Page 69 of Seductive Reprise
When she opened them hours later, it was at the sound of the front door.
“Ruth?” she asked, confused, her mouth dry. She’d slept the day away.Wonderful.
“Oh, here now, are you?” Ruth said, clearly less than thrilled at the prospect.
Rose ignored the jab and sat up, rubbing her face.
In the dark she heard the scrape of a match. It illuminated Ruth’s exhausted face as she turned on the lamp, which clanked to life before giving way to a low hiss. With the entire room now lit in a dingy, somber glow, Ruth shook out the match, then set to untying her bonnet.
“Ruth? May I ask you something? Of a personal nature?” Uncertainty still warred within Rose. But Ruth was prettier than her, and if she wasn’t mistaken, only a few years younger—perhaps twenty-five, yet still unmarried.
Her housemate turned on her heel, one brow arched with skepticism as she peeled off her gloves. “Get on with it, then.”
Rose perched on the edge of the couch, staring at the floor while thinking of how she might word it, so as to obscure the particulars of her predicament. Or worse, inadvertently insult Ruth, as she was likely still testy.
“Is that a new walking suit?”
Rose glanced up to find her housemate surveying her with a look of approval.
“It’s quite nice,” Ruth admitted.
She recognized this was Ruth’s form of a peace offering, so she took the thin compliment and returned a strained smile.
And then she charged forward, before she lost her nerve. “Has anyone ever proposed to you?”
She didn’t know what kind of response she’d expected; perhaps a curt dismissal followed by silence, and then finally, the next morning, a bland answer. But Ruth tilted her head, considering Rose as she never had before. Uncomfortable under such scrutiny, Rose reached up for her hair, which was messier than usual from her troubled nap. She smoothed it as well as she could without a mirror.
“I’ve had offers,” Ruth finally said, dismissing the thought as she turned to the battered table where they kept their meagerprovisions to fiddle with the tea. “Though I wager you must’ve had one?”
“I… yes.”
“And you refused?”
“No… of course not, I just… why?” Rose frowned, watching Ruth cross the small room to put the kettle on.
“Hmm.” Ruth turned her hands over as she spoke, examining them for dirt. “You seem rather upset. It’s a natural assumption, to be sure.”
Rose scoffed in response, and set her chin on her hand. If only she were as neat and composed as Ruth, casually rebuffing her suitors. But whereas Ruth went to great lengths to put on airs about her station, Rose had no such compulsion. Or she hadn’t, until this… taste of a new lifestyle. It had made her want new clothes, large rooms with walls of windows, and porcelain tubs withpipesandfaucets. She stifled a happy groan at the memory of last night’s bath. Never before had she completely submerged herself in hot water, stretched out to her full height. She’d nearly accepted Yusef’s hand just for the promise of such a bath every night, never mind that of his mouth upon her body.
But the bigger question was whether she could accept the Earl of Ipsley as her father. For she could not take his recognition and his money without acknowledging him in turn, and with more good grace than Yusef regarded his own father. The idea of it felt wrong.
“I haven’t refused him.”
“Does he have a good situation?”
“Certainly,” Rose scoffed, but she quickly curbed it when she saw a glint of interest in Ruth’s eyes. “Much, er, better than myself, I suppose.”
Ruth narrowed her eyes, but continued. “And is he kind? Gentle-like?”
Once, she’d have responded resoundingly in the negative. She’d thought him entitled, imperious, and controlling, a man who thought it his right to dictate her life simply because of their shared circumstance of an ignominious birth. But now?
Even with her anger at his misguided attempt at aiding her by collecting every canvas she’d ever thrown paint at, a wistfulness settled upon her, a yearning in her heart as she thought of him. The feel of his lips on her neck, so full and soft, the sound of reverence in his voice when he purred her name, the way his eyes crinkled when she could get him to laugh. How, over the course of these past weeks, he’d mostly yielded to her rather than take charge of everything himself. How he’d praised her talent. The soft earnestness of his eyes when he begged her to consider a future with him. As his wife.
“Ah. I see,” Ruth said quietly, even though Rose had yet to respond. “It’s written all over your face. You’ve a fondness for him.”
Just then the kettle wailed, and Ruth used her skirts to pick it up.
Rose wet her lips. “And yet I still don’t know what to do. My thoughts keep going about in circles.”
