Red Rose

Rosalind leapt to her feet. "Please do not say such things," she said. "Oh, do not make sport of me. I detest the earl. Nothing will make me happier than to leave his house in two weeks' time knowing that I never have to return again."

"Please sit down," her friend said. "I am sorry, Rosalind. I did not mean to distress you. Come, I shall ring for tea. But before we drop the subject entirely, please do consider accepting Edward's invitation. It would be a shame to have the talent you must possess and not share it at least once with a discerning audience."

It was a piece of advice that Sir Bernard Crawleigh echoed a couple of hours later when he took Rosalind driving in the park. She did not mention to him any of the emotional overtones of her interview with Raymore the afternoon before, but merely told him that she had been asked to play and had to give her answer that day.

"I say," Sir Bernard said, "much as I dislike the man, Rosalind, I must respect his judgment on music. You must be good."

She shrugged. "He seems to think so."

"You must accept, you know," he said. "I must confess that I have been looking forward to the evening as a crashing bore, but knowing you are to play, I shall definitely be interested."

"What if I make a mess of it?" she asked doubtfully.

"I told you," he answered with a grin, "I respect Raymore's judgment. How does he know you are good, by the way?"

"He has been listening to me," she said, a thread of anger in her voice. "Without my knowledge, of course."

He gri

"Yes, I did," she replied, her face hardening.

He laughed outright. "Famous!" he said. "He did not hit you back, though, did he? I should have to call the fellow out if he did, you know, and I am not altogether sure I would like that. He is a better shot than I."

Rosalind said nothing.

He looked at her more closely. "Did he hit you, Rosalind?" he asked.

"No," she said, looking down at her hands. "No, he did not strike me."

He continued to look at her for a while before turning his attention back to the horses. Several minutes passed before they again engaged in light chatter.

When she returned to the house, Rosalind went to the drawing room and seated herself at the escritoire there. She wrote a short note to the Earl of Raymore, telling him that she would be honored to play at his concert on Friday evening. She gave the letter to the butler, with instructions that it should be handed to the earl as soon as he returned to the house. She then went to the music room, where she began to practice the Moonlight Sonata with a furious kind of dedication. Only the gathering gloom later warned her that it was time to go down to di

Raymore had passed a wretched day. He had spent more than an hour at Jackson's boxing saloon working off some of his physical and emotional energy, but apart from that he had avoided company. He had ridden early in the park, dined at home, alone, in the library, and sat in the same room all afternoon while Hans Dehnert practiced upstairs. He left the room and the house only when he heard Rosalind come in after her drive with Crawleigh.

He had certainly made a mess of things the day before. He wanted Rosalind to play in his concert on Friday evening because she had a great deal of talent. She had more than technical excellence; she had the rare gift of being able to put the whole of herself into the interpretation of what she played. Yet it seemed very doubtful that she would play.

For several years past Raymore had developed skill at persuading the most temperamental artists to play at his musical evenings. Hans Dehnert had been one of his most difficult conquests. Yet with Rosalind he had botched things so badly that he felt like a schoolboy again. He had walked in on her at a moment when she was obviously caught up in a very private experience. He had revealed to her that he had been spying on her for weeks. And then he had somehow given the impression that he was ordering rather than asking her to play for his guests. He could not have miscalculated more badly. He could fully understand her anger. He would be bitterly disappointed if she refused his request. And, in fact, it looked as if she was going to do worse than refuse. It seemed that she was going to ignore him altogether.

But that was not the worst of the matter for Raymore. He had wanted the day before to begin to make amends for the high-handed way he had treated her in the past. He knew that he had no chance of wi

But he had succeeded only in hurting her deeply, in making it seem as if he wanted to destroy her sense of self. She had seen his actions as an unforgivable example of tyra

Holding her in his arms the day before had been a terrible agony, because he knew as he did so that it would be the last time he would ever touch her. He had known that as soon as she recovered from her fit of sobbing he would tell her that he would stay away from her, never force his presence on her again. And even then he had not been able to resist one final act of self-indulgence. He had kissed her.

The words of that song would haunt him forever, he felt. The next line would never apply to him, though: "And I will come again, my Luve." He would never be able to come to her again now. Once she was gone, he would probably never see her again, except for a chance glimpse at some ton event when she was in town, perhaps. And she might as well be gone already. He had pledged not to see her while she remained in his house, except on Friday evening, if she still pla

Raymore thought about Sir Bernard Crawleigh. He hated to think of Rosalind belonging to him. The man was pleasant enough, he supposed, and he would certainly never ill-treat her. But there was no depth to the man's character. He still kept a mistress at an establishment that he owned. Raymore had checked quite carefully into the matter within the last week. And Crawleigh had made a lengthy call there since his return to London. The fact did not call for any great alarm. Crawleigh might be a perfectly decent husband despite the existence of a mistress. He would merely be doing what a large number of other husbands did. But it was not good enough for Rosalind, Raymore decided. She was very special: intelligent, talented, very cultured. She needed a man who could match her passion for the beauties of life. And Crawleigh was definitely not that man.

Had she chosen him freely? Had he himself pushed her into the betrothal by making such an infernal to-do over the episode in Letty's summerhouse? Had his treatment of her in general forced her to consider marriage to Crawleigh a welcome escape from his guardianship? Or did she love the man? It was impossible to know the answer.

But Raymore made a decision. Before he left the house, he wrote a letter, which he left with the housekeeper to deliver to Rosalind the following morning. He would have liked to speak with her himself, but he could not for two reasons. He had promised that she would not have to see him before Friday night. Also, he knew from experience that any meeting between the two of them was bound to flare into an angry quarrel. He did not wish to quarrel with her ever again. He wanted to love her.