At least, Robert reflected, there remained a few gentlemen of slightly sound mind in Society.
The thinning of the crowd around her afforded Robert a better view. Rose wasn’t looking at him but, even so, he was captivated by her eyes. Those grey-blue creations, that had seemed so light that they had practically been washed of color, had turned virtually gold in the candlelight.
Though, that was the only color about her, for, Robert now noticed with some dismay, she was awfully pale. If he hadn’t known better, he would have believed that she really had been taken to bed sick all day.
Of course, he had known better.
As the group of gentlemen dispersed, Robert decided that this would be his best opportunity to approach. He did, after all, have quite a lot he wanted to say and he required a great deal of explanation on her part as well. His feet were carrying him across the wide hall before he even realized that he was moving, before he had even made the decision to move.
Robert was nearly to her side. All of the gentlemen, remembering their places—thanks, no doubt in large part, to the glare he had perfected—shrank into the background. Even so, such did not afford him Lady Rosalyn’s presence. Instead, when Robert was just feet away, Lady Blythe intercepted her daughter, grabbing her by the elbow and quite literally yanking her several steps away.
Robert felt his jaw tighten. He tried to dampen his rising temper by telling himself that Lady Blythe wasn’t being rude, she simply hadn’t seen him. This excuse however did little to dissuade his ever-growing temper.
How could she have missed him? He was standing right there!
Stunned, Robert waited, his hands fisting at his thighs, as Lady Blythe and Lady Rosalyn exchanged what had to be the most dignified whispered argument he had ever witnessed—that had ever been, for heaven’s sake!
Whispers or not, the two were talking quite exaggeratedly—or rather, Lady Blythe was. Rose was silent, and would have been entirely still if it weren’t for her fan fluttering frantically at her chest. Her lips remained barely parted but silent all the same, while Lady Blythe’s movements were sharp and her hissed whispers sharper.
Though he couldn’t see her face, Lady Blythe’s temperament could not be overlooked. It was indubitably obvious that she was scolding her daughter.
And then she grimaced. Rose, that is. Or at least, he thought it was a grimace. In all truth, he wasn’t exactly sure what the emotion that crossed her face had been, but it had been close enough to be considered a grimace, surely.
Robert waited—as patiently as he could, given the circumstances—for all of about ten seconds, before stepping forward, making haste to close the distance of the last few feet that stood between them. Robert was not quite certain of what the future held for them—for he and Rose, that is—or if there even would be a them in the future, but he knew one thing for certain and that was that he wanted to protect Rose from everything. From all harm. Even harmful words.
He didn’t feel any particular sense of obligation to Lady Rosalyn. None at all, in fact. But she wasn’t simply one or the other. She was both. And whether she was dressed as Lady Rosalyn or not, Rose was in there somewhere and he couldn’t stand the idea of her hurting.
He recounted that afternoon in the stables, when, in her contrived tale, she had declared her mother dead. Well, he now understood why she had imagined such a thing, for to scold her daughter so publicly left only one’s imagination to deduce what Rose endured in closed company. And so it was that Robert did not fault her for having imagined her mother’s ill fate.
And besides, if anyone was going to dole out punishment upon Rose, it would be he and it would be for the senselessness she’d displayed in the events that transpired in the days prior, and for simply being so beautiful that she could not help but have all the men flock to her despite the disagreeable demeanor she threw at them. The former of which, of course, she couldn’t control. But the fact remained that it still bothered him.
Not so much that she was beautiful—that was not a difficult reality to come to terms with—more that he wasn’t the only one who noticed.
He was still aggravated with her after all, but it was more so now that he was displeased with Lady Blythe’s treatment of her daughter that had him walking up until he was standing directly behind the aforementioned lady and clearing his throat—none to gently—in an expression meant to announce his presence.
Lady Blythe spun around abruptly, taking a quick step backwards as she realized Robert’s surprisingly close proximity. Her hasty actions completely blocked her daughter out of view, which really wasn’t much of a disappointment as Robert was all for the putting off of the inevitable.
“Lady Blythe,” he murmured, all cordiality and not a bit of the anger he felt blooming in his chest.
Her face immediately became home of an insidious grin that nearly had him snarling. If he were less of a gentleman he quite literally would have snarled. Instead, he held his tongue.
Lady Blythe offered her hand, accepting a kiss upon her knuckles, before turning to introduce her daughter, who, she realized belatedly, she was blocking out of view.
Except, that she hadn’t blocked Rose. When she turned back to formally present her daughter to him, Lady Rosalyn was no longer there.
She was on the floor.
Robert’s eyes went wide with horror as Lady Blythe screamed her terror.
Rose had collapsed, her arms sprawled out at her sides, her skirts pulled up to reveal her awkwardly crossed ankles. With her head twisted somewhat to the side, she looked very much like a broken china doll.
Robert was on his knees, at her side, within the second, the crowd pooling around them all but lost.
“Rose!” He had to yell to hear himself over the gasps of shock and murmurs of “What’s going on?” from the surrounding the guests. He had to compete with all that and the pianoforte that had not yet been quieted.
She did not wake.
Robert shook her by the shoulders and, when that didn’t wake her either, he slapped her face, none too gently.
Still, her eyes did not open.
Robert lowered his face near hers, putting his ear near to her mouth, listening and watching for the rise and fall of her chest. “She’s not breathing,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else.
Lady Blythe, who was practically hovering over him, let out a gasp, then swayed, resorting to having to steady herself with a hand upon a nearby table that seemed to materialize out of nowhere.
He pulled at the neckline of Rose’s gown, but it was too tight. He could hardly get his fingers between the fabric and her skin to get a good grip, and thus he did not manage to pull so much as a single stitch. “I need a knife!” he bellowed. And when no one promptly responded, he rose on his feet and shouted louder, “Now!”
One appeared within seconds then, a pocket knife offered by the future Earl of Muring. Robert flipped open the blade and worked it beneath the fabric. As he tore her bodice open down the front, Lady Blythe found her strength and descended upon him, her nails ripping into his shoulders through her gloves, in an attempt to pull him off of her daughter.
“What do you think you are doing?” was her shriek.
“Get her off of me or I will not be responsible for her injuries,” Robert demanded. Lady Blythe was hastily removed, and he heard her crumple into tears.
“My baby,” she wailed. “She cannot die. I cannot bear it.”
He would have been furious with her, making this moment about herself, but he was too busy pulling back the fabric of Rose’s dress and cutting open the corset beneath in the same manner.
The fabric was no sooner free than Rose took a gulping breath, her body rising of its own volition as she came out of her sleep, nearly knocking her head upon Robert’s. He eased her back down onto the floor, one hand cradling her neck and the other at the curve of her back.
“Are you alright?” he inquired.
“Quite,” Rose answered softly. And Robert was once ag
ain amazed by her decorum, even when breathless and after just escaping death’s clutches once more.
Her eyes slipped shut not a moment later and Robert tapped upon her face, desperate to keep her awake. Her eyes became instantly focused on his—too focused—but it lasted no more than a few seconds before they began to flutter shut again.
“Rose!” His hand met her face for the third time in as many minutes. “Rose, you must stay awake!”
Lady Blythe, apparently losing concern for her daughter’s well-being, turned her attentions on Robert and the name he used upon her daughter. “Rose? But her name is Rosalyn.”
He closed his eyes, remembering the sad glint in her eyes when she’d told him that she had always wanted to be called Rose. It wasn’t her name though, not her given one. It didn’t matter that the name fit her perfectly; it was not at all proper.
But how dare Lady Blythe care more about which name he used than on her child’s health! Besides, how was it that she knew so little about her daughter than to know by what she wished to be called?
Lady Blythe’s parenting abilities were leaving a repulsive taste on his tongue.
Did she care at all about her daughter? Did she know nothing of what was in her heart, how she—rather foolishly—dreaded marriage to him? She certainly hadn’t known where Rose was sneaking off to recently.
How could she pretend to be so affected at one moment by her daughter’s collapse and then have the nerve to scold him in the next?
But his anger with Lady Blythe was overshadowed when Rose’s eyes finally opened. In the relief that followed, Robert noticed something he really should have seen minutes earlier. She was not wearing a chemise. He had cut off her garments and now she lay, quite literally, exposed to the world, in the center of the hall, the entirety of the London elite looking down upon her.
Rose’s eyes, now finally and firmly open, didn’t just stay in place, they turned to saucers, her hands flying up to her chest to pull closed the shredded garment that had left her exposed.
Robert moved quickly to cover her up, his own hands following hers to pull closed—as best as he could do considering the circumstances—the edges of her bodice. Then, upon realizing that there was simply no way that he would be able to close the gap in the garment, he shrugged out of his coat.
“We must get you upstairs at once,” he said, as Lady Blythe said, “I will call for a footman to come gather her.”
Before a footman could arrive, Robert had already wrapped Rose in his coat, scooped her into his arms and was carrying her towards the stairs. He wasn’t about to let another man touch her. He was in love with her and, even if he wasn’t entirely certain that he wanted her, he definitely knew that he didn’t want anyone else’s hands upon her body.
Rose’s head relaxed into his shoulder and he feathered a kiss to the top of her golden hair, telling himself it was habit when a man had a woman so willingly in his arms.
How was it that someone could come to love another and not even know them? How was it that there was any room for love within such a betrayal? Robert didn’t know the answers; he hardly knew the questions.
All Robert knew for certain was that he might be in love with a fantasy, but this was one fairytale he was determined to make sure came true.
Chapter 15
Fantasies and fairytales were the stuff of novels and this was real life, and so, this state of bliss did not last for long. Nay, it hardly lasted five minutes.
Robert carried his delicate Rose up three flights of stairs, Lady Blythe biting at his heels the entire way with talk of propriety and the lack thereof, etcetera, etcetera. But as her complaints compounded, Robert found satisfaction in imagining said lady’s demise.
It could be simple, easy even. He could make it look like she tripped on her hem and went tumbling down the stone steps. Perhaps the fall wouldn’t kill her, but at the very least it would shut her up for a little while. Besides, she deserved no less after the ridiculous scene she’d just made and the fact that her skills as a mother were clearly abominable.
Though, Robert relented, he did need a guide to usher him to Rose’s room, since he did not know where it was and, speaking of propriety, it would be entirely unwise to bring her to his room, which was the only other room he knew how to locate aside from the one his mother and sister shared.
And so, he was forced to rely on Lady Blythe’s guidance, and her company.
After two flights of stairs deposited him on the third floor, Robert was shown into Rose’s room. He laid Rose down on her bed and was drawing back his coat, with every intention of covering her back up with the blanket proffered by Lady Blythe, when Robert noticed something that had his world shattering as it had never shattered before.
Even more than when he had met Rose and had fallen in love with her.
Even more than when she’d left him on that path and his heart seized at the thought of never seeing her again.
Even as his anger burned hotter than The Great Fire of 1666 when he found out that she had deceived him.
This rocked him beyond his core. This changed his entire world, his entire look on life.
For when he pulled back his coat—with every intention of immediately covering her exposed chest with a blanket, mind you!—he was struck. His body was going from hot to cold and back and again, and his mind was blank and filled to the brim with every word and emotion at once.
Not only was Rose bare from her naval to her chin, before him, she was bruised as none he had ever seen. Every inch of skin covering her midriff was covered in the most awful of bruises. They were red and black and purple and blue, and every color in between. They were dark and they were fresh.
His hand moved, completely unbidden, stopping just before touching her skin as Rose drew a sharp, pained inhale. Robert’s eyes snapped to her face. She wasn’t looking at him but at her bruised flesh, rather, and he had the clear understanding that it was not the idea of him actually touching her that had her so bothered, but the pain that his touch would bring.
He shuddered at the thought of the pain that she was in.
“What happened?” he whispered, his voice unnaturally shaky and broken in all the places he never imagined it could be.
But if Rose was going to answer, she wasn’t given the chance. Lady Blythe rushed forward and seized the blanket from Robert’s now limp hand. “This is entirely improper!” she exclaimed, throwing the blanket over daughter, who winced in such heartbreaking pain that had Robert rising to his feet, ready to seek vengeance on Rose’s behalf.
“I must insist that you leave, your Grace,” Lady Blythe said, unaware of his readiness to strangle her.
Robert gritted his teeth. “I will not leave this room until someone tells me what happened.”
He was certain that his tone was such that brokered no refusals, and yet neither lady—not Lady Blythe whom he was practically slicing in two with his eyes, or Lady Rosalyn whose eyes were now closed and her face turned pale and partly away from him—answered.
“Now!” he roared.
Lady Blythe, true to form, did not so much as flinch at his display of anger. She merely straightened her spine and turned to her daughter and, in a tone much too sweet and innocent for the face she was pulling, said, “Yes, Rose,”—and Robert knew that he did not misinterpret her use of the name—“do tell us. What happened?”
The light brows above her closed eyes wrinkled for the barest of moments, before Rose’s eyes opened. They were as unreadable as ever, as emotionless as ever, as she said, “I fell. Off a horse.”
There was no fluctuation in her tone or movement in her face. There was no emotion whatsoever. She could have been discussing the weather or hats or some other suitably dull subject. But she was speaking of a rather large, obviously painful injury, and she had no emotion? It was unthinkable. More than that, it was unbelievable.
Robert didn’t believe the lie for one moment. He recognized the armor he was certain she was wearing during their first meet
ing, and which he had managed to chase away—if only briefly—during their second encounter. She was hiding the truth from him now just as she had done so then.
But then, he hadn’t realized just what she was hiding, only that she had been hiding something and that he would not be able to force her to reveal the secret. He knew the same now. She would not tell him the truth. He could stand firmly affixed to this spot all night and she would not reveal it.
Not with her mother present, at least. And it was obvious that Lady Blythe wasn’t going to leave him here, alone, with her unmarried daughter, whether or not they were kind-of, sort-of, practically betrothed.
So Robert, after a rather long hesitation, during which time his eyes remained fixed on Rose’s which weren’t quite matching his, he excused himself and went to bed.
Only, he didn’t sleep, for every time that he snuffed out the candle, or even so much as closed his eyes, all he could see was Rose’s pain-streaked face and the appalling discoloration of her otherwise perfect, porcelain flesh.
Chapter 16
Most of the guests were still abed, which really wasn’t so shocking—aristocrats weren’t exactly known for being early risers, and the sun had barely slipped itself over the horizon and into the sky. Luckily, Rose was—that is to say, an early riser.
She should have been too mortified to sleep—half the ton had seen her bosom last night, after all; more importantly, he saw her bosom last night—but sleep had found her anyways. Almost precisely from the moment that Robert—Lord Brighton, the duke—had placed her atop her bed.
She’d felt groggy and had been struggling to keep her eyes open, but she knew if she succumbed to the sleep that she felt pulling over her like an over-heavy quilt that he would promptly try to wake her, concerned for her well-being and all that. She supposed that he deserved an apology for having been lied to, and her appreciations for his saving her life, but she couldn’t muster the strength to do either because he had been staring at her with those crystal blue eyes that nearly made her lose her breath—an incredible feat considering she’d already quite literally lost it minutes earlier.
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