Lord of Secrets (21 page)

His starry-eyed talk of the future strengthened her resolve. Rosalie leaned toward him confidentially. “Charlie, dear, I wonder if you’d do me a favor?”

He broke into a good-natured smile. “What kind of favor?”

“I want you to forget for a moment that I’m your cousin, and a lady, and answer a question for me. Can you do that?”

His smile faded to a wary look. “I suppose that depends on the question.”

“I only require a little information. It doesn’t concern you, or anyone you might have a duty to protect, I promise you.”

He fidgeted with one of the buttons on his coat. “I still say I need to hear the question first.”

“Very well.” She lifted her chin. “Have you ever heard anything about Deal and—and other women?”

“You mean since he married you?” Charlie sat up straight, his brows coming together in a look of glowering disapproval. “If he’s already carrying on behind your back, Rosie, I swear to God he’ll hear from me about it, whether it’s my affair or not—”

“No, not since he married me,” she said quickly. “I mean before that.”

“Oh.” Charlie’s angry posture relaxed. “That’s different. But you don’t really want to know that. Even if you did, it’s not the thing for a fellow to go telling tales out of school, especially not to a man’s wife, and not if it happened before he was even married—”

“You do know something, then?”

His ears turned faintly pink. “I didn’t say that. I just mean most fellows sow a few wild oats before settling down with a wife and family, and it doesn’t amount to anything. They’re just kicking up their heels a bit, that’s all. It’s natural enough.”

She set a hand on his sleeve. “But you’ve heard such things about Deal?”

“Rosie, it doesn’t signify. You can’t go blaming a fellow when he hadn’t even taken it into his head yet to marry—”

“Tell me, Charlie.”

He threw her an uneasy glance.

She pinned him with a look that was half worried frown, half stubborn determination. “I promise this is important. I would never ask you if it weren’t. Have you heard those kinds of rumors about Deal or not?”

“You’re not going to let it go, are you? Gad, you’re stubborn.” He sighed heavily. “Very well, then, but I’m only telling you this because you insisted, and because it’s better that you hear it from me rather than from some malicious gossip. As a matter of fact, yes, I have.”

Yes
? Her heart sank. So David did have sexual experience. There was just something about her personally he found unappealing.

Rosalie felt as if the roof had just fallen in on her—a crushing weight, and one she’d been counting on to remain safely out of mind. So Mrs. Howard’s estimation of her was true. She was drab, childish, completely without allure. When she’d had nowhere else to go, David had married her out of sheer kindness, despite feeling no attraction to her at all.

“You’re quite sure?” she asked Charlie. “What was it you heard—did he have a mistress?”

Charlie made a pained face. “Lord, Rosie, don’t ask me for details.”

“Charlie, I’m not going to be angry, not with you or with Deal either. I simply need to know.”

“Why? I never took you for the jealous type. On my honor, I haven’t heard a word against his conduct since the day you two met. I was genuinely shocked just now, when you asked that first question and I thought you meant he was already playing you false.”

“Did he have a mistress or not?”

Charlie sighed in bitter resignation, his shoulders slumping. “Yes. At least, I’ve heard rumors. I don’t know for a fact.”

Rosalie tried to picture quiet, intellectual David with some brilliant high-flyer on his arm. Just the effort of imagining it hurt. She could never measure up to that kind of Venus.

But perhaps it had been nothing like that. Perhaps he’d rescued some poor creature from the streets. Perhaps he’d had real feelings for the girl, and that was what he’d meant to confess before the wedding. Hadn’t David mentioned he’d once been in love? “Was it an affair of the heart?”

“No, nothing like that. He never kept them long.”

“
Them
? He had more than one?” She knew gentlemen couldn’t be expected to live as chastely as monks, but what did it say about David’s feelings for her if he’d found multiple women irresistible, yet refused to visit her bed even once?

Charlie winced at his own carelessness. “Well—yes, but as far as I know, he gave the last girl her congé months ago. Long before he met you. He paid her off handsomely, I heard, and she took up soon afterward with the Duke of Plymouth, so you needn’t worry she’ll make trouble. I’m told she’s quite happy with the old fellow. She says she can finally—”

He stopped with a guilty flush.

Rosalie’s last vestige of hope shriveled and died at the look on Charlie’s face. “What were you going to say? She can finally do what?”

He shook his head. “It’s just gossip.”

“Tell me, Charlie.”

He fidgeted with his buttons again, refusing to look at her. “She was an opera dancer, not a respectable female at all. Girls of that ilk say all sorts of outrageous things.”

She stared her cousin down. “She can finally do what?”

“She can finally get some rest now and then,” he said with an air of defeat. “But it’s just a vulgar remark from a vulgar female. Naturally Deal knows to treat his wife with more respect than that.”

“Respect!” Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, yes, he respects me no end.”

Charlie, clearly misinterpreting her reaction, wore a hangdog expression. “Do you see? I knew you were going to be angry. There are reasons gentlemen don’t go tittle-tattling on one another about petticoat dealings. If I’ve caused trouble now between you and Deal, I won’t blame him if he comes after me with a horsewhip.”

“You haven’t caused trouble, I promise.”

“You say that most convincingly, but I know you. You’re as stubborn as Uncle ever was. When you get a maggot in your brain, it stays there until you—” He broke off at the sound of an arrival in the front hallway. Footsteps approached.

A moment later David himself appeared in the doorway, dressed with his usual understated elegance, tall and austerely handsome. He looked from Rosalie to Charlie with evident curiosity. “Good afternoon, Templeton. What brings you here? I trust all is well with you?”

“Quite well, thank you, Deal.” Charlie darted a guilty glance at Rosalie.

She folded her hands in her lap to hide her nerves. “How did the vote go, David? I didn’t expect you back so early.”

He strolled to the table by the window and poured himself a glass of claret. “Another reactionary mistake, I fear. Care for a drink, Templeton?”

Charlie got to his feet. “Thank you, but I was just leaving.”

“Pray don’t go on my account. I was on my way into the study, if you and Lady Deal have something personal to discuss.”

“No, we weren’t talking about anything,” Charlie said, a touch too quickly.

“Are you certain? I should hate to interrupt a private conversation.”

Charlie reached for his hat. “Nothing of the kind. In fact, I was just saying to Rosie here that it was time I was on my way. Wasn’t I, Rosie? I have tickets for the theater tonight.”

“Do you?” David said in a tone of polite interest. “What are you seeing?”

“
Trial
by
Battle
at the Royal Coburg.”

“I’m taking Lady Deal to see
The
Tempest
tomorrow night. You’re welcome to join us in our box if you’d like.”

Charlie looked at him doubtfully. “
The
Tempest
? Isn’t that Shakespeare?”

“So I’ve been led to believe.”

“Then perhaps some other time, thank you. One night at the theater is bad enough. Two nights would surely give me the fidgets.” Charlie glanced uncertainly at Rosalie. “Well, I’d best be off.”

“Do give my regards to Lord and Lady Whitwell, if you should see them,” David said.

Rosalie rose to accompany her cousin to the door. “Yes, and thank you for coming, Charlie.”

She returned to the drawing room a minute later to find David awaiting her, a bland smile on his face. “What a bad liar your cousin is,” he said, though his tone remained agreeable.

She took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“Do I want to know what you were really discussing?”

“No.” Rosalie gnawed her lower lip. “I don’t believe you do.”

“Very well. Keep your secret, my dear.” He drained his glass of claret. “God knows I’ve kept enough secrets in my life to know they’re usually more uncomfortable for the secret keepers than for the poor unwitting dupe.”

“It was nothing so very bad, David.”

“No. I know you well enough to believe it wasn’t.”

He set his empty glass on the nearest table and excused himself to his study. Rosalie watched him go, then sank down on the sofa with a deep sigh.

So David had kept mistresses. Quite a few. And if someone like Charlie knew it—for, as much as Rosalie loved her cousin, even she had to admit he was rather sweetly provincial—then most of the
ton
probably did as well.

How could she have missed the signs? Had she really been that eager to delude herself? Withdrawn and intellectual David might be, but he was also handsome and suavely self-possessed. It required no great leap of the imagination to picture him in the role of well-bred ladies’ man.

His past explained a good deal—the thrilling way in which he’d kissed her on the night he proposed and then again after their dinner at Radcombe Priory, his strained attempt to confess his past transgressions to her before their wedding, his bristling reaction on their wedding night when she’d foolishly asked him if he knew what to do.

The one thing it failed to explain was his continued refusal to touch her. They’d been married more than three weeks, and she was still every bit as chaste as she’d been before their wedding. Even taking into account her illness, they’d had more than enough time to consummate their marriage. She’d hoped David was only avoiding her out of simple inexperience, or perhaps a lack of confidence. But there was nothing wrong with his interest in women. He simply felt no interest in
her
.

She stood and paced the room, hugging herself. What had made her assume he must feel the same way about her as she felt about him? She remembered when they’d climbed the hill behind Lyningthorp and David had played that absurd little game with the flower, pulling off the petals one by one as he chanted
She
loves
me
,
she
loves
me
not
. She’d laughed and assured him she loved him—but now she realized he’d given her no such assurance in return.

Her eyes grew hot. She sat down hard on the sofa, blinking back the tears.
You
will
not
cry
. She should never have opened Pandora’s box, asking Charlie prying questions about her own husband, and now she deserved the consequences. If she’d only kept her curiosity to herself, she’d be counting herself lucky right now to be David’s wife, instead of feeling achingly sorry for herself.

It was no good. If she sat here thinking about it one minute more, she was going to start weeping, and she had no idea how she would explain herself to David if he found her that way. She needed to find something purposeful to do, even if it was only writing a letter or rearranging her sewing box. She rose and started toward the stairs.

With unshed tears swimming in her eyes, however, she bumped a hip into the little end table by the sofa where David had set his empty wineglass. The crystal glass toppled off the table and shattered at her feet.

Rosalie let out a cry of dismay and dropped to her knees. She began picking up the broken shards, gathering the pieces in one hand. Haste made her careless, however, and a razor-sharp edge sliced into her palm.

She gasped and dropped the jagged pieces, examining her hand. Bright red blood welled up from a long cut. Her emotions already running high after all she’d learned from Charlie, this last small injury broke the dam. Still on her knees amid the broken glass, she bowed her head and gave way to wrenching sobs.

She never heard his footsteps, but the next thing she knew, David was squatting on his haunches beside her, taking her bleeding hand in his, inspecting the damage. “Shh,” he said, drawing his handkerchief from his breast pocket and wrapping it around her palm. “It’s not so very bad.”

The kindness in his voice only made her weep harder.

“It’s only a shallow wound.” Rising, he drew her to her feet. “You’ll be all right.”

“But I—I broke your wineglass—”

“Forget about the glass.” He took her in his arms. “It’s less than nothing.”

He was finally holding her—her body huddled against his, his arms wrapped tightly about her. She buried her face against his shoulder. “Oh, David!”