Page 31 of A Duke for Stealing
“What do you wish to know, Lady Rose?” She asked.
“Whatever you wish to share with me,” Rose replied. “Your favorite colors. Favorite animals. What did you like to do with your parents?”
Rose saw both girls’ shoulders tense at the last question, and she knew she had gone too far. They were guarded, hurt by their loss. She needed to move more slowly.
“Let us start with your favorite colors,” Rose gently offered.
Diana looked toward Leah, as if needing her sister’s permission to speak. Leah waited a moment, as if unsure she trusted Rose enough for her to know such things.
Be patient,Rose told herself.They need time.
“My favorite color is blue,” Leah answered after a while. “Not bright blue, like my crown. But dark blue. Like the night sky just before the sun goes away.”
“That is a very beautiful color,” Rose agreed.
Leah gave her a half smile, then looked down at her plate before picking up another cake.
“And you, Diana?” Rose asked, turning to the other little girl. “What is your favorite color?”
With her mouth full, Diana pointed to her crown. She finished her bite, swallowed, and then smiled.
“This color precisely,” she replied. “I love how light it is, and how it is sometimes almost pink.”
“That is very special, is it not?” Rose asked, and Diana readily nodded.
Rose stuck to more basic questions from then on, learning their favorite flowers —lilies for Diana, Dogwood tree blooms for Leah; their favorite foods —petit fours for Leah, eggs on toast for Diana; and their favorite time of day —dusk for Leah, and the sunrise for Diana.
The questions faded as they finished their dinner and moved on to games. Leah and Diana offered to show Rose a game they made up, which she happily accepted but never quite gotthe hang of. Then, after Leah won the first three rounds, Diana announced that it was time for a new game and that it was her turn to pick.
“You are just being sour because you lost,” Leah began to pick.
“Now, girls,” Rose said, intervening before a squabble could start, “We could always return to the cards. For now, though, let us play something with a little more movement, shall we? Help our wonderful dinner settle a little?”
“Oh, I know!” Diana exclaimed. “Blind man’s bluff! Remember, Leah? Remember how fun it was?”
“It is fun to play,” Leah agreed, then smiled; the expression so bright and sincere that Rose felt her heart swell with joy.
“Well, I suppose I would not be against a turn or two, as long as I do not have to be the blind man first,” Leah ventured.
“Blind Man’s Bluff it is then,” Rose agreed, turning to Diana. “Well now, darling, who is going to be our blind man first? You? Or me?”
Diana’s smile was brilliant as she pointed to herself.
“I shall go first,” she replied.
“Very well then,” Rose stated, reaching for a clean napkin to use as a blindfold. “Let us begin.”
Everett paused in the hall when he heard laughter. He’d been looking for Rose. An invitation had come to his desk, and instead of sending a servant to alert her, he’d decided he wanted to deliver the news in person. He’d been wary of her ever since she’d kissed his forehead in his office. No one had ever shown him such tenderness, and it had alarmed him. In fact, he was not used to such tenderness at all in terms of giving or receiving. What he wanted, he took without sweetness, and the women he was used to would praise his brutality.
Yet as the days passed, Everett found himself moving away from lustful thoughts of bestial taking and instead looking up from his work with excitement every time he heard a knock on his door. After several interruptions where Everett conjured Rose’s face and was disappointed that it was not her, he accepted something. Even if he was wary of her, he wanted to see her. It was strange and confusing, but as the hours passed into days without seeing her, it also became frustrating.
Still, he hadn’t wanted to approach her without a reason, and so when the invitation came, he felt he had the perfect excuse. He’d looked in her rooms, the library, the solarium, but found no trace of her. Finally, he found Mrs. Mulberry, who surprised him with the information that Rose was holding a party for the girls in the sitting room.
He headed toward the room immediately, ready to scold her for being so extravagant with the girls- yet when he’d heard the chorus of laughter, he’d stopped, and felt all of his frustration melt away. How long had it been since he’d heard his nieces laugh? Since he’d heard Rose’s laugh?
Quietly, he stepped toward the door and peeked in. A smile broke through his frown as he saw Diana and Leah giggling with their faces poking out from behind the curtains, and a blindfolded Rose standing in the middle of the room with her arms outstretched. Lopsided paper crowns adorned all of their heads, making them look even more adorable. Even Rose, though fully grown and past the age of adolescence, appeared innocent and adorable in her lopsided pink crown.
Another peal of beautiful laughter left Rose’s smiling lips as she continued to search blindly for his hidden nieces, and it sent a shock to both Everett’s mind and heart.
