Rose by Another Name by Melanie Thurlow

Author:Melanie Thurlow [Thurlow, Melanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Inkling Publishing, LLC
Published: 2017-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Why had she thought this would be a good idea?

A grand entrance was the exact opposite of what she wanted.

What Rose wanted was to fade into the background, stand in some shadowed corner and be ignored until their guests finally departed in one week’s time.

But what Rose wanted, and what was expected of Lady Rosalyn, were two entirely different things.

There was hardly a shadowed corner remaining in the house—all of them dispelled by the overabundance of candles. And then there was the whole matter that all of this was being thrown in her honor. With her come-out just weeks away, and her future husband just a few feet, all eyes were bound to be on her as it was. The last thing she needed was more attention, and especially not every eye trained on her simultaneously. She had been raised for this, raised to join Society and become a duchess. Yet, Rose felt completely unprepared as she waited in the hall upstairs, just out of view.

Why, why, why had she suggested it?

She swallowed the lump in her throat, but even that movement was difficult. She opened her fan and trained it on her face, trying to focus on her nerves rather than her pain.

If there was an upside—and Rose, as a matter of keeping her sanity, had to believe that there was—it was that her stomach had nowhere to go. She could feel it there, wanting to dip and dive and fall right down to the floor at her feet, but it was stuck, imprisoned in place by her beyond-belief tight corset.

It was just a matter of moments now, seconds until her great reveal, seconds until her life changed. It was true that there were still a few weeks between this moment and her come-out, and probably a few months between now and her wedding, but this was the moment she fretted over most. As soon as she stepped out of the hall and onto the stairs, she wouldn’t be able to take it back, to regain her lost self—though she knew that she would want to.

Rose didn’t want to leave this life. It wasn’t a good life—it was barely tolerable at times—but she had her sisters and she didn’t want to lose them, didn’t want to abandon them.

This was the moment when she did. When she set into motion the clock that would wind down to her doing just that. Leave.

From below, she heard her mother’s unmistakable voice rise above the din of conversation and shuffle of bodies. Rose tried to steel herself, but it didn’t take.

Instead, she lost her breath. All of it.

Rose gasped, steadying herself with one hand on the wall.

The noise in the lobby tripled and Rose knew that the guests had been assembled for her debut. It was time.

Reluctantly, she found her footing and took tentative steps towards the stairs. Her mind decided to go perilously empty and she hoped beyond measure that her feet would remember those ceaseless hours of training when she had been forced to practice walking the stairs like a lady.

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