Robert had only one secret from his mother and, as of yesterday and his grand display walking through the servant’s quarters of the castle wearing servant’s clothing, that was no longer a secret either. He just… he didn’t hide things from her. He told his mother everything, writing to her weekly from London.
He was a devoted son and she was a loving mother. She knew him just about as well as he knew himself, better than anyone else. She had lived with his father for years, knew how Lord Brighton had single handedly robbed Robert of his future. She was the only person who truly understood.
And so she had become so much more than just his mother—she had long ago become his friend. A friend he didn’t see very often, but who was in his heart always and his thoughts constantly. And even though he no longer held onto any belief that there was a god, he held her in his prayers, too.
So, yes, Robert would tell her. As much pain as he was in, as much pain as it would be to relate his heartbreak, he would do it, for the simple fact that he could not not tell her.
He threw back the remainder of his drink, hoping it would give him the extra push of courage he needed to explain what had transpired in the past two days, but before he could collect his thoughts, she cut them off with her own.
“You’re in love.” The words were simple and sad. They had his attention snapping to her eyes immediately. The gleam in her eyes was not tears of joy.
Robert gave her one curt nod, unable to keep the readable pain from his features.
Lady Brighton took a shuddering breath, as though preparing for a great speech, but all that she said was, “I see.”
As his closest friend he had been hoping for something a bit more substantial, something along the lines of advice, on how to get past it, how to overcome the pain that was eating him from the inside out—which, Robert would tell you, was most excruciating. His mother did none of that, which left Robert most dissatisfied.
For nearly half a minute he did nothing but stare at his mother expectantly, until he was finally forced to acknowledge that she had no words of wisdom to impart on him just then, which meant that he had to fill in the gaps for himself.
“It is someone most inappropriate. I don’t know how it happened—only that one moment I was alone in this world and then suddenly the world was revolving around her. And I don’t know how to make it stop. I don’t know what to do, Mother. What should I do?”
Lady Brighton set down her saucer and moved to the chair kitty-corner to Robert’s, placing a delicate hand on top of one of his own. Her smile was sad in the extreme and he steeled himself for the bombshell she was about to drop on his life.
“I do not have guidance I can impart on you in this situation,” she said. “I have never stood in the situation in which you now stand and will not pretend to understand what it is that you are going through.” Her words were spoken as delicately as her hand was resting on his. “All I can say is that I love you and I know you, and I know you will do what is right, no matter what that is.”
“But I don’t know what the right thing to do is, Mother. Don’t you see? My heart is pulling me in one direction, but on the other hand, how could I possibly follow my heart in this situation? This is about so much more than love. This is about a legacy, about providing a future for the generations to come. What do I choose? Which path do I follow? My heart or reason? Because as logical as reason sounds, it does not, in this moment, sound reasonable at all.”
Robert knew that he was making no sense, that he was probably dizzying his mother with the double-talk, but he could not help it. The words were spilling off his tongue before he even registered they were there.
Rose was an impossibility. She had been since the moment he had met her. And yet, now, sitting here, speaking with his mother, she finally became something that was entirely within his reach. So long as he didn’t mind that Brighton Castle would never be able to support itself, would just leach funds out of the coffers until there was nothing left, leaving him and his heirs impoverished.
Lady Brighton leaned in, kissing him gently on his cheek before whispering in his ear, “I know you will do the right thing.”
When he was finally relieved of his mother’s company—she being pulled away to help Agatha with some crisis concerning the trunks being carefully packed for their stay at the Blythe’s—he went up to his room, drew his shades shut, and quite literally hid beneath his covers.
In the darkness he could at least pretend that tomorrow would never come and a decision did not need to be made.
Because, if he were honest with himself, he did know what was the right thing to do. It just did not coincide with what his heart was pleading with him to do.
*****
She was kicking a pebble up the drive, trying not to think about Robert, whom she had left behind, or about the door that stood in front of her. Her heart was beating like a wild ape in her chest. Her stomach was one large, painful lump, every muscle tense.
It was only a matter of seconds now before she would reenter her home where her punishment, no doubt, awaited. She had, after all, been missing for half the day.
But, Rose thought rather grimly, her parents would not go so far as to kill her. They needed her alive to marry the duke and ensure their dreams of having a duchess for a daughter, securing an alliance with a duke and the futures of each of their daughters.
She had not quite decided whether or not she was relieved that they would not kill her.
She was still a fair distance from the house, and it was entirely possible that she had not yet been noticed. She could slip back within the cover of the trees, coward that she was.
If she could put off the inevitable for just another hour perhaps she could summon the courage to face her consequences head on. As it was, she had no courage left in her. It had taken all of her strength not to run away with Robert and forget that all of this existed, forget who she was. It had taken all her strength to leave him behind.
It wasn’t merely his body she longed for, or his kiss—though, both were more than enough to make her lose her mind permanently. It was him, who he was. He was careless and controlled, fun and flirtatious while his gaze was sincere with his intentions. He was every contradiction.
He just… He flowed like water. There was no other way to explain it.
Robert was undeniably perfect.
Rose was none of those things. He was everything she had ever wanted to be, and all of what she could never be, could never have.
She wanted to be fun and free and careless, but she had to be a duchess.
She would be married off to Lord Brighton, wasn’t that punishment enough?
Her heart was breaking, shattering like a looking glass, into a thousand tiny pieces, each one of them reflecting her broken self right back at her.
She’d been destroyed by Robert, and she hardly knew him.
Wasn’t that enough? Wasn’t the unspeakable pain that she would live with every day for the rest of her life enough of a punishment?
No. It would not be. Because she would not tell her parents about Robert. He was hers and hers alone. She would not allow their negativity to intrude on those private moments she had shared with him, on her heart which she had given to him. Robert would remain her secret and thus she would have to subject herself to her parents’ chastisement.
She closed her eyes, kicking the pebble hard, sending it skittering into the grass lining the drive.
Just an hour and she would be able to face them. Just an hour to allow herself to sit among the shadows and cry her eyes dry. She could face her life in an hour.
Before she had a chance to turn off the drive and into the shadow of a maple tree, one of the large doors to the house was thrown open and Isabelle—her sister so near to her in age and looks that they could easily be mistaken for twins—came running down the stone terrace, her skirts clutched in one hand to grant her such speed. By the time Isabelle came skidding to a stop in front of Rose, her hands were on her hips a
nd she was bent over, panting from the exertion.
Once Isabelle caught her breath, she launched in, never one to beat around the bush. “What happened? Where have you been?”
“Out for a stroll,” Rose said plainly, a sisterly smile curving her lips upward at the corners. There wasn’t a whisper of a fallacy in her tone, though she knew that would do little to dissuade Isabelle.
Isabelle’s eyes were the same shade as Rose’s, but unlike Rose’s, Isabelle’s were always deep in thought. Isabelle did not simply look at anything, she explored it with her eyes. One could not meet Isabelle’s gaze and not feel as though their soul had been stripped bare. She saw things that no one else did. Perhaps it was because she was the only one who cared to look, but it was frightening all the same, because Rose always tried to be so careful in disguising her emotions from everyone, never wanting to burden others with her own torments.
But she could always rely on Isabelle to see.
Rose’s sisters had become like blood in her veins. She didn’t know them as well as she should, but she loved them each desperately. And none more than Isabelle. The two weren’t as close as two sisters could be, but they loved each other well, and clung to each other as their parents pushed them away.
It could have been because they were so close in age—separated by a scant year. But Rose rather suspected it was because Isabelle was so like her. The two lacked the naivety of ordinary girls their age, the follies of youth having been long ago discarded.
They were the product of their parents’ upbringing, their manner being always perfectly appropriate and polished. Every word was spoken with purpose and without emotion—for anger was deterrent; sorrow, depressing; and joy crude. They let their true personalities lie dormant, overshadowed by the reserved disposition of the refined ladies their parents expected them to be. And while they never spoke of their unhappiness—even between each other—their pale blue eyes saw more than they concealed.
They knew each other’s discontent not because they could read it in their body language, and not because the other gave any outwards indication. It was purely a sisterly knowledge. Knowledge based off of years of knowing a person.
Rose was closest to Isabelle because they were the same—because she could look into her sister’s eyes and see a reflection in them of her own thoughts, of her own sorrows. Words meant so little when compared to this sort of awareness of another person. There was simply nothing like it.
That was not to say that she didn’t love her other sisters just as wholly as she did Isabelle. It was merely that Madeline and Beatrice were still quite young, at thirteen and ten, and had not yet shed the shroud of youth. The elder two were the offspring of their parents, while Madeline and Beatrice were something else entirely, their sunny dispositions always stark against the quiet, somber mood of the house. And if they didn’t look so much the same as the rest of the family, Rose would have believed that her two youngest sisters had been dropped upon their doorstep in the night.
But Isabelle… She was like Rose. She was prim and proper in all respects. She was all that a lady should be with her blonde locks and light blue eyes, with her straight back and her easy grace. She was fluid and reserved. Formal without being stiff. But while Rose feared that that was where she herself ended, Isabelle was more than just all that, more than just the breeding of a proper young lady.
Isabelle was intelligent, and that intelligence showed in her eyes.
She really shouldn’t have been surprised that Isabelle held her stare for longer than most would deem necessary, or appropriate. She should have known that Isabelle would see the lie where others would accept the words as truth—well, except in this scenario. No one would really believe she was merely out for a stroll, least of all her parents.
It was a bad example, but the fact of the matter remained that one could hide nothing from Isabelle.
As Rose knew Isabelle, Isabelle also knew her elder sister, knew when to hold her tongue. And instead of demanding answers to questions Rose did not freely offer, Isabelle changed the subject. “Charles is here.”
A faint smile crossed Rose’s lips at the mention of her brother. He had grown to be a good man, though, he was not without his demons. How could he not be after all he had suffered? He was heir to one of the richest earldoms in the country, one would think that someone of such importance would be raised by something other than wolves. Such had not been the case.
“Poor Charles,” Rose said, her smile dying. “It is always so hard for him to be at home.”
Of Rose’s sisters, Isabelle understood her best. But it was Charles who truly knew her. It was Charles for whom she discarded her disguise. His sapphire blue eyes did more than just see through her, they evaporated every bit of her composure. Though, it was true that she rarely saw him.
Charles was not in the habit of returning home often. He was a young man of nineteen, and when he was not studying and attending classes at Cambridge, he was usually in London or at the home of a friend, always carefully avoiding their father’s company. When Charles did return to Whitefield Abbey, Lord Blythe was never in residence, and his trips were usually scheduled around when their mother, too, had taken to town. For the remainder of the time, they were separated, communicating through their frequent letters.
In his letters, her brother never withheld a word or a feeling to spare his sister. He shared all and he begged her to do the same. They were each other’s confidants, like beacons in a storm, a guiding light.
They had been through a great deal together in their short years, and those bonds could never be severed. They understood each other in a way that no other people could.
Rose loved her sisters. She would do anything for them. She could have resented her brother for their sake, let bitterness eat her alive, because, as a man, he had more freedom than she or her sisters would ever be allowed. But Rose didn’t feel any of that.
She sympathized with Charles. He might be a man, and he might have more freedom, but that did not mean he was not just as confined as she, not in just as much pain as she—if not more.
Charles didn’t have a family. Not really. He was more of a nomad. Home was unbearable for him, and bachelorhood lonesome. At least Rose had her sisters. Charles had no one to comfort him, save for her letters.
He was such a good person and he loved so deeply. He could bring so much to this world. And yet, no one could see it but her. Their childhood had hardened him and he refused to open himself back up to pain. Rose didn’t want to see him hurt. She just wanted to see him love and be loved.
Now he was here, for the house party he no doubt did not wish to attend. And so was Mama and Papa.
As it was, the party was destined to be a disaster, and Rose had to pick this moment to rebel, to go in search of an adventure that she had no business pursuing.
She looked up at the house they were fast approaching and reflected.
She only had herself to blame for what was to come, the chaos that was about to ensue.
“Perhaps it will be good with him here,” Isabelle said. “Maybe he can smooth things over until tomorrow when the guests arrive. Perhaps Papa won’t—”
“Isabelle.” The word was soft, with no inflection, no force. It was simple. It was a no.
Isabelle immediately quieted. They both knew what was to come. They both knew what awaited Rose on the other side of those great doors. Charles could do nothing to prevent the harsh realities that lay before her. Try as he might, he would not succeed. And Rose didn’t want him caught in the fray. He had fought and lost too many battles for her in the past. She would not let him lose again.
They were up the steps and at the door, Rose’s pebble long since lost from her mind. But her other thoughts—the ones of Robert, the ones that suspiciously matured from a pebble into a boulder—were now a welcomed distraction from her brother, her Papa, and what was to come.
Chapter 11
Lord Blythe was not an exceedingly large man, standing sca
nt inches taller than she, but his fists packed a power that had Rose sprawled out on the floor with just one blow.
Well, it wasn’t a punch, really. It was more of a shove, designed to unstabilize her. And it worked. He tossed her to the floor like a sack of flour or a pillow, as though she weighed nothing at all.
Rose squeezed her eyes shut as one black boot lifted up above her, preparing herself for the blow to come, even as she told herself to relax—it would hurt less if she would just relax.
But, of course, she couldn’t. Not when flooded with the memory of the pain from her past, accompanied by the current fire in her stomach.
She imagined that a father who spent so much time London, away from his family, would be missed by his children. Missed this man was not. In fact, Rose was grateful he spent so much time ignoring their existence. She would be even more grateful if he went to London and never returned.
But most of all, she was grateful for this. For each booted foot that slammed into her side. For each curse uttered by her father. She was grateful for the pain. Because if he was hurting her, he wasn’t hurting her sisters.
It had been like this for years, for nearly as far back as she could remember. For years she had been subjected out by her mother, named as the mastermind behind all that went wrong. No matter what it was, it was Rose’s fault. A broken vase, a child tripping down the stairs, a grass stained hem. They were all results of Rose’s imperfections, even when Rose was nowhere near. Rose accepted it. As her duty. It was better for her sisters if their mother believed she was forever the culprit. It was better for her sisters for her to endure their mother’s reproach.
Though, it wasn’t merely their mother Rose protected them from.
It was their father most of all.
Their father, who spent nary a moment with his children, even when at home, and who had nothing of which to base his own opinions of his girls on except Lady Blythe’s word. Lady Blythe could hardly spare a good word for her eldest daughter, and thus, Lord Blythe’s opinion was left up to his wife’s exaggerations and his own imagination.
Rose by Another Name (The Blythe Series Book 1) Page 13