One Perfect Rose (22 page)

Rosalind peered out the carriage window at the teeming streets. “I haven't been in London since I was a child. I thought my memories were exaggerated, but they weren't. The city is even bigger and busier than I remember.

Stephen smiled. “It's impossible to exaggerate London.”

“Or the city's smell.” She wrinkled her nose, hoping that Mayfair would be less noisome. Then she settled back in her seat, taking his hand again. She had an absurd desire to touch him whenever possible, as if that would keep him by her side forever. Luckily he seemed to enjoy touching as much as she did.

Despite the variable autumn weather, they'd had a wonderful honeymoon. Days of laughter had been followed by nights of stunning passion. Perhaps the poignance of knowing that their time together was limited was responsible for the special intensity. She cried, sometimes, at the knowledge of how quickly the sands were running out. But never in front of Stephen.

He had stoically suffered several more attacks, though none as severe as the first two she had witnessed. For much of the time, it had been possible to pretend that all was well, though after their wedding night there had always been a slight, unbridgeable emotional distance between them.

Such things were never mentioned. Instead, they'd walked the ancient walls of York and visited glorious York Minster, one of the grandest cathedrals in Britain. The Lake District had been as spectacular as its reputation, a fairyland of rugged hills and tranquil bodies of water. They'd hired a boatman to take them out on Windermere, sliding across the glassy surface into the silent mists. Stephen was a marvelous companion. He had the intense interest in the world that Rosalind had seen in young children. Only in his case, he was seeing things for the last time, not the first. He seemed glad to have someone to share his discoveries. She was glad simply to be with him.

The carriage rumbled to a stop. Portia, who had been standing on a door handle with her paws on the window, lost her balance and tumbled to the floor, landing on her feet with a burst of feline acrobatics. She'd grown noticeably in the last fortnight and had adapted to travel with surprising ease.

Stephen expertly caught the kitten, gave her an affectionate pet, and returned her to her box. “Grosvenor Square. We've arrived.”

The coachman opened the door, and Stephen helped Rosalind from the muddy vehicle. In the twilight Ashburton House seemed enormous. She mentally girded herself. On their honeymoon they had traveled as Mr. and Mrs. Kenyon. They had been treated with the politeness due a gentleman and his wife, but no special notice had been taken of them. That had suited Rosalind very well. But now they were in London. Stephen was the Duke of Ashburton again, and she felt like a very inadequate duchess.

She put a smile on her face. “The house is very grand.”

“Rather oppressively so.” Stephen took Portia's box in one hand and Rosalind's arm in the other, and they climbed the broad stairs. “It will be pleasant to be in one place for several nights in a row, but I look forward to returning to the abbey as soon as my business is finished.”

He wanted to die at Ashburton Abbey. He had told her that when they were looking at the royal tombs in York Minster.

Stephen's knock was answered eventually by a liveried footman whose face froze when he saw who was on the doorstep. “Your Grace! W-we were not expecting you.”

“I know. We shall be here for at least a fortnight, Milton. Put the knocker up and recall those servants who are on board wages. We shall want a light supper and hot water for bathing as soon as possible.” Stephen drew Rosalind forward. “The new Duchess of Ashburton. Obey her in all things.”

Then he handed the footman Portia's box. “The duchess's kitten. Please take her up to the state apartments.”

Milton almost dropped the box when Portia gave a raucous cry of irritation. Then he darted away to obey, holding the box with great care. Stephen turned and swept Rosalind into his arms. “It's time to cross my second threshold.”

She laughed as he carried her inside. “Three more thresholds to go, since I've decided to pass on the hunting box.”

“Wise choice.” He set her down on the gleaming marble floor and kissed her until her knees were weak. Then he lifted his head and gave her an intimate smile. “Welcome to Ashburton House, Duchess.”

She experienced one of her periodic flashes of disbelief that a man so alive could be dying. Instantly she suppressed the thought, for she'd learned that it could quickly bring her to the verge of tears. That would not do when she was with Stephen.

He guided her toward the stairs. “If Edmund Kean is playing at Drury Lane tomorrow night, would you like to see him?”

“That would be wonderful!” She kept her expression bright. But when she surveyed the gilded grandeur around her, she uttered a mental prayer that they would soon go to the abbey. A mansion like this was no place for a provincial actress to make a long run in the role of duchess.

Day Thirty-nine

The first morning in London, Stephen awoke to the sound of autumn rain beating steadily on the bedroom windows. Not that he minded, since Rosalind was curled against him, her back against his chest. He lay still, content to savor her soft warmth and delightfully bare skin. He treasured such moments as much as the mind-destroying passion that they'd shared in the dark of the night. Since they slept together as closely as two spoons, they had soon learned that they had no need of nightclothes for warmth.

He stroked her hair, awed once again that he had found her. Her sunny nature had made the last weeks the happiest of his life. She could not have been more different from his first wife. Not once had he and Louisa shared a bed for an entire night. He thought of his first marriage with regret and some guilt. If he'd tried harder, might he have found hidden passion under Louisa's proper facade? Might a different man have been able to make her happy as he could not? He would never know.

Putting the thought of Louisa aside, he kissed the top of Rosalind's head. Because of his station in life, he'd been raised with a French nurse and spoke the language as fluently as he did English. Perhaps it was the nature of French to be a more emotional tongue, for he found it easier to speak endearments in that language. “
My sweet duchess
,” he whispered. “
You enchant me
.”

Her eyelashes fluttered. “
You are my dearest one
,” she murmured in impeccable French.

He came alert and spoke to her in French again. Once more she replied in the same tongue. They exchanged several more sentences before her eyes opened. She gave him a smile of sleepy charm. “Good morning,” she said in English.

“Good morning.” He twined a lock of her hair around his fingertip. “I didn't know you spoke French.”

She laughed. “That's because I don't. Having been raised as a gentleman, Papa does, but we were taught only a few phrases needed in plays.”

Thinking that she'd shown a greater command of the language than that, he repeated one of the sentences he'd used earlier.

Her brows drew together. “What does that mean? I feel that I should understand, but I don't quite.”

“You answered the same words a minute ago when you were three-quarters asleep.” He traced the rim of her ear with his tongue. “Could you be French by birth?”

She considered, then shook her head. “I doubt it. Maria said that I spoke good English when she and Thomas adopted me.”

“If you were really appallingly well bred, like me, you might have been taught French in the nursery,” he suggested. The topic was interesting but of only theoretical relevance since they were unlikely to learn her true parentage. There was nothing theoretical about her lovely body, though, or his own response to it. He slid his hand under the blanket and began to make circling motions on her midriff with his palm. “I think the reason that marriage is so popular is because it combines a maximum of temptation with a maximum of opportunity.”

She laughed and rolled onto her back, her hands also beginning to explore. “I believe you've just codified an important principle. Let's call it Ashburton's Axiom.”

He pulled the blanket down and bent to kiss her breast. She sighed rapturously, then gave a small squeak when he tugged her nipple with his lips.

He stopped immediately. “Sorry. I didn't mean to be rough.”

“You weren't,” she assured him. “I guess I'm just unusually sensitive this morning.” She gave him a wicked smile. “Perhaps you're wearing out some of your favorite bits of my anatomy.”

“What a terrible thought.” He mentally totaled the number of times he'd made love to her since their wedding, then started to move away. “Perhaps I'd better give you a chance to recuperate.”

“Don't you dare!” Her hand slid down him until she found what she sought. “That was a joke, my dear. Practice is making me marvelously fit.”

He gasped as she slowly caressed him. “My honorable intentions have just gone to hell, Lady Caliban.”

Nonetheless, when he began trailing kisses across her belly, he murmured, “Let me know if anything else is in danger of wearing out.”

Judging by her quickening breath, his favorite bits were all in good working order. When she began writhing under the stroke of his tongue, he moved between her thighs to welcome the morning in the best possible way.

His last clear thought before he surrendered to passion was that he had been right: marriage was blessed with maximum temptation, and maximum opportunity.

 

After they made love, Rosalind slept again, coming awake when Stephen kissed her ear. “Sorry, my dear,” he murmured. “I must visit my solicitor this morning.”

It would be almost the first time he'd been out of her sight since their wedding. She did not consider this an improvement. Still, all honeymoons must end eventually. She covered a yawn. “I may just go back to sleep. It's a very gray morning.”

“As long as you're awake for our visit to Drury Lane tonight.” He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand, then went into his dressing room.

She dozed and awoke an hour later, feeling groggy. Though being a strolling player had accustomed her to constant travel, she and Stephen had journeyed at much greater speeds and covered far more ground. That must be why she'd felt so tired for the last few days. Yawning, she swung her legs from the bed and started to rise, then sat down again abruptly when a wave of dizziness swept over her.

Her light-headedness soon passed. She stood, this time more slowly, hoping that she wasn't sickening with an autumn cold. She didn't want to waste any precious time with illness. She donned her dressing gown and rang for hot water. A day of pampering should cure what ailed her, for she'd always enjoyed an unladylike robustness of health.

During her bath she noticed again the unusual sensitivity of her breasts. She had to dry them with care after she emerged from the hip bath. Perhaps her courses were about to start. How long had it been since the last time?

The answer struck her like a thunderbolt. Her courses had always been as regular as clockwork, beginning every fourth Friday in the afternoon.

She was a week overdue.

Almost unbearable excitement surged through her. She clamped down on her reaction and tried to be logical. Early in her first marriage, she'd made Maria tell her all the early signs of pregnancy so that she would recognize them as soon as possible. She'd watched for those signs through the three years of her marriage with decreasing hope.

But now she was married to a different man. She dropped her towel and went to the pier glass to study her nude body. Maria had said that changes in the breasts were almost immediate. Were hers larger? Perhaps there was extra fullness, and certainly they were more sensitive than they'd ever been before.

What were some of the other signs? Maria had also mentioned acute sensitivity to smells. Rosalind had noticed that the day before but thought she was merely reacting to London's aggressive odors. Fatigue? Definitely unusual fatigue. And she'd been light-headed, which was almost unheard of for her.

She stared at the image in the mirror, and suddenly she knew.
She knew
. She and Stephen, each of them sure they would never know the joy of having a child, had made a baby together in that loft full of sunshine and kittens.

Stunned by the knowledge, she wrapped her dressing gown around her and sank onto the brocade sofa where Portia was sleeping. The kitten jumped into her lap and scrambled up to her shoulder. Rosalind automatically stroked the silky fur. She'd felt, quite literally, like a different woman since that day in the loft, but thought the cause was love and marriage. Instead there was another, deeper reason. She wanted to throw open the window and exuberantly shout the good tidings to all of London. When Stephen returned home…

The thought sobered her. It was far too soon to tell her husband. A physician would probably laugh if she described her subtle symptoms and her intuitive conviction that a new life was growing inside her. And maybe he'd be right to do so.

Dispassionately she made herself consider the possibility that her yearning for a baby had affected her judgment. She truly didn't think so, but if she announced that she was with child and turned out to be wrong, Stephen would be devastated. She must wait.

Dreamily she leaned back on the sofa, cuddling Portia like an infant. Having given logic its due, she turned to intuition again. In her bones she felt that she was carrying a child, and that it would be born hale and hearty. For the sake of the succession, a boy would be nice, and Stephen had said his brother would be delighted at being freed of the burden of the dukedom. But a girl would be equally fine.

A shadow fell across her heart when she realized that unless a miracle took place, Stephen would not be with her to celebrate the birth of their child.