Matthew happened to overhear Robert Boyle and George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, talking about Rosamund the following day as they descended into the bookshop, and was struck by the nature of their discussions. It was not unusual for the patrons to speak of their hostess—usually about her striking beauty and the wondrous taste of the drink she served, a taste they could recall hours after consuming it. Oft times, it was the attention she’d paid them, flattering their already overgrown egos and delighting them no end. Today, however, the talk was different. It was about how being in her company was akin to basking under a midday sun, or sliding cold toes next to a crackling hearth and feeling the life breathe back into them. Each tried to outdo the other as they sought to explain the effect she had upon them. It was evident they were deeply touched. Matthew was reminded anew how people—not only men—responded to Rosamund, and his heart filled.
Did she sense Aubrey was gone from her life?
Trying to be patient with the customer searching among dusty tomes for something he might gift the lord who had invited him to dinner that night, he willed him to make a decision so he might ascend to the chocolate house and sit among the patrons knowing that the woman who elicited such passions was the one he wished to spend the rest of his life with.
For that was the truth—a truth he’d denied acknowledging until yesterday. To think, Aubrey Blithman had proposed to her. The gall of the man knew no bounds.
With Aubrey’s capitulation, everything changed. He could put the past behind him. He was done with it, done with it all. Time to live.
Swiftly wrapping the man’s purchase and scraping the coins into a tin, he propped a “closed” sign on the counter, hung another near the door and took the steps two at a time, almost bowling over Sam in his enthusiasm.
“Whoa,” said Sam, flinging himself against the wall, palms up in mock surrender. “Why the hurry, Lovelace? There’s plenty of chocolate for everyone now our ships have been permitted to dock.”
Matthew halted abruptly. “Sam, forgive me, I didn’t see you.”
“That much was evident.” He squinted at Matthew, trying to make him out in the dark stairwell. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Fine, thank you.”
“You seem . . .” He looked him up and down. “Altered somehow, and not merely because you’ve abandoned that satchel you’re always carrying.” Sam propped his chin on his fingers as he studied him further. “You seem . . . focused, but also damnably happy.”
Matthew smiled. “That’s because I am, Sam. I am. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I have a drink to request and a lady to address.”
“Ah.” Sam smiled knowingly. “Well, be prepared for a wait, my friend. I don’t know what it is about Rosamund today, but she’s shining like King Midas on a dull day. Everything she touches is turning to gold—gold dipped in diamonds and sprinkled with sunshine.” He chuckled at his own fancy. “Why, the queue for her services hasn’t diminished since I entered. Everyone wants to luxuriate in her radiance. Something’s happened—you mark my words.” He tapped the side of his nose. With a tilt of his hat and a good day, he went on his way.
Matthew’s grin broadened as he entered the chocolate house and saw Sam’s apt description confirmed. A line insinuated itself from the bar and around the booths as men waited impatiently for their drinks. Thomas and Solomon kept offering to mix them, but the men preferred to wait for Rosamund’s touch, as if she were His Majesty and they had scrofula. To think they once eschewed this woman’s service. He buried his laughter and bypassed the line to stand before Solomon, who immediately began preparing a drink.
Rosamund glanced over from where she was serving a customer and gave him a smile that took his breath away.
Taking his bowl, he found a position from where he could watch her working. He’d denied himself the pleasure for months, aside from surreptitious glances, and relished the view—and he was not alone.
Seeing her now, so comfortable with the men, able to control them with a raised brow, a curved lip or a twinkling glance, it was funny to think of how he first encountered her. Fighting like the harridan he christened her, she’d laid into those two lads like a street urchin. Determined to defend herself, she’d been so caught up in the fight she’d failed to hear him come to her aid.
For a fleeting second, he’d thought her Helene returned from the dead, but as he swiftly drank in her features, watched the way the anger left her eyes but not the passion that fueled it, and then saw her offer compassion and justice to the two rogues, he knew this was no Helene reincarnated but a wondrous woman who, already, drew him the way shrines did pilgrims.
Loath to part from her, guessing who she might be yet reluctant to acknowledge it, he was determined to learn more about her. Were all women like Helene, capable of donning vizards that hid their true identities? That question had dominated his mind for weeks.
Meeting her in Will’s bookshop had been an unexpected boon as he maintained his vigil over the chocolate house and fulfilled his plans for revenge upon Sir Everard. That she was a Blithman he could barely reconcile, yet, when he learned she possessed no knowledge of what was going on, he knew he would shield her from the fallout, whatever happened.
When Sir Everard died, he felt responsible not only for his untimely death, but for the widow left behind. Offering her a stake in the chocolate house was easy—leaving her was the difficult part. Yet he’d felt he had to. If he was to mend the rent the Blithmans had torn not just in his heart, but in his life, he had to face the truth and confront the last of his nemeses.
His quest was over. Like Odysseus, his work at last was done. He could come home.
Stretching his long legs out, swaying to the melody of a lute and pipe, he nodded toward John Evelyn and Sir Henry Bennet, sipping his drink slowly, savoring it as he inhaled the fragrance. As he did, he imagined a pair of cinnamon-chocolate eyes gazing into his own, the laugh he knew would bubble from those rose-tinted lips and the embrace they’d share when he finally expressed his constant and deep affections. Quashing the tiny flicker of doubt that tried to flare in the wake of Aubrey’s parting words, he reassured himself that the look he often saw in her eyes, the touch of her hand upon his arm, suggested something more than simply a friend or a business partner, something deep and lasting.
* * *
At closing time a combination of starlight and candles turned the empty chocolate house into a fantastical space of shadowy nooks and lambent planes. From the kitchen came the faint sounds of Grace washing the dirty bowls and the boys cleaning the equipment, as did their incessant teasing. Mr. Nick sat by a far window, wreathed in pipe smoke, gazing upon the street below. Bianca was at the bar, polishing the wood and bringing it up to the sheen she insisted was imperative before they could offer service again on the morrow.
Shooing Rosamund away when she offered to help, she nodded in Matthew’s direction. “Close the door and join him. You’ve worked so hard today, signora, and while I know why, he’s been inordinately patient. I’ve taken the liberty of pouring you both a jug of canary.”
Grateful to Bianca because her feet were aching and she was weary—and not merely because they were busy but because she’d worked so hard to suppress emotions that kept batting away at her all day like moths at a lit window. The patrons had been joyous in their drinking, lavish in their praise of the chocolate and the Phoenix.
Matthew should be pleased.
When he’d first appeared, the rush of warmth that flowered in her belly and traveled to her cheeks found release in the smile she bestowed upon him before, once more, Aubrey’s face appeared and banished her joy. She forced his image away—after all, he was no longer a pressing concern, having quite unexpectedly withdrawn his suit and offered her the use of Blithe Manor for the foreseeable future. Memory of the utter relief his note brought filled her again, and she relegated him to the recesses of her mind.
Only, she suspected the reason for Aubrey’s actions. It was no coincidence, surely, that his hastily penned note and its generous offer arrived a few hours after Matthew would have seen him. What had passed between them? If she read him aright, Aubrey was not a man whose pride would allow him to easily relinquish what he had set his heart upon. She chose not to dwell on the cause, but to be grateful for the effect. The effect and the man who made it possible.
All afternoon she was aware of Matthew sitting only a few booths away, observing the bar. It was hard not to think he was also watching her. No matter how often her glance wandered in his direction, it continued to find his. Why would he choose today of all days to indulge in such things, especially when her own flights of fancy had taken wing?
Finally she was free of Aubrey and the multiple pressures he’d placed upon her from the moment he stepped into Blithe Manor. He’d become a disease eating away at her contentment—no more.
Ever since she left Bearwoode Manor there’d been people dictating what she should do, think, feel—how she should behave. Why, even her grandmother had, but to good purpose. Now for the first time in her life it was as if, like a reptile, she’d shed her skin, abandoned an old version of herself and was ready to strike out anew, every day becoming more resistant to the expectations of others—of men.
Part of her longed to fly free, not to escape the chocolate house or Blithe Manor, but to relish what these places gave her—freedom and safety, and within those bounds, the liberties they bestowed.
Sliding along the seat, she took in the sight Matthew presented, his face half shadowed in the flickering candlelight, his eyes mysterious, beckoning pools. He had given her opportunities—first by asking her to lease the chocolate house and manage it in his absence, and now by helping to remove the impediment Aubrey had become.
Who would’ve thought the day she was knocked down by horses on that dusty road in Gravesend she would one day run a London chocolate house and share ownership of a bookstore, let alone bear a title and have a manor to dwell in? Who would have thought her best friends in the world would be a blackamoor and a correspondent whose favorite pastime was to needle the conscience of the King and court? Who would have thought that she, little Rosamund Tomkins, the abandoned babe, would have the courage to help him?
“Shall I?” she asked, picking up the jug and, without waiting for Matthew to respond, pouring them both a glass of the sweet yellow wine.
“A good day, my lady,” he said softly.
“It was a good day—a fine one,” said Rosamund, gazing around the room.
“Ah”—Matthew smiled—“I think the best is yet to come.”
“Do you now?” said Rosamund, picking up her glass and holding it out ready to toast. The liquid sparkled like molten gold. Tiny bubbles climbed to the surface before dissolving. Mesmerized, she gazed at the glass, turning it, only becoming aware that once more, Matthew was transfixed by her face. “What is it, Matthew?”
For the first time since she’d met him, he appeared awkward. He sat up straight and stared at his glass, his gloved fingers wrapped around the stem. Rainbows of light shot over the table. Lowering her own, she could see he was struggling for words.
“Matthew?” she asked quietly, placing her hand over his, stilling his movements. Had something else happened when he visited Aubrey? Dare she ask?
“I . . . I’m not sure how to say this, Rosamund.” Matthew looked at their joined hands. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long, dreamed of a time when I might be able to, and now that I can, that the moment has arrived, I find that even though I make a living from words, I can’t seem to find the right ones.”
Rosamund sat very still. She could feel his breath on her cheek as he spoke, leaning so far across the table their mouths were but a sigh apart.
“What I’m trying so very badly to say is—” His voice was suddenly deep, strong and certain. “I wonder, if you would honor me, Rosamund Blithman, by becoming my wife?”
Rosamund caught the words, inhaled the scent of them and him and all the chocolatey-vanilla promises they contained. She clutched them to her heart. She thought of how he’d come back to her after so long away, how they’d suffered so much since then, lost too many loved ones. How death compressed time but also bestowed a clarity that life oft lacked.
Matthew was asking for her hand. Rosamund Blithman. Aye, that’s who she was now. From Tomkins to Ballister to Blithman—a series of names, like masks she wore for others, adopting a costume and being whatever and whomever they wanted her to be. He was asking her to forgo all those and become Rosamund Lovelace. It was what she’d long hoped for, without really acknowledging it—in the way we don’t admit our most secret desires lest we risk losing them. Except she had to ask, why? Why was he asking her? And now of all times, when Aubrey’s relentless suit was withdrawn?
Sir Everard had married her to serve a purpose; Aubrey proposed because he was trying to hurt Matthew, of that she was in no doubt. What other reason could he have for suggesting such an outrageous match? But Matthew? What was she but a widowed chocolate maker with an empty title—a title that had no lands or wealth attached to it? A woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to his former wife. Or was he asking her in order to secure complete victory over Aubrey? Succeed where his former brother-in-law failed?
The little shard of self-doubt that lived in her heart dislodged itself, as it sometimes did, only to reinsert itself with cruel precision. The voice she tried so hard to ignore began to whisper, fueling her uncertainty.
It’s not really you he loves, is it, Rosamund? It’s the woman who looks like his Helene, only you’re unencumbered by lovers and a babe that is not his. This is about triumphing over the Blithmans once again—whereas once it was Sir Everard, now it’s Aubrey he seeks to vanquish. The voice went on and on in Paul’s tone, as it always did, undermining her joy.
That was the other reason Aubrey had wanted to marry her—to replace his lost sister with a wife; it mattered not to him that she’d been wedded to his father. On the contrary, that made her the perfect choice.
For the first time in her life, as a widow and businesswoman, she could choose. For the first time she could be herself, in her own image, not Paul’s, Helene’s, Sir Everard’s, Aubrey’s or anyone else’s.
Was she so ready to surrender herself again? Even to this man?
In the seconds it took for these thoughts to whirl through her head, the distance between them remained as it was. He was waiting for her to close the gap, seal his declaration with a kiss.
Freeing her hands from his, she tipped her head and looked at him, really looked at him, in the candlelight. His dark unruly hair. Those midnight eyes that contained galaxies within them, galaxies and a fire that tonight burned just for her. No question, he was a fine man. Maybe not handsome in the conventional sense, but to her, he was beautiful. His heart shone in his expression and that was enough—or would have been, once upon a time.
“Matthew.” She sighed. “You have no idea how much I have longed to hear those words from you.”
His eyes explored her face, moving from her nose to her cheeks and lips before lingering on her chin. He raised a hand and cupped it gently.
“And?” he prompted.
“And,” she hesitated, “I’m afraid my answer is no.”
His hand fell.
“I cannot marry you, Matthew. I cannot.”