Mary Balogh: Red Rose

"Have you sprained your ankle, Miss Dacey?" he asked sharply from behind her.

She turned to face his frowning stare. "No, my lord," she answered coolly. "My limp is a permanent disability."

His eyes narrowed. "Explain, please," he ordered.

"I fell from a horse when I was five years old and broke my leg," she explained. "The physician who attended me set it poorly. When I recovered, it was to find that the injured leg was shorter than the other."

He stared at her blankly. "The doctor must have been drunk," he said.

"I have been told that he was," she replied calmly.

"Sit down, ma'am," Raymore said, the pianoforte forgotten. The only thought in his head was that he had been cheated. No one had ever hinted to him that one of his wards was a cripple. How was he ever to find her a husband? He would be forced to support her for the rest of his life, a permanent millstone around his neck. To say that the girl limped was to put the matter kindly.

The earl did not seat himself again. He made his excuses, bowed with stiff formality, and left the room.

Sylvia followed Rosalind upstairs a short while later. "Is my cousin not quite gorgeous, Ros?" she bubbled as they climbed the staircase together, Rosalind holding on to the rail. 1

"Quite devastatingly handsome," she agreed dryly.

Sylvia giggled. "Is it permitted to marry one's guardian, I wonder?" she said, opening the door into her cousin's room and following her inside.

"I imagine there is no law against it," Rosalind replied, "but he is your cousin, 'Sylvie."

Sylvia clasped her hands and smiled broadly. "But he not yours," she pointed out.' "You must set your cap at him, Ros. The Countess of Raymore!"

Rosalind smiled and sat on the bed. "If I had your looks, I might be tempted," she said with a lightness she did not feel, "but I think I shall settle for being an old maid. She held up a hand when her cousin made a face and would have spoken. "Besides," she added, "I don't like him, Sylvie."

"Why ever not?" that young lady replied. "I thought him excessively polite, Ros, and he did not insult you when he saw you limp. I thought him quite kind when he told you to sit down instead of making you walk quite across the room to the pianoforte."

"Did you not notice his eyes, Sylvie?" Rosalind asked. They are cold and unfeeling. And his mouth sneers. I felt that the man holds us in the utmost contempt. The we see of him, the happier I shall be."

"Pooh," Sylvia protested, "you are imagining things just because you were embarrassed to have him see you walk."

Rosalind shook her head. "You must go and dress," she said, changing the subject. "I somehow feel sure that his lordship would not take kindly to our being late for dinner-if he deigns to give us his company, of course."

Rosalind did not follow her own advice well. She changed rapidly enough into a blue silk gown that fit as loosely as her day dresses. But her hair gave her trouble. She pinned and unpinned, coaxed and teased, but to no avail. She was not concentrating, she concluded. Finally she threw the brush with a clatter onto the dressing table and stared despairingly at her image in the mirror. She felt terribly betrayed. She had accepted her own ugliness; she had accepted the fact that no man would ever look at her with anything but revulsion. She had not become bitter, had not allowed herself to become jealous of Sylvia or of any of the other young ladies of her acquaintance. All she had was her dream. And she had felt safe with Alistair. Because he was unreal, a creation of her own imagination, he would remain with her through life, soothing her through the lonely years, giving the illusion of love and acceptance.

And now, in one day, just when she needed him the most, he had been destroyed. By what uncanny coincidence of fate had she imagined a man who was physically identical to her guardian? She doubted that she would ever be able to resurrect Alistair with his kind eyes and his platonic love that was completely centered on her. The stiff manner, the sneer, and the disapproving air of the Earl of Raymore would always intrude.

She hated him. Perhaps that was unfair. He had, as Sylvia said, acted with politeness. He had said and done nothing discourteous or unkind. Even when he had noticed and questioned her limp, he had not said anything to disclose disgust. But because he resembled Alistair so closely, she was unusually sensitive to the hard core of dislike that she was quite sure he felt for both of them. And he had no reason to feel that way. He did not know them. They had not imposed their presence on him. He had summoned them. Yes, she hated him.

Tomorrow she would go to him and ask to be sent back home. He surely would not refuse. He was a physically perfect man and he obviously cultivated beauty around him. His house was furnished with tasteful objects and priceless works of art. He was known for the first-class musical talent that he engaged yearly to entertain his friends. He must agree that she could merely be an embarrassment to him. She must convince him that she would never impose upon him in the future. He could forget her very existence.

He had been right about the doctor, though. He had been drunk, just like everyone else who had gathered on her father's estate for the hunt. The hunt was an annual affair, her aunt had told her much later, but was more an excuse for an orgy of drinking and feasting than a sporting event. Rosalind had been at home with her parents. She lived mostly with her uncle and aunt, the Earl and Countess of Raymore, because her parents traveled almost constantly. But their times together w erevery intense. Her mother had taught her to sing, her father to ride. She remembered them as a vibrant couple, whom she had loved passionately, though she realized now that they had been very selfish people.

On that particular occasion, Rosalind's father had insisted that she ride, although she was far too young to j ointhe hunt. He had urged her, laughing, toward a fence higher than any she had jumped before. She could almost remember the sound of her own laughter as she had spurred her pony toward it. She could not remember anything else except the tedium of days and weeks spent in the house and, later, the garden, while her leg healed beneath the splints.

Everyone had laughed and teased her when the splints were first removed and she had limped and hopped excitedly around the house. But Rosalind could remember her father's towering rage when it became obvious that the limp was involuntary and when someone-her mother?-had measured her legs. She was not now sure if her father really had gone and horsewhipped the doctor, or if she had just made up that detail to satisfy her child's imagination.

But her father had insisted, cruelly almost, that she overcome her terror of climbing back into the saddle again. Only later, after his death, would she thank him for his foresight.

"We will make of you the finest horsewoman in the damned county, my little Rosalinda," he had promised, "and everyone will see you as a creature of grace and beauty." He had fingered a shiny lock of black hair lovingly as his gaze strayed to his wife.

They had both died of the typhoid a year later while visiting her mother's relatives in Italy. Rosalind had not suffered outwardly. She had never seen a great deal of her parents. But inwardly something had been lost. The first of her dreams had died.

And now a second, she thought grimly, picking up her brush again and tackling her mane of black hair once more.

The Earl of Raymore was also not making any great effort to get ready for dinner. He had gone to the library after leaving the drawing room and still sat there.

He had a problem, there was no doubt about it. The cousin was all right, at least. She was lovely and appeared not to be unduly shy. Raymore had not taken too much notice of what she had to say during the few minutes he had sat talking to her, but he was sure that she would take well. She would probably have a large following of eager bucks within a few days of next week's ball. All that would be required of him would be to choose the most eligible without delay.