Where Passion Leads (Berkeley-Faulkner #1)

Where Passion Leads (Berkeley-Faulkner #1)
Lisa Kleypas



One

All night by the rose, rose All night by the rose I lay

Dared I not the rose steal And yet I bear the flower away

—Anon.

To a young heart thirsting for passion, for adventure, it was not much of a life. The slow days of work and dullness were never broken for Rosalie Belleau, not by a lover’s touch, not by a night of laughter and dancing, not by the taste of wine or the headiness of occasional freedom. She had no recourse from drudgery except for her dreams. More lamentably still, Rosalie was so unenlightened that she would scarcely have known what to dream of had it not been for Elaine Winthrop, who led the kind of existence that Rosalie could not help but envy. Elaine, only a year younger than Rosalie but far more advanced in experience, brought back gossip and lavish descriptions of the balls she attended, the glittering people she met, and the many delights that London held.

Although the season was closing and the summer was well on its way, London barely slowed its hectic pace and Rosalie burned with the fever of frustrated youth. She was helpless to change her situation and lacked the patience to bear her fate stoically. Slowly she simmered in the tepid, damp air of spring and buried herself in fantasies. Someday, Rosalie dreamed, she would wake up to a morning in which the gray and black that shaded her days would have burst into bright color. Someday the blood would sing through her veins with the sweetness of champagne. Someday she would escape her invisible prison and find someone to love, a man who would adore and cherish her. He would let her be a friend, a woman, a companion, a lover. He would share her dreams, arouse her most intense emotions, take her around the world to show her its wonders, absorbing every sight and sound. Someday everything would change.

When someday arrived, it was not at all what she had expected.

It was seldom that Rosalie found enough time to join her mother, Amille, in a private discussion. When such an opportunity arose it was appreciated and enjoyed by both of them. Theirs was an unusually close relationship, for they could speak to each other not only as mother and daughter but also as friends. Amille was the most important person in Rosalie’s world, understanding the needs, questions, delights, and fears of her only child even though they were far removed from her own. Outwardly they were similar, two small, darkhaired women, but inwardly they were very different. Amille had a pragmatic view of life while Rosalie had an idealistic one, and as Rosalie reached the age of twenty she realized instinctively that the causes of this difference went deeper than age or experience.

Amille was rocklike in her stability and her love of order. She was well-read but unimaginative, whereas Rosalie’s emotions and thoughts seemed forever soaring or plummeting. No matter how Rosalie tried to control her own unorthodox cravings, she knew that she was forever doomed to seek excitement and to give too free a rein to her feelings. She liked to laugh out loud instead of smiling politely, she loved to ferret out secrets and discoveries when she should have been reconciled to the way things were. Currently Rosalie’s curiosity was focused on a subject that Amille did not want to discuss, but as they sat down to engage in needlework the younger woman plied her mother with persistent questions.

“Rosalie,” Amille said evenly, a frown gathering between her attractive brown eyes as she took a careful stitch, “I have told you all that you need to know about your father. He was a confectioner near the East End. He was a kind, good man, and he died when you were a month old. Now, may we change the subject? It pains me to speak of him.”

“I’m sorry,” Rosalie said, feeling a twinge of guilt as she heard the unusually sharp note in her mother’s tone. “I did not mean to bring up painful memories for you, Maman. I just wanted to know a little more about him.”

“But why? Would it change anything about you or your circumstances to know more about him? . . . Of course it wouldn’t.”

“Perhaps it would,” Rosalie replied, tilting her head to the side as she regarded her mother. “Sometimes I find it so hard to understand myself and my feelings. I wonder sometimes if I am more like you or him.” “You are like neither of us.”

As Rosalie laughed, Amille shook her head and smiled at the picture her daughter made. Rosalie’s blue eyes glowed with an almost violet light, and her lips were parted in one of those dazzling, abandoned smiles. She could appear almost angelic when she wished, but much of the time a hint of mischievousness glimmered in her expression, as if she were thinking of something naughty and inappropriate. At the beginning of each day her long sable-brown hair was pulled back and pinned into a thick coil, yet predictably it would be falling down her back around midafternoon. Her beauty, her eagerness, and her vibrant spirit were all enviable gifts, but often Amille wished that Rosalie had been less richly endowed. It would all lead to trouble one day.

“Maman? May I ask another question?” Amiile sighed.

“Yes.”

“I’ve never met any of my relatives, because you’ve said that they are all in France—”

“Yes. A respectable French family, fallen on difficult times. That is why I had to take a position as governess here.”

“Then surely you were higher-born than a confectioner? I am glad that you married my father, but . . .

you are so beautiful! Why didn’t you wait to see if you could have married a more influential man . . . perhaps a country squire who—”