“Why not?” Sterling asked.
“Because…because it’s Rosy Poly. She can’t marry aduke.” Navessa looked to her loyal subjects for confirmation and, in unison, all three nodded. “There. Do you see?”
“The only thing I see is a woman consumed by jealousy. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it’s not a good look on you.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Your skin. It’s gone all pasty.”
Navessa gasped and clapped both hands to her cheeks. “No it hasn’t.”
“Yes,” he said gravely. “I am afraid it has.”
“But Rosy Poly–”
“For all future encounters, you will refer to my betrothed as Miss Stanhope.” Hard steel replaced the humor in Sterling’s voice. In the dim lighting, Rosemary could have sworn his eyes burned black. The hand at her side tightened, the muscles in his arm flexing. “After we are married, she is to be Her Grace, The Duchess of Hanover.” He paused, then smiled coldly. “Let me hear you say it.”
“I…I…” Once again, Navessa looked at her friends, but this time they averted their gazes.
“Well?” Sterling asked. “You see, it’s easy to pick on someone you perceive as weaker than yourself. To call them names and belittle them. To make yourself feel better when you make them feel small. But the truth is, people of your ilk are always the small ones. That’s why you’re so bloody desperate to hide it.”
Navessa’s mouth trembled. “Her Grace,” she whispered. “The Duchess of Hanover.”
“That wasn’t nice,” Rosemary chided gently after Navessa had turned on her heel and fled back up the hill towards the tents with her handmaidens hurrying to keep pace.
Unwinding his arm from her waist, Sterling backed up until he was leaning against the tree with the heel of his boot casually resting on the trunk. Leafy shadows obscured the upper half of his countenance. His eyes were gray again. His mouth curved in a familiar roguish grin. “What about me remotely suggests that I am a nice person?”
Oh, I don’t know,she thought silently.Perhaps the fact that you climbed a tree to rescue a squirrel that you profess not to like and then proposed to a woman you claim not to care about.
Could he truly not see the light inside of him that she did? He was like a rock with slivers of gold peeking out through the cracks and crevices. Rough and hard on the outside, but so bright and shining within. The only thing to do, she supposed, was to keep chipping away. One piece of stone at a time. An arduous endeavor, no doubt. But what else was she to do? They were to be married. And if there was a single thing she’d ever wished for in a husband, it was to be loved and to love in return.
“What are we to do now?” she asked, almost shyly. How was it that before their hasty engagement she’d felt perfectly at ease with him alone in the dark, but now that they were permitted to be together (although thetonwould have still liked a chaperone present) she had goose pimples on her arms?
“We go spread the news far and wide, of course.” He tilted his head at her; flashed that infamous Duke of Hanover smile that showed all his teeth but fell just short of his eyes. “You’re about to become a very popular woman, Reagan.”
“Popular enough for my husband-to-be to remember my name?”
“I am not sure if I’d gothatfar.” He extended his arm, but after a brief hesitation she gave a tiny shake of her head and linked her hands behind her back instead.
“I should find my grandmother and escort her home. Before word gets out, I’d like to tell her privately, if that’s all right with you. She…she should hear it from me.” Rosemary wasn’t sure how Lady Ellinwood was going to take the news. Hopefully her excitement at such an excellent match would overshadow any questions on the circumstancesleadingto such an excellent match.
“Are you sure?” Sterling asked.
No.
No, she wasn’t sure about anything.
“Yes.” Although her mouth felt inexplicably tight, like it had after Evie talked her into trying a witch hazel-based astringent designed to lessen the appearance of her pores (whatever that meant), she managed a smile. “Perhaps you can call upon me tomorrow and we can begin to discuss our future?”
“I generally don’t rise before eleven unless it is a dire emergency.”
“Then I shall expect you sometime in the afternoon.”
They stared awkwardly at each other.
“I’ll just go this way–” Rosemary started.
“I should probably head up to the–” Sterling began.
They both stopped.
Exchanged the quick, fleeting smiles of strangers passing each other on the street.
