“All right. I’ll be careful. Vigilant, even.” He smiled thinly. “Every night, I shall have my valet check under the bed, and I’ll hold hands with the doorman when I leave the pub. Why are you looking at each other like that?” he said when Weston and Kincaid exchanged another meaningful glance. “Stop it. Nothing good ever comes after. Not for me, at any rate.”
After ingesting another grape, Weston approached him with all the stealth of a lion closing in on its prey while Kincaid kept his vantage point from the high ground. Otherwise known as the sideboard. “There are a few rules we need to set out in regards to Miss Stanhope…”
Chapter Eleven
Lady Ellinwood receivedthe news of her granddaughter’s engagement with far less enthusiasm than Rosemary had been expecting.
It wasn’t that she’d wanted her grandmother to jump and shout for joy. She did not desire a broken hip on her conscience. But shedidfeel that a little bit more than “that’s nice, please pass the blanket, the carriage is chilly” was warranted. After all, it wasn’t as if she had announced she was marrying a baker or a doctor or–even worse, at least in her grandmother’s eyes–an entrepreneur.
Sterling was a duke.
And even though Rosemary genuinely wouldn’t have cared if hewasa baker or a doctor or a candlestick maker, the small child still living deep inside her had wanted to see a flash of approval in Lady Ellinwood’s sharp blue eyes. Maybe (as farfetched as it seemed) even a congratulatory embrace.
She should have known better.
When they arrived back at the house, her grandmother promptly excused herself and went straight to bed, leaving Rosemary feeling oddly deflated. What was the point of having something exciting happen to her if she had no one to share the excitement with?
That night was one of the rare times she wished with all of her might that her mother were still alive. That she had a comforting lap she could rest her head upon as she shared all of her hopes and doubts and dreams. That she had someone to stroke her head, and gently kiss her temple, and whisper to her just before she drifted off to sleep that it was all going to work out.
Instead, all she had was Sir Reginald. Who was surely better than no one, but a squirrel wasn’t a mother or a father or even an aloof grandmother, for that matter. Which was why she was so elated the next day when Joanna and Evie came to call.
As luck would have it, Lady Ellinwood had stepped out earlier in the morning for tea with her embroidery circle, allowing Rosemary to receive her cousins in the parlor without any undue strife (so long as they left right before luncheon).
“Would you care for anything to drink?” she asked brightly. “There’s both cold tea and lemonade. Or hot tea and coffee, if you’d prefer. At the beginning of next month, our cook will begin boiling and mashing apples for cider. It’s an old family recipe that I’ll have to share with you. The trick is to add the nutmeg–”
“Before you strain the apples so that it soaks straight through the skins into the fruit,” Joanna finished with a smile. “We’ve always made our cider the same way.”
It was such a small connection. Inconsequential, really. But Rosemary’s heart swelled nevertheless because it was yet another thread connecting her to a family she hadn’t even known existed four months ago. And family meant everything, especially to someone who hadn’t gotten to experience the full breadth of what it was to belong to something larger than yourself.
“I didn’t give much consideration to who handed it down over the years,” she said, “but the recipe must have come from our Great-grandmother, Lady Beatrice Ellinwood.”
“Do you have a picture of her, by chance?” Evie asked as she sank gracefully onto a divan upholstered in pink and mauve striped silk. The rest of the parlor–the entire house, really–was similarly designed in soft pastels that ranged from a sandy blush Aubusson carpet in the formal dining room to salmon curtains in the parlor.
Only Rosemary’s bedchamber was a different color palette. She’d chosen the bright yellow walls (achieved by mixing turmeric with linseed oil to bind in the pigment) and Prussian blue ceiling as a means to distinguish her room from what was unmistakably her grandmother’s domain. Until recently, it had stood as her singular small act of defiance. Aside from the litany of furry creatures she’d nursed back to health in secret, of course.
“I do not, unfortunately.” Her eyes widened. “But my grandmother might! I’ll be right back.”
Off Rosemary dashed, up the stairs and down the hall until she reached Lady Ellinwood’s private suite of rooms at the far eastern corner of the house. Even though she knew her grandmother was out, habit compelled her to knock.
A young, freckle-faced servant with carrot orange hair stuffed under a white cap immediately opened the door. Behind her was a pile of linens and two other maids, their faces red and sweating as they struggled to flip Lady Ellinwood’s heavy mattress stuffed with horse hair and wool. It was a difficult task that needed to be done once per month lest the mattress begin to sag on one side or the other.
“Do you need help?” Rosemary asked automatically. “I can hold that end–”
Greta, the red-haired servant, shook her head. “It’s no trouble, Miss. We’re nearly finished. Are you looking for Lady Ellinwood? Because she left about an hour ago.”
“To have tea with the embroidery ladies. Yes, I know. But I’m not searching for her. I’m looking for a picture.” It struck Rosemary as she stepped past Greta and went to a mahogany escritoire on the far side of the room that she’d only entered her grandmother’s private chambers on a handful of occasions, and then only when specifically summoned to do so. Nightmares, thunderstorms, and the like were a reason to call for her governesses–notto come running in here and disturb Lady Ellinwood’s precious sleep.
In the scary dark, she’d never had someone who loved her unconditionally to go running to. Never had the bed of her parents to climb into when thunder boomed and lightning flashed. Never had a mother guide her trembling hands while she drank a warm cup of milk, or a father to carry her back to her room and tuck her in before he gave the monster lurking under her bed a stern talking to.
That wasn’t to say her governesses had not taken splendid care of her. Because Mrs. Armstrong had been wonderful, and Rosemary was in contact with her still. But a paid position did not invoke the same feelings of comfort and security that a loving family member did. As a result, she’d grown up believing she didn’t need that sort of comfort.
Why waste time and energy missing what you’d never had?
But shedidneed it.
More importantly, she wanted it.
And perhaps that was the real reason she’d found herself inexplicably drawn to a most unsuitable scoundrel. Not because he needed her. But becausesheneededhim.Perhaps Sterling wasn’t the only wounded creature seeking a safe, warm nest. Seeking a sense of family. A sense of home. A sense of belonging.
