“Hello Helen,” Catherine said. “Care to sit down?” she added, motioning with one hand to a chair which sat pushed into a small writing desk.
“No ma’am,” Helen said. “I’ve come to tell you Duke Rotham has called upon you. He awaits you in the drawing room.
Catherine smiled and nodded on her exterior, but inside, she felt a cold hand seize her, possibly grabbing her heart. As she stood there, being laced up, Dom was surely on his way out of the city while the man she was being forced to marry was right beneath her feet, in her home. Tears threatened to come once again, in an instant, but the young woman willed them away.
“Please tell him I’ll be right down,” Catherine said, and Helen bowed her head and went out.
“Perhaps I will love a man and marry him the way you love and will marry the Duke,” Diana said in a hopeful voice. It pained Catherine, but she nodded. “I’m sure it will be so,” she said.
****
Duke Rotham was a tall man but with a wiry frame, thin and lean. Where Dominick was large and muscular, built seemingly for strength, the Duke was built for speed. He was lithe, and though athletic, he could never hope to best someone like Dominick in a test of physicality.
Rotham stood from the parlor chair in which he had been sitting when Catherine walked in. She went up to him without hesitation, and he took one of her hands and bowed his head so that he may kiss it.
“My dear Lady Catherine,” he said.
“Duke Rotham,” Catherine said, bowing slightly. “What brings you here?”
“Well it isn’t much of a nice day, I must admit,” the Duke said, nodding his head towards the nearest window. “I’m afraid the cold winds are coming a bit sooner than I would like, but I am going on a trip and wanted to extend an invitation to you.”
“A trip?” Catherine asked, and for one wild moment she thought for some reason that Duke Rotham would be going where Dom was.
“A hunting trip,” the Duke said. “Fox of course. At this time of the year, they are simply teeming on the countryside.”
“You wish me to hunt?” Catherine asked, somewhat shocked. The Duke laughed.
“No, my dear, I wish you to come along. Many of the men have their wives come, or the ladies they fancy. There is a series of cabins, we all stay in when hunting out past Westerfield. The women befriend one another, and manage to fill our bellies when we return each evening after a long day.”
Catherine was already shaking her head, and he saw that and stopped speaking.
“I’m sorry, Duke,” she said. “Hunting…. I abhor it… to even be around such cruelty, I must admit my stomach would not be strong enough for it.”
Duke Rotham smiled, but the young woman could see the disappointment in his eyes, there was no way he could hide it.
“There is no cruelty when I hunt,” Rotham said. “It is a match of wits and speed,” he went on. “To catch a fox, you need both.”
“And dogs to rip it apart,” Catherine said, suddenly emboldened, but by what she didn’t know.
Duke Rotham shook his head softly. “I’m sorry you feel that way.” He paused. ”You know, I would ask that young man who you are so in love with about cruelty,” he said.
“Dominick?”
“Yes, the young soldier.”
“I’m not in love with him,” Catherine stuttered, and the Duke laughed, not in a spiteful or mean way, he was simply genuinely amused.
“Of course you are, my dear,” he said. “But I would implore you to ask him about his past. Ask him about Ginger Street.”
Catherine looked up at the Duke, trying to decipher what he was speaking of. She knew Ginger Street. That was the small street in a town some distance from here, where Dom and his regiment had been set upon by the locals suddenly, three years ago. And that was all she knew.
“What do you speak of?” Catherine asked, wishing the Duke would just be plain with her.
He shook his head. “It is not for me to say, it is for him to tell you,” he said. “But I assure you, I am not a cruel man, and I will make you happy when we are married. I don’t think your soldier can say the same. He can say it, but he can’t live it.”
“I will marry you because it is expected of me,” Catherine said in a low, soft voice. “But I will not love you.”
And with that the meeting was at an end, and Duke Rotham turned and exited the room. Catherine watched him go, her head, and heart, a ball of confusion.
The days stretched on without Dominick, and Catherine found herself often sad, often on the verge of tears, without ever really understanding why, or having something happen to her which would make her feel that way. There was just an uncomfortable sadness that rested upon her shoulders, as though she had draped herself in a blanket wet with cold water.