Chapter Thirteen
Marcus was in the drawing room the following morning, making plans while his aunt sat doing embroidery on the sofa. Despite an overwhelming desire to try to make Rosamund understand that she was being utterly foolish, he’d acknowledged this wasn’t possible and forced himself to allow her some time to think. At least, he hoped she was thinking. If she wasn’t seriously considering his proposition, he didn’t know what his next step would be, because all he knew was that he couldn’t let her go.
Rosamund and Socrates were somewhere in the garden, he knew—he’d asked her to bring the dog to the drawing room when they were done. He meant for them all to have tea. Well, not Socrates, obviously, but he and his grandmother and Rosamund. Marcus reflected that it was a shame he couldn’t tell his grandmother about his attachment to Rosamund, even though he suspected Lady Tremont had grown fond of Rosamund too.
She’d become so incredibly important to him. And he still didn’t know her last name, he thought, vowing to remedy that once and for all when she came in to tea. She was the one he wanted to talk to, the one he wanted to be with. She made him laugh. She made him want to spend the entire day in bed. And he didn’t think he’d ever tire of her.
Which was problematic, if he considered Poppy.
He didn’t want to consider Poppy, actually. She’d been so special, and he didn’t doubt that the night of the ball had been dazzling because of her and that she was a truly delightful woman. But he didn’t know her. He knew Rosamund, and while being with Rosamund felt wonderful, what they shared wasn’t a dream—it was real.
A knock at the door brought a servant to announce visitors: Mrs. Monroe and her daughters, Calliope and Vanessa.
“Mrs. Monroe?” Marcus repeated. The Monroes were London neighbors with whom he had a passing acquaintance, but hardly people he expected to see at his grandmother’s house. They had been invited to the masquerade, he remembered now. Alice had moaned about them coming, because she thought them rather awful.
“Interesting,” Lady Tremont said. “Show them in.”
Marcus just had time to lift a questioning eyebrow in his grandmother’s direction when the door opened and their guests filed in.
All three performed very deep curtseys. Marcus hadn’t seen either of the daughters in some time.
“How nice to see you, Mrs. Monroe,” his grandmother said. “And your daughters.”
Mrs. Monroe blushed with pleasure at the greeting. “Thank you, Lady Tremont. Please forgive us for arriving at your home in this somewhat abrupt manner, but I think when I have explained the reason for our visit, you will be glad indeed.”
“Please,” his grandmother urged. Marcus waited with only vague interest.
“As you know,” Mrs. Monroe said, “we were invited to the masquerade ball held at Boxhaven House held earlier in the Season, and we gladly accepted that invitation. At that magnificent event, as I have come to understand, the marquess met a remarkable young lady.” She smiled. “A young lady whose identity he does not yet know because of the masquerade, and of whom all he has is a necklace she lost at the ball. A necklace, I suspect, that bears the initials HPW and SDW.”
Mrs. Monroe paused, and Marcus, who had been toying with a button on the front of his coat, stopped as her words penetrated. He had not divulged the fact of the engraving to the families with whom he’d taken tea months ago. He nodded once.
Mrs. Monroe’s hand went to her heart. “My family lost a pearl necklace that night,” she said, “bearing the initials of my grandmother, Sarah Warwick and my mother, Helen Warwick.”
“Ah,” said Lady Tremont after a long moment.
“How did you know I was looking for the owner of the necklace, ma’am?” Marcus asked. He’d only just sent the letters, and he hadn’t sent one to her anyway. He glanced back and forth between the daughters, trying to compel his brain to ascertain if one of these young women was Poppy. He felt that he ought to feel something if he was in her presence, but nothing indicated to him that either of these young women was any more special than any other woman of the ton.
Mrs. Monroe cleared her throat delicately. “I was speaking with a lady recently who knew a family whom you visited after the ball, and she told me of the necklace that was found at the ball. I realized that this must surely be our family heirloom, which was lost that night.”
“It seems Marcus and his visits to certain families have been much discussed,” Lady Tremont observed.
Mrs. Monroe nodded, apparently unconcerned about this breach of etiquette. “And it was fortunate they were, too, since if we did not know about the necklace being found and the marquess’s interest in its owner, we would not have known to bring ourselves forward. Because our family, my lord”— she smiled grandly at Marcus—“is the one you’ve been searching for. One of my daughters –we can’t remember which—was wearing the necklace that night, and she is your mystery lady from the ball.”
She presented her daughters to him—he’d met them once or twice before—and he exchanged greetings with them. They were both pretty, but within a minute of speaking to them and perceiving not one bit of vividness or joy bubbling over in either of them, he knew that neither was the woman with whom he’d once danced. And he also knew that it no longer mattered to him who Poppy was.
* * *
Rosamund had not been alerted that visitors had arrived, so when Socrates trotted ahead of her and disappeared into the drawing room, she merely followed him, knowing that Marcus wished them all to have tea together. Which she thought was a foolish idea for a number of reasons, not least that a dog’s companion should not take tea with a marquess and his grandmother. But he’d insisted that his grandmother wanted Socrates to come to tea, and therefore, Rosamund must come as well.
As she reached the doorway, she saw that three ladies were inside, facing away from her, and she hesitated. But Socrates had gone ahead of her, and now he went over to sniff the feet of the arrivals. Rosamund’s first thought was that she ought to collect him before leaving Marcus and Lady Tremont to their visitors, who would surely be more appropriate entertainment for teatime. Then she realized who the visitors were.
She nearly gasped.
Melinda, Vanessa, and Calliope were here, in Lady Tremont’s drawing room. Rosamund didn’t know why or how, but it couldn’t be anything that would be good for her. In fact, it was very possibly to do with the pearls, and it occurred to Rosamund that gossip might have carried news of the necklace being in his possession to her aunt.
So while Rosamund might not need to worry about Bow Street runners—Marcus himself knew how the pearls had come into his possession— Melinda could now do her harm in another way.
Fortunately, Socrates had come to Rosamund when she entered, and intending to quit the room before anyone saw her, she quickly picked him up and turned to go.
“Rosamund,” Lady Tremont said, “do stay. I’m sure our guests would like to meet Socrates.”
She froze. All eyes turned toward her. Her cousins gasped, and Melinda made a sound that was closer to a growl.
“Mundie!” she cried. “What are you doing here?”
Marcus was looking back and forth between Rosamund and the guests with an expression of puzzlement. “Ma’am? Are you acquainted with Rosamund?”
Melinda drew herself up with all the gravitas of a grievously injured party. “Yes, my lord, unfortunately, I am. She was until recently living under my roof.”
“I had understood Rosamund was working as a seamstress.”
“That might be the way she passed herself off to you, my lord. But you should know that she is not respectable.”
Marcus’s eyebrows slammed together at these words. “I would ask you, ma’am, what reason you have to suggest that about someone in my employ.”
“Rosamund is in your employ?”
“She is the companion to my dog.”
“To your dog?” Melinda repeated quizzically. She absorbed this information with a furrowing of her brow, and Rosamund knew she was thinking about how best to arrange things to her advantage in light of what she knew about her niece. But that information was Rosamund’s to share, and she would not let her aunt speak for her.
“Mrs. Monroe is my aunt,” Rosamund said.
Melinda reddened with fury. “The connection is not a happy one. In fact, my niece’s father was an infamous enemy of the state. We did her a kindness by taking her in and allowing her to live quietly among us when she would otherwise have been shunned by all respectable people.”
“I see,” Marcus said. His eyes were hooded, making it impossible for Rosamund to read his expression. But it was too late now to keep secrets, and she was almost glad Marcus would now know who she was.
“My father was a good man who was made a scapegoat for those who should have acted more nobly,” Rosamund said, her voice gaining strength. All those years ago, while everyone had vilified and mocked her father and called him a traitor, Rosamund and her mother knew that he had only done what was right and that he had paid the price for what others refused to see. Now was her chance to speak the truth that no one would listen to before. Perhaps no one would want to hear it now, though she believed Marcus would at least listen. His eyes had not left her, and she kept her gaze on him.
“My name is Rosamund Shufflebottom, and my father was Captain Frederick Shufflebottom of His Majesty’s Navy.”
“Silence, Rosamund!” her aunt said. “How dare you speak of our family’s disgrace?”
“No, Aunt, I won’t be silent. I have been silent for too long,” Rosamund said, steeling her voice when it would quiver. “You have perhaps heard of the Shufflebottom Affair, which took place half a dozen years ago, my lord? With our family name being so memorable, I believe the news of my father’s disgrace spread even farther than it would have otherwise.”
“Yes,” he said, “I remember the Shufflebottom Affair.”
She nodded, swallowing down the lump of emotion pressing in her throat. “He was a captain in the Royal Navy, and he gave comfort to deserters from another Navy ship by taking them onboard when they were trying to escape pursuit. I’m sure you saw the mocking cartoons and the cries of traitor, the calls for him to be hanged.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes on her. She couldn’t know what he was thinking, but at least he would hear the truth.
“He was vilified, and my family was assumed to be of the lowest character. My father maintained that he’d helped the men because their captain was a cruel madman who’d had many sailors beaten horribly for minor offenses, three of them beaten to death. But no one would listen. He’d acted against his country, and that was all that mattered. He died of an apoplexy during the court martial proceedings. My mother died soon after of a broken heart.”
“No one wanted to listen to him because he was wrong and a scoundrel,” Melinda said sharply. “He was an embarrassment to our family, as are you.”
Marcus’s jaw seemed to turn to stone in that moment, and his eyes glittered with ice as they shifted to Melinda. Rosamund realized she was seeing the steely core at the heart of the man she loved, and she shivered.
“Rosamund could never be an embarrassment to any family,” Marcus said in the kind of commanding tone a general might use in battle. His words had only begun to penetrate when he continued, “I see now how it was, Mrs. Monroe. Rosamund was orphaned, and you took her in because you felt bound by duty to do so. But you made her pay for it, didn’t you?”
Melinda blinked rapidly several times. “I don’t know what you’re trying to imply.”
“Quite simply that you must have treated her abominably. I knew of your daughters, but I never once heard of a cousin living with them. And that was because Rosamund was to remain hidden, wasn’t she?”
Rosamund could only stare, comprehension beginning to dawn. He believed her, and he understood. Relief and happiness nibbled at the edges of her anxiety and made the corners of her mouth tremble. For Marcus to know and understand was everything she had so dearly wanted—or nearly everything. It would be enough.
“Her family brought nothing but scandal to the rest of us,” Melinda said, her chin held high. “Her duty has been to lead a quiet, useful life.”
“I’ll wager it was useful to you,” Lady Tremont said darkly. “And I’m in no doubt there’s more to the story of those pearls than you’ve described.”
“Those pearls belonged to my mother and should be returned to me,” Melinda screeched. “Rosamund took them—”
“Only because you forced me to surrender them when I came to your house as a girl,” Rosamund said, amazed her voice sounded as even as it did, but Marcus had given her strength. “They were given to my mother and were meant for the oldest girl in every generation. Which is, in fact, me.”
Melinda wisely said nothing to this.
“Nothing else to say?” Marcus said in that hard, marquess’s voice. “Never mind, I’ve heard enough. My housekeeper will see you out. Good day to you, Mrs. Monroe.”
“But,” Melinda began, “your lordship, you’re not thinking to keep Rosamund Shufflebottom here as a servant. Mundie, come along!”
“No, I’m not thinking to keep her as a servant. But she’s not going with you either,” Marcus said, and if Rosamund had been on the receiving end of that icy glare, she felt certain her knees would have been knocking together. Melinda seemed to shrink as the marquess’s dark blue eyes bore down on her. “Good day, ma’am.”
Lady Tremont stepped into the hallway and could be heard calling for Mrs. Clark, but Melinda and her daughters were already leaving. As they passed through the doorway, Vanessa turned and gave Rosamund a hard look of the kind she’d dispensed many times, but this time Rosamund only smiled back. What did it matter what any of them thought? With any luck, she’d never see her aunt or cousins again.
And then Marcus was at her side.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, all traces of the imperious marquess gone.
“What could I say?” She realized, as he took her hands in his own large, warm ones, how much she was shaking. “The daughter of Frederick Shufflebottom is not a woman whom the Marquess of Boxhaven could possibly want to employ, never mind...” She blushed as he gently placed a fingertip over her lips.
“The daughter of Frederick Shufflebottom is a firebrand for justice and the finest woman I know.”
He waited, as if to see whether she had truly heard what he’d said. “Marcus,” she said, her heart in her throat, “your words mean so much to me. But—”
“I don’t want to hear anything that starts with ‘but,’ Rosamund. I love you, and I don’t care if your name is Shufflebottom, Fingerpuller, or Jellyleg.”
He loved her? Could it really be? Her lips started to tremble, but she managed to say, “Do you know a lot of people named Jellyleg?”
“What I know is that you haven’t yet said whether you love me.” He kissed her, and her heart swelled with such happiness that she thought she might burst.
“And I think,” he continued, “that you very likely have a ridiculous idea that I need protecting from the likes of scandalous you.”
“You’re a marquess,” she said seriously. “You can’t consort with a scandalous woman.”
“On the contrary. I’m a marquess, so I shall do exactly as I like. And one of the things I should very much like is for everyone to know that your father was the sort of patriot of whom this country ought to be very proud.”
“Oh, Marcus.” Tears of joy filled her eyes. “This all feels too good to be true.”
“And yet it is true.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “But I can’t tolerate another moment of suspense. Do you love me, Rosamund?”
“Yes, Marcus, yes!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “With all my heart.”
They held each other for long moments, and then he leaned away so he could look into her eyes. “Then say you’ll be mine. Will you marry me, Rosamund Shufflebottom?”
“Yes! Oh, yes, I will, Marcus!”
After quite a lot of kissing, they found themselves on the divan with Rosamund curled up in Marcus’s arms. She realized that someone, likely Lady Tremont, had discreetly closed the door to the drawing room at some point.
He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Shufflebottom certainly is a memorable name.”
“It is, and yes, I was teased about it as a child.”
“Poor you. So... Poppy.”
She smiled. “Yes, Poppy. My middle name is Penelope, and my parents called me Poppy as a nickname.”
He nodded. “When you first walked into the room and saw your aunt, I began to put it together. But I think in some way, I always knew. From the minute I met you on the street, after you rescued Socrates, I felt something every time I looked into your eyes. I hope you know that you put me through an appalling time, thinking I was enchanted with one woman while I was falling in love with another one.”
“I’m sorry about that,” she said, kissing him a number of times and reveling in the fact that now she could kiss him all she wanted, whenever she wanted. She cupped his cheek, her expression turning serious. “Though I had my own appalling time, knowing who you were and believing you could never be mine. Never mind knowing that you loved the memory of me pretending to be someone I wasn’t more than you liked the real me.”
Marcus gave her a mock stern look before his expression turned serious. “But Poppy was you. Her clothes weren’t what dazzled me: It was simply her. Which is you, simply you, Rosamund Penelope Shufflebottom, soon-to-be Hallaway. I’ve been waiting for you all my life, and now you are truly mine.”
“Oh, Marcus, I do love you,” she sighed.
A muffled snort drew their attention to Socrates, whose presence had been forgotten, but who was now standing a few feet away, looking up at them.
“He was being so uncharacteristically tranquil, I’d forgotten he was in here,” Marcus said.
Rosamund cocked her head. “It almost looks like he’s grinning.”
Marcus nodded. “Like he’s pleased with himself.”
A moment passed, then Rosamund said, “He was a sort of matchmaker, when you think about how he brought us together.”
Socrates yipped insistently, and his master gave him a haughty look, though the effect was somewhat spoiled by the grin teasing his lips. “I don’t think I can tolerate too much smugness in a dog, but I suppose this is where I’m meant to admit I’m grateful that my mother gave me this creature.”
“I think it is,” Rosamund said, laughter filling her eyes. And he kissed her again, laughing.
“I am,” he said. “Oh, I am.”
THE END