Page 53 of The Marquis' Game of Seduction
Rose reached her bedroom. She gazed at it with somber eyes, sensing that, suddenly, these were the final days in the estate that she had grown to love. She tossed herself on the bedspread. Sadness snaked itself around her, making her limbs tense and her body ache. The first few sobs sounded like they were coming from somewhere and someone else.
Minutes slipped away. These were her last days in the Kensington Estate. The party had been the tail end of the greater days of her life. Wasn’t that always the way of things?
Chapter 22
Hours later—long after the rest of the house had enjoyed their dinners—Rose had done very little to move from her current stance on her bed. She was growing dehydrated, and her belly ached with fatigue and hunger. But each time she turned her body to gaze at the door, each time she imagined herself taking the necessary steps into the hall and down the stairs and into the kitchen to rummage for whatever was left over after dinner, she simply couldn’t budge.
She had ridiculous, imagined ideas of what might happen to her if she never rose from bed again. “They’ll have to carry me from this bed kicking and screaming,” she whispered to herself, as proof that she still had a voice to speak.
The dismal day had turned into a dismal night. Rose felt oddly surprised to discover that it was nearly the end of November. Soon, preparations would begin for Christmas. In her rational mind, she tried to drum up excitement. After all she would be in a position of splendor and love, at the Thornton estate. She and Duncan would create little crafts for his mother’s presents. She would finally meet Amelia and perhaps assist her in getting well again.
Perhaps she would see all this from a far different angle in only a few weeks. Perhaps Amelia would tell Rose about her side of the story—just why it was she went to the West Indies, why she felt it was unfair to say that it was her and Laurence’s fault that Colin’s father had died. Perhaps she and Amelia would become good friends. Rose would perform the duties of Duncan’s governess for years and years—until he was able to age out, attend university.
Then what would become of Rose? She couldn’t envision it. But she had to push ahead, regardless, knowing that this was now her only option. She’d done all she could. She’d told Colin all she could about her feelings, about her fears of the future. And in return, he’d rebuked her.
There was a knock at the door. Rose yanked up and sat at the edge of the bed, blinking at the door. Was it possible that Colin had come to her room to apologise? Her stomach clenched with fear. She imagined him entering and pressing against her and kissing her in that wild, manic way he had after the party…
How she wished she could live forever in that moment, return to it as though it were a physical place.
“Come in,” Rose finally called. She hardly recognised her own voice.
The door cracked open to reveal Anna, carrying a plate. On the plate was a little cheese sandwich, a piece of chocolate. Her eyes were somber and wet.
“Oh, Anna,” Rose whispered. She felt another wave of desolation, both happiness that her friend had come to attend to her and sadness that Colin hadn’t made the effort.
Anna seemed to deduce this fact. “I know I’m not who you wish I was,” she said.
“You’re more than enough, always,” Rose said, her voice heavy. “Come. Sit. It’s so wonderful to see another human. It’s been so dreadful.”
Anna nodded and placed the plate next to Rose on the bed. She joined her and faced the same direction, her legs kicking about beneath her.
“Is Duncan all right?” Rose asked. She’d known, in some back alley of her mind, that she’d been meant to care for him that afternoon. Her arms and legs had been lead.
“Of course,” Anna returned. “Judith said that she spotted you after… after your conversation with the Marquees. And she asked that I play with him this afternoon. I know you always say it, Rose, but he truly is an inquisitive, marvelous little boy. He talks circles around me. It was a true honor to be there with him today. I’ve just taken him to bed, and he asked of you yet again.”
Rose’s heart felt squeezed with this fact. “Oh dear. I hope he knows that I’m all right. Just a silly girl with a silly fantasy. That’s all.”
“He would never think any thought that came through your head was silly. He has a great deal of respect for you, Rose.”
“He shouldn’t,” Rose said. She lifted the sandwich to eye-level and studied it, almost questioning if she’d lost her appetite. “I’m really quite a mess.”
“Just eat something. You’ll feel better,” Anna insisted.
“It’s just. He told me. He said that he will dismiss me regardless the moment Duncan returns to his estate. And the words felt like a knife directly in my belly. I’d thought we’d built something together, something that we would continue to work at. But just as soon as we’d built something we could stand on, he pointed to a single, seemingly innocent thing I’d said and used it as a reason to abandon everything.
“But the truth is, Anna, I’ve thought about it endlessly this afternoon. I don’t think I can imagine my everyday routine without seeing Colin, without knowing he’s somewhere near.”
Rose took a sad little bite of her sandwich and chewed several times, almost too many times, as though she’d forgotten what she was doing. Then she turned her eyes toward her friend, whose cheeks had grown slack with sorrow.
“It’s his stubbornness,” Anna said.
“But it’s also my fault for allowing it to happen,” Rose murmured. “And besides. As much as I wish to put all the blame on Colin, I simply can’t. I care far too much for him. I see him for who he truly is, and I am fully in love with him. And therefore, the blame must fall back on myself. I will carry it across my shoulders for the rest of my life, perhaps. For I can’t imagine falling in love with another man like Colin. And if I do go to the Thornton estate with Duncan, then it’s very possible that I’ll never have the opportunity to fall in love again. When Duncan becomes old enough, I imagine I’ll be far too old to find any sort of suitor. I’ll have no prospects. I’ll be old and tired and…”
“Don’t say these things aloud,” Anna whispered. She draped her arm over Rose’s shoulder and continued. “I don’t mean to speak about my own situation, but you must know that I thought endlessly that I’d never find any sort of love or happiness. Then I met Ernest and he passed me the first of many letters and I… I realised that life delivers the most beautiful surprises.”
“Yes. It does,” Rose agreed. “But I feel that Colin has been the most wonderful of any surprise I’d ever be allowed.”
Anna let out a low sigh. “I can feel how intense your love for him is. I can feel it in the way you say his name. We do such wretched things to ourselves in the name of love, don’t we? It’s terribly unfair, and yet it’s all we know.
