The Dark One (27 page)

Or was it his virtue he was afraid of losing at all? Maybe, just maybe, it was his heart he was trying to protect from her. The possibility warmed her far more than the brandy ever could.

“When you marry, Amelia,” she suddenly decided to ask, “will you find it odd to share a marriage bed with a man you hardly know?”

Amelia took Rosalind's glass from her, taking a sip of brandy before she answered. “I would assume that would be one of the pleasures of marriage,” she said. “Oh, I know, Mother has given me the speech about duty and simply lying there while my husband takes his need of me, but I have needs as well, and am quite looking forward to finally having them met.”

“Then you won't ask him for more time?” Rosalind wanted clarification. “Time to get to know him better?”

“What for?” Amelia asked. “I'll have the rest of my life to get to know him better. I want to enjoy him while he's young and handsome and virile. I'll get to know him better when he no longer has his teeth and has developed a paunch.”

Rosalind giggled. She didn't know if it was because of Amelia's sometimes shocking straightforwardness, or because the brandy had gone to her head. Amelia smiled at her, then sobered, a thoughtful expression drawing her perfectly arched brows together.

“Don't tell me that you and your very handsome husband have not consummated your marriage?”

No, she wouldn't tell her, but she was afraid by the blush she felt warming her cheeks her reaction might give her away. She was correct to assume so. Amelia sighed dramatically.

“I thought because of the rumors you were lovers before you married. Whatever are you waiting for, Rosalind?”

“Love,” she provided weakly.

Amelia drained the contents of Rosalind's glass. “Love? Good Lord, I don't even believe in it. Passion, yes, desire, physical attraction, all of those things are real enough, but I don't believe in love.”

Rosalind was shocked. She supposed a woman led so by her emotions would fall in love easily, perhaps on a daily basis. “Aren't your parents in love?”

“Hardly,” Amelia snorted, very unladylike. “They married because they were a good social match. They have a mutual respect for each other, but they are hardly in love. My mother assures me that love is but a fleeting emotion and one that has nothing to do with happiness. She says instead to even believe in love can bring a person the worst kind of pain. She would see me spared of that.”

Although Rosalind felt sorry that Amelia's mother had developed her attitude about love, the woman did have a point. Perhaps Rosalind was in love, for she felt miserable.

“I must go,” Amelia suddenly announced. “I've used all of my monthly allowance to bribe our coachman into bringing me here in secret. I'm sure my mother will rap on my door at some point and decide to check on me.”

“Thank you for coming, Amelia. Our visit has been most enlightening.”

She rose and walked with Amelia to the front door. The two young women hugged each other before Amelia threw on her cape and rushed to her waiting coach. The day was sunny and the air smelled fresh due to last night's storm. Rosalind didn't want to go back inside and twiddle her thumbs until Armond decided to return and she could confront him about the lock he'd put on his door.

Instead she walked to the side of the house, stopping to admire the view of the stable. She glanced across the lawn at the house next door. A white sheet hung across the railing of the balcony. Mary's signal.

The duchess had not improved. Rosalind hadn't really expected to find her in any other state than the listless one she'd found her in when she first arrived in London. But she supposed somewhere deep inside she'd held out hope that she would walk into this room and find the lady up and about, spry and willing to renew the relationship they had begun so many years ago.

That was obviously not going to happen. Rosalind had shared tea with the lady, trying to clear her head from the effects of the brandy she'd had earlier with Amelia. The tea had not served to clear Rosalind's mind, but instead, she felt even more lethargic. Since there was no lively conversation to keep her awake, she found herself nodding off several times while her stepmother snored softly in her chair by the window.

“You best be going, Lady Wulf.” Mary gently nudged Rosalind. “The hour grows late and I have no idea when Mr. Chapman might return.”

Rosalind's eyelids felt stuck together. She pried them open, glancing outside to see that indeed the sunshine was gone and evening fast approached.

“I must have dozed off,” she said sleepily. Her bones felt like liquid when she tried to rise. She managed to make it to her feet, stumbling toward the door.

“Are you all right?” Mary asked, her wrinkled brow creased in worry.

“I'm fine,” Rosalind tried to assure her. “My legs have gone to sleep is all.”

“Mary!”

Both she and the housekeeper froze.

“Mary! I want my supper prepared immediately! I have plans this evening!”

“Good God, he's home,” Rosalind croaked.

“He mustn't know I've been signaling you when he's gone,” Mary fretted.

“He mustn't find me in the house,” Rosalind voiced her own concern.

“But how are you going to get out?” Mary asked. “He's downstairs and unless he comes up and goes into his room, he might easily spy you trying to leave.”

Rosalind could think of only one escape. “The trellis next to my balcony,” she said. “I've climbed down it before; I can do it again.”

“Oh dear,” Mary continued to fret. “I shouldn't have allowed you to stay so long. You looked so tired. I figured that brute of a husband of yours had been keeping you up late at night, demanding more of you than your delicate strength will allow. I thought you needed the rest.”

“Lord Wulf is not a brute,” she chastised Mary. He was a man who'd locked his door against her, but she couldn't think about that now. She had to escape. “Mary, go and stand at the stairs on the second-floor landing to make certain Franklin is not coming up.”

The housekeeper nodded and hurried out of the room. Rosalind glanced at the duchess, still fast asleep and snoring in her chair. “Good-bye, Your Grace,” she whispered, then walked down to the second-floor landing. It was no easy task. Her eyes were acting strangely and sometimes the stairs beneath her feet seemed to move. Her progress
was sluggish, but she made the landing, glancing down the hall to see Mary positioned at the stairs leading down to the first floor.

The woman motioned her forward. Rosalind tried again to move quickly, but her feet refused to cooperate.

“Hurry,” Mary hissed at her.

“Mary? Did you not hear me calling you?”

The housekeeper's head snapped around to stare down the stairway. “Sorry, Mr. Chapman, I was up in your mother's room.”

“Well, come down and make me dinner. I have plans for tonight and wish to dine before I go.”

“Yes, Mr. Chapman,” Mary said. The housekeeper started down. “Are you coming up, sir?” she asked, her voice overly loud.

“Of course I'm coming up,” Franklin snapped. “I wish to change my clothes before dinner.”

“Very well, sir.”

Rosalind forced herself to move quicker. Franklin was coming upstairs, and if she didn't make her room and the balcony before he reached the first-floor landing, he would see her. Her head felt dizzy again and she had to run her hand along the wall to keep her balance. Mary started down the stairs. Rosalind heard the housekeeper ask what he'd like for supper, she supposed hoping to buy Rosalind more time to escape.

She managed to reach her room, open the door, and go inside. The only fond memories she had of the room were of Armond's late night visits. She reached the balcony doors, left open by Mary when she'd draped the sheet over the railing. Rosalind moved onto the balcony and to the side, where there was just enough room to flatten herself against the side of the house next to the trellis.

She waited for a moment, trying to slow her pounding heart and clear her spinning head. She glanced over the
railing next to the trellis. It looked like a long way down. Suddenly she heard footsteps. Oh God, she'd left the door open. Franklin might have been drawn inside simply because she had usually kept her door closed and she supposed now that she was gone Mary did the same.

She heard him moving about the room, opening drawers and shutting them. Rosalind pressed herself closer to the wall, hoping he could not see her standing there on the balcony, frozen in fear. A few moments later, she heard his footsteps again, moving away, she thought. She stayed still for a while longer, barely daring to breathe. When she didn't hear him moving about, she reached for the trellis. Any time she looked down, her head started spinning again.

It was dangerous to attempt the climb, her head spinning as it was, but it was more dangerous to stay. The two petticoats she wore beneath her gown, she knew from experience, would only make the climb more difficult. Rosalind reached beneath her gown and removed them, leaving them in a puddle at her feet before she reached out and latched hold of the trellis.

She eased her leg over the railing and tried to find solid footing. Once she had, she held on and pulled herself up so that she could swing her other leg over. One foot slipped and for a moment she dangled there, her feet kicking in an effort to find solid footing again. She glanced down. Her head spun. She would fall and break her neck.

Mustering her strength, she held tight to the trellis until her feet were once again wedged between the vine-covered boards of the trellis. Slowly, she inched her way down. The vines were still damp from last night's storm and her feet slipped away from the boards easily.

Her head continued to spin and she thought she might become ill, which would only further complicate her
climb. She was nearly down when her foot slipped again. The dizziness became so bad that her grip loosened and suddenly she was falling.

Strong arms caught her. “What in the hell are you doing, Rosalind?”

“Armond.” She struggled from his arms, took his hand, and drew him up against the side of the house.

“Rosalind, I asked—”

“Be quiet,” she cautioned. “Franklin is home,” she whispered. “I had to escape without him seeing me.”

“I don't give a damn if he sees me,” Armond informed her, and started away from the wall.

Rosalind pulled him back. “But I do. If he knows I come here, I can't come back. Then I can't visit the duchess anymore. It would be too dangerous.”

“It's dangerous enough already,” he pointed out. “You nearly caused my heart to stop beating when I saw you dangling from the trellis a moment ago. I thought I couldn't run fast enough to reach you before you fell and broke your pretty neck.”

“You're speaking too loudly,” Rosalind cautioned him. “We can discuss this later.”

“You're damned right we will,” Armond assured her.

They waited there in the shadows of the house until Rosalind felt it was safe to make their escape. Their mad dash across the lawn was more her stumbling and Armond having to stop and help her than a quick retreat. He ended up carrying her, as he'd done the day they were supposed to ride.

Once in the house, he headed toward the upstairs bedrooms. Hawkins hurried to inquire about the situation, took one look at his employer's face, and retreated.

Armond entered through her open door and went to the bed, gently placing her upon the soft mattress, though his expression was less than tender.

“Hawkins had no idea where you'd gotten off to,” he immediately started to chastise her. “He'd thought you'd possibly left with your friend. I was on my way back to the stable to saddle a horse when I saw the housekeeper's signal to you. Then I saw you dangling from the trellis.”

“I fell asleep,” Rosalind explained. “I didn't tell Hawkins where I was going because I only meant to stay for a few moments. Then Franklin came home and I had no choice but to escape by way of the trellis. My head was spinning again and I lost my balance.”

A little of the tenseness left his features. “I'm going to call for a doctor, Rosalind. These dizzy spells are happening too frequently.”

“It's only happened twice,” Rosalind argued. She realized something odd. “Both times after I visited my stepmother.” Her mind searched for a connection. She could think of none . . . except one. “The tea,” she whispered.

Armond sat beside her. “The tea? What are you talking about?”

Her dizzy spells were now starting to make sense, and if what she thought might be happening truly was, the duchess might not be ill at all. “He's drugging her,” she said “There's something in the tea he has Mary make for her daily.”

“Explain,” Armond said.

Another dizzy spell hit her and Rosalind put a hand to her head. Armond eased her down onto the bed. “Maybe you should rest.”

“No,” she insisted. “I want to tell you what I think has happened to the duchess.”

“All right.”

“I think the tea leaves that he instructs Mary to brew for his mother have something in them that is strong enough to keep her in a lethargic state. The day we were going to ride, I had sipped her tea to make certain it
wasn't too hot. Today, I tried to drink a cup because Amelia visited and we drank brandy. I thought it would help clear my head, but it only made me worse. That's why I fell asleep and stayed much longer than I intended. The tea has a bitter taste to it that I couldn't tolerate, so I drank only half a cup. My stepmother has two or three cups of it a day.”

“But why would Chapman drug his mother?” Armond asked.

Rosalind thought about it for a moment. “Maybe in order to gain my guardianship,” she suggested.

“I suppose,” he agreed. “Either that, or she knows something.”