47. I Love You

25 April 1894

Dear future husband,

I scribble this missive to you under the dining table while my mother and Lord Oliver Dennings prattle inanely about the latest Season's gossip.

Your identity is no longer a mystery to me. I know you, Maximilian Walker, and I've been doing my utmost to deny any love for you that I might feel. But seeing you again... here... tonight... I love you. Truly. Passionately. Steadfastly.

I have prayed for you and worried for you and longed to see you every day of the past six years. You are the man who never sought to stifle me, but to protect me, to take wild ventures with me, and to appreciate me for who I am. I did not care about the difference between our statuses when I thought you were a stowaway on the RMS Etruria, and I do not care a whit now if you are a duke's son or not.

You are the boy I met who rescued my dog, Minerva, when we were on the Etruria. You are the boy whom my father adores. You are the boy who held my hand under a dining table, who danced with me in disguise at a ball neither of us had any right to be at, who hurt me to help me.

Though so much lies unspoken between us, I know I could forgive any fault of the past, any slight on your end, for the love that I hold for you.

Yours, if you will have me,

Rosalie Winthrop

A thunderous noise erupted from the kitchen. The three guests leaped from their chairs as the butler emerged, his eyebrows looking singed. Rosalie shoved the note deep into the pocket of her gown and looked on in horror.

'Whatever is the matter?" her mother demanded, as though this were her house instead of one in which she was a guest.

"Nothing to be worried about..." The butler stammered, but his sleeve was in flames. "A small kitchen fire."

"Your clothing is on fire," Lord Oliver Dennings noted, pushing past the women with a sigh of annoyance and beating out the conflagration with a dinner napkin. "By Jove, Walker, what is the matter?"

'N-no, Your Grace, I assure you... One of the cooks was attempting a flambe for dessert... I'm afraid that a new footman was there for some reason, and may have poured a bit too much liquor into the pan..." Walker chased his master into the kitchen as if to pull him away. "Truly, you mustn't worry..."

But Rosalie was worried, despite the servant's protestations.

Maximilian had excused himself fifteen minutes ago. Where was he?

She fingered the paper in the pocket of her skirt. He had to be here. What if, she thought absurdly, he had been in the kitchen? He could be injured!

"A fire in my own home and a footman I have not hired is reason enough for me to be worried," Lord Dennings was saying icily as he shoved open the kitchen door. "I will see to this immediately."

Just as he'd said the words, a footman ran out of the kitchen, narrowly avoiding the door that Lord Dennings had flung open. With blackened livery and greying hair, he had a face that looked faintly familiar to her, but she couldn't place where. "My sincerest apologies, Your Grace... I was only trying to help the cook..."

Lord Dennings looked like he wanted to shake the man by the shoulders. Violently. "Have you seen my son?"

"Your son?" The footman's salt and pepper eyebrows creased together. "Your Grace, I have not. Is he missing?"

Just then, the dining room doors burst open. "I thought this was going to be a peaceful supper," her mother muttered.

"Then perhaps you ought to make better friends," Rosalie said under her breath before taking a sip of wine. It was sour, burning as it slid down her throat, and it made her wonder how anyone could drink copiously for enjoyment.

Lady Cornelia Winthrop's head turned sharply. "What was that, Rosalie?"

"I was only saying that I had wished for the same, ma'am." She gave a bright, cheery smile that felt as false as the imitation pearls in her hair.

Hugo burst into the room, with Maximilian's limp body cradled in his arms. Rosalie stood from the dining table so abruptly that she knocked over her chair.

"Rosalie!" her mother scolded. "Please, display some decorum."

"Max!" she gasped, rushing over to Hugo and ignoring her mother's protests. "Oh, what have you done to him?"

"Nothing, miss." His gruff voice sent an unpleasant shudder through her body. "I found him like this in the hall on his way back from the loo."

"How could you accuse Hugo, an innocent man in my employ, so easily?" her mother demanded as Lord Dennings stalked towards his son's unconscious form.

"Lay him down on the dining table," he demanded, as servants began clearing the flatware and dishes with lightning speed. "I want the doctor to look at him immediately. And you, Cornelia, how could you be more concerned with a mere servant's innocence than my son's well-being?"

Her mother spluttered, clearly deprived of an answer. "I... well... I'll ring the doctor, shall I?"

"No need, madame, I have already called Doctor Thornton. He shall arrive shortly after attending to the birth of a village woman. Twins, I hear it was," said Madame Goutet, the housekeeper. "Very auspicious."

"Yes, well, he had better hurry, auspicious birth or not." Lord Dennings paced, clearly agitated. "How could a mere kitchen fire have the effect of knocking unconscious my son, a healthy boy of twenty years? I require answers, or many of the staff will be terminated without pay or a character and put out on the street."

Rosalie, even while she gazed at the nasty gash on Maximilian's forehead, and the pale hollow of his left cheekbone faintly bruised, thought that was too harsh a punishment. Surely it had been an accident, hadn't it?

Yet who would allow a duke's son to come so close to danger?

She fretted, pressing gauze to Maximilian's wounds. It was the closest she had been to him since their dance those few days ago, a few days that seemed to encase a lifetime.

Finally, the doctor entered, his black medical case hanging at his side, clad in a black overcoat and wearing spectacles perched on his hooked nose. Something about the man felt oddly familiar, and she stiffened.

"Doctor Thornton was busy with the twins, but I am here to assist him," said the man. "My name is Dr–"

"Edgar Wakefield?" said Lord Dennings, his face turning a violent shade of purple. Rosalie dropped the wad of gauze she had been holding onto Maximilian's face. He sneezed, and she started.

Edgar Wakefield? Why would he be here, masquerading as a doctor? Why would the duke be so angry at his appearance? What on earth was happening?

"Don't sit up too quickly," Rosalie cautioned, but Maximilian had already moved his spine into a vertical position, and was looking directly at her.

"Rosalie," he breathed, one hand reaching out to cup her face.

He was bewildered, clearly, and his clothes were singed, and he smelled of smoke, and this whole affair was wholly inappropriate, but she didn't care. Not when he was awake, his eyes gazing into hers with every measure of affection that she felt for him.

"Maximilian," she said, her pulse quickening at his faint touch before his fingers dropped from her cheek, remembering where they were. His father's dining room, where anyone could see them. "How are you.... How are you feeling?"

"A bit stiff," he said, wincing as he touched the back of his head, where a goose egg seemed to be forming. "What happened?"

"I don't know," she said. "The footman said there had been a kitchen explosion."

Maximilian shook his head, murmuring something that sounded like "Redmond Flynn." She blinked. Had the head injury wounded him so grievously? "Excuse me?"

"Nothing," he said with a laugh. "I suppose we won't get our promenade after all."

"No, I suppose not," she said, more disappointed by the prospect than she cared to admit. "What a pity."

"Tant pis, indeed," he said, surprising her.

She raised an eyebrow. "You know French?"

"Suffis," he said. Enough. "What in the blazes? Is that Edgar Wakefield? What on earth is he doing in France?"

They both turned to look at Edgar, whom Lord Dennings had grabbed by the throat. "How dare you come here and try to harm my son!"

"That man is your father?" she said to him softly, a tinge of doubt colouring her words.

His thumb brushed the back of her hand, and she sucked in a deep breath at the sudden contact. "Unfortunately, yes."

"Not to fear. I shan't hold it against you," she said.

He turned to her with a smile. "Thank you, Rosalie."

"You are very welcome."

He wrapped his fingers around hers, and she helped him off of the dining table toward their fates.