“And the baby?” Rosa asked.
“A little boy, Raithby said.” She sighed. “He died, poor little mite.” She collected herself, took a sip of her tea, and smiled at Rosa, her face calm again. “But we were talking about you and your Bear. For true love, a true bond, you need to be yourself. You need to let him see you as you are.”
“It is hopeless, then, because he does not see me. He sees a housekeeper and a hostess, and perhaps someone to help with his business.” In his most recent letter, he had praised her decision on the kitchen, so at least she had that value to him.
“I think you underestimate your appeal, but even if you are right, I see in his letters and in what you have told me, a lonely man who needs a loyal friend. Be that friend, and love will grow from friendship.”
“His friend?” Rosa frowned.
“Believe me, when a man and a woman are friends—and your letters are taking you in that direction, Rosa—and they also enjoy bed sport, then love is very nearly inevitable. Not, perhaps, everlasting, but your Bear does not appear to be a fickle creature.”
“But how are we to enjoy bed sport if you will not help me?”
“I did not say I would not help you, silly girl. I said I would not teach you any tricks.”
***
Despite Aunt Belle telling her that nothing could be done to restore her to health, Rosa sent a message to the doctor, asking him to call when he was next in the vicinity. He came on one of the few fine days the dying summer afforded, reluctantly, tight-lipped.
“Doctor, my aunt is ill. I would like your advice on how we can help her,” Rosa said, after performing the introductions.
“Women who sell their bodies seldom die of old age,” Dr. Whitlow proclaimed, not meeting the eyes of either woman. “I could prescribe mercury, I suppose.”
Rosa had her mouth open to throw the man from the house when Aunt Belle laughed. “How flattering that you think me still young enough to have a product to market. I told my niece not to bother you, doctor. I do not believe that mercury is the treatment of choice for lung cancer, which is what Dr. Knighton diagnosed when he was good enough to examine me. He warned me I would have perhaps six to nine months before death. That time is up and I am ready to go.”
The doctor’s eyes widened a little at the name of the respected Society doctor, but he did not soften. “In that case, Mrs. Gavenor, I shall take my leave.”
In the doorway, he paused. “Laudanum for the pain. There is little else medicine can do in these cases.” As if he regretted bending even that much, he brushed past the maid to pick up his hat and hurried through the door as soon as she opened it.
Aunt Belle was distressed. “I must go. The villagers… Rosa, darling, I would not have them shun you for the world.”
“Do not worry about the doctor, Aunt Belle. He does not even live in the village. I will not hear of you going anywhere else. You are to stay here where you can be comfortable. The village knows me, never fear.”
The village had made up its collective mind. Rosa exchanged a glance with Maud, who undoubtedly had been treated to all the kitchen gossip. Caleb had called Rosa aside to warn her that her aunt was known to be with her, and to be a woman of ill repute. The vicar had lectured her after services on Sunday, telling her that scarlet women should not be allowed to live in with decent people, and that her decision to house her aunt told him all he needed to know about her own morals. None of the women who had taken to visiting her in the afternoon had been by in over a week.
However, Aunt Belle did not need to know that, and Rosa was not going to think about what she could not change.
Soon, she had no time to think of anything at all, except Aunt Belle’s deteriorating health and her father’s cough, which grew worse and worse. When she sent for the doctor, she received a sharp message in return, saying that he would not come. Brownlee called him a useless old fool, and assured Rosa they would do as well without him as with, but Father grew steadily weaker, and so did Aunt Belle.
Rosa spelled first Brownlee and then Maud, catching what sleep she could. The coughing from Father’s and Aunt Belle’s rooms infiltrated her dreams. She woke tired and dragged her way through each day.
At last, both patients showed signs of improvement. The relentless coughing slowed and almost ceased, and Father—at least—was able to take some broth and keep it down. Aunt Belle still gagged on any food, however soft, so that the best Rosa and Maud could do was keep her mouth moist, but she demanded to be propped up on pillows.
“You and I shall have a nice chat,” she told Rosa, “just as soon as I have finished talking to Raithby.” The warmth of her smile directed to a point behind Rosa’s shoulder had Rosa turning, but no one stood there. Or no one Rosa could see.
“I shall not be long, my love,” Aunt Belle assured her delusion, or her vision. “Wait for me.”
“You are getting better,” Rosa told her, almost begging, but Aunt Belle shook her head.
“I am dying, Rosa. And I am ready, now that I have met you. I saw you once before, you know, when Raithby brought me here for Rosie’s funeral. Albert would not let me speak to you, but he sent you into the garden so I could watch you from the window. My dear Rosa. I am so grateful for our time together.”
Rosa ignored the tears that insisted on seeping from her eyes. She would miss her chance if she did not ask her question. “Are you my mother?”
Aunt Belle shook her head. “My sister was your mother, and Albert is your father. They raised you and loved you, and you are theirs, never doubt it.”
Rosa bit her lip, uncertain how to feel about that answer.
“But I gave birth to you, and Matthew Hurley planted the seed of you in my womb. Is that what you needed to know?”
“Yes.” Rosa looked down at the pale, thin hand she held, mottled in blue bruises that appeared without warning, so that both nurses took great care when washing or moving their patient. “Thank you. Thank you for bearing me, and for giving me to your sister.”
Aunt Belle looked over to the corner of the room again, lifting her head from the pillows, her voice rising a little with excitement, “Is it time, Raithby?”
The answer must have been ‘no,’ for she dropped back with a sigh. “I will sleep a little, Rosa. Never doubt that you are loved.”
In the morning, Brownlee reported that Father had slept well, which meant Brownlee was available for any service he could perform for Mrs. Gavenor. Rosa sent him into the village with a note for the vicar. The man was a fool, but he was ordained to give comfort to the dying. An hour later, Brownlee returned with a blunt refusal. Vicar Snaith would not come to the house.
If only Bear were home. With Father comfortable again, and Aunt Belle sleeping, and both patients watched over by their faithful servants, Rosa took the opportunity to escape to the garden. In her favorite spot, on the seat that overlooked the hens’ coop, she re-examined her life in the light of what she now knew.
Lord Hurley was her great uncle. Did he know? She was sure he did, which explained why he was always so kind to her though he could be a harsh man. Crude, too, according to some of the maids, but never to her. Mama was her aunt, and her aunt was her mother. No. Aunt Belle was right; Mama had been mother to her since she was a small baby, and she had not known Aunt Belle at all until these last weeks.
She utterly rejected the idea that Matthew Hurley, Aunt Belle’s despoiler, was her father. He had not wanted her, and she did not want him.
How would Bear react when he learned she was base born? She would have to tell him. True love could not be based on lies, Aunt Belle said. I am greedy. I married Bear for security, and now I want his love. She would risk her whole future by telling the truth, but what kind of a future would she have, deeply in love with a husband who did not love her back?
She would tell him, and he would be kind, but he would send her away. Bear wanted an heir from his wife, and her blood was tainted for two generations. Aunt Belle said he wouldn’t care if he lo
ved her, but he didn’t, did he? She was just his convenient wife.
A large tear slid down her cheek and splashed onto her hands, followed by another, and then so many she stopped counting.
“There, there.” The voice, and the hand that fell heavily on her shoulder, startled her out of her weeping. She shrank back and looked up into Pelman’s face, twisted into a parody of sympathy.
“He has abandoned you, hasn’t he?” the loathsome toad gloated. “Forget him, Rosabel. I am still here. I know you want me, and—”
Rosa pushed him, startling him into taking two steps back. Rosa bolted toward the house, but he caught her before she could get by him, grabbed her wrists, and wrapped his arms around her so her hands were trapped behind her back and her body was pressed against his. He bent to kiss her, but she struggled, turning her head from side to side and tucking in her chin so he could not reach her mouth.
She shouted for help, and he spun her around, clutching her body to his with one arm while clapping his other hand across her mouth.
“Let’s see what your London whore of a mother has been teaching you,” he hissed in her ear as he dragged her farther down the garden, toward the gate that let onto Thorne Hall’s park. “Be a good girl, and you might even enjoy it.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A score of miles from Kettlesworth, the carriage full of furnishings and other gifts for Rosa bogged down in mire for perhaps the fifteenth time on the trip from London. Bear and Jeffreys had a well-practiced routine for getting it out, but the broken spoke they found caused a further delay while Bear completed a temporary repair. It would, he hoped, hold until they reached the village blacksmith. If a better repair took longer, he would borrow a horse and ride the few minutes to home. Home, and Rosa.
The wheelwright declared an hour for the task of fixing the wheel well enough for Bear to get his load home. Then the wheel would need to come back for proper repairs, which would take several days. Bear left Jeffreys to bring the carriage home and went to borrow a horse from the inn.
The younger Lady Threxton and her crony, Livia Pelman, waylaid him as he led the horse from the inn yard.
“You have to do something about your wife, Gavenor,” Lady Threxton announced with no preamble. “It is a disgrace the way she has been carrying on while you were away.”
Stupid jealous crow. Bear attempted to pass her, but the two women moved to block him. “You will excuse me, Lady Threxton. I am in something of a hurry.”
“She has her mother staying with her,” Miss Pelman said, her eyes avid. “Disgusting, I call it. Flaunting the woman in the face of the village after all she has done.”
Oh no. Not Belle Clifford. Rosa, what were you thinking? Bear did his best to pour oil on gossip’s turbulent waters. “Her mother is dead.”
Too late. The chorus of harpies continued, first one of the pair, then the other, certain of their ground.
“Not the woman who claimed her. Her real mother. The London harlot. We don’t allow that kind of thing in this village.”
“The vicar has told her that the woman must go, but she will not listen to him.”
“Yes, and your wife has not been to services for three weeks. That just tells you.”
“What about that Liverpool man who works for you? Very friendly with your wife, he is.” Stupid cow. You could not have picked a more unlikely person. Caleb Redding is devoted to the wife who waits for him in Liverpool.
“That is enough,” Bear roared, so that they both shrunk back, and he shouldered his way between them, heedless of manners. “You will not abuse my wife in my hearing.” Petulant, nasty women. Even if Rosa had been foolish enough to take in her sick mother—and she would. He’d never met a woman more heedless of her reputation. Even so, he refused to believe she had a disloyal bone in her body. Not his Rosa.
He pressed the horse into a gallop. He’d soon see what was going on.
The horse was fresh and made short work of the hill, and in minutes, Bear approached the gate of Rose Cottage. He pulled the horse to a halt. Better calm himself before he went inside. In his current frame of mind, all his protective instincts aroused by the village scandal-mongers, he was likely to lose his temper and say the wrong thing. He dismounted and took several deep breaths, his eyes on the gate.
What was Pelman doing here? Leaving, apparently, opening the gate and coming through, then looking around and flinching when he saw Bear. He hid the flinch by straightening and puffing out his chest, pushing his shoulders back. “Home are you, Gavenor? About time, but you’ll have to wait in line. I’ve had my turn, and now Redding is having his. They’re around the back in the garden.”
Bear returned sneer for sneer and shoved the poisonous weasel out of his way. “I’ll deal with you later,” he promised. Was Rosa in the garden? Only one way to find out. He rounded the house, scanning what he could see. No Rosa.
He was about to enter by the back door when a puff of breeze brought the sound of murmuring voices. There. Shadows in the shrubbery near the gate to the park. One shadow, rather. A small woman in the arms of a tall man.
Several of his soundless strides brought Bear close enough to confirm what his eyes reported, despite the denial of his mind and the screaming desolation of his heart. Another two steps and he ripped Caleb away from Rosa, felling him with one murderous punch.
His anger roared in his ears, painted his wife’s face with a red haze. Someone called her a filthy harlot. Was that him? His throat was raw with shouting. He wanted to hit Caleb again, but the man was unconscious.
Rosa was shouting back, but he couldn’t hear her words, couldn’t let them in while the anger raged. Someone had bruised her neck, scratched her face. Her dress was torn, too. She’d been crying. The eyes glaring at him were red-rimmed. She wagged a finger at him, and suddenly Bear knew he had made another mistake.
He backed away, then broke and ran, brushing past the servants who were hurrying to Rosa’s support.
Chapter Thirty
Bear ran around the house, and in moments Rosa heard a horse galloping away. Mrs. Gillywether enfolded her in a hug, and Sukie bent to Caleb, who opened one eye and then the other, and looked the way Bear had gone before pushing himself up. “Gone, has he? Stupid Duffer. Never you mind, Mrs. Gavenor. I’ll explain to him when he gets back.”
If he comes back, Rosa thought. She sent Caleb with the cook, to get a steak to put on his eye, and asked Sukie to bring her warm water to wash in while she changed out of the torn dress.
By the time she settled herself in Belle’s room, she was feeling more hopeful. His reaction suggested his feelings for her were strong, and surely the word he had been babbling before he fled—after the horrid insults she refused to remember—was ‘sorry.’
Belle was unconscious, and her breathing, irregular—two or three shallow breaths followed by a long pause that had Maud and Rosa sitting forward, waiting for the next. Death could not be far away.
Maggie came to fetch her when Jeffreys arrived with Bear’s carriage. Jeffreys was astounded to hear that Bear had left again. “He was that keen to be home, Mrs. Gavenor. If he told me once, he told me a thousand times.”
Rosa was not going to gossip about her husband, though the other servants would tell Jeffreys what happened. “I expect he will return soon,” she said.
The carriage was full of extravagances. A little writing desk and chair, several paintings of roses, jeweled dancing slippers, packets of comfits, two more bonnets—each more expensive than anything Rosa had ever owned.
She let Jeffreys bring all the gifts in and lay them out around the parlor, then took the smallest of them up to Belle’s bedroom and sent Maud off to have her evening meal.
Alone with the aunt who was also her mother, Rosa displayed the gifts, described what had happened in the garden, and explained her conflicting feelings. Though Belle did not respond, still Rosa felt she knew what Belle would say if she could. “He will come,” she said aloud. “He would not have reacted so v
iolently if he did not care about me, and when he has had time to think, he will come home.”
However, when she went to say goodnight to her Father, and ordered the doors shut against the night, Bear had still not returned.
Rosa was determined to stay awake, feeling somehow that Belle would continue to live as long as Rosa watched. However, Rosa woke with a start in the first light of dawn to find Belle dead, her relaxed face looking years younger, her lips curved in a smile that seemed a promise of joy.
Maud, when summoned, burst into tears and proclaimed that Madam was happy now, and with His Grace, and Rosa could not argue with the maid’s theology.
***
Bear examined the tankard from which he had been drinking. He’d slept properly for the first time since leaving his poor wife crying in the garden, and thus was nearly sober again. He could finish the tankard and go inside the scruffy hedge tavern to demand another, or he could go home and pay for his sins. Neither option appealed.
He looked up as a shadow fell across his table. “So, there you are, Mr. Gavenor.”
“Jeffreys?” What was his manservant doing here?
“Two days, I’ve been looking for you.” Jeffreys shook his head slowly. Even watching the motion sent Bear’s head and stomach into rebellion. “Ever since you run off from poor Mrs. Gavenor, leaving her in such trouble.”
“Rosa is in trouble?” That brought him to his feet, though he groaned as the full weight of his headache hit him.
Jeffreys leant a supporting hand to Bear’s elbow. “Need to get you cleaned up so you can go home and help her.”
“Redding can help her,” grumbled Bear.
Jeffreys cast his eyes upward and sighed. “That’s just nonsense, and you know it. He’s telling people he got his black eye when he rescued Mrs. Gavenor from that swine Pelman, but Pelman is saying you gave it to him. And if you did, then you should be ashamed, sir. Pelman, too, for assaulting the poor lady with her father sick and the poor London lady on her deathbed.”
Seduction Regency Style Page 15
