Page 36 of The Duke’s Masked Wallflower

“It is very good,” Rosalie said after taking a light sip.

It was refreshing. The mint was inoffensive. However, the sun was too warm even through her parasol. It was only halfway through March, but it felt like May. As she set down her glass, her attention caught on her mother, who sat in a chair near the terrace doors with her sketchbook.

She had not wanted to be in the way, she said, but obviously she had not wanted to leave them alone either. For the better part of an hour, she had not so much as glanced away from the two of them long enough to let a private sentence pass unheard.

It struck Rosalie how strange the arrangement was. With Gabriel, Lady Winthrop could be counted upon to vanish at the first excuse, often with a friend and a beverage. But while she was with Mr. Sinclair, who was hardly known for his rakish behavior, she sat like a sentry, always nearby and monitoring. Rosalie did not know what to make of it, except to suspect that her mother trusted a duke’s intentions rather less than she trusted a widower’s, which seemed, on its face, completely backward.

“Oh,” Mr. Sinclair said. “Have I bored you with talk of herbs after all?”

“Not at all, Mr. Sinclair. I was thinking of something else, rather than mint.”

“I hope it was something pleasant at least.”

She managed a smile that she hoped passed for agreement and let him steer the conversation back toward safer ground: his garden, the sandwiches, a new studio he had recently built onto the east side of the house.

“I have taken up painting again,” he said somewhat sheepishly. “It’s been watercolors, mostly. My wife painted, you know. I gave it up entirely after she died, and I could not have told you why, except that it seemed disloyal somehow to enjoy something she had loved so much without her... But I have come around to thinking she would have found that reasoning rather foolish. She liked when I was busy.”

“I do not think that is foolish at all,” Rosalie said, turning her parasol to block out more of the sun. “I have never lost anyone so close to me. I do not know what the protocol is for that sort of thing, but resuming something which brought you joy seems more than fair. Tell me about your wife, please. I know so little about her.”

She felt more than saw her mother tense in her chair. Lady Winthrop raised a brow, but her eyes were fixed on the open page of her sketchbook, the graphite running over it in slow, sweeping motions.

“Her name was Rose.”

Rosalie started. “I see.”

“I wish it had not been so. I have no desire to make you uncomfortable.”

“There are many women with names similar to mine.”

“Yes, and yet... I find it somewhat unfortunate. You are like her in many ways. She, too, was gracious, well-spoken, and well-read. Very much so. She was always reading in her room. She read more than we spoke on the whole.”

He punctuated the confession with a laugh that betrayed how much this bothered him. For the first time, Rosalie began to consider that his marriage had not been completely happy.

“She was younger than me when we married. My parents, long may they rest in peace, made the match for me, and it was endorsed by many in the family. We had little in common at the start, but over three years of marriage, well... one does come to find something of themselves in another, and vice versa. We spent a lot of time in Kinsale.”

“My parents stop there often.”

“That is how I met them, of course.”

Rosalie opened her mouth to ask, Were you ever truly in love with her, because it does not sound like it. But she stopped herself. No one would have welcomed that sort of question. And she hardly knew what love felt like anyway.

“Her passing was unexpected. I suppose you know when and how...”

“I do,” she answered, sparing him from exhuming the past.

“A real tragedy. Likely the greatest tragedy of my life.” He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “This is why I am very glad your parents suggested this connection between us.”

“You are kind to say so,” Rosalie said, trying to hide her discomfort from him.

She took the glass and pressed it against her cheek, where it immediately soothed her. That sort of gesture might have been acceptable in Gabriel’s company, where all the rules didn’t matter anyway. Mr. Sinclair, however, gave an involuntary, almost soundless gasp that called Lady Winthrop’s attention away from her art.

“Is it a migraine, darling?” her mother asked, tapping her graphite on the page. “She does get them so often in the heat. She is too delicate for it.”

“I can see that,” Mr. Sinclair said.

“Perhaps you should go inside, dear, into the shade.” Lady Winthrop rose from her seat before anyone had agreed. “I will keep Mr. Sinclair company a time while you recover. May she borrow your drawing room?”

“Or the studio, if she wishes, whatever is cooler indoors.”