“No, Duchess, it is mine, but if you marry me, you may lodge in it.”
The Duke reached into the breast pocket of his navy dress coat and withdrew a small silver snuff box. Flipping it open, he placed some snuff on the back of his thumb, brought it close to his nose, and sniffedloudly before puttingit back. Then he started pacing back and forth across the silk rug, his exasperation visible with each step. “Look, I have waited long enough. I stayed away until now, remaining in the London house. I have entertained decorum. I am a considerate man.” He looked at her as if to defy any opposing comment. “You cast off your black robes soon enough. You have had eleven months, and in a few weeks you will be free to marry again. I am giving you seven days to make your decision. I must admit, I expected someone in your position to be more grateful. I am being more than generous. You will not want for anything. You married one Duke of Norfolk to get what you wanted. What’s the difference?”
Rose did not grace him with an answer. She decided she had entertained his lewd looks quite enough for one day. “I want you to leave, now,” she told him.
He laughed. “Oh, but it isn’t about what you want any longer, is it, Rose?” His use of her given name rather than her title raised her ire even further.
“Well, if you won’t leave, then I will. Good day to you, Your Grace.” With that, she walked out of the drawing room and across the castle’s entry hall, only then swiping the back of her hand furiously across her cheek to remove any trace of his disgusting ejections.
Her butler hurried after her: “Can I be of assistance, Your Grace?”
“Yes. Make sure he leaves. I am going out.”
The butler looked concerned.
“Shall I ready your carriage?”
“No, thank you.”
Rose had no destination in mind; she just knew she needed to be alone. She changed direction suddenly and headed for the boot room. “I am going for a walk.”
“But it is so wet outside, Your Grace,” she heard the butler say.
The wetter, the better, Rose thought,to wash the stench of Ernest Barrington out of my nostrils.
She did not stop to change her clothes; unbothered by appreances.
Theirs had indeed been no love match. Ambrose Barrington had not been looking for a lover—or should she say, another one—and she knew there was only one man she would ever love but couldn’t have. So, after her parents died, she accepted the Duke of Norfolk's marriage proposal and set about making her surroundings as comfortable as possible if that was to be her life. The Duke had ensured she looked the part of his duchess to everyone outside the walls of their palatial castle, but their arrangement had been a business deal: her reputation for his heir. It had not worked out that way.
Rose pulled on a pair of half boots beneath her cream satin skirts. She shunned her own tight-fitting outdoor apparel and grabbed Ambrose’s hunting coat from where it was still hanging on a peg, shrugging the hood over her head. She was well-known in Arundel town, and there had been a steady procession of well-wishers to her door since Ambrose had fallen from his horse. She did not want to run into anyone and feel obliged to explain her furious demeanor.
Rose walked fast towards the main entrance to the castle, keeping her long blonde hair well-hidden beneath the coat. To all intents and purposes, she looked like one of the servants dispatched on an errand, her head down against the English drizzle.
Once outside the castle, she made for a small clump of trees along the side of the castle wall, which she knew would lead her down to one of the tributary streams of the River Arun and one of her favorite spots. Even before Ambrose had died, Rose would regularly don a disguise and leave the rich trappings of the castle behind to sit by the water and remember a time when life had been full of promise and the love of a man whose touch she still craved; whose smile had always been able to lift her spirits no matter the difficulties at home.
The hours she had spent with him had blotted out the endless harping of her mother, generally aimed at her father, if not her daughters. Rose had not understood then. To her, it seemed that her mother was a bitter, discontented, middle-aged woman who took out all her annoyance and worries on Rose’s beloved father. Rose had grown to despise her as she had gotten older. But she had frequently escaped from their home, lured into mischief by the boy shehad favored for almost her entire life.
They had met as children when their fathers became acquaintances and regularly romped in the grounds of her ancestral home or the fields around their estates. Her mother had chafed at that too, insisting it was not seemly that her tomboy daughter was climbing trees, unchaperoned, with a boy.
“Let them be, Victoria,” her father had admonished, surreptitiously winking at his eldest daughter. “Life is short, and when one reaches adulthood, almost not worth living.”
Rose had always been puzzled by that statement. Her father was one of the most liked people he knew, and he always came home with a big smile and even bigger presents for his two little girls. It was only later, after her parents died that she learned why he was so popular; because everyone was becoming rich as a result of his ineptitude at cards.
Reaching the stream’s edge now, Rose bent to trail her fingers in the cool water. She was hot beneath the thick cape and the huge hood, but as much as she longed to shrug it off and plunge into the water, she knew she could not. She had made her choice all those long years ago, and the life which would have allowed that was lost to her now. She had chosen propriety, status, and influence over love and fun. If she had been an only child, it would not have happened.
Rose had no fear of leaving the trappings of nobility behind and living a simpler life, but back then, her duty had been to her sister.
She knew her brother-in-law was right; she had no claim to the castle she had made her home. The law of succession was clear. Ambrose and Ernest Barrington had been the only surviving children of their parents. Ernest had automatically become the Duke of Norfolk, and Earl Marshall, upon Ambrose’s death.
Rose had married Ambrose Barrington specifically for money and because of his Earl Marshall role. As soon as her nuptials had been concluded, Rose had requested a coat of arms be granted to her little sister’s new husband to secure his status in society. Like Rose, Mary had fallen in love with a commoner, despite her frenetic season at the ton where she had been voted most popular. With both parents gone, and a mountain of debt in their wake, although Mary did not know that, the elder sister knew she had to protect the younger and save the family home for her too. The Duke had agreed to pay off all her father’s IOUs as the final part of their arrangement.
“The most important thing is you will be happy,” Rose had told Mary on the eve of her wedding.
“But what about you? Did you marry for love?” Mary had challenged her. Rose had evaded the question.
“I shall be content knowing I did my darnedest to make your life everything it should be.”
“But what about Will?”