Chapter Eighteen
The Ball, Again
One Year Later
“There, sweet Sylvie,” said Rosalind, handing her drowsy babe into her nurse’s arms. “I do hope she’ll behave for you,” she added, smiling at the older woman.
“I’m sure she’ll be an angel as always, my lady.”
You are the angel, thought Rosalind. The nurse, engaged by her mother through recommendation, had been a godsend in the dark days after Sylvie’s birth, when Rosalind had felt the loss of her husband so strongly she could barely go on. The woman had forced her to hold her daughter, to smile at her daughter, to rise from bed “for the babe’s sake.”
Now, three months later, Rosalind was going through the motions of life for her precious daughter, but it wasn’t easier. Her well-meaning friends and family told her it would get easier, but she had yet to face a day when she didn’t remember her husband’s smile, his laughter, the way he could look deep into her soul while still flirting in the most shameless way.
“Well.” Rosalind picked up her fan and a shawl from the chair where she’d fed her infant. “I suppose I’ll go down among the other guests.”
“Have a wonderful night, ma’am. Don’t worry about the baby, we’ll be just fine.”
There were many children in the Warrens’ nursery that night, among them her nephew Charles, Townsend and Jane’s firstborn, and the Wescotts’ daughter Genevieve, whom they called a cousin though they weren’t blood related. It heartened Rosalind to know Sylvie would have so many close friends to grow up with, since a brother or sister did not seem in the cards.
She descended from the nursery to the main floor, where the ballroom was already filling with brightly attired and bejeweled guests. She felt a moment of panic and ducked into a nearby parlor to collect herself. Did she have the strength to show her face again in public? Did she have the will?
“Darling, there you are.” Her mother corralled her before she could change her mind and retreat back upstairs. “You must come see the ballroom. The decorations are lovely and the musicians are so talented.”
“I don’t know if I will dance.”
“But you must dance. Lord August has promised to take you out for the first one. I spoke to him myself. And Brittingham is here,” her mother said with a bit less warmth. “He asked after you as soon as he arrived. I believe he still wishes to marry you, Rosalind.”
“Wish as he may, it won’t happen,” said Rosalind coldly.
Brittingham had made a fool of himself trying to court her after Marlow ran away to India. He’d been brash and bristling, insisting he would go to the Far East himself, find Marlow and give him a drubbing. Then he must have learned she was carrying Marlow’s child, for he’d suddenly backed off. But now he was angling about her again, as if she would ever love anyone after Marlow.
She’d allowed herself to hope her husband might return to her, that he’d change his mind at some point along his journey. His parents had written to acquaintances in India, in case they should encounter him, but he had not turned up in any English circles. It was as if he didn’t wish to be found.
She’d told herself she’d forgive him if he changed his mind and came back to her. But as the months dragged on, she allowed the truth to permeate her soul a little at a time, for the pain was so great it could only be survived in gradual increments. He was not coming back. Her parents had spoken to her recently about applying for an annulment now that a year had passed since her abandonment. Brittingham had probably suggested it.
But her heart was dead now. Empty. No room for Brittingham or any other gentleman angling to marry a duke’s daughter who’d been legally abandoned. There was only room for Sylvie in there now.
“I’m glad you decided to attend,” said her mother, drawing her from her grim thoughts. “It means a lot to the Warrens.” She took her hand. “More than that, it’s healing for you to be out and about among those who love you.”
Except that this ball was hosted by the parents of the husband who’d deserted her. Her in-laws, who could barely meet her eyes after what he’d done to her and Sylvie.
“I fear there will be gossip,” said Rosalind, twisting her fan in a nervous grip.
“I don’t think so.”
In fact, there’d been little scandal in the wake of Marlow’s leaving. His abandonment had been too heartless to talk about with any glee, and then when society learned he’d left her with child? Any gossip was whispered behind fans, without malice toward anyone but Marlow.
“We won’t bother with him any longer,” her father had said, when his investigators failed to turn up his whereabouts. He might as well have said, “He is dead to us.”
The loss of Marlow hurt the most, of course. The shock. The idea that he had hidden his true self, his true feelings from her so well. But it also hurt to be proven so wrong. Her parents had warned her not to marry him. She hadn’t listened. She’d been so innocent and immature.
Rosalind forced those thoughts away and tried to focus instead on the dancing and decorations. They were not so ostentatious as at the ball last year. Marlow’s leaving had hurt the Warrens, too. He’d been their firstborn son, their heir. His only brother, Dennis, was steeped in academia and science, and wished to become a physician, not heir to the Warren earldom. Marlow had hurt so many people by leaving.
Oh, she must not think of him tonight if she meant to hold her head high. She wore a stately purple frock though her mother said it made her look too old. Rosalind felt old. She would wear purple for wisdom, purple for bravery. She’d lost and learned, and in her darkest hour, decided to carry on for her daughter’s sake. Someday Sylvie would make her debut and her grandparents’ social standing would be enough to win her a good husband, a steady, honorable husband more dependable than her father. A husband that would not run away. That was Rosalind’s task now, all she had to live for.
And if her blonde, blue-eyed babe seemed a wispy-haired miniature of her father, well, she must cope. It was as if he’d meant to leave a copy of himself behind to comfort her in her grief. Not that he’d known. He wouldn’t have left if he’d known she was carrying his child; she had to believe that or lose her sanity.
“Lady Marlow, you look stunning tonight.”