Page 53 of The Duke’s Masked Wallflower

Rosalie removed her riding hat and returned to him. They looked over the meadow together. A curl had come loose at her temple, stirred by the wind moving through the meadow. He reached out and tucked it back before he had thought better of it, his fingers grazing the warm skin of her cheek.

She did not step away. Memories of the night before flashed before his eyes.

“Last night,” he said in a low voice, “I do not entirely remember what I said to you. This troubles me. Did I say something I should be embarrassed about?”

Rosalie considered his question for a while. “You said some things. But I cannot tell you whether you would be embarrassed by them.”

“Why can you not just recite them for me?” he half-teased.

“We have never done things simply, you and I,” she said.

“No, we have not.”

He was close enough now to see the exact color of her eyes, that clear, unplaceable gray-green-blue. He was leaning toward her before he had really permitted it. Her breath caught audibly, and he thought, “This is what I really want; I suspect I wanted it last night, and that is what she is too afraid to tell me. I am an animal, unruly...”

“Hallo!” James’s voice suddenly cut down the path behind them.

Gabriel cursed under his breath and stepped back. Rosalie was quick to move, returning to her horse and climbing into the saddle. He wiped a hand over his mouth, grieving what might have been, as the sound of a horse approached.

When he arrived, it was at a gallop. “Good Lord,” James said, relieved. “What led you here?”

“We lost ourselves,” Rosalie said when Gabriel remained quiet. “Thank you for retrieving us.”

Without warning, she spurred her mare forward and disappeared down the path.

“I fear I interrupted something,” James said, dropping from his saddle. “For better or for worse?”

Seventeen

The next day, word reached Gabriel about a surprise visitor before he had even risen from bed. He had not expected another Winthrop to appear on his doorstep with so little warning. But there she was, once he went downstairs: a fourth, somewhat shorter but more assured version of the family, standing in his drawing room holding court with his aunt and her parents, while a footman hovered nearby with a tray of tea waiting to be put down.

Baron Winthrop turned at Gabriel’s arrival, beaming. “May I present our eldest daughter, Viscountess Annabelle Howard. Anna, this is His Grace, the Duke of Hartmere.”

“Lady Howard.” Gabriel bowed over her offered hand. “I had not heard you were expected.”

She was handsome in the way the eldest of a family sometimes was, with a face that had clearly been the template; Rosalie was the improvement, to his eye. The sister’s countenance was harder, more finished, and obviously certain of its own effect as she flashed him a brilliant smile.

“Neither had I expected to be here, not entirely, not until three days ago, when I decided Dumfries had exhausted its charms for now, and London had not yet exhausted mine,” Lady Howard explained. “My parents’ staff in town were kind enough to redirect me here. But, oh... I hope I have not imposed? Scotland has not changed me so much that I have forgotten how rude it is to drop by unannounced.”

“On the contrary,” Gabriel said, though his eyes had already gone to Rosalie. She stood apart from the group near the fire, her back turned, and her face unreadable at this angle. “We are here celebrating a betrothal. The more the merrier.”

A shocked look passed across her face.

“The betrothal between my friend, Marquess Beaumont, and his intended, Miss Warwick,” Gabriel explained.

“Ah, yes.” Lady Howard’s eyes drifted to her stoic sister. “That makes much more sense.”

“Fear not, Your Grace,” the baron put in, rubbing his hands together. “We were speaking with Lady Chipping and explained that Anna may take our room. We shall be gone a few days, as I am sure you have heard. There is a poetry salon by way of Horsham. Mr. Aster hosts it. Do you know Mr. Aster? Quite well-regarded in verse. Lady Winthrop and I shall go tonight and return within the week?”

“We will leave the girls behind, of course,” Lady Winthrop added, gathering her shawl around her shoulders. “Anna has only just arrived and could use the rest, and Rosalie is in excellent hands here, is she not? I would not tear her from the abbey while she is having such a fun time with you all.”

“Certainly, but...” Gabriel looked between the baron and baroness. They seemed dressed for travel. “Do you intend to go now?”

“The early bird catches the worm,” said the baron.

“The roads are much safer in the morning,” said Lady Winthrop at the same time, shooting her husband an exasperated look. “There is rain coming later, if the sky may be trusted.”

Following this, Gabriel spent a few minutes outside with the baron before the carriage was called, asking after the man’s latest collection, learning more than he had ever expected to know about the Irish Mr. Aster—who was a descendant of Jonathan Swift, supposedly—and about his preferred rhyme schemes.