Page 10 of The Marquis' Game of Seduction
Rose laughed again. “Silly boy! Perhaps I could plant all the rose bushes near the trees. And they could be friends beneath the sky above.”
Duncan nodded quickly, flashing his eyes toward Colin. Colin tried out a smile, yet couldn’t quite form it. After the laughter died down, Colin cleared his throat again and said, “Rose, I wanted to tell you. It really was wretched of me not to introduce myself prior to now. I do hope you’ll forgive me. I’ve been terribly busy.”
Rose lifted her napkin and tapped it across her bottom lip, although she hadn’t a shred of mess to speak of. She studied him with those bright green eyes. For whatever reason, Colin had a strange fear that she wasn’t going to let him get away with this—that she was going to call him out on his lies.
But instead, Rose delivered the brightest smile he’d ever seen. It absolutely captivated him. He couldn’t imagine that anyone would ever cast this kind of smile toward him, of all people—and he waited for it to fade, for her to return her attention to Duncan where it belonged. But she didn’t do it very quickly; in fact, it seemed that she wanted to look at him longer, to give him the attention she felt he deserved.
Was that even possible?
“It’s quite all right,” Rose said, her voice lilting, like a song. “Judith told me how busy you’ve been. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your important duties. Although, to be frank with you, I haven’t a clue what those duties might be. All my life, I had these ideas of what the Marquees and Dukes and Lords did with their time. Important meetings, decisions made that would alter the course of their people…”
Her eyelashes fluttered and her cheeks burned bright pink once more. She’d spoken a bit too quickly, as though she’d fallen into Duncan’s childlike wonder.
“Terribly sorry. I don’t mean to belittle your work in any way…” she began.
Colin surprised himself with his answer. “Not at all. Even I don’t understand what it is we do all the time.” He matched her grin, which forced her to return to her food with nervous energy. Her fork dug into the meat, her eyes flashed around her. He hadn’t had this effect on a woman in years. He hadn’t bothered to interact with many in that time, either.
Rose dropped her fork to the side of her plate and glanced up, seemingly surprised by his answer. She was on the brink of saying something—something Colin ached to hear—when Duncan piped up to his right.
“Uncle. I don’t suppose you’d like to hear the things that Rose taught me today about the herbs in the forest?”
The voice was so sweet, so tender. Colin turned to face Duncan who beamed up at him, fresh and vibrant and filled with information. Again, it wasn’t a struggle for Colin to respond kindly, saying that of course, he’d love to learn.
He felt Rose beaming at him, and he marveled—how on earth did this young woman have such power over him? How on earth had his mood elevated so incredibly in a matter of minutes? Just yesterday and the day before and the month before that, perhaps even the year before that, he’d been a caged-in angry animal, a wild being with very little control over his feelings.
Colin found himself dreadfully sad when it was time for dinner to end. Their plates gleamed, empty and shining, and the maids hustled in to clear the dining table. Duncan continued to rattle on about his newfound education in the forest, and Rose continued to interrupt when she needed to, if only to correct when he seemed to misremember information or make something up.
“Your imagination is running away with itself again,” she told Duncan, giggling. “You could write your own book about what you think is going on in the forest, couldn’t you?”
Duncan gave a little shrug and again glanced at Colin, seemingly trying to deduce what Colin thought of such a thing.
“Perhaps I had better pay closer attention,” Duncan said, stuttering it a bit.
But Rose just clucked her tongue and said, “Don’t be silly, Duncan. I want nothing more than for you to feel free in your thoughts and your imagination and your mind. Perhaps we can create a nightly exercise. For every truth that we say aloud, we must make up a non-truth. A story. Perhaps even now, we could begin. Colin—erm. My Lord.”
Colin detested being put on the spot in this way. To his remarkable distaste, he felt anger stir up in his stomach and boil over. He shot up from his chair and pounded toward the doorway, before spinning back. Rose’s eyes again were illuminated, curious—yet oddly fearful, what with his sudden recoiling from their conversation.
“I’m terribly sorry. As I mentioned, I’m quite busy and don’t have much time for such conversation. But…” He paused, shifting his weight. He didn’t wish to stamp out all the work they’d done that evening in getting to know one another. This was a strange sentiment indeed, the idea that he wanted to retain some sort of emotional connection.
He forced himself to say—finally, after a few soft gasps, “Although, I must say, it was a unique pleasure to dine with you both this evening. And I trust that we may do it again soon.”
Then, he whipped out the door and sauntered toward his study, fully prepared—mentally and physically and in every way - to spend the remainder of the evening, perhaps the week, alone, mulling over the events of the evening.
She had certainly caused a stir within him that he couldn’t fully comprehend. And he prayed that she wouldn’t distract him too greatly from his work, that she’d remain a dutiful educator for Duncan and little more.
Soon, when Duncan returned to his home and his mother, Rose would go off to her next governor-ship… to another estate, another world. Perhaps she would be tossed about like that forever, until she became the old maid she would inevitably be. By that time, he would be much the same: old and alone, a forlorn man on an enormous estate, without having slowed down enough to love.
Chapter 5
Rose peered at Duncan across the now-empty dinner table in the wake of his uncle’s sudden and distressed exit. Duncan blinked down at the stained tablecloth (for he was a boy and thus a messy eater) and spread his palms across it. He let out a little sigh, one that resembled his uncle’s, in a way, and then said, “He does quite hate me, doesn’t he?” Although Rose recognised that he said it quietly enough that he hoped nobody, not she, at least, would hear him. For this reason, she kept her lips pressed together without answer.
Within a minute, Judith appeared in the doorway and requested that Duncan take himself to bed. Duncan groaned a bit and slipped out of his chair. He took a few anxious steps toward Rose and dotted a little kiss on her cheek—an action that made her heart swell with joy—and then popped out into the hallway, skipping up toward his bedroom. Judith called after him to say, “Make sure you don’t spend too much time playing with your toys, Lord Duncan. You need a good deal of rest to begin your studies tomorrow!”
“I KNOOOOW, Judith!” Duncan returned.
Rose leaned over her hands and beamed at Judith. Judith placed her hands on her hips and said, “So. What of it? How was dinner?”
Rose lifted herself from her chair and stretched her stiff legs toward the doorway. There, she whispered in Judith’s ear, “I expect it’ll take him some getting used to, having these newcomers in the house.”
