Page 22 of Passion Painted in a Lady's Heart
“I’m sure,” she said.
“Well, ladies, I must take my leave. It’s been a delightful morning. How glad I am to have joined you,” he said, as the other women rose for his departure.
“You’ll call on us very soon, I hope, your Grace,” Rosalind’s mother said, and the duke took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.
“It’ll be my pleasure to do so, duchess,” Richard replied, before turning to Rosalind, who curtsied.
All she wanted was for him to leave, even as she feared it would not be long before he returned. His arrogance knew no bounds, and it seemed he already considered himself to be the one whom she would marry.
“Goodbye, your Grace, Rosalind said, as he took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.
“Goodbye, dear Rosalind. When the scent of the roses fills the air, think of the one who brought them,” he said, before taking his leave.
Rosalind rolled her eyes. He was insufferable, even as her mother was full of praise for him.
“Isn’t he marvelous? The perfect match for you, Rosalind,” she said, smiling at the other guests, all of whom nodded.
“If one could imagine the perfect husband, it would be him,” Lady Tilly remarked, and the others said the same.
Rosalind had heard enough, and excusing herself, she returned to her bedroom, closing the door behind her with a sigh. She had awoken that morning with a vague hope of seeing the mysterious man from the masquerade again.
She had imagined him calling on her, the two of them walking in the garden, perhaps even sharing a kiss beneath the boughs of the weeping willow at the bottom of the garden, where one could be hidden from the observations of the house. But the earl had not come, and Rosalind could only assume he had no interest in her, despite the obvious connection they had shared at the masquerade.
“Surely I’m not like all those other women,” she thought to herself. She could not imagine her mother’s friends showing any interest in the sorts of paintings she and the earl had admired the previous evening. Shock and horror would be their reaction.
From beneath her bed, Rosalind drew out the painting of Ariadne and Dionysus. There was the earl’s face, immortalized on the canvas, and her own, that of Dionysus, looking back at him. She smiled, reaching out to touch his handsome features, the features she herself had painted from memory.
A shiver ran through her as she imagined that same touch against her skin, his fingers tracing a trail across her cheek. Leaning forward, she kissed the canvas, her lips against his, before drawing back with a smile. There was something rebellious in her thoughts, as though in her attraction to the earl. She was snubbing the duke, and her mother, too.
“He really is very handsome,” she thought to herself, and in his face, and in her recollections, she could detect no signs of madness.
It was surely nonsense, and to suggest a man would go mad because his father had been mad before him was madness itself. The earl was not mad, and if he was, he had disguised it as skillfully as he had disguised his face with the mask.
But unlike his face, there had been no revelation of the truth of madness; not even a glimmer. He had been witty and charming, erudite and intelligent. His speech was not that of a madman, nor his opinions, either, and if Rosalind’s mother believed she would turn Rosalind against the earl by making up such stories, she was strongly mistaken.
“Will you wear the red, my Lady?” Molly asked, holding up one of Rosalind’s dresses for her to see.
“No, I don’t think so. I’ll wear the peacock blue. It hardly matters, does it?” Rosalind replied.
She had resigned herself to attending Lady Clarissa’s ball that evening. There would be a dinner, followed by dancing, and though Rosalind had a vague hope, she might again encounter the Earl of Southbourne. That hope was tempered by the certain knowledge of the Duke of Northridge’s attendance. Without the masks, there could be no hiding, and she would be forced to dance with the duke, as the earl looked on.
“And that’ll be the end of that,” she had told herself, knowing the duke would make it his business to ensure she received no attention from the earl or any other gentleman, either.
“But you want to look nice, my Lady,” Molly replied, rummaging in the wardrobe to bring out Rosalind’s peacock blue dress.
“What I want is to paint. I want to stay here. But it’s far easier to do what my mother tells me,” Rosalind replied, shaking her head sadly.
She was resigned to a dull evening with more of the same conversation she had endured that morning. Even if the Earl of Southbourne was in attendance, Rosalind felt certain he had already made up his mind she was of no interest to him, and with this in mind, she feared she would be embarrassed, as well as bored.
“You can’t hide here your whole life, my Lady. Let’s get you dressed, and then you can choose your jewelry,” Molly said, ever practical in her instructions.
Rosalind did as she was told, dressing in the peacock blue dress before selecting jewelry left to her by her grandmother; a sapphire broach with a matching necklace and tiara. Glancing at herself in the mirror, she imagined the earl as Dionysus, snatching the jewelry from her and flinging it into the heavens to make the constellation.
“I’ve been too hasty, haven’t I?” she said, and her maid looked at her with a confused expression.
“What do you mean, my Lady?” she asked, reaching up to adjust the necklace around Rosalind’s neck.
“The Earl of Southbourne. I got carried away with my thoughts over him. I thought he might’ve called on me after we met last night,” Rosalind said, for she had felt disappointed not to receive a visit from the earl, even as he had made no promise to do so.
