Page 9 of The Marquis' Game of Seduction
“It’s quite good. Roasted duck,” she said, arching her brow. “I imagine that Rose has had very little of that sort of thing over the years. When I told her the menu, she nearly fainted with delight.”
“Oh?” This was difficult for Colin to imagine, as he’d grown up with weekly meals of roasted duck and had taken the entire affair for granted. He wrapped his arms around his back and bowed his chin, saying, “I suppose she’ll grow accustomed to this way of life.”
“Yes. But perhaps she’ll never take it for granted, the way we do,” Judith affirmed, almost as though she was reading his mind.
Judith disappeared down the hall. Colin forced himself toward the door, yanked it wide open and took a firm step forward. He counted the steps as he walked toward the dining room. When he arrived, Duncan was already seated in his ordinary seat, his legs not quite reaching the floor and his feet whipping back and forth.
Rose, the governess, sat across from Duncan. It seemed she’d been in the midst of telling him something and had immediately closed her lips upon hearing Colin’s footfalls. She glanced up at him, her cheeks bright pink with embarrassment. Her hair was still a bit tousled, perhaps from the wind across the moors. She yanked back her chair, struggling to stand, but Colin brought his hand out toward her and shook his head, saying, “No, no. There’s really no need to stand.”
“Good evening, my lord,” Rose said, her nostrils flared. She looked taut and strange and angular, nothing like the comfortable woman she’d been when he’d first glanced at her from the doorway.
It was becoming increasingly clear that Colin simply had that effect on people.
“Good evening.” He swallowed, then remembered what Judith had said about his inability to introduce himself prior to this. He bowed his head just slightly, although he remained standing, and said, “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lord Colin Remington, and I am the Marquees of Kensington.”
Her eyes glittered, as though, in another world, she might have said, “But of course you are.” But she instead bowed her head back and said, “Good evening, sir. My name is Rose. Rose Collingsworth. It’s lovely to finally meet you.”
Duncan’s bright eyes burned toward him. He gave him a half-smile, then said, “Good evening, Uncle.”
“Duncan,” Colin said. He could feel the chill in his own voice and immediately regretted it. He tapped around to the head of the table and then sat in his father’s chair, turning his eyes first toward Duncan, then toward Rose. It very much seemed that they didn’t wish to look at him long, as though he was the sun.
Colin couldn’t be sure when he’d begun to think of himself as a kind of outsider, a man who very much preferred to keep to himself. Perhaps it had happened in the wake of Amelia’s departure for the West Indies, which had surely led to his father’s death. Colin didn’t like to think of himself as the sort of man who “felt sorry for himself”; however, he could certainly point to several occasions in his life that might have created this darkness within him.
There was simply so much he couldn’t think about, so much he couldn’t consider. Not if he was going to move forward with his life.
The duck was served while the three diners remained in silence. He could feel the tension in the room growing taut, wrapping around all of them like low clouds turned to fog. He tried to imagine himself to be a different man, perhaps the sort of man he might have been had Amelia decided to remain in London…
And then, despite everything, despite the ache in his heart, he opened his lips to speak.
“Where were the two of you headed this morning?”
Duncan and Rose exchanged a confused glance. Rose nodded slightly, seemingly telling Duncan to take the lead on this—but Duncan gave her a little shake of his head, casting it back to her. It was like watching a sports game.
“Well, Duncan wanted to show me the grounds,” Rose said. “They’re certainly grand, aren’t they? Nothing like the smaller places I’ve grown accustomed. Cozier mansions. Smaller gardens.”
“My father was quite proud of the gardens and the grounds,” Colin said.
“Judith and Duncan both inform me that he was quite a man,” Rose said.
Her green eyes were a force, seeming to dig into him. They reminded Colin of his father’s portrait, the severity of those eyes. He swallowed.
“He was. It’s a tragedy that you were never able to meet him,” he said. He hated how sterile his words sounded. He glanced once more toward Duncan, wanting to ask the boy what Amelia had told him thus far about his father. Had she actually told him he was a remarkable man, even though it had been due to her leaving that he’d left this world…?
Colin stabbed his fork and knife into his slab of meat and chewed slowly, considering what to say next.
“And you, Rose? Where are you from?” he asked.
“I was raised in an orphanage in London with my sister Carrie,” Rose said. She hadn’t a single layer of fear or sadness when she said it. It seemed she no longer cared about outside judgement. “I worked as a governess starting at the age of 17,” she continued, “And I have very little experience with anything else beyond education and childcare. Perhaps I have a bit of a green thumb, as well. I spotted that final flower garden—the—“
“The rose garden,” Colin said, interrupting her.
Rose nodded. “Yes. Perhaps it’s silly of me to love roses so much. Perhaps it’s left over from my childhood. I thought they had a kind of magic because they shared my name. How silly.”
“If I knew anything in the world that was also named Duncan,” the boy chimed in, “Then I imagine I would collect all of it. If there were Duncan stones or Duncan toys or Duncan trees…”
Rose giggled, her eyes filling with light. “How on earth do you imagine you would collect trees, dear boy?”
Duncan stabbed a bit of duck onto his tongue and chewed a bit too quickly. “Perhaps I would plant them all across the moors and walk amongst them, all the Duncan trees swaying in the breeze around me…”
