Page 55 of The Marquis' Game of Seduction
The walk up to her bedroom felt like it took much longer than it normally did. The floorboards creaked beneath his feet. For the first time, Colin actually considered the fact that his father had once told him the old house was haunted with the soul of his great-great grandfather. He hadn’t known the man, couldn’t visualise his face. Yet he somehow felt this other presence in the air.
How foolish of him. He knew the other servants frequently spoke of the possibility of ghosts. Yet Colin had always assumed that he was far too intelligent for such idiocy.
Perhaps he wasn’t too intelligent for anything. For truly, only foolish creatures fell in love. He knew that above almost everything else.
When he reached Rose’s bedroom door, he wanted to be careful not to wake the others sleeping in bedrooms alongside hers. He clicked his knuckle across the wood and waited, and waited. Yet there wasn’t any sound on the other side. Thinking that perhaps she was in the depths of slumber, Colin rapped again and waited, praying for her to attend to him this time.
But after the fourth knock, each of which grew louder and more insistent, Colin drummed up the courage to open the door himself. When he did, he found the room completely empty—the comforter ripped away, as though she’d put herself to bed and then rushed out somewhere.
Where on earth could she have run off to?
Colin stepped deeper into the room and gazed down at the bed. Memories of their time together, laying there together on the tiny bed, filled his mind. His eyes tipped up toward the window. He peered out, contemplatively, across the night. His heart grew heavy with what he saw.
The light remained aglow in the tower. And charting a path out toward the tower was a figure, holding onto a candle.
The time had come for all the secrets to be revealed. He let out a deep sigh and turned back toward the hall. Everything had been leading to this point. But he knew just how wretched it seemed that he’d allowed it to get so far. He wished he could race ahead, catch up to her—explain everything before. But even as he picked up his pace, whirling down the staircase and grabbing his coat from the foyer wardrobe, he knew he would never reach her in time.
It was the end of all things. Perhaps Rose wouldn’t want to speak to him after this.
Perhaps she would find a way to leave him even sooner, to rid her heart and mind of him. To squeeze herself dry of him. Regardless, he pressed out into the chilly night, preparing his speech on his tongue. He couldn’t imagine talking his way out of this. But he could certainly try.
Chapter 24
Rose reached the tower in what felt like the dead of night. As she’d been so mentally afraid of it over the months since her arrival, she felt a bit strange standing directly before it, gazing up at the lit window.
Despite what Judith and Colin had said the tower seemed quite firm, its stones stacked one on top of the other in a manner that didn’t suggest they might tumble out and knock a worker in the shoulder, injuring him. Rather, the tower seemed only just as old as anything in the mansion itself, with a beautiful little green door around the back, facing toward the forest.
What on earth was Colin hiding out there in the tower? And who was awake so late at night up there?
Rose imagined a whole host of possibilities. She imagined that Amelia was actually up there, wading out the events of her illness so as to avoid further contact with other humans (but still within reach of her son, if she needed to say a quick goodbye). She imagined that Colin had a secret wife up there, locked away because she’d gone mad. Certainly, it didn’t seem outside the bounds of reason that Colin’s wife might have gone mad. He was a difficult man to understand.
Oh, there were several other paths for her mind to run down. Perhaps Colin himself wasn’t even the Marquees—he’d kidnapped him and stuffed him in the tower, to take over the duties instead!
Perhaps Colin is right,she thought then, a smile stitching across her face.Perhaps Duncan and I do allow our imaginations to get the better of us.
She reached for the doorknob on the green door and turned it. It clicked open easily. She was incredibly surprised that such a “secret door” to the tower hadn’t been locked. What did they wish to hide so desperately that they weren’t willing to lock away?
Rose faced a winding staircase that snaked up and up and up the tower. From down below, one was unable to peer all the way up to the tower’s lit room. Rose took a hesitant step inside and then slowly traced her way all the way up.
She forgot to breathe and felt her heart thudding in her throat. She felt her courage fleeing out behind her as she grew closer, as though the act of opening the door and taking that first step had depleted her. When she did catch sight of the well-lit doorway, at the very top of the stairs, she thought she might vomit with fear.
She lifted a shaking hand and pressed it against the door, creaking it open. Bright blue walls sprung back at her, walls painted with little stars and paintings of creatures, like horses and bears and squirrels. The decor was entirely sweet, like that of a child’s room.
A wardrobe stretched out across the wall, with a dark space behind it, due to the circular nature of the room. And the window that had been all lit up, which faced directly toward Rose’s bedroom, was there on the other side of the room—massive, with light yellow curtains hanging on either side.
There on the floor, perched on a light pink rug, was a little girl—the very same little girl Rose had met in the dark hallways weeks before. Her heart surged with both panic and anger and fear. But the girl seemed none the wiser about her presence. She held a little doll and a toy horse in each hand and faced them toward one another for a brief, yet all-important imaginary conversation. Her mannerisms were electric, and her little nose leaped up and down beautifully, adorably, as she played.
Rose longed to drop down and begin to play with the girl. She longed to ask the girl what her name was, what she was doing there. She’d thought she was just a little facet of her dreams, that, perhaps, the girl had been proof that Rose was diving into madness.
But there she was. Playing, like any little girl should be allowed.
But why was she doing it so far from the main house? And why had Colin been so adamant about keeping her a secret?
Footsteps echoed through the stairwell behind Rose. She sprung around to see Colin, racing up, his black coat whizzing out behind him. He locked eyes with her. Rose’s stomach dropped. She knew she’d broken his rules—one of the only ones, in fact. And yet he had a great deal of explaining to do.
“How did you know I was here?” she demanded. She set her jaw, feeling overcome with emotion as he grew closer. Before long, he towered over her, his body enormous and his shoulders wide and his eyes sparkling.
There was simply no denying the fact that he was just as in love with her as she was with him.
