Page 55 of The Perfect Rose

Frederick stood and paced along the foot of his bed. When he wore a hole through the carpet, this would be the exact space. What was he going to do with the flowers? The answer was obvious. He would give them to Lady Rose. But that answer didn’t sit right. It was as if there were a puppy inside Frederick’s chest bounding about with abandon. No, he couldn’t do something with those wildflowers that would be predictable. He stopped pacing. “Can I interrupt the ball with a game?”

Miriam arched her blonde eyebrow. “No. I will not interrupt dancing for a game. We have had two weeks full of almost nothing but games. Try something else.” She clasped her hands in her lap and sat back into the chair as if she could sit there all day waiting for him to come up with something perfect.

But Frederick wasn’t perfect. He never had been. And perfection was driving Rose slowly mad, if he judged correctly. No, none of this would be perfect. He finally smiled. “I need that quill.”

Miriam vacated the chair and stood behind him. She would hate watching every moment of what he was about to do.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Rose’s mother poked her head in through the doorway to Rose’s chamber. “Rose, do hurry. It’s time for tea. You need to take refreshment before the ball tonight. There will be no fainting spells due to a lack of sustenance. I refuse to have you sit out any of the dances.”

Rose put down the sprig of a daisy she’d been mindlessly twirling in her fingers and laid it on the windowsill. “Yes, mother.”

This was her last tea as an unattached woman. Today had been full of lasts. It was silly really. She would still be doing much of the same things when she was engaged to be married to . . . someone. But for some reason, it felt utterly and completely different.

Miriam greeted her when she entered the parlor. “Lady Rose, would you like to sit with me?”

“Actually,” the duke cut in and strode to Miriam’s side. “I have been meaning to pick Lady Rose’s brain for a moment. Would it be exceptionally rude if I took her outside for a short walk?”

Rose’s mother entered the parlor at that moment and beamed at the duke. “Rose would be delighted, Your Grace. But do come back in and take some refreshment when you’re finished. I’d hate for my daughter to be hungry before the ball.”

Miriam hardly spared the duke a glance as she answered, her eyes focused solely on Rose. “Take your time, I’ll make sure to save you some sandwiches.”

Rose’s mother pinched her arm as she walked past her and into the parlor. The look she shot Rose mimicked her governess reminding her to sit with her shoulders pulled back. As if Rose didn’t know what was expected of her at this moment. Rose responded only by nodding her head almost imperceptibly. What her mother didn’t know was that although Rose understood her wishes, she didn’t intend to comply with any of them. Even acting like she would was a lie difficult to swallow. But it helped that there was only so much time left when her mother would be making all the decisions for her. She let out a breath of relief as the door shut behind her. Lady Gilfordshire sat on a stone bench on the side of the stone terrace.

“How are you feeling, my dear?” Lady Gilfordshire asked her as they exited the house.

The duke led Rose to sit next to his mother. Rose looked down at her dress. That was a terrible question; she didn’t know how she felt. “Um, worried, maybe. I don’t know how I should feel. It just seems like everything is going to change, and I don’t know if it will be better or worse.”

The dowager squeezed her arm. “Remember, allow yourself to hope for your best dream. Have you figured out what it is, yet?”

Rose watched the Duke as he walked to the other side of the large balcony. Lady Gilfordshire led Rose to a bench. As she sat next to the older woman, Rose felt a well of gratitude bubble up inside her. “You don’t have any reason to be kind to me, and yet, you have been so very kind. I don’t know how I could ever repay you for your advice and your belief in me.”

The dowager patted Rose’s arm. “You are avoiding my question, Lady Rose. What is your best dream? We can get to how you will repay me later.” She winked.

Rose laughed. “I suppose I am avoiding your question.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “I haven’t said it out loud before now. It seems almost too good to ever come true. If I admit to my best dream and it doesn’t happen, then whatever does happen will never be enough. It’s like having a public debut for the wrong reason.”

If only she could keep the truth to herself, no one would ever truly know if Rose had failed: it wouldn’t be humiliating or degrading to be wrong. Rose didn’t have much experience in either of those two areas, and what experience she did have was enough to make her know she didn’t enjoy it. She looked out of the corner of her eye at her companion. Lady Gilfordshire sat with her lips pinched between her teeth. A sure sign that she wasn’t going to let Rose off the hook from answering her question.

Rose heaved a sigh. “My best dream is Frederick Hastings.”

Lady Gilfordshire didn’t start or exclaim or react to her admission at all. She just stared at Rose. It was an uncomfortable few moments that seemed to stretch out into eternity. What did the woman think about her dream? Certainly, she had all but told Rose that Frederick should be her dream, so maybe that wasn’t the full admission she’d been looking for.

“I wish Frederick would ask me to marry him. I wish that I could live here and be surrounded by his infectious joy and optimism. I want him to tease me and make me angry. And I want him to be tender and loving and accept me for who I am, thorns and all. I want to make him happier even than he is now, and I want him to sing again. I think he would have a nice singing voice.” Rose took a deep breath. “But I don’t want any of that if Frederick doesn’t. I could not live with myself if he chose to marry me out of some sense of duty to save me from an inevitable fate of tyranny. It would ruin everything. I would rather be miserable on my own than make him miserable too.”

Rose slumped her shoulders and rested her elbows on her knees. Her head hung low between her arms. How had it taken that much energy to form the words? She felt the dowager’s hand on her back, rubbing in slow circles. The contact and motherliness of the action soothed Rose’s nerves. This woman must certainly be made of magic.

“I’ve known Frederick since he was eight years old. He is master of himself enough to know what he is about. I don’t believe for a moment that he would choose to be miserable.”

“Perhaps not, but he would sacrifice a portion of his own happiness in order to make my life better. I know that for certain.”

The dowager laughed. “Of course he would. That is what love is.”

“What?” Rose was baffled. Wasn’t love an enveloping happiness, a oneness that tied two people together?

“Love is sacrifice. It is putting someone else’s needs before your own. And when a couple is truly in love, that sacrifice works both ways. You will sacrifice for him and he for you. Serving each other only strengthens that love. Quite honestly, you hardly know Frederick. The fact that a person can say they love someone from a couple weeks of interaction is enough to put a person in the asylum. But the Good Lord steps in sometimes. He shows us a piece of what life could be. Then we step through that window with faith. We change and are changed so that our happiness is so tied up in the person you love that you can hardly tell where his happiness ends and your own begins.”

There was no way Lady Gilfordshire had spouted off these feelings of love from a book. They were hers. It was her own experience, Rose was certain of it. And one day, she’d pry the rest of the story from her if need be.