For a fleeting second she considered the cascade of consequences that had begun with that one disclosure.
But she did not blame Penelope.
She was the one who’d orchestrated this. She was the one who had lied.
Penelope had only told the truth.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Rosamund said quietly. “I put you in a difficult position, and for that, I am sorry.”
And she meant it.
“But what about the article?” Penelope tilted her head. “Did you at least get what you needed?”
She had, which was at least one good thing that had come of all this. She would publish her story under her own name. Meet the requirementsof her father’s will. And hopefully protect the Duke of Bexley from the other nobles’ meddling.
Nodding, Rosamund swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood.
Eugenia was already crossing to the wardrobe, her fingertips passing over Rosamund’s brighter gowns without pause, to pull out one that Rosamund had worn during mourning.
“Best not to look too cheerful,” she said, handing it over.
No one argued. Instead, her four younger sisters helped Rosamund dress in near silence.
“Why do I feel as though I’m walking to my own wake?” Rosamund asked, as Imogen drew her hair back into a severe knot.
“Perhaps because Charles looked ready to throttle you,” Josephine replied, briskly smoothing the lifeless folds of her gown.
“If he comes out wearing that horrid armband again, then we may panic,” Eugenia said dryly.
“Don’t be macabre,” Penelope scolded, though her fingers lingered at Rosamund’s sleeve as if reluctant to let go. They had all, at one time or another, found refuge in humor these past months.
“We are joking,” Josephine muttered. “Mostly.”
And for a little while—until the half hour expired, until they gathered around her like a small, determined army and escorted her down the stairs—Rosamund almost managed to feel normal.
But when they halted outside Charles’s study, the air shifted.
Rosamund tilted her head back. Had the door always loomed like this?
Without asking if Rosamund was ready, Eugenia rapped her knuckles on the door three times.
“Enter.”
Rosamund drew in a steadying breath and after one last glance at her sisters—borrowing whatever bravery she could—she opened the door and stepped inside alone.
This was inevitable. She knew it. She would endure it. Apologize where apology was due. Accept the reprimand. Weather whatever storm her brother had prepared.
She’d never considered herself easily cowed.
And yet?—
The sight of Charles seated behind their father’s desk unsettled her anew, something she had still been adjusting to even before her stay at Ironwood Manor.
She would always associate this room with her father. Her mind’s eye summoned Papa’s gentler posture, his ink-stained fingers, his half-smiles over spectacles. Charles, seated there, looked… different. Of course, but also, more severe.
Would she ever grow accustomed to that?
“Sit,” he said.