Page 63 of Passion Painted in a Lady's Heart
“That’s very kind of you, mother,” Rosalind said, finishing the cup of coffee one of the footmen had poured for her, before rising from the table.
It amused her to think of the secret she harbored, and the scandal hidden from her mother and the rest of the ton. For once, Rosalind was possessed of something for herself, rather than that chosen for her by others. Sebastian, it seemed, felt the same, and Rosalind wondered what Elizabeth would say when she discovered the truth.
“Though I won’t tell her about the nudes,” Rosalind said to herself, fearing her friend’s sensitive disposition might be somewhat overwhelmed by such an extensive repertoire of scandalous goings on.
She met Elizabeth in the park opposite the house, where formal gardens provided a pleasant perambulation amid the perfumed air of a thousand colored blooms. The two women walked beneath their matching yellow parasols, arm in arm, discussing the events of the previous evening. Rosalind was waiting for the right moment to mention Sebastian, and it came when the talk turned to Elizabeth and John, having searched for Rosalind and Sebastian as the evening drew to a close.
“What were you doing in that funny little alcove upstairs? It was on the servant’s corridor, wasn’t it?” Elizabeth said as she and Rosalind reached the end of a long walk, flanked by sweetly scented rose bushes in all manner of color and variety.
Rosalind blushed, even as she was not ashamed of their having been discovered. She had thought of little else than the kiss she and Sebastian had shared, her desire for its repetition only heightening with every recurring memory. She could feel his arms around her, the touch of his lips against hers, the swift beating of her heart in the snatched moment of their passion.
“We were talking. It was…oh, Elizabeth…would you think terribly of me if I told you I was in love with him? With Sebastian, I mean?” Rosalind exclaimed, turning to Elizabeth, who looked momentarily surprised, only to regain her composure with a smile.
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised, Rosalind… it’s obvious. John and I have spoken of it on numerous occasions. He knows Sebastian’s in love with you, and I know you’re in love with Sebastian. But so much holds you both back, your betrothal to the Duke of Northridge, Sebastian’s madness,” she replied, looking sympathetically at Rosalind, who shook her head.
“But it’s not true, is it? Sebastian isn’t mad, and I’m not betrothed to the Duke of Northridge. Not yet, at least. Last night, at Thornbury House, I overheard Lady Soutbourne and Lady Helena talking with one another about Sebastian, and then he told me about a note he’d apparently written to his land agent, arranging a meeting, but he couldn’t possibly have written it, because he was with us at Somerset House. He’s played a fool of by someone or someone wants to make him out to be mad. To convince him he’s mad,” Rosalind said.
Elizabeth looked horrified, even as a note of skepticism crept over her face.
“Making him think he’s mad? Oh… but Rosalind… you can’t truly believe that,” she said, but Rosalind shook her head.
“I do believe it, Elizabeth. I’ve got no reason to doubt it. I know he’s not mad, and that can only mean someone else wants to make out as though he is. It’s simply dreadful. But it’s not just that, I love him,” she said.
Rosalind had not yet spoken such words out loud. To admit to another, the love she felt for Sebastian seemed quite extraordinary, even as it was surely entirely natural. The thought of being in love, and of being loved in return, was intoxicating, overwhelming, even, and as she spoke the words, tears welled up in her eyes. Elizabeth smiled at her.
“Oh, Rosalind. What a terribly complicated situation you’ve created for yourself. But I can see the same look in your eyes as I had when I looked in the mirror after John told me the same. When he told me he loved me, I was overcome. I couldn’t quite believe it, but it was true. We felt the same for one another, and knowing that… I know how you feel, Rosalind, even though I know it won’t be easy,” Elizabeth replied.
Rosalind was relieved. She had feared Elizabeth might not understand that she would speak of duty and expectation and obedience. But Elizabeth had experienced that same feeling. The feeling of being loved and loving in return. Rosalind smiled.
“Oh, I’m so glad… I wasn’t sure… well… you don’t think badly of me?” she said, and Elizabeth shook her head.
“Good heavens, no, you’ve fallen in love, Rosalind. Who could think badly of you for that? The Duke of Northridge, perhaps, and your mother… but I don’t see why she should be so set on your marrying that awful man. A miserable duchess is hardly an ambition a mother should hold for her daughter. Why not be the happy wife of an Earl? A countess can hardly be looked down on,” Elizabeth replied.
“Because she thinks he’s a madman or soon to become one. Like the rest of the ton, my mother judges on hearsay and rumor, rather than evidence. She won’t even speak to him. She’s made up her mind, and that’s that,” Rosalind replied.
There was no doubting the difficulties involved, the impossibility of the situation. Rosalind could refuse the Duke of Northridge until she was blue in the face, but it would not alter her mother’s opinion of the Earl of Southbourne. Sebastian was mad, and it would take far more than the proof of a land agent’s note and a missing cigar case to prove otherwise.
“Then what are you going to do about it, Rosalind? Will you make a stand? And what if… well, what if he really is mad?” Elizabeth asked.
This was where skepticism came into play. Rosalind had expected it, even as it made for an uncomfortable question. She, too, had asked the same. By his own admission, there was every possibility Sebastian would be afflicted with the same illness as his father and grandfather.
If someone was trying to make him think he was mad prematurely, there was no reason why they should not simply be hastening the inevitable. But if that was the case, Rosalind was of the opinion that to be forewarned was to be forearmed.
She knew the risks of falling in love with anyone, and she was prepared to accept those risks, even as others would surely have shied away from the possibility of falling in love with a madman whose last vestiges of sanity may soon be lost forever.
“I don’t think he is, and if he is, well, none of us knows what the future truly holds, do we?” Rosalind replied.
The thought of a moment captured in a painting came to her again. Any painting was the capturing of a moment. It had a past, a story leading up to the view on the canvas. But it had a future, too. Those whom it depicted would go on living their lives.
But in that moment, that one moment, they existed as they were, and it was the same for Rosalind and Sebastian. She wanted to exist as in a portrait, frozen in the alcove with Sebastian’s arms clasped around her. She loved him, and wanted to go on loving him, just as those immortalized lovers at Somerset House went on loving one another into eternity.
“No, we don’t. But I’d hate to think you were hurt, Rosalind, or had your hopes destroyed. Do you think anything can come of it?” Elizabeth asked.
Rosalind did not know. It was madness, the madness of love. She wanted to think something could come of it, and she had allowed herself to think of such possibilities, even as the practicalities seemed impossible.
“I don’t know,” she said, answering Elizabeth’s question honestly.
They had made several circulations of the formal gardens, and had now come to the gates of the park, preparing to part ways with another. Elizabeth and John were going to the theater that afternoon, and Rosalind could not help but feel a sense of sadness at the thought of them doing such ordinary things. The sort of things she and Sebastian were denied. Could theirs ever be a true courtship? She was entangled in a web, one she was growing ever more caught up in.
