Page 1 of The Marquis' Game of Seduction
Chapter 1
Rose Hollingsworth had never thought much about her appearance. It simply wasn’t the way of an orphan to think about aesthetics in such a way, not when there were so many other things to care for — namely, how she was going to make her way in the world alone.
Seated in the back of a carriage, her head clicking to and fro with the turn of the rickety wheels beneath her, she gave first thought to her curly brown hair and her wide green eyes, all tucked there beneath her traveling bonnet.
The sun hadn’t bothered coming up much that morning, allowing just a light reflection of her face in the window against the grey of the clouds. She tapped her fingers across her curls, drew them down her neck and padded them across her second-hand coat, which her old employer had given her when she no longer had use for it.
A ragamuffin, in every sense of the word: this was the orphan Rose Hollingsworth. And she was en-route to her new position outside of London, at the home of the Marquees of Kensington—a mansion so enormous she saw it far down the road, a staggering dark building with three wings, glowing enormous windows that reflected back that orb of the grey sky, and big trees that swept side to side with the early spring breeze.
“Calm your mind. You can do this,” she muttered to herself, slipping her sweaty palms across her lap.
“What was that, miss?” The driver of the carriage worked for Rose’s previous employer and now hollered from up front. He didn’t bother to turn around, take any sort of glance at her. The hour had been quite early when he’d taken her from the carriage house, and Rose felt he wouldn’t forgive her for his fatigue.
And it was no use, of course. She couldn’t talk down her anxious thoughts. Not so close to the mansion.
“Nothing, sir,” Rose returned, surprised at how bright her voice was. She could truly fake it when she needed to.
She inhaled sharply, telling herself not to make such a misstep again. She kept her chin high, gripped her one and only carpet bag at her side. This was the first day of the next era of her life.
“He’s a perfectly lovely man,” her previous employer, Jennifer Carrington, had told her about this upcoming employer. “And he so requires assistance in the form of a governess for his nephew, a darling boy. I imagine you’ll fit in with them quite remarkably. It’s a wretched thing that we cannot keep you any longer. But we’re leaving London, and I know you so wish to remain here.”
It was true that Rose had a single sister across the city who also operated as a governess, and the thought of heading off to a distant place with an employer filled Rose with a sense of dread. Rose hadn’t lived with her sister Carrie in several years, not since she was a thirteen-year-old girl, which made Carrie a quasi-stranger. But the thought of having blood somewhere in the vicinity of her London world was the only thing she had to cling onto.
Now, Rose was 24 years old—24, with seven years of governess experience behind her, and who knew how many years of governess work ahead of her. Her heart pumped as the carriage clipped to a halt outside the Marquees of Kensington’s mansion.
“Here you are, miss,” the carriage driver said. His voice jumped with his cockney accent. He leaped from the front of the carriage and hobbled to the side, yanking the door of the carriage open and splaying his palm out for Rose to take. She gripped her carpet bag and followed his guidance to the muddy path below.
Against her will, she gripped the driver’s hand a bit too hard, gazing up at the enormous, ominous mansion before her. After she’d taken up her first governess position at the age of seventeen, she’d worked primarily in small, cozy mansions—homes that glowed with candlelight and echoed with laughter.
From where she stood, however, she felt that this new mansion was far too big—like an enormous skeleton without muscle and life and vitality. She imagined only a few people creaking about on the old hardwood, slipping around one another like ghosts.
“There you are,” the carriage driver said, his voice a bit too boisterous now. It seemed he was more than ready to embark out on the road once more. “I pray you’ll do very well here, Miss.”
He almost had to shake Rose’s hand off of his. She blinked and stepped back, gripping her carpet bag with two hands and thanking him a final time for him taking her there safely.
“Wasn’t nothing, miss,” he said with a final shrug. He leaped up into the carriage seat and flashed his reins over the horses. They clipped away, flashing mud up onto Rose’s dark green dress. She coughed and tried to flick off the bits of dirt.
But in the midst of this quick-fix, she heard her name cried from across the front yard. Rose spun round to find a middle-aged woman—big of bosom, her blonde and grey curls piled high in an up-do beneath her bonnet, a grey dress trying its best to keep her coy body from spilling out and jiggling everywhere. Rose forced her shoulders back and gave the housekeeper an anxious smile. She took several steps to meet the woman, arriving at the base of a mighty oak to meet her.
“Good morning, darling,” the housekeeper said, smiling to show half-crooked teeth. “It’s marvelous to see you, truly it is. I trust that your travel from the city went well?”
“Certainly,” Rose said, hating that her voice shook as she spoke. “Good morning to you as well. My name is…”
“Of course, of course. You’re Rose Hollingsworth,” the woman said, beaming. “And I’m Judith Leister. I’ve been the housekeeper for the Marquees of Kensington for many years. First with Colin’s father, Jeffrey, and now with Colin himself.” She flashed her eyes up toward the mighty, dark mansion, looking at it the way a mother looks at her child. “It’s been 15 years since I first darkened these doors.”
“Then I trust you are the very best person to show me around,” Rose said, marveling at the strange dichotomy of the warmth within this woman versus the rather horrific darkness of the mansion. How could such a woman maintain her cheer for 15 years, after living in such a place?
Judith beckoned for Rose to follow her up the porch steps, through the foyer. The door itself looked as though it weighed 50 pounds, but Judith didn’t struggle against it. The foyer’s ceiling was three stories up, with two winding staircases leading down to the marble floor below. Rose blinked into the blank space, staring up at a mighty painting of a middle-aged man with crisp white hair, wearing a military uniform and looking glum, yet confident.
“That’s the current master’s father, Jeffrey,” Judith informed Rose. “He’s been dead for four years. The current master is only 28 years old, meaning he took on the title of Marquees at the tender age of 24.”
“My goodness,” Rose murmured, although she hadn’t any real fascination with this “youthful” age whatsoever. In her world, people had to grow up quite young. She’d seen orphans take adult positions in the workforce at the ages of eleven, twelve. It didn’t much impress her that the Marquees had had to take on his incredibly lucrative, old-world position at the very adult age of 24. But she wouldn’t open her lips to say as such.
Judith led Rose down the wide hallway, pointing out the library toward the western wing. “Colin is quite a reader, although he’s terribly busy. I imagine he’ll want to instill a love of reading in his dear nephew.”
“I imagine that’s something you’ve discussed with him?” Rose asked, arching her brow. “The day to day expectations for the young boy? It was certainly strange, in my perspective, that he didn’t wish for any sort of interview prior to hiring me…”
Judith waved her hand about a bit. “It’s simply his way, darling. You’ll discover it as you go along, I’m sure. Here we are at the kitchen—“
