She turned to him then.
“No, Will. I am going to marry Ernest, and you must go on with your life and find someone who can make you happy, who won’t betray you.” Rose was biting back her tears as she spoke.
“Can you really go ahead with this?” he asked softly.
She looked at him sadly.
“Will, I already did.”
He stared at her for what felt like minutes, as she had the distinct impression her whole life was draining away from her—any chance of happiness, excitement, or purpose.
“I truly don’t know who you are,” Will finally snarled. He stalked towards the door, picking up his jacket as he rounded the end of the bed.
“I didn’t invite you to my bedchamber,” she threw after him. He stopped and turned.
“Well, Your Grace, you didn’t put up much of a fight.”
He turned and stormed to the door. She watched him grab the dressing table chair and pull it angrily aside. Everything inside of her was screaming.
Don’t go.
Don’t leave me.
Come back here.
Make love to me.
But not a single word of it made it past her lips. He turned again with his hand to the doorknob and stared at her as if he had heard her. They were each framed in their respective miserable cameos, her sitting like a lonely old woman in a chair in front of the flames; him, tall, dashing, beautiful, walking out on the only woman who had ever set his world on fire.
“I bid you good evening, Your Grace,” he said in a clipped, cold, stiff tone, emphasizing the formal title. Then he pulled the door wide, stepped through it, and closed it forcefully behind him, leaving nothing but longing in his wake.
Will rode into the dawn and through it. He needed to get back to London and put as much distance between himself and Rose as possible. He didn’t care about the dangers of riding overnight. His horse knew this route well and could easily outrun any hoodlum. Man and beast moved in perfect synchronicity as they thundered along the dirt track.
As dawn slowly lightened the skies, he stopped to give Dante a drink from a stream. He had almost turned back several times.How can I leave her?he kept asking himself. He knew he should do as she asked and stay away from her, just as he had the last nine miserable years. He knew she was bad for his equilibrium. He felt rattled when he was near her, not in control of his own reactions. He laughed wryly to himself. Last night he had certainlynotbeen in control of his reactions.
He had not been celibate all these years. He had been with other women; plenty. But none had made him feel the way Rose did. Rose had always been his other half, but then she had left, and it had almost broken him. He had told himself he hated her, that he would never feel the same way about her again. But his body betrayed him.
Rose’s parents had died suddenly in a horrific carriage accident, and almost from that moment forward, his Rose had changed. He had tried to be there for her but also give her the space she needed. Immediately after the accident, she cried in his arms, day after day. He knew he should have asked her to marry him there and then, offering her the stability she so desperately craved, but it seemed wrong somehow to propose a happy event in the middle of such misery, so he had waited. Soon after, it was as if his Rose had been removed and another one put in her body—a cool, hard, distant Rose who no longer sought the comfort of his arms or his counsel. When he looked at her, her eyes were dead. He had bided his time and even left her for a week to accompany his father to London. He had been grateful for the respite from her sadness as he rode the barges on the canals, negotiating the locks.
But, by the end of the seven days, Will had been desperate to get back to her. Rose’s family home was just a short ride across the fields from his. He was there within an hour of arriving home. Mary had opened the door to him.
“Oh, Will,” she had said, surprised by his arrival. “I don’t think now is a good time.” He had never seen Mary look so wretched.
“Rose doesn’t want any callers,” she said apologetically.
“I am not a caller,” Will had chided. “I just need to see her for a moment. I have been gone a whole week.”
Will had run into the house calling Rose’s name. The entry hall seemed darker and emptier than when he had left as if all the life had been sucked from the walls. Mary was a ghost of her former self as she came to stand by his elbow.
“Rose!” Will called again, and then he saw her standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at him. He had taken those steps three at a time to get to her.
He had decided while he was in London that he would ask her to marry him. He had gone through the accounts with his father, and there was plenty of available income to support the two Browning men and their dependents, and he had ideas on how to make the company even more profitable. He could provide for her, and Mary too, until she was wed.
“Rose!” He had exclaimed as he reached her, holding his arms wide to take her in his. “How I have missed you!”
He had prayed she would walk right into his embrace, but she didn’t move. She just stood, staring back at him, with a look of anguish. Will had let his arms drop. Standing right next to her, his chest touching her arm, he had said gently, “I really did miss you.”
Rose did not respond. He did not touch her, but he wanted to. He wanted to reach out and take one stray curl between his fingers, touch her face, her mouth, kiss her even. If Mary had not been watching them from the hallway, perhaps he would have. Instead, he reached for her hand and led her gently down the stairs to the fusty and stale drawing room. No one had opened a window or a curtain for days.