for the death of his brother, but couldn’t possibly have murdered his mistress. Whatever bloody sense that made. But Sarah seemed to think it would work, and who was he to disagree with his beloved little sister?
So he was here.
In London.
The world’s largest city where the odds of bumping intooneperson out of a million were…one in a million.
Which was why, if sometime during his ridiculous redemption tour, his path justhappenedto cross with Rosemary’s, it could hardly be consideredhisfault now could it?
