Free Carola Dunn by My Dearest Valentine Page A

that house number for you, miss?”
     “No, thank you. I must go.”
     As Rosabelle reached the door, Jackie ran after her with her forgotten parcel. He opened the door and bowed her out.
     With quick steps she crossed the pavement to where the carriage awaited her. “Home, Peters.” She climbed into the gloomy interior and handed the paper of pastries to Mam’selle Fogarty. “Here, eat what you wish. I’m not hungry after all.”
     As the carriage moved off, Rosabelle cast a last, hurt glance through the window at the pastrycook’s flourishing establishment. Mr Rufus Dibden’s deceit had cost them any chance of happiness. Why hadn’t he told her who he was?
      “Don’t tell anyone I came,” her own instruction to Jackie echoed in her head. Unnecessary, since he knew her only as Miss Rosabelle. He didn’t know who she was—any more than Mr Rufus Dibden did.
     The realisation shocked her. So certain of her own imagined superiority, she had let him believe she was a high-born lady. To a blue-blooded damsel, a wealthy tradesman’s son was of no more account than a shop assistant. Rufus could only have stamped himself as a coxcomb had he asserted his higher status, and he was far too sensitive not to know it.
     Rosabelle screwed her eyes shut to keep back the rising tears. It was all her fault. If only she had been honest with him from the first!
     Had he known who she was, he could have sent a message warning her not to go to the Frost Fair on Friday. Then he would not have been on the wharf when the ice cracked. He would not have risked his life to rescue those rash fools who ventured onto the river despite the plain signs of a thaw.
     Had he known who she was, even if he had viewed the disaster, the prospect of their future happiness together might have held him back. Had her smug conceit made him so miserable he wanted to die?
     By the time the carriage reached New Bond Street, Rosabelle was so miserable she wanted to die.
     As the carriage door opened and light fell on Rosabelle’s face, Mam’selle Fogarty exclaimed, “You’re ill, Miss Ros!”
     “No,” Rosabelle said wearily. “I have the headache a little.”
     “You go on up, dear, and I’ll tell Madame you’re not well.”
     Too downhearted to argue, Rosabelle dragged herself up the stairs and sank onto a sofa. A moment later her mother came in.
     “What is the matter, chérie?”
     Rosabelle buried her face in her hands. “Oh, maman, he is Rufus Dibden,” she wept, “and he is dying, and it’s all my fault!”
     Under maman’s gentle probing, the whole story came out. “So you see,” Rosabelle finished, “if he dies, I’m to blame.”
     “Nay, lass,” said her Papa, who had come from the office in time to hear most of the tale, “dinna fash yoursel’. ‘Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’”
     “ Zut alors , Kenneth, this is not one of your most helpful quotations! Rosabelle, chérie, consider how you slight your amant in suggesting such a motive. Is it not possible that he rushed to the rescue because he is a brave and compassionate man, a true hero?”
     “Oh yes, maman, he is, he is. But he is still dying!”
     “That remains to be seen. You were told he is very ill. Now it is up to you to give him a reason for living. If you are correct about his feelings—”
     “Of course she’s correct,” said Papa indignantly. “Any man in his right mind must love my lovely lass.”
     “If you are correct, chérie,” maman repeated, “then knowing who you really are and that you are concerned for his health may be all the medicine the young man needs.”
     Rosabelle sprang up. “I’ll write to him at once.”
     “For a young woman to correspond with a young man is peu convenable —not proper. You will not wish to offend his parents.”
     “Write from all of us,” Papa suggested. “‘Mr and Madame Yvette Macleod and Miss Rosabelle Macleod beg to