It was seven o’clock in the evening before they finally stopped for the night at a bustling inn. Their rooms had been reserved, and Rose was shown into a bedchamber several doors away from Waite’s. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Relieved, she supposed, though oddly disappointed too.
Her new maid, Sarah, asked her what she wanted to wear for dinner. Rose shrugged. “You choose,” she muttered. She couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for the pretty gowns her father had bought for her in the weeks before her wedding.
Sarah pulled out the pink silk. It was high-necked and a little fussy. Rose let Sarah button her into the gown and then—against her better judgement—allowed her to thread a pink silk ribbon through her short hair, fastening it with a little pearl hair ornament. Rose stared doubtfully at her reflection in the looking glass.
“You look ever so nice, your ladyship,” Sarah said. She’d been “your ladyshipping” Rose to death since yesterday.
She didn’t look nice, though. And it wasn’t the dress or the ribbon. Nothing could look nice on her. On that girl in the mirror. For a moment, Rose let herself remember how she used to look, with shiny, luxuriant hair and unmarked skin.
She turned from the mirror. “I’d better go down.”
A private dining room had been reserved for them for dinner. It was small but like a palace compared to the hostelry they had eaten at earlier that day. A good linen tablecloth covered the table, and it was set with silverware and wineglasses. The food was plain but good.
As they ate, Harriet and Waite conversed with ease, but Rose couldn’t seem to get a word out. She sat silently, trying to eat, all the while feeling terribly self-conscious.
The meal was served by a pretty maidservant. She had a peaches-and-cream complexion and bouncing golden curls under her cap. As Rose watched her enter the dining room bearing a tureen of soup, she found herself wishing she hadn’t let Sarah put the pink ribbon through her hair. She felt foolish. Pathetic. An ugly little monkey dressed up in silken finery.
Later, she caught the girl staring at her. When their eyes locked, the girl hurriedly looked away and bustled out of the room. Rose had to swallow against the lump that rose in her throat, a clod of hot tears that choked her. Fighting for control, she pretended to be absorbed in her dinner, grateful for Harriet’s bright chatter.
At last the meal was over, and Harriet and Rose stood to retire, leaving Waite to his Port. As they left the dining room, the pretty maidservant was walking along the corridor toward them, carrying a decanter of dark ruby wine for Waite. She bobbed a small curtsey at them as she passed.
Rose slowly walked up the stairs, imagining how Waite’s face would look when he saw the maidservant enter. She really was very pretty. Rose was sure he would smile at her, take pleasure in the sight of her. What man would not?
Harriet chattered all the way upstairs and for several minutes outside Rose’s bedchamber door before she finally said good night. It was a relief to go into her bedchamber alone. Well, alone except for Sarah, who helped her undress and packed away the now-hated pink silk before she herself retired.
It was only when Rose slipped between the cool sheets of her bed that she realised how very tired she was. She would never have thought that merely sitting in a carriage could be so exhausting. And she had many days of travelling ahead of her.
As she drifted off to sleep, it occurred to her that Waite might come to her tonight. But when she woke in the morning, she was alone.
The next few days unfolded in much the same way. The pace of their travel was relentless. Every day was an early start with only the briefest of stops for refreshment and comfort and Waite riding all the way. It would have been terribly boring if it were not for Harriet.
Each night they arrived at an inn, always the same sort, respectable and comfortable. They dined together, as they had the first evening, Rose usually staying silent while Harriet and Waite talked. And then they retired, each to their own bedchambers. It seemed that Waite—Gilbert—did not intend to visit her bedchamber at all during the journey. She wondered why. Perhaps he thought she would be too tired? Perhaps he was too tired? He was riding all day, every day, after all. Surely he would visit her again when they got to Weartham?
She wondered what he’d made of their wedding night. So far as she was concerned, it had been very far from wonderful. But then Lottie had warned her that it wouldn’t be very good the first time and possibly not for a while after that.
She had thought that Waite had enjoyed it, though. He had finished, after all. And he had seemed enthusiastic, at least toward the end. Each night, she relived the feel of his heavy body covering her, his hard flesh driving into her as his mouth moved over her throat. She remembered his helpless groans, signalling, she’d thought, his pleasure. Although the experience had been painful for her, the memory of it, strangely, was not entirely unpleasant. There had been a few magical minutes at the beginning when he had kissed her and touched her intimately, and she had felt a tense, temporary pleasure in his arms.