Rivals and Revels (A Regency Romance)

23. Of Dreams and Roses

Mabel didn't sleep well. Everett was a dangerous sparring partner, and she drew him out. Why, oh why, couldn't she just leave him sulking in his corner? Radcliffe's words weren't free of mockery either, possibly even more poisonous than Everett's. The two brothers could have very well been toying with her for some perverse amusement.

At mid-morning, her sandy eyes cried for fresh air. It drizzled overnight, so Lady Catherine deemed it too unhealthy for her lungs to set foot outside, but Mabel begged for a turn in the garden with the dogs. Without their Mistress Fifi and Peppe trotted after her gingerly, their tails hanging between their legs instead of wagging. Fifi had to snip at grass, so Mabel had to stop right before the entrance to the maze.

A strand of hair fell out of the bonnet she had tied on in haste to curl across her nose. She lifted her face, but the raindrops never reached her inflamed eyes, suffused somewhere in between the low sky and the bedewed grass. "Fifi, Peppe, come along..."

The dogs stared at the maze as if they had not seen it before.

"Come on, it's not scary at all." The walls reached to her hip with yet to be trimmed fresh growth. The roses also leafed out among the boxwoods, so finding the way became more challenging than in the winter, but a far cry from anything trying. The dogs treated it as a thrill. They cuddled to her legs, winding their leashes round her skirts.

"Let's just get to the middle, please," she begged her cowardly companions, crouching to untangle their ten legs. "And then we go back, I promise."

The two pooches glanced to the centre, then back at her, doubt clear in their brown eyes.

"Merciful Heavens, what is it now?" She looked and gasped. In the middle of the maze, the familiar figure loomed behind the marble statue. Radcliffe's stooped back was to her, so she could have tip-toed away, but her feet wouldn't listen. She ran, dragging the dogs along. Mother-of-thyme perfumed the air in her wake as her shoes pressed the leaves down the cracks between paving stones.

"Lord Chesterton! What a pleasant surprise! I thought you would have gone to the Parliament already."

"I should have been." He turned to watch her progress with his hands locked behind, straining to maintain their grip and straighten his shoulders.

"And?" Out of breath, this was as much of a conversation she could offer once she'd gained the small paved square. Between Radcliffe, two dogs, a stoney maiden and her, the place was positively crowded.

"After yesterday's kerfuffle, I needed solitude." He winked out of the dark shadows that circled his eyes. "I am shirking my duty like a schoolboy."

She fanned herself with her handkerchief. "Your brother. Of course."

"Yes." A corner of his lips curled up. "Fortunately my truancy was undeservingly rewarded."

He pointed, and Mabel spotted the pink ruffles finally out of the green restraints of its bud. It protected it for as long as it could, holding them tight in its embrace. Yet, the spring called, and no amount of caution could stop the flower. The first rose of the year opened on this grey morning.

She sighed, taking in the delicate beauty of the flower. For a minute, they gazed upon it in silence. Even the clouds seem to lighten overhead. The leaves barely trembled. If she held her breath, she could hear his heart beat... or she imagined she could. "Nature is perfect."

"Perfect," Radcliffe sighed. "Too damnably perfect."

The profanity sounded awkward in his mouth, as if he'd never cussed before. His fingers spasmed on the top of his cane. Her mouth fluttered, ready to burst open, like the rosebud. She envied it. By its mere presence the rose said everything it needed to say. Women had to fumble for words.