Page 11 of When He Was a Duke
“If only you could find a love match.” Prudence looked up at the ceiling dreamily, as if she could conjure one from the heavens. “A handsome duke who is very, very rich and will agree to take us all with you when you marry.”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” Rose asked, smiling at the idea, before lowering her voice. “But not Hargrave. He must stay with them.”
Prudence giggled. “Yes, please.”
Hargrave had been the family’s butler since her father had been in his teens. The staff and Rose despised the man, although none of them would say it out loud. Hargrave was not someone to make an enemy.
Rose stood abruptly, moving to the window. She pressed her forehead against the cool glass, watching the new gardener walking alongside Mr. Thorncroft in the distance. Even from here, she could see his confident movements, the way he carried himself with dignity despite his rough clothes. A former soldier? She felt sure suddenly. The square of his shoulders and straight back—a military man. He’d fought in the wars, only to return to tend gardens.
Would it be so bad? She enjoyed being in the gardens more than anywhere else, other than curled up with a book. However, she didn’t have to dirty her hands as this man would.
Soon, she might not have that privilege. If she was forced to marry Baron White, she would move away to his home. Away from her mother’s rose garden. The one thing she’d left to Rose that thus far no one had been able to take from her.
There were only three days before the house party and Baron White’s arrival. Three days before she’d have to smile and play the gracious hostess to the man who’d tried to assault her. Three days before her father would expect her to accept Baron White’s renewed advances with gratitude.
“What if I told Father I won’t marry him?” Rose asked.
Prudence’s silence was answer enough. They both knew what would happen. Rose would be cut off entirely, left with nothing and nowhere to go. And her father would simply arrange the marriage anyway. After all, she had no legal right to refuse.
“I feel like I’m suffocating.” Rose pressed her palms against the window. “Like the walls are closing in and there’s no air left to breathe.”
“Oh, my lady,” Prudence said, her voice thick with sympathy.
Rose straightened, squaring her shoulders. She couldn’t change what was coming, but she wouldn’t spend the next three days cowering in her room either.
“After breakfast, I’ll take a walk. I need air.” She reached for herbonnet. “Some time in Mummy’s rose garden before I meet with Mrs. Blythe might help clear my head.”
“That’s a good idea. The rose garden always soothes you.”
Rose tied her bonnet strings with fingers that trembled only slightly. “Will you tell Mrs. Blythe I’ll meet with her in an hour?”
“Of course, my lady.”
Rose paused at the door. “Prudence? Thank you. For always looking out for me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“We’ll find a way for you to be happy,” Prudence said softly. “Somehow. We simply must.”
Rose nodded, though she couldn’t see how. As she made her way downstairs, she felt like a condemned prisoner walking to the gallows. The only difference was that her execution would be a slow one, played out over decades of marriage to a man who revolted her.
But for now, she could still breathe free air and walk in her mother’s garden. For now, she could pretend that three days was nearly enough time to figure out a miracle.
Even though she knew it wasn’t.
*
Rose made herway downstairs, her thoughts churning with equal parts dread and determination. The grand hall stretched before her, sunlight filtering through the arched windows to illuminate the portraits of her ancestors. She paused before the painting of her mother, commissioned just months before her death.
Lady Eleanor Wentworth sat in her beloved rose garden, forever frozen in a butter-yellow silk gown, pearls at her throat, a pink rose in her delicate hand. Her smile was sweet but tinged with sadness, as if she’d somehow known what was coming.
“Give me strength, Mummy,” Rose whispered.
She straightened her shoulders and continued down the sweepingoak staircase. With each step toward the breakfast room, her resolve hardened. She would not simply accept whatever fate her father had planned for her. Even if it meant running away.
The footman opened the door with a bow, and she stepped inside. The room smelled of coffee and bacon, but her stomach was too knotted to appreciate it.
Her father sat reading his newspaper, his posture rigid in his perfectly tailored maroon coat, silver hair combed neatly off his forehead. He didn’t look up when she entered, merely grunted an acknowledgment. The gold chain of his pocket watch glinted as he turned a page. No doubt he’d be checking it frequently, as if her presence were an inconvenience to be endured.
“Good morning, Father.” She bobbed her head before helping herself to a modest portion from the elaborate sideboard.
