“Mrs. Clifford is dying? Hell and damnation, Jeffreys. I have been an ass.”
Jeffreys kept his face bland. “Yes, sir. I wouldn’t presume to argue with you, sir.”
Bear shook off the supporting hand and led the way into the disreputable place he’d come across in his flight. “Less of the lip, Jeffreys, and tell me exactly how big a hole I’ve dug for myself, and what trouble my lady wife faces. Do it while you help me get presentable. If I am going to crawl home seeking forgiveness, the sooner the better.”
“The sooner the better indeed, sir. The lady died. Mrs. Clifford. The vicar is refusing to give her a funeral or space in consecrated ground. Mrs. Gavenor won’t go anywhere without two guards from the work site because of that Pelman.”
Bear issued a string of hearty curses, and Jeffreys nodded agreement before going in search of the landlord and a bucket of hot water.
Soon, Bear was retracing his steps toward Rose Cottage, mounted on one of his own horses, Jeffreys following and leading the hired horse. Within half an hour, they reached Thorne Hall’s rear gate and Bear turned in. “We’ll take the shortcut, Jeffreys, and I’ll stop to apologize to Caleb on my way.”
Caleb was found overseeing a gang of workers who were taking advantage of the fine day to seat the main beam of the new stable block.
Bear pulled his horse up beside his foreman, who watched him with wary eyes. “I’ve come to apologize, Caleb. I was completely out of line.”
The man raised one eyebrow. “You were. But you should be apologizing to your wife.”
Bear accepted his employee’s censure meekly. “I know. I plan to. I plan to keep doing so till she gives me another chance, though I don’t deserve it. I don’t seem to think clearly when that woman is around.”
The foreman lifted one corner of his mouth in a wry smile, but his tone was sympathetic. “Love does that to you.”
The word hit Bear like a mallet. Love. Love had not been part of the bargain, but there he was, in up to his neck. Deeper, having treated his wife so badly that she might never forgive him. After all, what had he done to show his love? Hurt her, desert her, abuse her.
“You rescued her from Pelman, I take it.” He hoped.
“Just in time,” Caleb confirmed. “Have you been to the house?”
Bear looked toward the bridle track. In a few minutes, he would see her. “Not yet. I stopped here on the way.”
“Better go,” Caleb advised. “And Mr. Gavenor? From one married man to another, tell her that you love her. Women need to hear the words.”
***
The vultures had gathered—the vicar, the squire and his wife, the Pelmans, a group of the more conservative and judgmental villages. All had come to bolster the vicar in his determination to stand outside the gate and lecture Rosa on her evil ways and her certain damnation.
Bear observed from the shadows of the trees. Rosa faced her accusers with a dignity that touched his heart. “You are offensive, sir,” she told the vicar. “You have listened to the calumnies of false witnesses.”
“Your own husband bears witness by his absence,” said the vicar, triumphantly.
That was Bear’s cue. He stepped into view, leaving Jeffreys to manage the horses. “Mrs. Gavenor’s husband bears witness by his presence.” As he spoke, he covered the ground in long strides and plunged straight into the group, which scattered to avoid him. “Dear wife, I apologize for the delay in my arrival. How may I be of service? Shall I remove the litter from outside our gate? Do these people not realize this is a house of mourning?”
He reached Rosa and bent to greet her with a kiss on the lips, ignoring the startled look she gave him before she returned it. He had some groveling to do, but he wouldn’t undermine her position by doing so in public. Turning back to face the crowd, he said, “Vicar, if you are not here to make arrangements for the funeral of my aunt by marriage, then you are not welcome.”
Lady Threxton pushed her way to the vicar’s side. “You know your duty, Mr. Snaith.”
Bear ignored him while glaring at Pelman, who was whispering urgently to his sister at the side of the crowd. “Pelman, I hear you have continued to persecute my wife. I warn you now, your past is on its way to catch up with you. Count yourself lucky that I am too busy to give you the thrashing you richly deserve, and get yourself home, lest I make time to remedy the lack.”
He gave Lady Threxton’s indignant protest one contemptuous look and turned to the squire. “Threxton. You and your household have been helping this snake and his vicious sister to spread lying rumors. You know best why. I suggest you take your wife home and meditate on whether your own lives would stand up to the scrutiny of my investigators. I assure you, Mrs. Gavenor’s reputation would not suffer from such an examination, and that Pelman’s scandals have followed him.”
Bear turned and put one arm around Rosa. “Let us go inside, dearest. We have much to talk about.”
He looked back over his shoulder. “Vicar Snaith, my next errand shall be to see the rector about your stewardship of his parish. I am not impressed, and I don’t believe he will be.”
Snaith sputtered, still looking after the Pelmans, who had hurried back to their buggy and were already on the road back to the village. Sir Gerard bit his upper lip as he watched the pair. “What do you mean, Gavenor? If you know something to Pelman’s discredit, spit it out.”
“I have just arrived home, Threxton. If the mystery does not solve itself in a day or two, I’ll make a point of calling on you.” While Bear and Sir Gerard spoke, the villagers had been deserting the crowd, fading backwards or sideways and strolling off as if they had merely paused from curiosity while out on an afternoon walk. When Sir Gerard took his protesting wife’s hand, placed it firmly on his arm and escorted her to his gig, the vicar found himself abandoned.
“I suppose you had better come inside,” Bear said without enthusiasm. If Rosa wanted a respectable Christian burial for Mrs. Clifford, then Bear would do whatever it took to make him cooperate.
“Show Mr. Snaith into the parlor,” he instructed Maggie, who stood at the front door gawping. “My wife and I will be with you shortly,” he told Snaith before whisking Rosa into the study. She came, unresisting. A good sign, he hoped.
Inside the study, with the door closed, she withdrew her elbow from his cupping hand, her face set in worried furrows. She was pale, with bruises under her eyes that indicated lost sleep, and she was nearly as thin as the day they met. “You have not been eating properly,” he said.
That did the trick. Up went her chin, and her lips set before she counter attacked. “Mr. Gavenor, I…”
She had every right to heap recriminations on his head, but he couldn’t bear to hear her call him ‘Mr.’ as if they had not become friends through their letters. As she paused for a breath, he broke in, “I deserve you should be so formal. I wasn’t here when you needed me. I jumped to assumptions when I did come home.”
“Mr. Redding was not…”
“I know. I knew almost immediately.” She had not stepped away from him, and the anxious lines were smoothing. He took advantage of her proximity by capturing one small hand in both of his. “I know that I owe you a groveling apology, and you shall have it, but first I want to tell you I will support whatever you want. For your aunt. Tell the vicar your requirements for the funeral and I will make sure it happens.”
“Mr. Ga—”
He raised her hand to press a kiss on it and she blushed.
“Hugh… You don’t understand. I don’t deserve…”
He unfurled her fingers and pressed another kiss into her palm. “You deserve every good thing, and have been left to carry your burdens alone for too long. Let me help, Rosa. It is my duty and my delight. Come. We cannot leave Mr. Snaith alone much longer or he will take to his heels.”
The vicar insisted that Mrs. Clifford had died a sinner. “If she did,” Bear pointed out, “then so did the Marquis of Raithby, and he was buried with full honors from St Georges
.”
“If she did,” Rosa added, “you must accept part of the blame, since you refused to bring spiritual comfort to my aunt when I sent for you.”
They negotiated a plot near Rosie Neatham’s, in the far corner of the churchyard, and a funeral service two mornings hence, at an unfashionable time of day, which Snaith clearly thought might save him from the village’s censure.
At last, Rosa and Bear were alone. Now is the time for that groveling apology. Before Bear could find the right words, Rosa spoke. “Hugh, I need to tell you…” her voice trailed off. Bear was not the only one struggling to put feelings into words. Perhaps they should leave this discussion until tomorrow, until she had caught up on some sleep.
He put out a gentle finger to trace the blue marks under her eyes. “You need to rest. When did you last have a solid night’s sleep?”
Rosa stamped her foot. “Hugh, you must listen to me.” A defiant lift of her chin, which looked eminently kissable. “It is true. What the villagers said? About my aunt really being my mother? It is true. So, you see, I am not a fit woman to be your wife.” So that was the maggot in her head. Moisture gathered in the corners of her eyes before she veiled them with her lashes, looking down at the hand he had recaptured. “I am sorry, Hugh. Are divorces very expensive?”
“Very. Do you want a divorce?” He pulled her a little closer so he could kiss her brow. “I know I have been an abysmal husband, but I promise I will do better. I have been taking lessons from a married friend. I forgot them for a moment the other day. But I remember now.”
Rosa lifted her face to give him access to her eyes and her cheeks. “You are not paying attention. I am the daughter of a fallen woman. I have been living a lie all my life. Aunt Belle sent me to her sister and her husband to raise as their own.”
“Yes. That is what I guessed. Does it upset you, Rosa? It doesn’t worry me. According to my friend Lion, your mother did the best she could with the circumstances in which she found herself. Your aunt, I should say. Your Aunt Belle may have birthed you, but the Neathams were your mother and father.”
Rosa evaded his lips to ask, “Do you not mind? That a notorious courtesan gave birth to me?”
Bear, encouraged by her lack of resistance to his advances, cupped her face in his large hands and looked deep into her eyes. “I don’t know what drove her to that life. I do know that you are kind, and good, and gentle, and that I am not fit to clean your shoes. But I am lucky enough to have you for my wife, and I shall spend a lifetime making sure you feel lucky, too.” He lowered his lips, and this time she rose on her toes to meet him.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sometime later, Rosa, now seated on Bear’s lap and considerably flushed and rumpled, said, “Pelman.”
“He won’t bother you again.”
“Not him,” Rosa said. “His father. Pelman senior drove my Aunt to that life, when he courted her in secret and then became betrothed to her cousin.”
“Like father, like son! Don’t tell me Pelman senior was your father.” The previous baron had thought Rosa his great niece, but only Mrs. Clifford would know for certain.
Rosa drew away from him, wrinkling her nose as if at a foul odor. “No! No, that is a disgusting thought. Surely, he would draw the line at seducing a possible sister? The current Lord Hurley did, in any case, when he came to hear the will read. He avoided me, and left almost immediately, so I suppose my Lord Hurley let out the secret in his will, and Aunt Belle confirmed it. Matthew Hurley, my baron’s nephew, ran off with my aunt after Pelman ruined her.”
“The will left Rose Cottage to you and your father. Yes, and a lump sum to invest. Hurley told me. He and Pelman conspired to cheat you, but I have the deed to the cottage. Not the lump sum, I’m sorry. Hurley is in the suds.” The idiot, addicted to gambling, had lost everything, including the price Bear had paid for Thorne Hall. A distraint on his remaining property would fetch them very little, but at least Rosa’s name on the deed for Rose Cottage had kept it from being lost with the rest.
“Rose Cottage is ours?” This time, Rosa initiated the kiss, and by the time it ended, Bear had her bare to the waist.
“We had better stop now, my dear wife. I do not mean to press for your favors until you are ready.”
“I am no longer wincing when I sit,” Rosa pointed out. “Will you come up to bed with me, Hugh? I so want to find out the ‘more.’”
Puzzled, Bear repeated, “The more?”
“When we—you know—when we did that, before the pain and even after it, a bit, I was certain there was something more.” Rosa blushed scarlet as she spoke, and her state of undress showed that the blush reached down her neck to her lovely breasts. Which, if Bear was wise, he would ignore in favor of listening to what his wife was saying. “Something I was reaching for. Aunt Belle said I was lucky to feel that way so soon. She said there is more, and you could show it to me.” She began to slip her arms back into her sleeves, and Bear managed to drag his eyes from her nipples.
“Promise you will talk to me,” Bear said. “Tell me how you feel—what you like and what you don’t like.”
Rosa smiled. “I will if you will. Promise you won’t go away if either of us fails. Stay and talk to me, Bear, instead of retreating into yourself.” She frowned down at her bodice, which was now missing several buttons.
Bear picked up a shawl that was draped over the sofa and wrapped it around Rosa so the deficiency in buttons was hidden from any watching servants. “I will if you will,” he told her. Then he picked her up and carried her up the stairs to their bedroom.
***
The next day, Bear took Rosa into the village to finalize the arrangements for the funeral. Rosa kept darting glances at Bear from under her eyelashes, her cheeks heating as she recalled the activities of the night. And the early morning. Aunt Belle had refused to describe the ‘more’ she was reaching after, and she had been right, Rosa decided. It was beyond explanation, and Bear had earned the smug expression that settled on his face when Rosa told him that.
They stopped outside the inn, and left Jeffreys to care for the horse while they walked to the rectory. At the corner, they waited for the passing of a smart traveling carriage, dusty now with travel but still gleaming with gilt and polish through the dust.
They reached the other side of the road when the carriage pulled up, and a man as elegant as his equipage leapt down without waiting for his servants to lower the steps.
“Mr. and Mrs. Gavenor?” he called, and they stopped to wait for him.
The man bowed, a shallow inclination of his head and upper body. “How fortuitous that you are visiting the village at this moment. I was coming to see you.”
Bear returned the bow with the same depth of courtesy. “Have we met, sir?”
The man waved the remark off. “No, no. But Lion described you as a sort of blond mountain, and—of course—I would have known Mrs. Gavenor anywhere. You are the exact image of Aunt Belle, Mrs. Gavenor. I see you, and I am ten again, being invited to take another biscuit. She always kept biscuits to treat us when we rode over.”
Ah. Now Rosa knew who he was. “Lord Raithby, I assume.” Aunt Belle’s stories about the affection between her and the marquis’s children were true then.
“My wits have gone begging!” Raithby exclaimed. “Yes, I am Raithby, though I cannot say I am accustomed to it yet. Aunt Belle? Did she come to you? Is she well?”
“I am sorry,” Rosa said. “She died just two days ago.”
Raithby’s eager smile faded. “I am too late, then. But she came to you? She died happy?”
“She died fully confident that she would be reunited with your father,” Rosa said.
“And she saw her niece before she died.” Raithby smiled. “That would have pleased her. She sometimes spoke of you, Mrs. Gavenor. She wanted very much to meet you, if she could do so without her position causing you harm.”
“We are on our way to the rectory to arrange her funeral, Raithby,” Bear said. “
As an interested party, would you care to join us? We could do with your social position to persuade our reluctant minister of Mrs. Clifford’s respectability.”
Raithby bowed again. “I am at your service.”
Bear began walking again, his hand covering Rosa’s where it rested on his arm.
“You must wonder at my wishing to be here.” Raithby strolled on Rosa’s other side. “The fact is she made my father happy. She was also kind to a group of neglected children and encouraged him to spend time with us. It was thanks to your aunt that I grew up knowing the love of a father. I will always be grateful to her for that.”
“My mother,” Rosa said, with a sideways glance at Bear to see if he objected to this disclosure. He merely grinned and gave her hand a light squeeze.
“I always suspected, and she confirmed it when I gave her your letter.”
“I have only just discovered it.”
“We are almost brother and sister, Mrs. Gavenor. Rosa, I should say, because Bear is brother-in-arms to one of my dearest friends, and you are my sister not-quite-in-law.”
Bear pressed Rosa’s hand closer into his side, but made no comment. They were at the rectory gate, and shelved further discussion until after the interview with Vicar Snaith.
***
It was a quiet funeral. Rosa had bowed to custom and stayed at home, after making Bear promise to tell her all about it. Bear thought he and Raithby would be the only mourners, but Sir Gerard Threxton, wearing a black armband, arrived as the service was starting. He lingered to speak to Bear after the interment. “My condolences to your wife, Gavenor.” He turned his hat in his hands, looking down at it as if for inspiration. “Mine and Lady Threxton’s, that is.”
“Good man,” Raithby said encouragingly, and Threxton shot him a grateful look. “Well, yes. Cousins, you know. As Lord Raithby said when he called yesterday, families should stick together.” A mystery solved. Bear would be grateful for Raithby’s interference, rather than irritated that he, rather than Bear, had given Rosa peace with her remaining family.
Seduction Regency Style Page 16
