David took her by the elbow and drew her forward. “This is Lady Deal, your new mistress.” He nodded to the servant at the head of the line.
It was hardly an effusive introduction, but the butler stepped forward. White-haired and portly, he was called Farrell. Then came the housekeeper, Mrs. Epperson, a gaunt, gray-haired woman who towered over Rosalie by at least six inches. The cook was named Hurst, the coachman Hawthorn, the gamekeeper Franks—and there followed so many footmen, housemaids, kitchen maids, gardeners, groundskeepers and grooms, Rosalie knew she would never remember them all. Each one gave a bow or a bob, murmured a name in an undertone, and slipped back into place. She glanced now and again to David, expecting him to add his own observations to the introductions, but he remained largely quiet.
Afterward, Mrs. Epperson showed her upstairs, where Rosalie had little time to inspect her new rooms as she freshened up. The dust of travel gone, she hurried back downstairs to rejoin David.
He was waiting for her at the bottom of the oaken staircase, his dark eyes following her as she descended the final flight. “I thought you might like a tour of the house before we sit down to dinner,” he said.
“Yes, very much.”
“Where shall we start?”
How strange—he asked the question as if she knew the house better than he did. Uncertain, she clasped her hands together in a nervous gesture. “Which is your favorite room?”
“The library.”
“Then let’s save that for last.”
They started at the opposite end of the house, with the portrait gallery. It was a long, southern-facing room, where generation upon generation of Linneys in ornate gilt frames stared down from the oak-paneled walls. At her prompting, David pointed out various ancestors—the first to be ennobled, the Tudor courtier who had built the house, and the seventeenth-century Linney who had nearly cost the family everything plotting against the Protectorate. Down the generations, the men of the family bore a distinct resemblance to one another—or perhaps it was only that they all wore the same aloof, coolly superior expression.
Rosalie looked at David. “What about your parents?”
“This way.” He led her to the far end of the gallery, stopping before a matched pair of full-length portraits, both nearly life size.
Rosalie stepped back to better admire the likeness of his mother. Here was someone who looked nothing like the chilly Linney specimens around her. The young woman was dressed in the style of the previous century, her hair powdered and curled in an elaborate frizzle beneath a huge feathered hat that quite dwarfed the delicate oval of her face. Despite her sumptuous blue silk gown with its froth of lace at the collar and elbows, she had a sweet, unaffected smile, and a look of mischief lurked in her dark eyes. “She was very pretty, David.”
He gazed up at the painting with her. “Yes. She died when I was ten days old. My father remained devoted to her memory.”
“Only ten days old? Poor David. You must have missed her a great deal, growing up.”
“I?” David said in evident surprise. “But I never even knew her.”
Was it possible to miss someone or something one had never really known? Rosalie felt sure it was. David’s life might have been very different if his mother had lived. Perhaps his father wouldn’t have decided to take his own life, and he wouldn’t have ended up so alone. She counted herself lucky to have known both her mother and her father, and to have so many memories of them to cherish. “Were your parents married long?”
“Ten months.”
Her gaze shifted to the likeness of David’s father. Rosalie searched it for some portent of tragedy. The man in the portrait stood in a pose she’d seen David assume, lounging against the back of a chair with his weight resting on one elbow. He looked like a slighter, paler version of his son—though his pallor might well have been mere illusion, for he wore his thick hair powdered. Father and son possessed the same high forehead, the same imperious brows and dark eyes, the same straight nose and finely molded mouth. It was a little unsettling how much David looked like this man who’d taken his own life.
She swallowed down a sense of foreboding. “Is there a portrait of your guardian, too?”
David stiffened, his eyes roaming the gallery. “For a time there was, but it was taken down some years ago and sent to the estate he was managing for me.”
“He wished to keep it with him?”
David looked away. “Something like that.”
Next on their tour came the family chapel. Though no longer in use, it was still an architectural jewel, from its arched windows to its intricate fan vaulting. From there, they moved on to the Great Hall and the state rooms. Fine oil paintings decorated the walls, and thick carpets muffled their every step. They concluded the tour in the library, where case upon case of leather-bound volumes stretched to the ceiling.
Rosalie had never seen a house so restfully beautiful—or one so empty of life. Lyningthorp was almost eerie in its quietness. The servants whispered. The corridors echoed. And David, too, remained largely quiet as they toured the house, offering so little conversation it was as if every word cost him dearly. She was becoming used to his occasional silences, but this was a different kind of quiet, a brooding withdrawal into himself. He moved through the halls like a walking ghost.
It was a house of ghosts, for on their way from the breakfast room to the library he passed one doorway without comment. “What’s in here?” Rosalie asked, gesturing at the closed door.
David never broke his stride. “My father’s study.”
Again she recalled the suicide. What a world of meaning lay beneath the simple reply—not my study or the study but my father’s study, as if the closed-off room were lastingly and irreparably haunted by what had happened there.
They dined late, eating in the intimate family dining parlor. David hardly spoke at all except to answer the questions Rosalie asked about the house and the surrounding countryside. In many ways, Lyningthorp was the home she’d always yearned for—peaceful, stately, long-established. Much of its construction dated back to the days of King Henry the Eighth. She was inclined to ooh and ah, though David seemed almost embarrassed by the praise.
“You must have noticed the abundance of Tudor quirks,” he said. “Oriel windows, checkerboard-patterned chimneystacks, dog-Latin mottoes chiseled over the fireplaces. I sometimes think my ancestors had more imagination than taste.”
“But it’s so lovely! Even the gatehouse looks like a princess belongs there.”
He smiled wanly. “The gatekeeper lives there, and I assure you, no one is likely to mistake him for a princess.”
Rosalie laughed. It was her wedding day, and Lyningthorp was her new home. She was determined to delight in every detail of both.
Despite her eager enjoyment, however, David remained subdued. She tried to keep a conversation alive, but she could tell he was preoccupied. Might he be suffering from wedding-night nerves? She wished she knew him well enough to tell.
Dusk arrived late at the end of May, but at last it was time retire. Upstairs in her new bedchamber, it was once again easy to imagine herself in the pages of a fairy story, once again the lucky princess in some enchantment. Dismissing the abigail Mrs. Epperson had chosen for her, Rosalie surveyed her surroundings with mounting anticipation. Yes, she could easily imagine some Shakespearean heroine, a Juliet or a Rosalind, awaiting a visit from her lover here. Spacious without being cold, the room smelled of beeswax polish and the lilacs just outside its windows. Hangings of deep green silk adorned the carved tester bed, while an intricate crewelwork garden bloomed on the bed coverings.
She drifted into her dressing room, her feet sinking into the thick Axminster carpet. She could find only one flaw in her surroundings—the oppressive silence. The same stillness that permeated the rest of the house extended into her bedchamber. She was happy to be done with the bewildering cacophony of far-off ports and marketplaces, free of the lapping waves and creaking timbers of ocean cro
ssings, but the eerie quiet enveloping her now unsettled her.
A rap on the door made her jump. Shaking her head at her own skittish nerves, she faced the door with determination. “Yes?”
David entered, still fully dressed in his dinner clothes. “I wondered how you were getting on. Are these rooms to your liking?”
Despite her storybook fantasies of moments before, his tone sounded more fatherly than lover-like. “Oh, yes. They’re beautiful, David.” She looked down at her nightgown, wondering if she’d undressed too early. “Was I wrong to change for bed?”
He threw a quick glance at her, at the thin lawn chemise she wore, before looking away. “No. I was planning to undress soon myself, and I’m sure you must be tired.”
She didn’t mind that he hadn’t changed yet, not when his evening clothes were so well tailored to his broad shoulders, narrow hips and long legs, but she looked forward just the same to seeing more of him. “Not too tired.”
A muscle flickered in his jaw. He looked about the room before wandering over to the sitting area beside the fireplace, where two tapestry-upholstered chairs flanked the hearth. “Well. You have everything you need? I wish you to feel at home.”
“I have everything I need. After nine years of damp cabins and temporary lodgings, these rooms feel like heaven.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.” He didn’t sound particularly pleased. He sounded...nervous? He set a hand on the chair nearest him, his gaze shifting to the floor.
An uncomfortable silence settled over the room.
“So...” Rosalie scraped together a smile, though her own nerves were getting the better of her now. “Here we are on our wedding night.”
“Yes.” He looked up, his face pale. “Rosalie, I don’t wish to force myself on you, if you would rather we—”
“Of course you wouldn’t be forcing yourself on me.” Oh, yes, David was even more unsure of himself than she was. Whatever he’d meant to confess in her uncle’s drawing room, she must have been right in supposing him inexperienced with women. “We’re married now.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never done this before, of course.” Please don’t let me have to take the lead. “I assume you know what to do?”
There was a brief silence. She’d shocked him. She was just about to apologize for having bluntly called his sexual expertise into question when she noticed how tightly his hand was gripping the back of the chair beside him.
“Yes.” He looked away. “Yes, I know exactly what to do.”
Oh, dear, now she’d only made him more self-conscious. “Then how shall we begin? Should I get into bed? Would you rather talk for a time first?”
She regretted the question at once. She was making the most natural thing in the world sound so contrived, so orchestrated, when deep down she longed for it to be passionate and romantic and perhaps even a little wicked. She wanted him to begin, and she wanted him to make it as exciting as the kiss they’d shared aboard the Neptune’s Fancy on the night he proposed.
He shook his head. “We’ve started on the wrong foot. My fault, of course, but...Rosalie, this strikes me as a bad idea.”
“What strikes you as a bad idea?”
“This...” He gestured with a wave of one hand at the bed. “This whole business. I think it would be wiser if we each simply retired to our own rooms tonight.”
She blinked at him in confusion. “But it’s our wedding night.”
“I realize that.”
“I thought it was customary—”
“Yes, I know it’s customary, but there’s little point in going through with it tonight when you’re clearly tired and nervous.”
“But I’m not tired, and not really all that nervous.”
His eyes flitted over her, lingering for only a second on where the modest curves of her breasts showed through her nightgown before quickly darting away again. “So you say, but the timing seems wrong.”
She’d been both anxious and eager to please, this first time with him. Now it appeared he didn’t even want her. Mrs. Howard’s strident voice popped into her head. You’ve no feminine allure at all. Rosalie was determined not to give in to her misgivings, but what other explanation for David’s reluctance was there, when even the most inexperienced gentleman ought to show some interest?
She gathered her courage. “Do you find me unappealing, then?”
“Of course not. You’re the loveliest girl I’ve ever...” He let go of the chair, though even after his hand dropped to his side, his posture remained stiff with tension. “The point is, I can wait. I should wait. I want it to be—I want it to be good for you, your first time...” He looked about him, as if searching for a way to finish his speech. “There’s no point in rushing things.”
With the exception of his strange effort to warn her away two nights before, she was used to seeing him cool and self-possessed, but tonight he was neither of those things. He would only look at her obliquely, dropping his gaze whenever their eyes met.
What on earth was he afraid of? Even if he was inexperienced, they were husband and wife now. She wasn’t some jaded courtesan determined to find fault with his performance.
But perhaps new bridegrooms, too, sometimes fell prey to wedding-night jitters. “David, have you really done this before?”
His brows came down. “I’ve already told you I have.”
“I didn’t mean to call you a liar. It’s just that you seem so ill at ease.” A troubling thought struck, something she’d heard hinted about only in whispers. “You do prefer women?”
“Prefer them to what?” His face registered shock as he realized what she meant. “You mean to men?”
“I’ve heard of such things.”
“Good God!” He laughed shortly. “That’s one avenue, at least, I’ve never been tempted to explore. Yes, I definitely prefer women.”
“But you—you can do it? I mean, there’s no physical reason we can’t? Because if you should be incapable for some reason, David, I promise I’ll understand.”
He made a hollow attempt at a smile. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d suspect you were trying to offend me.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
His smile faded. “Yes, I’m perfectly capable. I should have thought that was evident on the night I proposed.” He strolled across the room to stare out the window at the starry night, his back to her.
She regarded him in dismay. “Then I don’t understand. If you find me appealing, and you prefer women, and there’s no physical reason you can’t take me to bed, why should we spend our wedding night apart?”
“Because I...it’s too soon.”
“David, I realize I said I was nervous, but I never meant to suggest I was afraid. I’m not going to shriek or struggle with you or faint dead away. I already know what a new bride—”
“We should wait.”
She needed to let the matter drop. She could see that. But she was too upset to listen to her common sense. “Wait for what? Did I do something wrong? Is there something I’m supposed to know, something I’m supposed to do or say?”
“No.” Still with his back to her, he looked to the door that connected their two rooms. “It’s nothing personal, and you’ve done nothing wrong, but I—I can’t. Not yet. I think it best we both retire for the night, and talk about this some other time.”
“David, you don’t have to go.”
“We could both use some sleep.”
“Then why not stay and sleep here with me? We don’t have to do anything more. We’ll just sleep, that all.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I sleep better alone.”
“But—”
“Good night.” He looked in her direction only long enough to sketch a hasty bow, then he bolted for the door, disappearing through it so quickly she was looking at his back one second and at empty space the next.
* * *
Snuffing out his candle, David sank down with a sigh onto his bed. He’d botched
his wedding night in every way possible—dull silence over dinner, an insulting lack of enthusiasm and a frustrating encounter that had left them both miserably dissatisfied.
If only Rosalie hadn’t seemed so cheerful and sweet and trusting, he might have been able to talk to her, perhaps even confess some portion of the truth about himself. Even if he dared not tell her everything, he’d hoped he might at least give her some sense of the kind of man she’d married. But then she’d turned those wide, guileless eyes on him, not just in the carriage but then again when he’d entered her bedroom, and he’d realized with a sinking feeling that only a brute would tell an innocent girl like Rosalie the unwelcome truth on the very first night of her married life.
He wished he’d found the courage to make his confession before the wedding. This stupid delay was only going to hurt her and further complicate matters. No doubt she’d been expecting him to greet the prospect of bedding her with enthusiasm and savoir faire. They were newlyweds, after all. How many ribald jokes had he heard in his lifetime about newly minted bridegrooms? How many blushing young couples had he watched practically devouring each other with their eyes? He was supposed to be eager for this first night together.
And part of him was eager. Tonight she’d looked positively bewitching, her gown of sheer white lawn hinting at the slender curves beneath, her cloud of dark hair tumbling over her shoulders. He knew if he took her in his arms, she would smell like that same French soap that had perfumed his cabin on the Neptune’s Fancy, and she would cling to him with that same breathless eagerness she’d shown on the night he proposed. It had taken all his self-control to stick fast to his resolution.
But he’d promised himself he wasn’t going to make love to her until he’d confessed the worst of his transgressions. Marrying Rosalie was the one good thing he’d done in his life, the one act he could view as basically decent and honorable. She deserved to have some inkling of his true character before she gave herself to him.
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