Chapter Five

I froze in place. My body tingled where it pressed intimately to Hartfell’s form. Hartfell’s bare-chested form. By Jove, what was I doing?

The big bear of a man shoved away from the desk as someone pounded on the door. “Why in the blazes is it locked? Hello, is someone in there? I’d be much obliged if you opened the door, please.”

I recognized that irritated shout. Francine. Of course she would come seeking a book at a time like this.

Hartfell scrambled to collect his garments. I shooed him to the farthest corner of the bookshelves as I approached the door. He shook his head vigorously and stepped forward to bar my path. I dashed around him and rested my hand on the key protruding from the lock.

He narrowed his eyes. Although he didn’t speak aloud, I deciphered his plain message: don’t you dare. I smirked. Without breaking eye contact, I unlocked the door with the deft twist of my fingers.

A low sound issued from his throat, something like a warning growl. Amusement welled in my throat. I sank my teeth into my lower lip to suppress a laugh. I opened the door by a sliver, just enough for Francine to recognize me but not glimpse inside. Muffled strains of music spilled into the library from elsewhere in the house, along with soft yellow light framing Francine’s form.

She froze, mouth agape and hand poised to deliver another sharp knock. “Rose? I hadn’t expected you here.”

I opened my mouth to answer, but she didn’t appear to notice.

She added, “Is there an animal in there with you?”

When she stood on her tiptoes to try to see past me, I drew up to my full height. “No.”

“Oh. I must have misheard.” She studied me from head to foot. “You look dreadful.”

“Thank you.”

She studied me with a frown. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you looking worse.”

“I might expire from the effusive compliments you’re giving me,” I said drily.

She ignored me. “Your hair looks like a bird’s nest and your dress… What have you done to your dress?”

I spared a glance down and grimaced. My dress sported more holes than Swiss cheese. “It was that bloody Prune-aux-Spindoza of yours.”

“Prunus spinosa,” she corrected absently. She cocked her head to one side. “Have you been out in the rain?”

My eyes might have fallen out of my head from shock. Surely she could not be so bacon-brained? “Why yes, Francine, I have been out in the rain. You helped me climb out the blasted window.”

Movement to my right caught my attention. Hartfell. By Jove, we conducted this conversation paces away from him in an open doorway. With Francine’s attention on me, I squeezed through the door into the hall and shut it behind me. Oil lamps at regular intervals in their sconces lit the full length of the hall. They wouldn’t be doused until the conclusion of the impromptu ball.

Francine wrinkled her nose. “I knew that. When the storm set upon us, I hoped you had found Frederick and holed away for the interim beneath a sturdy tree. Perhaps an oak.”

“It doesn’t matter what species the blasted tree is,” I snapped. “I didn’t find him.”

“Oh.”

I linked arms with Francine and dragged her down the corridor. Away from the library and the scantily-clad lord hiding within. She glanced behind her with longing. Oh no. I had to keep her talking, or else she would bully her way in to returning for a book.

“Oh? That’s all you can say. What am I going to do, Francine?”

“Take a bath and wait to speak with him tomorrow?” She brightened, as though hoping to rid herself of my presence and retreat to the library again. Unacceptable. How would she react to finding a man half-dressed? She took after Mary too much, some days. Wouldn’t that be a surprise? For both parties. I bit my cheek to contain a smile.

I urged Francine up the first set of steps I found. The narrow staircase, worn down the middle, must be a servants’ stair. The first landing should be on the second floor, where Lady Dunlop had situated all her guests. Hopefully, most danced to the sometimes-discordant music wafting from the makeshift ballroom. With so many walls between, my eardrums were unharmed, but enough sound wafted to alert me to the continuing revelry. No one must witness my disheveled state. Although Francine had dismissed my state as a by-product of the sudden storm, the gossips wouldn’t be so forgiving.

On the stair above me, Francine stumbled and almost fell. When I lunged to catch her, we slammed into the wall. The impact knocked the breath out of me. I scrambled for footing, and supported my friend until she did the same.

“Slow down, Rose. My legs aren’t as long as yours. What has gotten into you?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” My voice emerged so weak I barely heard it over the music approaching its crescendo. Light beckoned at the top of the stairs, but the staircase itself was dangerously dark. I moaned. “An hour ago, I was in love. And now he’s off with that dreadful Miss Johnst—Miss Catkin probably proposing marriage.”

The thought threatened to make me swoon for the first time in my life. I firmed my knees. I refused to become a watering pot like my older sisters.

Francine coaxed me up the steps with a light touch to my elbow. “Actually, I find her rather pleasant.”

I frowned in confusion. “Who?”

“Miss Catkin. I’ve spoken with her on more than one occasion. I find her polite and pleasant.”

I sighed. “I know she is. She’s lovely, really.” Spots of shame bloomed on my cheeks, and I was thankful for the dark. What had gotten into me? I didn’t malign other debutantes on principle. Too many said unkind things about me, and I didn’t care to contribute to the bitter pastime.

I straightened my shoulders. “If she wasn’t so lovely, I wouldn’t be afraid. What if Frederick falls in love with her?”

We reached the top of the stairs. The corridor, lit sparsely by four lamps along its length, was empty. Francine led me to her bedchamber, closer than mine. I hurried after her, eager to hide from sight.

“He might fall in love with her,” Francine said as she opened the door. “But it won’t be this evening. He’s a captain. He’s too sensible to fall in love in less than a day.”

I stiffened. In a way she didn’t even notice, she insulted me. I’d brought greater men than Frederick to their knees, declaring their love for me.

“And what of your friend, Captain Beckwith? I bet he would fall in love in less than a day.”

Francine shot me a dry look as she entered the room. “Jeremy would fall in love in an hour. They’re very different men. He’s much less…guarded.”

I didn’t know about that. His outward humor deflected any deeper connection. But I didn’t set my sights on him, so I dropped the topic.

I shut the door behind me. Light from the hall cut off, leaving the interior lit only by a single candle, burned almost down to the quick on the bed stand. It shed light into a room almost identical to mine, from its single bed stand and narrow bed, to the small wardrobe, insultingly tiny vanity, and dressing screen. Francine’s maid stirred from where she napped on a cot by the screen.

As the woman started to rise, Francine waved her away. “Go back to sleep. We’re only talking. I can undress myself.”

The young maid was so exhausted, she murmured, “Yes, Miss Francine,” as her head drifted toward the pillow.

Francine sat on the bed. She shifted the candlestick to pull a heavy tome from underneath it. The light flickered as she replaced it on the stand. She opened the book, reached into the reticule dangling from her wrist, and liberated several leaves and a flower blossom. When had she found the time to pick those? She laid them carefully in the book and pressed it closed.

Clutching the book in her lap, she said absently, “That isn’t why you’re worried.” She shifted to slide the book under her bottom as though the plants wouldn’t preserve between the pages of the book without her added weight.

I sighed. Sometimes, she conducted conversations as much in her head as she did aloud. “I don’t follow, Francine. Were you talking to me?”

“Of course I was talking to you.” Hurt flashed across her face. “There’s no one else here.”

I glanced pointedly toward her maid.

“No one else who is conscious,” she amended.

“Why am I worried?” I asked, steering her back toward the conversation at hand. She might be absentminded, but she often expressed insights that proved uncannily correct.

“How am I to know?” She shrugged.

“Francine.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you’re so worried, but it isn’t because Frederick may fall in love.”

“Of course it isn’t. I want him to fall in love—with me.”

“No, you don’t.”

Having gauged sufficient time passing to meet her eccentric standards, Francine removed the book from beneath her bottom and replaced it on the nightstand beneath the candle.

“Of course I want Frederick to fall in love with me.” I strode to that corner of the room, hoping to gain her full attention by standing directly in her line of vision. Even that didn’t work sometimes. I crossed my arms. “I intend to marry him.”

“Maybe,” Francine said with a shrug. “But you don’t love him.”

My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t form words. She didn’t believe me? Sure, I’d cried wolf a couple times with a half a dozen men over the past few years, but I’d genuinely thought I was in love. It wasn’t my fault that some action or reaction on their part had shattered that tender feeling.

“You don’t believe me?”

“I do,” she insisted.

She met my gaze plainly, but the candlelight cast shadows across her freckle-mottled face. I couldn’t decipher her expression.

She added, “I believed you when you said you were in love with him an hour ago. Not anymore.”

“I never said that.”

“You did. On the stairs.”

I shook my head. Had I? If I had, it had been a slip of the tongue. “I fell in love with him an hour ago.”

She nodded in agreement. “And some time between being introduced to him and braving the storm, you fell out of love with him.”

“Ridiculous.”

She shrugged. “It’s your mind.”

A sharp rap at the door cut off the conversation. Before the sound dissipated, Mary thrust open the door. She carried a bundle of clothing in her hands. A threadbare white nightgown, by my guess. She stopped short when she saw me looming over Francine.

“What happened to you?” Mary’s brusque tone cut through the air. In the corner, the maid murmured in her sleep and stirred.

Francine shushed our friend. “Lower your voice, please. Pauline is asleep.”

Silent, Mary raised her eyebrows at me, punctuating the question.

I whispered, “A mishap with a bush.” I shot a warning glance at Francine. If she mentioned that I had set my sights on another suitor, Mary would go out of her way to prove that he wasn’t the right man for me. In fact, she would go out of the way to prove that he wasn’t an honorable man at all. No one could hold up to her impossible standards of manhood.

Mary wanted to be treated as the equal of every man. She wanted to hunt, smoke, and gamble with the lot of them. Men as a whole didn’t tend to enjoy when she encroached on their territory, even if they acted gentlemanly to other women.

With a shrug, Mary dismissed my ragged appearance. “You must have done something extraordinary to anger the bush to that extent.”

Francine giggled. “It didn’t much like being sat on.”

I made a face. “I didn’t land on the bush on purpose.” I changed the subject. “Mary, thank you for looking after Daisy tonight.”

“She wasn’t too boisterous. You exaggerated.”

I might have, but with the little sister I was familiar with, it had felt safer to exaggerate her enthusiasm than to leave Mary unprepared. “Nevertheless, it means a lot to me.”

“You know I’m always willing to help my friends, if only you ask.”

She lingered over the words. What was she trying to say? Slowly, I replied, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She held my gaze with her dark eyes for a moment more. “It worked out to my advantage, in any case. As a chaperone, I didn’t have to dance with anyone.”

“That’s too bad,” Francine said. “I found the music to be rather lively.”

It would be, if Daisy had played most of the night. She did nothing that wasn’t lively.

“Lady Dunlop took no notice of me at all, for which I’m glad. The way Old Lady Gladstone was going on, she expects me to be married by the time we return.” Mary shuddered.

I almost pitied her, but I battled the same pressure from my family to marry quickly. Mary, at least, was stubborn enough to resist the demands of her godmother. I laid my hand on her sleeve. “If Lady Dunlop tries to pair you with anyone, I’ll do my best to attract their attention to me instead.”

A bald look of relief crossed her face. “Bless you.”

She didn’t even berate me for the desire to marry—which in her mind was synonymous with giving myself to a man like a possession.

I tried to smile, but my shock at her demeanor made it weak. “It’s no trouble.”

Francine leaned back against the bed, propping herself up on her arms. “Not that it isn’t always a pleasure, but is there a reason why you’ve come to visit so late?”

Mary turned to Francine. “Oh. Yes. Lady Dunlop has to make room for the country gentlemen and ladies who live too far to return through the storm today. She’s asked me to sleep in your room tonight. I agreed.”

Francine shrugged. “The bed is big enough for the both of us.”

“Good.” Mary turned her gaze on me expectantly.

I forced a smile. “I suppose I’ll return to my room, then.”

“Good night,” Mary said cheerfully. A suspicious edge sharpened her gaze as she absorbed my haggard appearance once more. Judging by that look, she knew my plan to ensnare a husband again, even if she didn’t know whom.

I beat a hasty retreat. Lady Dunlop had assigned me a room only two doors down from Francine’s. I slipped inside, but stopped short when I found Emily perched on the bed, brushing out my sister’s blond hair.

“Daisy, what are you doing here?” The words slipped out as I shut the door behind me. Babble from chattering ladies hailed more young women retiring to bed. I should have suspected from the lack of music.

She peered over her shoulder. “Lady Dunlop asked me to sleep with you tonight, while she gives my room to someone else.”

Apparently Mary and Francine weren’t the only pair to be asked to share a room.

My sister wrinkled her nose. “What happened to you?”

“A mishap with a bush,” I said. It wasn’t exactly a lie…just not the whole truth.

She scooted to the edge of the bed and stood, despite Emily’s protests.

“Come back, Miss Daisy. I haven’t finished with your hair.”

“It’s well enough for the night,” Daisy said. She didn’t spare a glance for Emily.

The maid scowled. “For you, maybe. But if you go to bed like that, you’ll have a mess of snarls in the morning. Let me set your hair in curlers.”

Daisy pulled a face, but sat at the vanity at Emily’s urging. She pinned me to the door with her gaze.

“What really happened?”

Damnation. Why did I have to have sisters? I sighed. “I fell into a bush. I wasn’t lying.”

“No,” she said, “but I know you better than you seem to think. You aren’t like Francine. You don’t go looking for plants. So how did you find yourself falling in a bush?”

I puckered my mouth, but couldn’t think of any excuse but the truth. “I found myself locked in the withdrawing room. I climbed out the window. I didn’t know the bush had quite so many thorns or I would have thought better of it.”

That last sentence, I directed toward Emily, who wore a puckered expression of distaste at the work I’d created for her.

She snorted. “No, you wouldn’t have.”

Perhaps not, but when I pursued a match, very little dissuaded me. Certainly not a locked door.

“It was quite painful,” I said, drawing myself up.

“Of that, I have no doubt.” Emily shook her head. She pinned a curler in place on my sister’s head with more vigor than necessary. Daisy winced.

From Emily’s glower, she envisioned wreaking the same torture on me.

“That dress is a mess,” Emily pointed out, with a thrust of her chin.

Glancing down at my ragged attire, I sighed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

She pinned the last curler onto my sister’s head and tapped Daisy on the shoulder. Daisy leaped from the vanity and retreated across the room, happy to not be a part of the misery any longer. With a cantankerous expression, Emily pointed at the stool. I sat, cringing. This would not be pleasant.

“Was it worth your trouble?” Emily asked, her voice deceptively light. She attacked my hair with a ferocity that scared me. Flinching, I held still as she dragged the brush through my styled curls, which had tangled during my escapade.

“It was not,” I said glumly.

That, at least, gentled her touch somewhat.

“Don’t be sad,” Daisy chirped from behind me. “It’ll turn out all right.”

I didn’t answer. Emily brushed my hair and fastened it in place with the curlers.

When the silence stretched out too long, Daisy said, “In fact, let’s find out how it will turn out.”

I laughed under my breath. “How do you expect to do that?”

She dived into the corner of the room and resurfaced with the shoes she had worn this evening. “We’ll play lucky slipper.”

A child’s fortune-telling game. It meant nothing. I accepted the slipper from her nonetheless.

Shutting her eyes, Daisy tossed her shoe lightly into the air. It spun, landing with a thunk at her feet. She opened her eyes and clapped. “The toe is pointed toward me. I’ll be lucky in love at this house party.”

I barely refrained from rolling my eyes. She was sixteen. She wasn’t even out in Society, let alone in a position to make an advantageous match.

But, after Emily fixed the last curler on my head and patted my shoulder, I stood and closed my eyes, too. I pressed my lips together, keeping Frederick’s broad, tan face in my mind’s eye as I flipped the slipper into the air.

When it landed, I opened my eyes.

“Oh dear,” Daisy said, crouching over the shoe. “Perhaps I should have given you mine. It was luckier.”

The slipper rested on its side, with neither the toe nor the heel pointed in my direction.

“Well,” Daisy said as Emily scooped the shoes up and replaced them in the corner of the room. “At least it wasn’t unlucky. Maybe you’ll find yourself with someone you didn’t imagine.”

In other words, I wasn’t destined to win a proposal from Frederick.

I shook my head. “It’s just a silly game, Daisy. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“So you say,” she countered as she climbed into bed. “I think you need to have a little faith. We are at Lady Dunlop’s famous house party. I imagine everyone here will fall in love, at least once, throughout the week. Even you.”

The look in her eye told me different. Especially you was what she wanted to say.

After all, I was infamous for falling in and out of love. I wanted to find a man to love to my dying day. Was that so much to ask?

I turned my back to Emily so she could dress me for bed, but my thoughts returned to Francine’s dour prediction. She hadn’t seemed optimistic about my chances, either.

I fell in love quickly, but I always had a reason to fall out of it. And Frederick had given me no such reason.