Page 19 of Marry in Secret
“Ofcourseit’s a calamity, you ninny! We losta duke!” Aunt Agatha snapped.
“Pfft! Who cares about dukes?” Aunt Dottie dismissed an entire class of noblemen with an airy wave of her hand. “Love is far more important. I must say, I don’t much like that beard, but he has lovely eyes, your Thomas. And those shoulders...”
Aunt Agatha swelled with outrage, but before she could scald them all with vitriol, Emm intervened, saying in herbest schoolteacher voice, “Stop teasing your sister, Dottie. Go on, Rose, I can understand you falling in love—I did it myself at your age, quite disastrously as it happened—but what prompted you to make a clandestine marriage? Why did Mr. Beresford not apply to your father—or Aunt Dottie at the very least—for permission to court you? Why hide it from everyone—even after the event?”
“And not even tellme,” Lily said in a low voice. “I wouldn’t have told.”
“I know.” Rose squeezed her sister’s hand in mute apology. Looking back, she hadn’t really meant to keep it such a secret, not for so long. At first it was simply because falling in love with Thomas had seemed so magical, so precious and private—too private to share. She wanted to hug it to herself, to revel in the secret joy of being in love. Of being married to the most wonderful man in the world.
Besides what would be the point of telling anyone at that stage? Thomas was away on his ship, so it wasn’t as if they could commence their married life together. And if her family had learned she was married, apart from the dreadful fuss they would make, Rose knew she’d be pulled out of school, separated from Lily, and she couldn’t allow that to happen. Lily struggled in school, and Rose had to be there to protect her.
Then the news had come that Thomas’s ship had gone down. All hands lost... Dead.
For the next few weeks she’d been too busy hiding her grief. Because if anyone discovered she’d been secretly married, the fuss she’d dreaded would happen anyway—and to what end? If Thomas were alive it would have been a different matter, but he was dead, dead and gone, and the prospect of going over it all again, explaining to Miss Mallard, to her father and Aunt Agatha—the thought of them all picking through the ashes of her dreams with their horrid, suspicious minds—was unbearable.
She might have shared her secret with Lily at that point, but Lily was staying with Aunt Dottie at the time, slowly recuperating from her very severe reaction to the mumps—she’d almost died—while the rest of the school returned to their lessons.
And then... No, she couldn’t bear to speak of that. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Afterward, she couldn’t bear to have it sullied by a lot of questions. The kind of suspicious, ugly questions she was facing now. So she’d done her best to bury her dreams along with her husband, buried them deep and covered them with ice as best she could. Never to speak of them again.
And now Thomas had returned from the dead...
“I cannot think well of him for going behind everyone’s back,” Emm said. “You were, after all, just sixteen. He was much older, and an officer.
“He was twenty-three,” Rose said. And even at sixteen she knew what she wanted.
Emm raised her brows. “Really? He looks much older.”
Rose nodded. “He’s changed a lot. That’s why I didn’t at first recognize him.” The knowledge of that failure twisted inside her once more.
“It’s obvious why he married her in secret,” Aunt Agatha declared. “He was after her money, of course.”
“He wasn’t,” Rose flashed. “He knew nothing about my inheritance.”
“Don’t be naïve, child, of course he did.”
“He didn’t, I’m sure he didn’t. Or if he did, it made no difference.” Thomas was unlike any other man she’d ever met. He hadn’t seen her as the Earl of Ashendon’s daughter, or the Rutherford heiress, or even as the latest beauty—he’d looked at her and seen Rose, the person, the girl with hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities.
“Then why make such a hasty, havey-cavey marriage?”
“It wasn’t havey-cavey. There wasn’t time. Thomas had to leave. He’d been called back to his ship.” And she knew if she’d told anyone in her family—even Aunt Dottie—there would be a grand fuss and they’d step in and prevent the marriage, and shewantedto be married to Thomas, she really did.
“So? That’s no reason to rush you into marriage. He at least should have known better.”
“He wanted it as much as I did, but it wasn’t for the sake of my inheritance, it was because—” She broke off, biting her tongue.
“Because?” Aunt Agatha raised a sardonic brow.
Rose felt her cheeks heating. She looked away. It was all sounding so tawdry now, and it wasn’t, it hadn’t been. Her time with Thomas had been beautiful.
“Hah! He made sure of you, didn’t he?” Aunt Agatha said knowingly. “The villain, seducing an innocent young gel. I devoutly hope Cal is giving the fellow a thorough horsewhipping at this very minute.”
Rose turned in distress to Emm. “He won’t, will he, Emm? I don’t want him to hurt Thomas.”
“Hush now, it will be all right,” Emm said soothingly. “Cal isn’t such a brute.” But she didn’t sound completely confident.
“Thomas didn’t seduce me,” Rose admitted, her face flaming. “I wanted it too. We werein love! He married me to protect me, to protect my honor, in case—” She stopped.
