Free The Rogue's Reluctant Rose by Daphne du Bois Page A

Susan gave her a hug and promised to write, making Araminta promise the same. Susan whispered that she had reason to expect a proposal from Lord Harris any day now.
    “Hurry back, niece,” instructed Lady Worthing affectionately, as Araminta ascended into the carriage and Kitty accepted a basket of food for the road from one of the serving maids, before joining her young lady. “There is not time to waste, when you have a husband to secure.”
    ***
    “Well, I say, Miss Minta, isn’t it lovely to be going back home?” Kitty remarked, startling Araminta out of her daydream. Surprised, she looked up from the page of the book she had been staring at blindly. She couldn’t seem to focus on the novel, and, despite the restless night she had had after the Huston ball, the regular rocking of the carriage had failed to put her to sleep either.
    “Yes, Kitty, yes it is,” the young woman softly replied, running a slender gloved hand over her pale face in an effort to wake herself from the melancholy into which she had descended. “I shall be glad when we are home once more.”
    “Ah, don’t fret, child! We are nearly there. Why, I am certain we cannot be more than an hour outside Colestershire, and then it’s a quick change of horses at the village, and before you know it, you’ll see the park.”
    “I have missed it, Kitty. I didn’t realise how much except just now that we are going back.”
    “You always did miss it when you were away, my dear. Ever since you were a wee little thing, you’ve been attached to the old Hall. I’m sure her ladyship is expecting us, eager to hear news from London.”
    Araminta felt her throat tighten as tears threatened and she stared at Kitty’s kind, beloved face.
    “Ah, my girl!” said Kitty as her young charge’s blue eyes welled up, her beautiful face crumpling heart-breakingly. “Don’t weep, now. Whatever is the matter?” Kitty put an arm around the girl, just as she had done when Araminta had been a child, weeping over a broken doll, or a teasing sibling.
    Kitty’s kindness, however, only sent more tears spilling from Minta’s wide eyes and across her pearly cheeks. Without missing a beat, the former nurse produced a big handkerchief, handing it to the distraught young lady.
    “Oh, Kitty, I want to go home so much. But how can I? Harriet is relying on me to fix matters! But I couldn’t manage it, though I assured her that I would save us. And now time is short before we are forced to lose the house. How disappointed Harriet will be to learn that I have failed us all! I failed to save our home, and now I won’t even be able to hold our family together.” Araminta heaved choking sobs, the tears now pouring unchecked down her face in silvery streams. “And Charles! I have failed Charles, when he had never once failed me. I could not even secure a husband. There is so little time, and who knows if Sir Timothy will ever propose now that I am forced to leave. And yet I could not break my promise to Harriet to come home and see her — she had been so melancholy, like a ghost of herself. And though she tried to hide it in her letters, it is clear to me that she is not well. What would Charles say?”
    Kitty, who had known Araminta nearly her entire life, held the young woman, letting her cry, knowing that she needed to release the tension she had been holding inside her. Kitty frowned to herself. It did not seem right to her that such pressure should fall on her young charge, for despite the strength she knew Araminta possessed, she had endured too much hardship for one so young. She also had a niggling suspicion that a man was partly behind Araminta’s tears, and while Sir Timothy did not seem at all that type of man, she had a feeling that the rakish marquis was just the sort.
    “Now, Miss Barrington, you stop that nonsense right now. And that is what your brother would have told you also, God rest his soul. He was a good, kind man, and he would not have liked to see