“Made more so by your lovely flowers.” Rose had filled the house with towering creations made of posies cut from her father’s gardens. “Which is why,” her mother added, “I thought—”
“I don’t care what becomes of my flower arrangements. Honestly, Mum, it makes no sense to let the blooms wither and die when we can turn them into essential oils for your perfumes. I don’t mind in the least.” With a bit more force than was necessary, Rose tugged two lilies from the vases and tossed them onto the table. “Whatever happened to Kit Martyn, do you know?” she asked in an attempt to change the subject.
“That messenger brought news of a problem with one of his projects. He had to leave.”
“Which project?” Rose asked.
“He didn’t say. Or perhaps I don’t remember.” Chrystabel fixed her with a piercing gaze. A motherly gaze. “Does it matter?”
“Of course not. It was only idle curiosity.” A headache threatened, pulsing in Rose’s temples. “Why should I care what happens to the man’s projects?”
“You danced with him—”
“Father traded that dance for a greenhouse. It meant nothing.”
Her mother nodded thoughtfully, beginning to pluck petals from a bunch of striped snapdragons. “You just look melancholy.”
If Rose weren’t already suffering from a headache, that swift change back to the original subject might have prompted one. She lifted the lid off the gleaming glass and metal distillery that Ford had made for her mother while he was courting Violet. “It’s nothing, Mum.”
“It doesn’t bother you that your younger sister is wed?”
“Why shouldn’t I wish her happy?” She was chagrined to hear her voice crack. “I do, Mum, I vow and swear it.”
“It’s no failing of yours, dear, that Lily found love first.”
“Stuck as we are in the countryside, it’s a wonder she found a man at all, whether she loves him or not.” It was an ancient complaint, but in her present mood Rose had no compunctions against dragging it out again. “We hardly ever get to London, or anywhere else we might meet eligible—”
“You have a point,” Mum interrupted.
“Pardon?” Rose blinked.
“You heard me. You haven’t much opportunity here to meet men.” Chrystabel tossed the pink petals into the distillery’s large glass bulb. “I’m thinking that we—you and I—should attend court.”
“Court?” Rose decided she couldn’t be hearing right. One of them had clearly drunk too much champagne. “As in King Charles’s court?”
“I believe they’re at Windsor now—they do move around, as you may know.”
“What I know is that you and Father have always claimed court is no place for proper young ladies.”
“Well, you’re not so young anymore,” Chrystabel said, then came to wrap an arm around Rose when she winced. “I didn’t mean it that way, dear. But you’re one-and-twenty now, a woman grown. And I will be there to chaperone. It’s perfectly acceptable.”
It was more than acceptable, Rose knew—girls as young as fifteen went to court, many of them unchaperoned. And she also knew the licentious men there treated them like full-grown women. Violet had been to court with Ford, and she’d come back with stories that had made Rose’s eyes widen.
A little part of her wondered if this was really such a grand idea.
But she wasn’t going to argue when faced with such surprising good fortune. “Gemini, I’d best go talk to Harriet. She’ll doubtless need to alter some of my gowns, and it will take me hours to decide what to bring before she can even begin.”
“There’s no time for alterations, dear.” In opposition to Rose, whose stomach was churning with excitement, Chrystabel calmly plucked petals. “I mean to leave tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!” Rose dropped the stem in her hand. “Tomorrow?”
“There’s no time like the present,” her mother said with an enigmatic smile.
Normally, Rose might have been vexed at the implication that she was getting more spinsterish as the days sped by. But this was no time to be touchy.
No, it was time to prepare.
She was going to court! Leaving her flowers on the table, she rushed to her chamber to pack.
“WHAT A DAY.” Chrystabel slipped beneath the counterpane to join her husband in bed, sinking into the mattress as she relaxed for the first time in what seemed like weeks. “Thank God they’re married at last.”
“I suspect you’re really thanking God they can no longer create a child out of wedlock,” Joseph teased, leaning up to kiss her lightly on the lips. He lowered himself onto an elbow, smiling into her eyes, his own a deep, sparkling green.
She pushed a lock of dark hair off his forehead. “Well, there is that,” she admitted. When Lily and Rand’s marriage plans had been threatened by Rand’s father, she’d been mortified to realize she’d allowed them to share a bed before her daughter was safely wed. It had seemed a fine idea at the time, but it wouldn’t be happening again with Rose—or Rowan, for that matter.
Chrystabel reckoned she could learn from her mistakes.
“But mostly,” she added, “I’m just gladdened to see them happy at last. Everything worked out.”
“It usually does,” said her ever-practical husband.
She released a contented sigh. “Another wedding.”
“Another wedding night,” he responded with a lustful grin.
A tradition, their wedding nights. That was one of the reasons she so loved arranging other people’s marriages. Not that either of them needed an excuse to make love, but there was something thrilling about watching a wedding while anticipating their own wedding night to come.
She smiled as he kissed her again, then moaned when he slipped a hand beneath her night rail’s neckline to caress a sensitive breast. For long minutes they said nothing, their breathing growing louder and more ragged in the stillness of their thick-walled room.
Here, in their quiet, private chamber, her Joseph could hear whatever she said. Every word, those spoken as well as the silent ones that passed between two as attuned as they.
But they didn’t need words now. Actions would do. A brush of lips, warm skimming hands. Bodies coming together, creating a thrill that the
