Page 7 of The Duke’s Masked Wallflower

“Tonight?”

Emily went strangely quiet, and Rosalie tilted her head to the side.

“You said he intended to ask for your hand tonight,” she reminded Emily.

“I know what I said. And he does want my answer tonight.”

“Why the rush?”

“Because of Beatrice.”

Rosalie felt a chill run down her spine. Mrs. Beatrice Levant née Sinclair was five-and-twenty, but she was the worst gossip society had ever known, and she had a particular dislike for the Winthrops and anyone who associated with them. She had covertly teased Emily all summer prior, hinting that she knew about Thomas, though she never made it clear what she intended to do with the information.

“Has she said something recently?” Rosalie asked.

“She has made an effort to speak to Thomas. She has made her father befriend his uncle. I know she is up to no good, Rosie. She is trying to expose us for her own amusement.”

Or for revenge, Rosalie thought but did not say.

“Thomas’s haste is justified in my eyes. But what he has asked me to do seems more impossible by the second.” Emily leaned back in her seat, defeated. “I cannot risk going to him, Rosalie. You know what my mother is like. She has been watching me like a hawk. No doubt she is already looking for me with that gentleman, and it won’t be long until she finds me. Which is why I must ask you now the thing I have dreaded asking you all night. I was trying to find a moment to go and see him, but my mother filled my dance card tight.”

A dark feeling welled inside Rosalie at the supplicating tone of her friend’s voice. She looked around her, grateful that no one seemed to be listening, while her mind said, Emily, please don’t ask me what I think you are going to ask me.

“You could go to him in my place. Your parents don’t watch over you as mine do. In his letter, he asked me to meet him outside five minutes to midnight... To kiss him and tell him my answer... That was the only way he would know that I wanted to marry him. Mother will not accept him or his uncle at the house.”

“You’ve gone mad with love.” Rosalie rose sharply from her seat. “I could never do that, Emily. And let us not ignore the fact that he will know I am not you.”

“We are both wearing pink. You are only a little taller than me.” Emily stood and grabbed Rosalie’s hands, pleading with her. “I have thought all of this through. He won’t know the difference in the dark, not for the three seconds it will take you to deliver my answer. I am begging you. There is no one else I can trust with this. I love him. I must be with him, or I will always be miserable.”

“I cannot.” Rosalie bit her lower lip. “I could not kiss him for a start.”

“On the cheek,” Emily said, kissing Rosalie under the eye, “like this, just a little kiss. That is all I ask. Please, Rosalie. This is the only way.”

“Why can I not simply go as myself and tell him your answer?”

“He won’t know how to trust you. He will think you are tricking him. He has every reason to be suspicious. The answer must be from me directly, or from someone he believes to be me.”

Rosalie pressed her eyes shut, thinking. She wanted all of her friends to be happy more than anything in the world. Emily deserved to be with a man who cherished her, and it was plain that Thomas worshipped the ground she walked on if he was willing to throw everything his uncle had built for him away. And, if Rosalie refused, there was no telling what drastic measures Emily and Thomas might go to. She pictured an elopement like the ones in the scandal sheets, their families disowning them, ruination and social death.

It was unfair, she thought fleetingly, that Emily was asking her to do this at all.

But it’s not like I will ever get to experience something so dangerous and exciting myself. How many other acquaintances and friends have I watched be reckless and fall in love while I sit on the sidelines, afraid? And if it means stopping Emily from doing something terrible, and the kiss wouldn’t mean anything real, how bad could it be?

“Alright,” she agreed, slipping her hands out of Emily’s. “I will go to Thomas in your place.”

“Do you mean it?” Emily gasped, pulling Rosalie into a hug. “Oh, thank you, Rosie. You have no idea how much⁠—”

“Emily?”

The girls turned. The Countess of Poole, Emily’s mother, was marching toward them.

“That’s your cue to go,” Emily whispered to Rosalie. “Just a kiss, Rosalie. Don’t fear a simple kiss.”

She really should have taken a shawl with her, but in her rush to get the moment over with, she had not considered the practicalities of meeting a gentleman outside to kiss him. She shivered from more than the cold as she exited the manor house.

The doors had fallen shut behind her, clicking into place. The terrace behind Hartmere House was as wide as the building itself. In the darkness, she could make out the edge of the terrace, the top of the hedges beyond the metal railing, and the stone staircase leading to the garden. The lawns stretched for a mile in the distance, and beyond that, London glittered on the horizon. The sky was not quite black but a dark purplish blue.

A figure waited at the bottom of the steps, barely illuminated by the moonlight. He seemed to be the same height as Thomas, but something about the way he held himself was different. He was less guarded, broader, but maybe this was just her anxious mind playing tricks on her. His shoulders curled slightly inward as he leaned against some sort of pillar beside him.