Marlow woke early, telling her he was off to inspect the house and make arrangements for improvements now that it was no longer a bachelor haunt. She searched his eyes for regret but found none.
“Will you miss being a bachelor?” she asked him teasingly.
“With you in my bed, no,” he teased back. “Since marrying you, I’ve come to understand bachelorhood is overrated.”
By the time Rosalind rose from bed there were fresh flowers in every room, and two stylish young maids to dress her and accompany her wherever she wished to go. After breakfast, she put on a riding frock and visited the stables, where her beloved cream-colored mare Goldilocks was settling into her new home alongside Zelda and Sheba, her show horses.
“Dear Goldie,” she crooned as the horse nudged her. “I’m sorry I was gone so long. I missed you too.”
“Not as much as I missed you!” came an indignant voice from the door. Elizabeth waited there atop her mount, her ebony hair drawn up beneath a smart blue hat that matched her riding outfit.
“Elizabeth!”
A groom helped her friend down so the two women could embrace. Her closest childhood companion seemed the same, for all Rosalind’s life had been turned upside down. It was a comfort to hug her, though Elizabeth frowned when they drew apart.
“I knew you’d go riding as soon as you were up,” she said. “And so I’ve come to ride with you, but first I must get something out of the way. It was very hurtful to me, Ros, that you ran away without so much as a goodbye. Everyone came to me, thinking I would know what you’d planned, but I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me.” Her unique green eyes narrowed and watered slightly. “I wish you had confided in me.”
“Oh, Elizabeth. I didn’t want you to have to keep my secret.”
“You mean, you thought I would tell.”
Rosalind took her hand. “Perhaps you would have to save me from being foolish. I’m sorry I left without warning you first. I always meant to come back.”
“We heard you had died before we learned you were still alive. I couldn’t believe it was true, but they said you’d died at sea. I mourned you. It felt like I was dying myself, the way my heart ached in my chest.”
“I’m sorry,” Rosalind said, embracing her friend again. She had nothing else to say, no excuses.
“Well, I suppose it’s all come right now.” Elizabeth became friendly and brisk again, stroking her Welsh mare’s dappled coat. “Let’s go to the park and let everyone have a look at you while you tell me everything. And I do mean everything.”
Rosalind related her long odyssey as they kept to quieter byways in Hyde Park. Again, she left out parts of the story to spare Elizabeth’s sensibilities. It all seemed a dream now that she was home in England, living at Marlow’s town house as his wife. Every so often, she’d receive a speculative sideways glance from a carriage of ladies or a passing gentleman, which reminded her it had not been a dream.
“Look. There is Lord Brittingham,” said Elizabeth, pointing with her small crop. “He’s trying to pretend he doesn’t see you.”
Rosalind regarded him from beneath her riding hat’s brim, noting the stiff set of his shoulders. Though he was as large and fit as Marlow, with exceptionally pleasant features, she would never find him as handsome as Marlow. “I don’t regret missing out on him. Let some of the other ladies vie for his attentions.”
“He is the great catch of the season, but no one’s caught him. I think he was taken aback by your flight to India. Mother asked if I would like to be courted by him, if they should invite him to dinner, but I said no.”
“Is your heart elsewhere?” Rosalind asked.
“No. There’s just something about him I don’t like. He is too…perfect. Worse, he knows it. Yes, that’s what puts me off him. He believes he is owed things, in my opinion. I don’t want a husband like that.”
“What sort of husband do you want?” Now that Rosalind was happily wed, she wanted to find an equally suitable match for her best friend. “Has anyone caught your attention?”
“Not really. Not yet. No.”
“You must look about at the Warrens’ ball, then. There’s no hurry, of course. Next season shall be your season, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps.” She bit her lip, scanning the park with all its glittering, socializing denizens. “I wish to go by my heart, as you did. I hope I’ll be drawn to the right person, you know? I hope that someone will just…appear.”
“I see. You are hoping the fates will engineer an encounter, as the poetry books say.”
Elizabeth laughed and blushed at the same time. “It’s hard to say when it shall happen for me, or how. I wish to be as content as you are, Ros. You are glowing. If any of these gossips wish to talk about you, they must also talk about how blissful you seem.”
“He makes me blissful,” she said, smiling back at her dark-haired friend.
“He seems a very good man. The matrons of society whispered about his unsuitability, that he’d never wish to settle down, and here you’ve tamed him in one season.”
Rosalind looked back to Brittingham to find him frowning at her. “Let’s go in another direction, shall we?”