Lady Rosabella's Ruse - By Ann Lethbridge Page 0,84
she would like her to see her grandmother’s things.
She flattened a hand against her stomach. The babe was exceedingly small if she was indeed enceinte. It hardly seemed likely. She wished she had someone to ask.
‘I’ll see to it right away, ma’am.’ The butler bowed his way out.
It didn’t take long for the butler and a pair of brawny footmen to move the cabinet out and the writing desk in. Rosa stood in front of it when they were finished. It looked good in here. It gave her a warm feeling, a sense of homecoming. She could almost feel her father’s cheerful presence in the room. Almost see his sparkling hazel eyes. The deep creases around his mouth when he smiled.
He’d been a happy careless man who cared nothing for society and its mores. And he had loved her mother. He’d given up status and position to be with her.
Rosa smiled at the memories flooding in. He’d also been terribly unorganised, though he had the best of intentions. Without Mother to remind him, perhaps he’d simply forgotten, not his daughters, but the administrative part of making a will. Otherwise why hadn’t one been found?
It must be the answer.
Nevertheless, she could not stop herself from looking through the drawers one more time. First the right-hand side, and then the left, pulling them out and turning them over in case something had fallen behind and got caught. Finally her fingers hovered beside the secret compartment.
Breath held, she sprang the latch.
Nothing.
No matter how she peered into the little dark space, or ran her fingers around it, there really was nothing in there.
Heavy steps alerted her to the trunk’s passage up the stairs. She snapped the compartment shut and hurried out to see to its placement. She almost collided with the butler, who was coming in. His face was harried. ‘Lady Stanford is here.’
She looked at him blankly.
‘His lordship’s mother,’ the butler explained.
He’d never mentioned his mother, had he? She’d assumed his parents weren’t living, if she’d thought about them at all. Why had he never mentioned her? And why was she here? Her heart sank. Was she here to take a look at her future daughter-in-law? Oh, where was Garth?
The butler’s grim expression made her heart sink even lower. ‘What is wrong?’
‘His lordship doesn’t usually see her, but she—’
‘No need to show me in,’ a quavering voice said. ‘I can find my own way.’
The butler groaned under his breath.
What on earth? ‘It is all right, of course I will see her.’
‘Shall I bring tea?’ the butler asked.
Rosa smiled. ‘Please.’
The butler dodged around the lady who had reached the top of the stairs. Rosa dipped a curtsy. ‘Lady Stanford. Please, do come in.’
Her future mother-in-law swept by Rosa and ensconced herself in the chair by the hearth in a rustle of pale blue silk and a flutter of her handkerchief. It was the chair one would usually expect the hostess to occupy. But then Rosa wasn’t a hostess. She wasn’t anything. Yet.
‘Is it true? Are you marrying my son?’ the widow said.
Rosa tried a tentative smile. ‘Yes. We are betrothed.’
‘Hmmph.’ The pale blue eyes raked her from head to heel. Her lips pursed. ‘Who are you?’
A fair question, if a little rude. ‘My name is Rosabella Cavendish.’
‘Please tell me there is no truth to the rumour, Miss Cavendish.’
‘Rumour?’
She patted her handkerchief to her lips as if the next words might soil them. ‘Someone said you were an opera dancer.’
Oh, dear. Someone had let the proverbial cat out of a bag, and from the look on his mother’s face she hated cats.
‘I did have a part in an opera, yes, but—’
The widow gasped. ‘What is Garth thinking? He was probably drunk. Let me give you some money to leave him be.’
Anger blazed like molten metal in Rosa’s veins. Her spine grew so stiff it felt like steel. Yet she couldn’t blame Garth’s mother for feeling this way. ‘Didn’t he tell you about me?’ Surely, it was the first thing he should have done, instead of letting her hear the news by way of gossip?
The handkerchief, a scrap of Mechlin lace, dabbed at her cheeks, though there wasn’t a glint of tears in those sharp blue eyes. ‘Garth never tells me anything.’
What was going on here? ‘I will have him call on you right away.’
‘But why are you living here? Who are your parents? This is all very irregular.’
Oh, dear, this really was not a good beginning. ‘It is up to Garth to explain.’