Charlotte stopped pouring whiskey into Will’s glass to stare at him across the room.
“Why are you shouting?” Will stared back at her and then looked at John across the table dividing them. “Both of you berated me for not asking her, and now you say I did the wrong thing.”
John smirked into his glass and looked at Charlotte.
“Why would you ask her to be your concubine?”
“I didn’t! Why would you say that? I asked her to be my wife.”
“No. You essentially told her you would set her up in her own abode with a lot of money and pay her the occasional visit. You offered her a marriage of convenience.”
“That’s not true. John, tell her that is not true.”
“What were you thinking?” John asked, waggling his glass at his friend.
“I didn’t want to pressure her. I wanted to give her a way out of the situation with Barrington without smothering her.”
“But you can see it now?” Charlotte asked, coming to sit next to Will on the sofa.
Will stared at her.
“Go to her, explain what you meant,” John suggested. “Let her know she misread what you were saying.”
Charlotte looked dubious.
“She has got it in her head that Will doesn’t love her. Once a girl thinks that it is not easy to change her mind.”
“How can she think I don’t love her?” Will stood up and started to pace Charlotte’s library. “I basically pledged my fortune to her. You are both assuming that she turned me down because she thought I was offering a loveless union. Perhaps she just turned me down because I was not a duke. Again.” He took a gulp of his whisky. “Well, I am not going to go begging. I have shown her everything I feel about her.”
He simply could not believe that in a competition between himself and Barrington, he would come second; castle or no castle.
“I did what you told me, Charlotte,” he said irritatedly. “I told her I wanted to marry her. She turned me down. Perhaps if I had asked her before the first Duke of Norfolk came on the scene, before her parents had died, she would have turned me down too. Perhaps I have never been anything more than a friend to her. Well, she knows where I am. I have said my piece. The rest is down to her.”
Rose realized it was easier not to see Will, not to entertain any possibility of him calling at the castle, not to think of him or remember anything about him. She accomplished this by keeping as busy as possible. She organized a thorough cleaning of every room ahead of Ernest moving in. She allocated him a bedchamber and dressing room in the opposite wing to hers and asked the servants to prepare it. She knew she could not keep him away from her, but at least she could make him have to walk a long way to get to her.
While it seemed as if her body had accepted her fate and was simply leading her there, her mind was in a state of utter panic. How could she marry Ernest? How could she let him touch her? The feel of his fingers on her made her skin crawl. She imagined him coming to her, putting his arms around her and removing her clothing. How would she be able to let him do that without hurling him back across the room, just as she had done on the evening of her engagement? That had been an instant reaction. What if she could never control it?
She could still feel the sting of his slap against her cheek. What if he was used to hitting women and this wasto be her life? How would she bear it? She was aware that many women did, and she imagined that they developed defense mechanisms. She could ply him with alcohol and try to knock him out in the evenings, she reasoned, or she could find him a mistress who would be more willing to submit to his demands in exchange for the chance to sleep with the highest duke in the land. Yes, she resolved, she would simply have to devise ways to divert his attention.
However bad it might be with Ernest, Rose knew it would not be as bad as being in a loveless union with Will. When he had proposed that she marry him only to live banished from his side, it had felt as if her stomach had dropped out of her body, as if he had kicked her there. How could she live off Will's money in a life of loneliness and misery, yearning for a few crumbs of his time? If he was married to her, he could not marry anyone else. He would also never attain noble status. The only route to that for Will was through Ernest. She supposed it was possible that his business dealings with the Duke could eventually lead to that reward, but she could request it more quickly, as soon as they were married, and then all her debt to Will Browning would be paid. Her debt to Ben Browning, too, for abandoning his son. If she married Will, she would just be incurring even more debt to him, and when he fell in love with someone else, what would he do with her? Cast her out? The whole idea was impossible.
“Mrs. Jacob Bentley to see you, Your Grace.” Jennings led Mary into the drawing room.
Rose got up from her desk as Mary walked in. “Mary, what a surprise!”
She begged Mary to reconsider and be her bridesmaid, as well as Tara and Theo to be her page boys, but her sister refused. She was as stubborn as Rose.
“Unless you want me to stand up and object vociferously halfway through the ceremony, you should leave me off the guest list,” she had written in her cursive hand, and Rose knew she would. But now she had come, and she was so pleased to see her.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Trust me, it won’t be a pleasure,” her sister said as she walked right past her and sat down on one of the sofas. “Come and sit down,” she ordered.
Rose indicated to Jennings that he should leave them as she went to sit in front of Mary. As soon as they were alone, Mary leaned forward and scrutinized her.
“Your eyes are all puffy. Have you been crying?”
“I didn’t sleep well,” Rose lowered her gaze. She had been crying non-stop whenever she was alone since she had returned from London.