Page 54 of A Match Made in London
“The pianoforte.”
Again the girl tried to go around her. Again Rosalind stepped in front of her.
“And what composer do you favor?”
She had hoped that, by giving the girl an encouraging smile and asking after her likes, she might draw her out. But if anything her expression became more closed off, tense. “I don’t rightly know,” Miss Weeton gritted.
Rosalind stopped herself from growling her frustration. Really, why could the girl not meet her halfway? She was being nothing but pleasant. Pasting on another bright smile, she tried again. “But surely you have a preference. Or mayhap you prefer older country tunes? Or something with a religious bent?”
“Miss Merriweather,” the girl burst out, with more passion than Rosalind had ever seen from her, “would you please move. For I need to access the retiring room.”
At once the folly of what she had done came crashing down on her. Goodness, here she had been intent on befriending the girl, and instead she had forced the girl to stand in discomfort. Her face going hot, she quickly stepped to the side.
Miss Weeton, polite girl that she was, nodded her thanks, and then sprinted through the door, slamming it closed behind her.
Foolish woman, Rosalind silently berated herself. For if the girl had not wanted to be friends before, she certainly would not now.Not after that bit of embarrassment. She turned for the drawing room, feeling much like a dog scurrying back to safety with its tail between its legs, when the sight at the other end of the hall froze the very blood in her veins, then immediately heated it to boiling.
For Tristan stood there, staring at her with blatant horror.
Pulling her shoulders back, she marched forward. But that same devil that had perched on her shoulders earlier in the evening performed an encore, for she could not pass Tristan by without muttering acidly, “Are you happy, you cretin?”
“Not in the slightest, Miss Merriweather.”
The answer was said so gravely, she stopped and glared at him. “Talking to me again, are you?”
Instantly his expression shuttered. “I would think you could guess why I have acted the way I have this evening.”
“And I would think you could guess that your change in attitude toward me would bring up unwanted questions as to its cause. Something I have no wish to happen, as I like this position and have no wish to lose it.”
She didn’t know what made her say it. She was certainly better off having him ignore her. For when she received his full and direct attention she tended to make the most bumbling, idiotic mistakes imaginable.Like letting him kiss you senseless. She hurriedly quieted the small voice in her head. She should apologize, should let it be. For hadn’t she wanted more than anything for him to leave her alone?
Before she could open her mouth, however, he spoke. “You are right, of course. I seem to forever be making mistakes where you are concerned.”
The comment was so heartfelt, so genuinely frustrated, she was struck dumb. Flustered beyond bearing, knowing she only had to get away from him as soon as possible before things became even stranger between them, Rosalind ducked her head and hurried past him. Not knowing if she had won a battle or made the biggest mistake of her life.
• • •
Tristan had sent his valet off to bed and was about to shrug out of his dressing gown, climb between the sheets, and attain blessed sleep. He needed that oblivion, troubled as he was by his confrontation with Rosalind earlier in the evening.
As his hands went to the silk tie of his dressing gown, however, his eyes fell on the two small miniatures he kept on his mantle. They were the only family portraits he had in his home. The first showed a young woman barely of age, a gentle smile curving her lips. His mother. Married at sixteen, a mother at seventeen, dead a mere five years later. She had not lived long past the painting of the picture. The very sight of it brought him pain. But she had been forgotten by everyone else, his father especially, who had done everything in his power to erase every reminder of his first wife from his life after her untimely passing. Including pushing his son away, doing everything but disowning him.
The other portrait was of Grace. She too was smiling, young and innocent and eager for her life to start. That had been before she’d been married off against her wishes to a man twice her age, forced to live far from everything she’d ever known. It had not been a happy union, Tristan knew, though she had made the best of it, had even become friends of a sort with her husband after a time. He had thought her coming to London after her year of mourning was up was an ideal plan. She had always thrived in a lively, vibrant atmosphere. And they could finally spend more than a few weeks at a time with one another, out from under the stern eye of her husband. He’d thought she might find happiness here.
Now he wondered.
For though he had been focused on Rosalind and her failed attempts to befriend Miss Weeton and the muck-up he’d made—yet again—in dealing with her, he had been distantly aware of something seeming very off about Grace. She had appeared pensive most of the night, more subdued than she typically was. But now that he thought on it, there had been moments of melancholy sinceher arrival. And then hiring Rosalind on? His cousin was a kind woman. When Rosalind came to her asking for work she would have helped her in some way. But she seemed to genuinely need the other woman’s presence, relied on her in a way he had never expected. Was she unhappier than she was letting on? Without a second thought, he retightened the sash and hurried from his room on bare feet.
His cousin answered his knock cheerfully enough. But she was not in bed as he expected her to be when he entered her room. Rather, she was at her desk, a letter smoothed open before her on the shining top. When she saw him she took it up and folded it, hiding it away in a side drawer.
“Have you come to tuck me in and kiss me on the head and bid me sweet dreams?” she teased, turning in her seat to face him.
“I might, if you were not a year older than me. And if I didn’t expect you to kick me in the shins.”
She chuckled as he pulled up a chair close to her and sat. “Well, I know you must have come here with a purpose in mind. Out with it, darling, for you keep me in the most acute suspense.”
Nothing but the bluntest words would do for Grace. And so he said, without even the slightest pause, “Are you happy in London?”
She blinked. “Goodness, what brought this about?”
