by Merry Farmer
It was impossible to tell for sure, but from the angle of Lancelot’s body, it looked as though his neck had been broken. It was exceptionally rare for a horse to perish that way, but it also looked as though the speeding wagon had smashed into him when the harness shaft broke. He could have had other internal injuries as well. And it was as likely as not that whatever had been effecting his behavior over the last few days had contributed to the whole thing.
Whatever it was, Isaac sank to sit beside the shattered wagon and dead horse, burying his face in his hands. He should have known better. He should have seen that something was wrong with Lancelot and treated him sooner. Just as he should have sensed the signs of cholera and been able to save Annabelle. And on top of all that, he’d gone completely insane and compromised Rose. He was the worst of physicians, the worst of men.
Rose’s gentle touch on his shoulder shook him out of his thoughts with a jolt. She sat in the grass beside him. “Are you okay?”
He would be a liar if he answered anything but “no”. He shook his head, rubbing his face with both hands and trying just to breathe. Rose remained quiet, rubbing his shoulder with far more comfort than he deserved. He couldn't just sit there beside all the carnage he’d created indefinitely, but neither was he inclined to move. Not when his foolishness had caused so much disaster.
“What are we going to do?” Rose asked softly.
He drew in a shuddering breath, rubbing his face one last time, then faced her. “We’ll marry,” he said. It was only right, and the prospect of having Rose as his wife was the only light in his suddenly bleak afternoon. “As soon as possible. We shouldn’t delay.”
Rose’s eyes widened, and she leaned away from him. “I meant about the horse and wagon.”
Isaac squeezed his eyes shut, feeling like an even bigger fool. He hadn’t thought that was possible, and yet, there he was. “I’ll walk back into town and get help,” he said quietly. “Neil Parsons will know what to do about Lancelot. As for the wagon….”
His words drifted off. He shook his head. He knew it wasn’t what Rose had meant, but he couldn’t let go of the one thing that really mattered.
“I mean it,” he said. “I will marry you. I won’t abandon you simply because I lost my head and…and insulted you that way.” He looked away from her.
“Is that what you think you did?” There was a hard edge in her voice that made him cringe. Why was it that everything he did was wrong?
He dragged his eyes up to meet hers. “I’m sorry.” He needed to make her see that he meant it. “It was the heat of the moment, the shock of living. You deserve so much better.”
She continued to gape at him as though his apology were a bitter insult. “And you think I played no part in the whole thing?”
He blinked. Of course she was innocent. He opened his mouth to reply, but she rushed on.
“If I didn’t want you, what happened between us never would have happened. I’m as much to blame for losing our heads as you are.”
If she had been talking about breaking a window or trodding on a neighbor’s flower bed, he would have conceded the point. But carnality? “Don’t blame yourself. And don’t worry about the consequences. I will marry you.”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “And what if I don’t want to marry you?”
Shock and acute disappointment—as unexpected as everything else that had happened in the last half hour—stung Isaac. “I don’t understand.”
Rose pushed herself to her feet, planting her fists on her hips. “I don’t want to marry anyone because they feel like they’re obligated.”
Isaac suddenly wasn’t certain if he was hearing right or thinking straight after the accident. “What we did—”
“Was nothing I haven’t done with a hundred other men before.”
He snapped his mouth shut, eyes going wide. Fierce prickles broke out down his back. Anger and hurt as irrational as the lust and longing he still felt for her kept him frozen to his spot, unable to speak.
All at once, her indignation melted into deep sadness, and she sagged. “I’m a whore, Isaac. I was a whore for years before coming here to England to start over. I worked in a brothel in Haskell. You aren’t obligated to me for anything.”
The pieces suddenly fit into place, the mystery of Rose solved. It was why she had been so close-mouthed about her past, why she had hesitated to accept his supper invitation. But also why she had looked at him with such intimate knowing in her eyes. It was why she’d welcomed him moments ago instead of screaming.
“Marry me anyhow,” he said, surprising himself by how earnestly he meant it and how intensely he still wanted her.
Rose’s eyebrows lifted, and she answered with an emphatic, “No!”
“But—”
“You’re a respected doctor, an important man in Brynthwaite. You don’t deserve to be married to a soiled woman.”
Grief twined with indignation in Isaac’s gut. “I think that’s for me to decide, not you.” He stood straighter.
Rose shook her head. “You’d regret it. Now that you know, that’s what you’ll be thinking about every time we’re in bed.”
“I won’t.” He might, he admitted to himself. At least at first. Bedding an experienced woman was different from bedding an innocent one.
“You would.” Rose called him out, knowing in her eyes. “Especially considering what happened to make you propose.” She gestured to the spot in the grass where they’d made love.
He stared at it, then back at her, squaring his shoulders. “I’d already been thinking about it. Proposing, that is. Before today.” And thinking of all the reasons why it would be wrong of him to drag her into a lifelong commitment with someone who was as big of a failure as he was.
For a brief second, her eyes filled with tenderness, then regret. Then she lowered her head entirely and shook it. “I won’t marry you, Isaac. It would be wrong.”
He was surprised at how much her rejection hurt. “Even though I compromised your honor?”
She looked up at him. “I have no honor to compromise.”
“So, what?” He gestured toward their spot in the grass. “Was I just another customer to you? What do you expect in payment?”
He knew his anger had pushed him too far when her expression crumpled in misery. Regret and panic filled him, and he took a step toward her. There had to be a way to make things right again.
“I’m sorry,” he hissed, cursing himself. “It’s just that I—”
“You don’t owe me anything,” she managed to say with a strangled voice. She pushed past him, marching toward the road, eyes glassy with tears.
“Rose!” He was going to tell her that he loved her. In spite of the insanity of their situation and the recklessness with which he careened through life. He was going to tell her that he loved her and wanted her as his wife, no matter how bizarre and wild the idea was.
Instead, he stood there, helpless, and watched her run away.
Time was supposed to heal wounds, but even though days had passed, Rose was fairly certain that she could wait for the end of time and not ever feel like less of a fool for what had happened with Isaac. How could a moment of such perfect, wild bliss turn into the deepest misery she’d ever experienced?
“And stroke, stroke, stroke,” Mr. Bond called from his cushioned seat in the shade of the oak in the Bond’s back garden. “That’s it, my dears. You’re getting the hang of it.”
Rose pulled on the oars in front of her, her muscles aching from regret far more than the exertion of pretending to row. The day after his attack, and the crash, Mr. Bond had been well enough to direct Elaine to send into town for some of the young men from the orphanage to bring the skiff out of its shed. The craft was now propped up on blocks in the grass while Rose and Elaine pretended to row.
“I think I have the rhythm of it now,” Elaine said, dragging her oars across the grass and creating deep grooves in the dirt.
“It will be harder still when you’r
e in water,” Mr. Bond informed her.
Rose scolded herself for being so caught up in her own problems. It was Mr. Bond she should be worried about. Isaac had prescribed rest for the man, along with the new medicine he promised to deliver once his affairs with Lancelot and his wagon were settled. Mr. Bond shouldn’t have been out in the very spot where he’d collapsed days before, engaging in more or less the same activity. That should have been at the forefront of Rose’s mind, not the embarrassing gloom that had settled over her.
She shouldn’t have let Isaac kiss her in the first place. She shouldn’t have been coerced into going on that errand with him. She shouldn’t have accepted him into her body with such elation. And she most certainly should not have run away from him over his proposal.
His proposal! Dr. Isaac Newsome had asked to marry her. Even after she’d told him the truth. And yet, there was no possible way that he could really want her to be his wife. It was clear as day that he felt guilty for giving in to temptation in a moment of wild insanity. She refused to shackle a man to her, to a whore, because he felt guilty.
But in the days since then, the days and hours and minutes that she’d spent living and reliving the entire encounter and conversation, she was becoming convinced that there was more to the spark in Isaac’s eyes than a sense of duty. Or was she seeing things she wanted to see in her imagination’s rereading of the situation?
“Honestly, if you’re not going to concentrate on learning, we should abandon the whole enterprise.”
Rose gasped and shook herself at Elaine’s deflated comment. She hadn’t realized her friend had been talking to her. She hadn’t realized she’d stopped pretending to row either. She’d just been sitting there, like a lump in the boat, her life adrift around her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and instantly Isaac’s apology rang in her head. “I’ll do better.”
Elaine sighed, let her oars drop, and folded her hands in her lap. “Are you still upset about the wagon crash?” she asked, expression full of sisterly affection.
“That must be it,” Rose answered. She hadn’t told Elaine how bad the crash had been. Elaine hadn’t seen the wreck of the wagon or Lancelot’s poor, dead body. For all she knew, the wagon had lost a wheel and Rose and Isaac had rolled to a gentle stop. Rose had hidden as many of her scratches and bruises as possible from her friend.
“Is everything all right?” Mr. Bond called from his chair. His expression was much more serious. Rose was under the impression that the boys from Brynthwaite had secretly told him the full extent of the wreck when they were at the house to help with the boat.
“I’m fine,” Rose called to him with a smile. “Perhaps a little tired and bruised still.” She hoped he would buy that excuse.
Whether he did or not, the entire conversation ground to a halt as Isaac himself stepped through the house’s back door and into the garden.
“Hello?” Isaac glanced first to Mr. Bond. “I hope you don’t mind my letting myself in. The doors were all open.”
“We don’t mind at all.” Elaine leapt out of the skiff, stumbling slightly as she landed in the grass. She gestured for Rose to follow, then turned a bright, mischievous smile on Isaac.
Isaac returned her greeting with a nod, then hesitantly, reluctantly, glanced past her to Rose. Regrets of a hundred different sorts hung over him. Rose could only meet his gaze for a brief moment before prickles of insecurity and dread broke out across her skin. She set to work getting out of the skiff as slowly as possible.
“I’ve brought the medicine I promised you,” Isaac said stepping over to hand a small, brown glass bottle to Mr. Bond. “They’re to be taken with meals. Only one at a time.”
Rose tried not to look at Isaac, but she did catch a knowing, almost conspiratorial look from Mr. Bond. It made her wonder what Isaac had really brought him.
“We’re so grateful, Dr. Newsome,” Elaine said, reaching her father’s side and resting a hand on his shoulder. “Papa will be hale and hearty in no time.”
“Of course.” Isaac nodded, his smile tight and false. His gaze slipped to Rose once more.
Elaine caught the gesture and leapt into action. “Dr. Newsome, I was hoping you might examine Rose.”
“What?” Rose asked.
“I beg your pardon?” Isaac said at the same time.
Each of them turned a similar shade of red.
Elaine’s smile grew. “Rose hasn’t been herself since your unfortunate accident. It would make me feel ever so much better if you would take a few moments to ascertain if she is quite well.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m not sure that’s necessary.”
Again, they spoke over top of each other, then exchanged a look. The pleading apology was still in Isaac’s eyes. It made Rose’s throat tight and her heart beat faster.
“But I would be so reassured,” Elaine said. “And so would you, wouldn’t you, Papa?”
“Yes, yes I would.” Mr. Bond picked up on the scheme right away.
Rose chewed her lip. She sent Isaac a look to tell him he didn’t have to give in to the prodding.
“Perhaps a brief check would be in order,” he said instead. Rose was ready to protest when he went on with, “If Miss Rawlins will accompany me into the parlor.”
It was better than nothing. “Certainly,” she said, then marched quickly past him into the house. She didn’t look back at Elaine, but she was certain her friend was beyond happy her plot had worked.
Except that as soon as they were alone together, Rose turned to Isaac and said, “I’m fine. Truly I am. Just bruises and scrapes, and they will heal in time.”
She wanted Isaac to run to her, to take her into his arms and kiss her the way he had that first time. She would have settled for him insisting on examining every inch of her personally, knowing it would have led to more. Both scenarios were impossible, though, and she was out of her mind to entertain them. She was also out of her mind to be crushed when all Isaac did was nod.
“As long as you are well,” he said.
“I am.” She paused, swallowed. “How are you?”
“Me?” He blinked in surprise at the question. “Bruises, scrapes, just like you.” He hesitated, the awkwardness between them growing. “I’m short one wagon and one horse, which is inconvenient.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
It was the wrong thing to say. Isaac let out a breath and surged toward her. “I handled the situation all wrong,” he confessed with deep emotion. “I would do anything to go back and change both my behavior and all the things I said.”
Hope raged in Rose’s chest, but it seemed misplaced and inappropriate. “We can’t go back,” she said. She wouldn’t want to undo most of what had come between them. And yet, she would have given anything to take away the pain that his closeness brought her. “We should put what happened between us aside and move on,” she said instead, turning away.
“I can’t—”
She refused to let herself look at him to see what had cut his words short.
He let out a breath and went on. “I won’t take up any more of your time.” He hesitated, then added, “If that’s what you want.”
She licked her lips, wondering how she should reply, but she wasn’t given the chance. Isaac marched out of the room and through the front door before she could so much as look in his direction. He was gone, just as she’d run away from him the other day. The only thing she could do was gather herself, take a deep breath, and return to the back garden.
“Well?” Elaine asked, brimming with excitement, when she returned. Her expression instantly flattened. “Where did Dr. Newsome go?”
“About his business, I guess,” she said. “We should keep practicing.” She marched on toward the boat.
Elaine followed her. “That’s it?” She rounded the boat and put a hand on Rose’s arm to keep her from climbing back into her seat. “Didn’t he say anything? Invite you to another supper?”
Rose let out a
heavy breath. “Nothing is going to come of my connection to Dr. Newsome.”
“Why not?” Elaine seemed both curious and put out.
“It just isn’t.” Rose shook her head and climbed into the boat.
“But why not?” Elaine stepped in and sat facing Rose. “The two of you are perfect for each other. You endured a harrowing experience together. And the way you look at each other could keep our stove lit through the winter.”
Rose blinked at the last assessment. She would never have pegged Elaine as someone who knew about those things. Unless Mr. Wall had been giving her more than just books about pastoral themes and self-improvement to read.
“He knows who I am,” Rose said, too quietly for Mr. Bond to hear. Although it looked as though he had dozed off in his chair. “Isaac knows what I used to be.”
“Hmm.” Elaine frowned, tapping her finger against her lips. “I suppose it would have been unavoidable not to tell him.”
A wave of uncertainty took Rose by surprise. “It changes things.”
“Does it?” Elaine blinked, sitting straighter. “It hasn’t changed the way he looks at you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way he looks at you with such longing in his eyes.”
Rose stared at her, skin prickling. She had assumed Elaine would disapprove of there being anything romantic between her and Isaac once the truth was out, if only to spare people the embarrassment of knowing who the doctor’s wife used to be.
“There’s something else,” Rose said slowly, weighing whether she should say more or let it be.
“What?” Elaine asked as though Rose were telling her a dashing story of adventure.
“Things…things may have gone too far between Isaac and I.”
“Too far? Things couldn’t possibly go too—” She stopped, her mouth hanging open, her eyes popping wide. “Too far?”
