Katherine moved toward her. “Don’t let your thoughts overwhelm you. Of course you won’t want to abandon your friend. But may I suggest an alternative to you wandering into dangerous places where you might be hurt or killed?”
Aurora swallowed. “What’s that?”
“I have friends in the War Department,” Katherine said with another smile. “Ones with a very specific set of skills when it comes to finding people who don’t want to or cannot be found.”
“Spies?” Aurora gasped. “I cannot imagine.”
“It’s the most shocking and thrilling thing, I assure you.” Katherine said. “Let me get in contact with them. Put them on the case. They’ll have a much easier time finding someone with their resources than you will. And if there’s trouble, far more ability to manage it.”
“Will I be…kept informed?” Aurora whispered.
“Of course. I’ll have them send reports daily if you’d like.” Katherine stepped closer. “Please, Aurora. I already had a sense that you were being mistreated with these rumors and now that I know they were started because you so selflessly tried to save a friend, I cannot in good conscience abandon you to rumor and ruin. Come with us to Roseford. Enjoy yourself. Make new friends. Please.”
Aurora bent her head. There was but one final reason why she would say no to this remarkable woman. That was the Duke of Roseford’s half-brother: Nicholas.
Just thinking his name shot a shiver of awareness through her. A man with whom she shared a past, a broken heart. A man she thought of every day, despite everything that had happened between them. He was the remaining hesitation to going with this woman.
But everyone knew that Nicholas and Roseford didn’t get along. They were opposites, after all. Nicholas filled with honor, Roseford once the biggest libertine in London. He’d never had a relationship with his brother. So there was very little chance that she’d have to encounter him. Talk about him. Think of him.
She worried her lip. “It’s a kind offer and I’d be a fool to refuse. Yes, I’ll join you.”
Katherine clapped her hands together with a squeal. “Excellent. I cannot wait to renew our friendship and have you meet the others who will be in attendance. A few of them have also experienced scandals in their own right, and you wouldn’t find women better equipped to save the day for a fellow survivor.”
“I look forward to it,” Aurora said, and realized it was true.
Knowing that someone with more resources was trying to find Imogen left her able to look forward to what sounded like a very pleasant gathering, indeed. One where she could clear her thoughts, perhaps even make decisions about the future that had been so foggy in the year since her late husband’s death.
Chapter 3
Nicholas sat in the parlor at Robert and Katherine’s home, a book perched in his fingers, but too distracted to pay attention to the story. Instead, he stared at the crackling fire, his thoughts rolling in circles.
Did he belong here? Here in his brother’s home? In the few days since his arrival, he’d found himself looking from place to place, thinking of his late mother and what she must have endured here. Where her place had been. How it had been used against her.
He blinked and pushed those hard thoughts away. They were replaced by others. Because it wasn’t just the house that made him question himself. He wasn’t sure he belonged in the family Roseford was starting to build with their half-brother Morgan and half-sister Selina and their spouses. They were all so similar. He was so different.
And Roseford had friends here, too. A member of his found family. The Duke of Northfield and his wife. He seemed a good man, honorable and welcoming.
But the discomfort Nicholas felt continued. Because he’d always been lost between two worlds.
“You look very pensive.”
He slowly pushed to his feet, a lingering whisper of pain jolting through him as he did so, and forced a smile for his sister as she entered the room. Selina was lovely, as she had always been lovely, with her dark hair and bright blue eyes. But it was different now. She was different. She had married an old friend of Nicholas’s from the army, Derrick Huntington, and the new couple’s passion for each other was palpable.
“Did I look pensive?” Nicholas asked as she crossed to him and bussed his cheek. “I must have been caught up in my reading.”
She arched a brow at him as she went to the sideboard and poured them both tea. She winked before she added a splash of whisky to the cups and then handed it over. He took the brew, shaking his head at her as they sat together. When he sipped it, he coughed and her laughter filled the room.
“Now is the point where I call you a liar,” Selina said, drinking her tea without so much as clearing her throat. “You weren’t reading. You were brooding. It doesn’t suit those of our ilk, Nicholas. Roseford sons and daughters do not brood.”
He knew she was trying to lighten the mood, but his frown pulled deeper. “I’ve never been the typical Roseford offspring, though, have I? I was brooding. I’ll admit it since I know you well enough to recognize you won’t let this go until I’ve given you my heart and soul.”
Selina’s brow wrinkled. “I hope I can be trusted with your words, if not the rest.”
He met her stare. It had come out the previous summer that his sister was a master thief. He’d been horrified as well as impressed, but had watched her rebuild herself ever since, with the help of Derrick.
“You can be, I know that,” he said evenly, and she smiled in thanks. “It’s not about that… I just…in the day that I’ve been here, I’ve already felt outside looking in.”
Selina pursed her lips. “Because of the duke connection? All those dukes our brother calls friends? You want to be one of them, don’t you? Marquess of Songstrum, and I’ll have to ‘my lord’ you all over town.”
He shook his head. “You’ve never ‘my lorded’ anyone and I doubt you’ll start with me. Yes, I…I want this. I want the title, Selina. I know you don’t understand, neither does Morgan. But I want the respect that goes along with the title. I want…I want the knowledge that certain things can’t be taken from me.”
“Taken from you?” Selina repeated. “What do you mean? What was taken from you, Nicholas, that you think you can get back with a title?”
He flinched as his mind flashed to dark blonde hair, warm brown eyes, soft lips brushing his, a honeyed tone saying his name like it was the only thing that mattered.
“Nothing specific,” he lied, pushing back to his feet and slowly making his way to the window. “I don’t know, I’m just being maudlin, ignore me.”
“I won’t ignore you, but since the subject seems a painful one I will change it. Do you think some of your feeling out of place is because all these people around you are part of couples? And not just any couples, but in love?”
He faced her, his lips tight. She was watching him closely, one fine eyebrow arched as if she already knew the answer. “Are you matchmaking, sister?”
Her smile was instant, wide and catching. “Can you imagine me as a matchmaker? I’d be rubbish! No, I’m just making the observation that you might be feeling excluded because you haven’t found someone to match with.” She stepped closer. “Is there anyone in your life who makes your heart beat faster? Have you ever wanted someone and only that someone?”