Rosalind: A Regency Romance (The Four Sisters Series Book 1) Read online

  If Peter was telling the truth, there was perhaps more to the family than she had first thought. Rosalind pondered on this and other questions as he continued to point out interesting sights in the parkland that they were passing through. They finally reached the front of the house, and the carriage came to a stop. Rosalind could see the long line of staff waiting to greet the Duke and his new wife, and she shrank back in her seat.

  Peter noticed the movement and reached out his hand and took hers, squeezing it gently. “We shall do this together,” he reassured her.

  Rosalind gave him a grateful smile in return and let him lead her out of the carriage. She stood next to Peter as he spoke to the butler and housekeeper. He had let go of her hand but had moved his arm across her waistline.

  Peter’s actions were done to help to reassure his new wife. He had seen the panic cross her face when she had seen the number of staff lined up to greet the arrivals. Perhaps he would not have been so sympathetic if they had not had that conversation on the first day. He knew now that she had not sought this, and it made him want to support her, his protective instincts emerging. For the staff it was a clear sign that the new Duchess had the approval of their Duke. There had been much speculation and gossip about the new mistress. Such blatant kindness and consideration when they were alighting from the carriage made them look upon their new mistress with more approval than they might have done previously.

  Two long lines of staff fanned out from the ten or more steps that led down from the open doorway. The building consisted of three floors, excluding the servant’s floor. The red brick was rich and contrasted against the stone coloured architrave, a handsomely engraved beam crossing over the top of the doorway. There were ten windows across the ground floor, twelve on the other two floors. The central doorway and sweeping staircase leading to the gravel drive added to the grandeur of the building. It was an imposing house by anyone’s standards, Rosalind mused, taking in every detail.

  The butler and housekeeper introduced the staff to Rosalind. She presumed that Peter already knew them, and was still being supportive as he remained by her side. If she had asked Peter, she would have been told that he knew few of them. His life had been full of cost cutting and improving efficiency not getting to know the staff.

  Peter noticed with approval that Rosalind listened closely and although she did not speak to every member of staff, she spoke to some and asked questions that were linked to that person specifically. Peter was relieved that his wife seemed to have an air of confidence about her. He did wonder how much was an act when they finally reached the hallway and Rosalind blew out her cheeks in relief when she thought no one was observing her.

  The butler informed them that refreshments would be served in the drawing room, while their luggage was taken upstairs. Rosalind was offered to be shown up to her chamber to freshen up from the journey. She followed the housekeeper, looking around her closely to ensure she would find her way back to the correct room.

  They turned left at the first floor landing and walked along the wide hallway. The walls were covered in a Chinese style wallpaper with birds and flowers following her as she walked. Many doors were passed before the housekeeper stopped and opened a doorway, stepping back to allow Rosalind access.

  The room was large, three floor-to-ceiling windows letting a huge amount of light into the room. It was decorated in pale yellow with pale blue curtains and upholstery. The four-poster bed dominated the left hand wall, being flanked by two huge wardrobes. The right hand side of the room was filled with chairs, two chaise lounges, two sofas, a desk, dressing table and screen. A large marble fireplace stood directly opposite the bed. Rosalind liked the colours of the room but felt that the furniture was too cluttered, especially for one person.

  “This is your bedchamber, Your Grace,” Mrs Dawlish, the housekeeper, explained. “Through there is the dressing room. The opposite door leads to your sitting room. Beyond that you will find the Duke’s dressing room and bedchamber. The rooms take up the whole of the front of the house on this floor. The rooms at the back of the house are guest bedrooms.”

  “Thank you,” Rosalind replied. “Where does the Duke’s sister sleep?” She was curious that Annie had not been there to greet her brother.

  “She sleeps on the floor above, her companion stays in the room next to her. She has been very excited about your arrival,” Mrs Dawlish explained. “Now, Your Grace, Marjorie has been appointed as your ladies maid. If you prefer to appoint your own, we can make arrangements for you. I took the liberty of allocating Marjorie, as the Duke had not mentioned in his correspondence you’re bringing a maid.

  Marjorie was busying herself emptying the boxes and portmanteau that had been carried upstairs. If she heard the comments, she did not show any reaction. “That will be fine,” Rosalind said. “The maid who accompanied me on the journey will be returning to my father’s household,” she explained.

  Mrs Dawlish nodded and left Rosalind alone with her new maid. Marjorie immediately approached her new mistress and relieved her of her bonnet, pelisse and gloves. Rosalind nodded her thanks and shook out her dress, it was travel stained and creased.

  “I shall change into my pale blue day dress that you have just unpacked, please Marjorie,” Rosalind said, seeing the dress hanging, ready to be carried into the dressing room. “It looks less travel weary than the one I’m in.”

  Rosalind washed and then was helped into the clean dress. It was made out of a delicate muslin that was overlaid with a sheer organza, matching the shade exactly. The neckline crossed over at the front, perfect for daywear. Long sleeves fastened onto the puff sleeves. Rosalind chose a deep blue shawl that contrasted against the paler blue of the dress and left the bedroom behind. It might be summer, but such large rooms might be chilly she mused as she walked along the hallway, fitting the shawl snugly around her shoulders.

  It was simple enough to find her way to the drawing room, but she took her time moving down the stairs, taking in her surroundings. Everything was very grand. Rosalind lived in a large house, but this was on a completely different scale to what she was used too.

  Every place she looked, there were pieces of furniture or some sort of decorative ornament. The feel of the house reflected her bedchamber in that it was grand but cluttered. A footman opened the door to the drawing room, and she entered to lively chatter.

  Peter sat in a chair opposite the doorway. He had been talking to a young woman who sat on a seat across from him. He looked up when Rosalind entered and immediately looked tense. Rosalind wondered at the change of expression but then reminded herself that her husband would always see her as a lower class means to an end.

  Further musings by Rosalind were interrupted by the girl leaving her seat and turning towards Rosalind. She smiled in welcome.

  “Hello! You must be Peter’s wife. My name is Marianne, but everyone calls me Annie!”

  Chapter 4

  Rosalind took in the girl before her. She had uttered only few sentences, but Rosalind knew she was still a girl, no matter her actual age. She had bounced out of her seat and was jigging on the spot, obviously excited. She was quite short in height; her face was more round than normal, and her eyes were large and slightly protruding. Her mouth was full, but her tongue seemed to stick out slightly when she was not speaking. Her breathing was heavy, seeming slightly laboured.

  It did not take Rosalind many moments to realise the differences in appearance to most other young ladies: that this girl was not an average young miss. She could see that the girl was desperate for some sort of reaction from herself and moved forward a little.

  “Hello Annie,” she curtseyed in greeting. “I am very pleased to meet you.”

  The words were enough to release Annie from her temporary stillness, and she launched herself at Rosalind. She might have been a lot shorter than Rosalind, but she hugged her with a hold that told of strength.

  “Annie!” Peter exclaimed, jumping out of the chair and approachin
g the pair. He looked mortified at Annie’s reaction. Before he reached them, Rosalind stopped him. She had wrapped her arms around Annie instinctively when she had been grabbed but held one of her hands up to stay Peter.

  She continued to let herself be held until Annie was satisfied and, when she started to move away, Rosalind held onto her hands. “So, you are the young lady your brother has told me all about.” It was a lie, but Annie looked pleased. “I hope you are going to help me to settle into my new home.”

  “Oh yes!” Annie said eagerly. “It’s a big house; you will get lost; I do. Your dress is pretty.”

  Rosalind laughed. “Thank you; so is yours.” Annie’s dress was of a style suited to a much younger girl; she was obviously treated as the child she still was.

  “Annie, let Rosalind come and sit down. She needs some refreshments,” Peter said gently to his sister.

  “Will you sit next to me?” Annie asked.

  “Of course,” Rosalind responded easily. “But first you must introduce me to your companion.” The lady had remained seated during the exchange but had watched her charge closely. She was dressed in the traditional grey dress of a governess. Her appearance was neat, although she was a sturdy looking woman. Her face was kind and, at Rosalind’s words, she had looked encouragingly at Annie.

  Annie turned to the woman and immediately released her hold on Rosalind. She walked over to her companion’s side and said formally, “Your Grace, this is my companion, Mrs Fisher.”

  “Good afternoon Mrs Fisher. I am pleased to meet you,” Rosalind said with a smile. She turned back to Annie. “If I am to use your given name, it is only right that you use mine; Rosalind sounds much better than Your Grace.”

  “Peter and Mrs Fisher have told me that I have to be good because you are giving us lots of money,” Annie said innocently.

  Mrs Fisher looked uncomfortable at her charge’s words, but it was nothing to the horror on Peter’s face. Rosalind’s cheeks burned at the reference, but she also smiled. Annie was obviously a complete innocent. “I am sure you will be good anyway,” she said easily, joining Annie on her seat. “Now are those cakes I can see?”

  The distraction worked. Mrs Fisher poured the tea while Annie handed the cakes around, chattering as she did so. Rosalind responded when necessary and watched the girl. It was obvious she adored Peter. With almost every sentence, Annie looked at her brother for approval.

  When there was nothing but crumbs left, Mrs Fisher stood. “Annie it is time that you had your nap,” she said gently, but firmly.

  “I want to stay with Rosalind,” came the slightly belligerent reply.

  “Annie….” Mrs Fisher started.

  Rosalind intervened. “Annie, I shall be here when you have had your nap. Perhaps you can show me around some of the rooms?”

  “Oh yes!” Annie responded.

  “Mrs Fisher,” Rosalind said, turning to the companion. “If Annie has her usual nap, I shall be here waiting for her tour when she wakes. Is that acceptable?”

  Mrs Fisher smiled a smile that was conspiratorial, approving and agreeing at the same time. “That is most acceptable, Your Grace. I shall bring Annie downstairs as soon as she wakes.”

  Annie gave Rosalind and Peter a kiss on the cheek before she left the room, and they could hear her chatter until she ascended the staircase. The room seemed oddly quiet without her.

  Rosalind turned to her husband. “As you told me very little of your sister on our journey, would you be good enough to speak of her now?” Her tone was a little accusatory. She had no problem with Annie at all, but she felt that if Peter had told her beforehand, she might have responded better. She hoped that no one could detect the surprise she had felt, but she was not sure if she had masked it enough.

  “I’m sorry,” Peter said, looking uncomfortable, “it never seemed the right moment.”

  “There was never the right moment over four very long days?” Rosalind asked a little tartly. “There was never a single opportunity to mention something about her that would have helped me to be better prepared when I walked through the door?”

  “You dealt with her perfectly,” Peter said. It was true; he had been impressed at Rosalind’s ability to suppress the surprise or shock she must have felt.

  “Yes, but I could have caused untold damage,” Rosalind snapped. “Annie obviously needs treating differently than other girls of her age. If you were putting me to a test, it was an unfair one, Your Grace.” Rosalind could not shake off the feeling that Peter was disappointed in taking a cit’s daughter in marriage. If he was going to put her in situations where she could potentially make mistakes and undermine her position, she was in for a difficult time.

  “It was not a test,” Peter insisted. “It was cowardice on my part,” he admitted.

  “Cowardice?” Rosalind asked, surprised.

  “Yes, I chose the coward’s way and wasn’t honest about Annie from the start. Once I’d started on the path of ignoring the truth, it was easier to continue than to face the possibility of you walking away. I needed you to go through with the marriage, or I would have lost everything,” Peter said, once again proving to Rosalind that the money was all that mattered in this situation.

  Rosalind felt a lump in her stomach drop. She looked at her husband and took a steadying breath. There was little point letting her own worries get the better of her. She was in this situation, and she needed to know what she was facing. “I think you’d better explain everything,” she said, her voice sounding firm. “But this time I would be grateful if you could have the decency to tell me the truth.”

  Peter swallowed before starting. If things went wrong, Rosalind would be quite justified in ending their agreement. There was never any mention of her caring for his sister in any of the negotiations. He had been foolish in omitting mentioning Annie; he was fully aware of that, but it had seemed the right thing to do at the time. After all, the whole farce around his marriage was to secure Annie’s future.

  “Annie is different from other young ladies as you have seen,” Peter stated quietly. “She looks different; she acts different, and she learns in other ways. Standard lessons were never any good for her.”

  “Has she been like that from birth?” Rosalind asked.

  “Yes,” Peter responded. “Robert was my elder brother. There was a four-year gap between us. There were no further children until Annie arrived seven years later. Her looks were not what one normally sees in a baby.”

  “What did the doctors say?” Rosalind asked.

  “They did not expect her to live very long; they suggested that our parents find a family to care for her until she died. The assumption was that if she managed to survive the days after the birth, she would still not be expected to live beyond childhood,” Peter responded. He remembered the tears and arguments that had gone on behind closed doors. Eleven-year-old Robert had taken his younger brother to listen outside doors while all the commotion was going on. Peter had been frightened about all the talk of the death of a child. Robert had scoffed at his fears.

  “Thankfully she wasn’t cast off,” Rosalind said with feeling. For one who had cared for her own sisters, she could not imagine handing them over to someone else to care for just because they were a little different.

  “No, for once my mother won the argument,” Peter continued. He had never spoken about the months around Annie’s birth, and it brought back all the fear and insecurities that he had felt at the time. “My mother was far more placid and gentle than my father. I had never heard her raise her voice until then, but raise her voice she did. She fought to keep Annie.”

  “It must have been upsetting for everyone,” Rosalind sympathised. She saw from the look in Peter’s eyes that he was holding back on how it affected him; he looked haunted.

  “My father was only concerned with what others would think about him; he didn’t want the neighbours’ ridicule if he could not produce a real child. I actually heard him shouting that at her. He would scream
that the bloodlines had to be kept pure. He would rather that the child had died in childbirth than acknowledge that she was different,” Peter said bitterly.

  “Well you must take satisfaction in knowing that he will be turning in his grave if he knew how low the connections were now that I’ve joined the family,” Rosalind joked. “I may not have known her, but I am glad your mother fought for Annie. It must have been a huge relief when she won the battle to keep her.”

  “Yes it was,” Peter recalled. He wanted to say something to assure Rosalind that he did not think her any lower than himself, but he could not find the words. Retelling the story of his family raised the insecurity that he had felt at the time; he felt the same sense of helplessness in his current situation that he had then. As the years passed he had buried the feelings but, with everything that had happened over the last few months, it was all too easy for them to be resurrected. “For a long time afterwards I worried that, if I wasn’t a perfect son, I would be sent away.”

  “A burden for any child to carry,” Rosalind said quietly. She knew what it was like to realise that parents were not perfect. It was a hard lesson for any child to learn but, to live with what must have seemed like a real threat, must have affected the young boy. “So Annie has lived here all her life?”

  “Yes, she is comfortable in familiar surroundings,” Peter explained. “Being faced with new things can make her unsettled and afraid. She is very loving most of the time, but when upset she can lash out; it’s through fear rather than malice. It isn’t done with any forethought; she just reacts to a situation. She hasn’t got anything but goodness in her, but it is obviously better for her and anyone who cares for her to keep things on an even keel.”

  At Peter’s words, realisation began to dawn on Rosalind. “It must have been terrifying for her to think that the house was going to be lost.” She noted Peter’s look of surprise at her words. “You shall have to excuse my curiosity; I needed to know all the details about your situation before our marriage. I insisted that our solicitor tell me the truth about your affairs.”