Rose (Flower Trilogy) (26 page)

He was dressed in mulberry satin with bunched loops of aqua ribbons. Rose had always admired men of fashion, but it seemed to her that lately the fashions had turned rather frivolous. And she remembered Lord Fortescue better now, most specifically that he was, as Lily had put it, a sloppy kisser.

She didn’t wish to hurt him, but she certainly didn’t want to encourage him further. “The bracelet matched my gown,” she told him. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure. I hear, dear lady, that you’ve learned the secrets of
I Sonetti.
” He grinned, showing buck teeth. “I’m hoping you’ll be willing to share them.”

Was that why he’d given her the bracelet? She was tempted to tear it off, but there was no reason, after all, to ruin such a pretty thing. “If I know any secrets,” she told him archly, “I plan only to share them with my husband.”

To her consternation, his grin widened. “I entertain fond hopes of being that man.”

“You what?”

“Will you marry me, dear Rose?”

Good God, he was proposing! A month earlier she’d despaired of ever hearing a proposal, and now she’d had two in a week. But better she live all her days as a spinster than bind herself to Lord Fortescue and his sloppy kisses.

“Please accept my apologies,” she said, “but my heart belongs to another.”

He sighed, but did not look surprised. “Best wishes, then, my lady.”

No sooner had Lord Fortescue taken his leave than Lord Somerville made his way over. He raised her hand and kissed it reverently. “I hope you received my flowers.”

“They are beautiful, my lord. I thank you.” If she remembered correctly, his kisses had been unexciting but not off-putting. And his suit was adorned with gold braid rather than ribbons. Perhaps he would ask her to dance. She had always dearly loved to dance.

“I hear you’ve a copy of
I Sonetti,
” he said instead.

If she had his flowers here, she’d be tempted to dump them on his head. “I plan to share it only with my husband.”

“Then, dear Lady Rose, I must ask you to do me the honor of becoming my wife.”

Rose’s first instinct was to scream in frustration, but in all honesty there was nothing wrong with the man except that she couldn’t imagine marrying him. “ ’Twould truly be an honor,” she assured him, “but I’m afraid my heart belongs to another.”

“I see.” He swept her a courtly bow. “Your servant, my lady. The duke is a lucky man.”

In the next hour, Gabriel failed to appear and four more gentlemen proposed to Rose. Two of them were more than acceptable, men that she knew she’d have jumped at the opportunity to wed a year ago. But suddenly she couldn’t stomach the thought of marrying any of them.

And not all the men were after her hand in marriage.

Many were simply interested in the book. Rose had warned off three of that type already when two more approached as a team. “We hear you have a copy of
I Sonetti,
” one of them started, a lascivious gleam in his eye.

They both crowded close—so close Rose could tell one of them truly needed a bath. “We were wondering—” the second man began.

“Leave her alone,” Nell Gwyn interrupted, shoving herself between them.

The first one turned on her. “Bloody hell, Nelly, we were only—”

“Hoping to share her, you beasts.” Raising her dainty hands, she pushed on both their chests. “Go on. Be gone.”

Rose blew out a breath as she watched them walk away.

“Is it true?” Nell asked the moment they were out of earshot.

“What?”

“That you’ve a copy of
I Sonetti.
’Tis all the buzz.”

“Yes, ’tis true.” She sighed. “But I cannot imagine why everyone finds it so blasted interesting.”

“The ladies, they just want to see it, to hear the words.

But the gentlemen . . . if you’re not looking for a tumble or two, you’d best stay in company and be watchful.”

From what Rose had seen, there was nothing “gentlemanly” about the base creatures. “Surely not all men are so crass.”

“Some may approach you with flowery words, but they are men. Inflamed most easily.”

“Then perhaps I should carry a bucket of water.”

Nell laughed.

“Do you know,” Rose said, “you are one of few at Court who hasn’t asked to see it. Do
you
not want to view the engravings and read the scandalous translated words?”

“I’ve no need of such things,” Nell assured her blithely.

“Most ladies seem to think they would enjoy sharing the book with their men.”

“Not I.” Nell leaned closer. “Charles”—she dropped her voice to a confidential murmur—“is a very catholic lover.”

Rose frowned. “I thought you were both Protestant.”

Nell’s lips curved into a fond half smile. “I mean that he is not very imaginative. His tastes run to the simple. However, he more than makes up for that with his prodigious appetite and enthusiasm.”

Rose felt her eyes widening. “Oh,” was all she could find to say.

“Besides, I’ve seen those pictures—one would have to be a contortionist to attempt half the poses.”

Rose couldn’t agree more. Despite her sisters’ amused reactions, the engravings still made her a little nervous. In fact, this whole conversation made her nervous. “Will there be gaming tonight?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Of course. And tomorrow night, there will be a masked ball.”

“Gemini! Whatever shall I wear?”

“Not everyone wears a costume. Just a mask will do, although I suspect you’ll find some of the outfits amusing.”

Rose’s mind turned to the clothes she and Mum had brought and what she could possibly create from them.

Maybe if she concealed her identity well enough, she’d have an evening free from being questioned about
I Sonetti.

She watched absently as a beautiful woman walked in and made her curtsy before the King.

Or rather, her bow.

Rose blinked. “Whoever is that?” she asked, staring. The woman was dressed in silks and satins, but the sumptuous turquoise apparel wasn’t that of a lady. “ ’Tis a Cavalier’s suit she wears! She must think the masked ball is today instead of tomorrow.”

“I think not.” Nell chuckled. “Have you never met Hortense Mancini, the Duchess Mazarin?”

“That is the duchess?” Rose had never seen a woman dressed like a man, but on this tall lady the effect was stunning. A jeweled sword dangled from her belt, and a dark little Moorish boy dressed to match trotted beside her, completing the bizarre picture.

“Are you not jealous of her?” Rose asked candidly, knowing the Duchess Mazarin was yet another of the King’s mistresses.

Nell gave a good-natured shrug. “She has Charles’s attention but for the moment. When all is said and done, he will always come searching for my bed, for I love him, and I do not believe the beautiful Hortense has it in her to love anyone. She has a brilliant mind, but beneath it, she is colder than the Thames in January.”

Rose slanted a glance to Louise de Kéroualle where she stood to one side, glowering. “It seems the Duchess of Portsmouth doesn’t share your lack of concern.”

“
She
has something to fret about,” Nell said with a saucy grin. She took Rose by the arm and started toward the new-comer. “Louise is a passing fancy for Charles as well, and the coming of Hortense may well be the end of her reign.

Even a king can spread himself only so thin,” she added with a laugh.

“Why does Charles like either of them?” Rose wondered aloud.

“He’s a man,” Nell told her with another shrug. “His head is turned by a pretty face. No one would argue Louise is a beauty, and as for Hortense . . . she is gorgeous, is she not?”

Drawing closer to the duchess’s rare loveliness, Rose could only nod. Waist-length raven hair framed Hortense’s perfect face. Her flawless Mediterranean skin set off large violet eyes that seemed to change color as she moved.

Nell lowered her voice. “Charles fancied himself in love with her years ago, while she was but fifteen and he still in exile on the Continent. He proposed to her twice. But she thought his prospects poor, and more importantly, so did her guardian, the Cardinal Mazarin. If either had foreseen that Charles would someday regain his crown, today she’d be a queen. Instead, she is forced to live off her keepers.”

They drew up before the duchess just as she sent her little Moorish boy off to fetch refreshment. As the child trotted away obediently, Nell swept Hortense a theatrical curtsy. “Your Grace, may I present Lady Rose Ashcroft, the Earl of Trentingham’s daughter. Lady Rose, this is Hortense Mancini, the Duchess Mazarin.”

“Lady Rose. I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

The duchess’s accent was melodious, an intriguing mixture of her native Italian and the many years she’d spent in France. “I’ve been told,” she added, raising one arched black brow, “that you are in possession of a rare copy of
I
Sonetti.
”

“You’ve heard correctly,” Rose admitted, unsurprised.

Why should this stranger be the only soul at Court who didn’t know?

“Then you speak Italian?”

“Among other languages.” After saying that without thinking, Rose quickly looked around, relieved to see that Gabriel still hadn’t appeared.

“An intellectual!” Hortense exclaimed with such enthusiasm Rose half expected her to clap her hands. “You must come to my salon, then.”

“Your salon?”

“A weekly gathering of great minds in my apartments at St. James’s Palace. We discuss all manner of subjects. Philosophy, religion, history, music, art, ancient and modern literature . . .”

It sounded like something Violet would love, but Rose didn’t share her sister’s passion for scholarly debate. Not to mention she suspected the Duke of Bridgewater would find it a bore. Still, it wouldn’t do to snub a duchess. “Perhaps someday I’ll join you,” she said.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Hortense said as her little Moor returned with a cup of steaming coffee. “Why, thank you, Mustapha.” She patted him on the head, prompting a smile. His teeth looked very large and white in his dark face as he reclaimed his post by her side.

As she sipped, Hortense’s gaze strayed to Louise de Kéroualle. “Look at her,” she said to Nell with a roll of her amazing eyes. “She’s wearing black again.”

Rose looked, too. Louise’s gown was exquisite, but clearly meant to convey grief. “Why black?”

Nell snorted as only Nell could snort. “That hoity-toity French duchess sets up to be of superior quality. If you listen to her, everyone of rank in France is her cousin. The moment some grand lord or lady over there dies, she orders a new mourning gown.”

“Who died?” Rose asked.

“Doubtless some minor prince.” Nell set one of her small hands upon a curvy hip. “I wonder, I do, if Louise is of such high station, why is she such a whore? I was born to be a whore, so I hold that I’ve done quite well for myself.

But she was reared to be a lady—do you not think she should blush in shame?”

Hortense Mancini laughed at that—and her laughter was no feminine tinkle. It did her outfit rather proud.

Rose looked again at Louise. “Does the Duchess of Portsmouth have a black eye?”

Nell nodded. “An ‘unfortunate accident,’ she called it.

But I overheard two ladies saying she’d done it deliberately, to make her pale skin darker like the Duchess Mazarin’s.”

To judge from her braying laughter, the Duchess Mazarin thought that a fine jest.

“Lady Rose.”

Rose turned to see the Duke of Bridgewater. “Your Grace! I was wondering if you’d attend tonight.”

“You look as though you were having a fine time without me.”

His tone implied he was less than thrilled to find her socializing with two of Charles’s mistresses. And now that she thought on it, Rose was a bit scandalized herself. But the truth was she felt more comfortable with these women than she did with most of the people here at Court.

Gabriel was the exception, though. Other than proving a tad more amorous than she’d prefer, he’d been the perfect gentleman. “I’m glad you came,” she told him, meaning it.

He drew her a safe distance away. “Where are your earrings?”

She knew she should have worn them. “I adore them, my lord, but they didn’t match my gown.”

“Well, then, these should match whatever you choose to wear.” He fished a tiny silk pouch from his pocket. “A token of my esteem, my lady.”

Rose opened the drawstring and poured a pair of diamond drops into her hand. The stones winked in the torchlight. “My lord! They are beautiful!”

She should have known he would come up with something to outshine all those other men.

“I am pleased that you like them,” he said, moving close to fasten them on her ears. “Would you care to dance?”

“Rosslyn.” Kit looked up from the sketch he was making of Rose and quickly flipped it over. “What brings you here tonight?”

The earl wandered the drawing room of Kit’s building-in-progress, touching a panel here, eyeing the level there.

“Just seeing how you’re coming along.” He squinted up at the half-painted ceiling. “You’ve pulled it off, Martyn, haven’t you? I knew you could do it.”

Kit glanced overhead at the fat, smiling cherubs the Duchess of Cleveland had requested, thinking, not for the first time, that they didn’t really fit her. The King’s longtime mistress was known to be anything but cherubic.

“Something wrong up there?”

“Not at all. ’Tis stunning, in fact.” Rosslyn lowered his pale blue gaze to meet Kit’s. “Mind if I look around?”

“As you wish.”

Kit lit a second candle and handed it to the man, then followed closely behind. Not that he had anything to hide. But the last of his men had just left, and he always checked everything one final time before leaving himself.

During the past few days he’d been over every inch of the apartments time and again. Nothing seemed to be out of place. The materials were up to standard, and there was no sign of sabotage, fire or otherwise. Apart from some understandable grumbling when Kit kept them long hours, no one on the job seemed unhappy. No one had sighted Harold Washburn, either.

Apparently the man hadn’t set the fire at Whitehall—or at the very least, he had heeded Kit’s warning and was staying clear now.