“So, you intend to go ahead with facilitating this debacle,” she said. “And there is nothing I can say to stop you.”
“There is always something you can say,” he said.
Rose stood there, trying to think of something, anything she could say to persuade him not to help Ernest in planning their wedding. The only way she could see Will stopping this was if he asked her to marry him and promised a real marriage. It was clear he had no intention of doing so. She had no choice but to marry Ernest in order to secure her future. She felt all of her fight drain from her. She was not going to beg him. She had already rejected one pitifulproposal.
While she had been standing there, lost in her thoughts, Will had tightened the sheet around him and was now walking determinedly towards her. She put out a hand.
“No, Will!”
He stopped.
“You have made yourself quite clear. I think we both know what we have to do now.” She said, resolved.
“Why don’t you come over and sit down for a moment.”
“I need to go back to my bedchamber.”
“You can sleep here with me.”
She stared at him. Was he being serious? On the day before he was handing her over to Ernest, he wanted to take her into his bed. It beggared belief. She summoned all the strength she had in her to reply.
“I think the time has come to end these clandestine encounters, don’t you?”
He stared at her with that strange, unfathomable look in his eyes again.
“I suppose so,” he said, but did not sound in any way distraught.
She stared back at him as her heart crashed to her feet, and she wondered how she was going to live without him—without all of him. She gulped down the start of more tears as everything closed in front of her, as effectively as an iron door between them.
“Then I shall take my leave.” Somehow, she managed to assume a business-like tone, trying desperately not to look at the place where his skin met the twisted crisp white sheet.
“I doubt I shall journey to London again, so our paths will rarely cross, but I wish you much success with your business, or rather your and Ernest’s business, and I hope you get everything your heart desires.”
“I have no doubt I will,” he said, stunning her with his cruelty. Something had happened in London, she realized because it was not the same Will who had returned. Maybe he had met someone else after disposing of Lady Camilla.
She watched him walk over to the candle, blow it out, and heard him climb into bed.
She was now standing on the wrong side of the bed from the door, in the pitch dark, and she had to wait for her eyes to grow accustomed to it before she could make her escape. In those few seconds of inactivity, she wanted to rail at him. She wanted to go over to where he was lying, and rain blows down on his head. She wanted to scream that she was sorry for everything, but now it was him destroying what they had and not her. But she didn’t do any of it.
“Are you going?” He said from the bed, and spurred, she walked purposefully to the door of his bedchamber and pulled it open. As she stepped through, and just before she pulled it shut, she heard him say, “Goodnight, Rose.”
Anna woke her just five hours later, coming in to open the curtains.
“Don’t open them,” Rose said from deep beneath the bedcovers. “I have only just fallen asleep.”
“Sorry, Your Grace, I will come back,” she promised.
She did not return until ten o’clock, but this time, as she walked into the room, she was followed by two housemaids struggling to carry a large number of bags and boxes.
“What are they?” Rose demanded to know.
“We don’t know. They were delivered to the castle this morning. For you.”
Rose’s heart sank to her boots. So he had not ridden away.
“Shall we open them together,” Anna asked excitedly, shooing the two housemaids away.
“Nothing in there is a good thing,” Rose said from her bed. Anna looked at her quizzically. “The Duke has decided we will be married tomorrow, and Mr. Browning offered to arrange it.”