The Secret Rose

by Laura Parker

  He smiled crookedly, putting a finger to his lips as he came forward into the room. “Sh, mustn’t wake Roberts, Miss Alice. Yo-you’re—My God!”

  She lifted her weapon, unaware as she did so that she was backlit by the fire, which threw into silhouette her figure beneath her nightgown.

  Nicholas’s smile deepened into a leer as he took in the fiery halo of hair and enticing outline of her body. “Bloody hell! You ain’t as plain as you seem! You’ve a right fine figure!”

  She was prepared for his lunge but did not strike him a hard blow. After all, he was the son of her employer. The blow caught him on the tender flesh where the shoulder and neck meet. He went down hard on one knee with an “Oof” of pain, and she backed away. “Go away, Mr. Nicholas, or I shall strike you again! I swear it!”

  He looked up, the firelight reflected in his hungry gaze. “Stewart?” He glanced back over his shoulder to the doorway. “Stewart!” he called more impatiently. A flushed young man appeared in the doorway, and Aisleen recognized him as the one who had torn her sleeve. Lifting her poker again, she faced him as he came in.

  It was a mistake. Nicholas grabbed her ankles and with a jerk pulled her feet out from under her. Aisleen screamed as she fell, and then her head struck the corner of the hearth, stunning her.

  “Got her!” she heard Nicholas cry triumphantly as he dragged her across the floor toward him.

  “Not on the floor, old boy,” Stewart said disapprovingly. “’Tis devilishly cold for such sport. On the bed. There’s time enough for the amenities.”

  Caught between shock and pain, Aisleen could not protest as she was lifted from the floor.

  “A bit old for virgin flesh,” Stewart suggested skeptically, “but I’ll do the honors if you’re certain she’s game.”

  Nicholas’s laugh came out as a snort through his nose. “Look at her! With hair that flaming color she’s as hungry for a man as any strumpet! You can go first, but hurry!”

  The lifting of her nightgown brought Aisleen back to reality, and she reached up with screams of rage, scratching and clawing at the men who held her.

  “What is this!”

  Miraculously Aisleen heard Roberts’s gruff voice from the doorway.

  “Please! Please help me!” she cried, scrambling away from the hands that suddenly freed her.

  Nicholas turned toward the doorway, piqued that his game had been spoiled. “What the devil brings you here, Roberts? You’ve no business in the governess’s room.”

  Clutching her shawl to her, Aisleen turned pleading eyes on the butler. The slight, balding man refused to meet her gaze as he said in quiet dignity, “Neither, Mr. Nicholas, do you.”

  Nicholas shrugged and rose from the bed. He glanced back over his shoulder at Aisleen. “Do invite me again, Miss Alice,” he said with a sneer. “Come on, Stewart. Events have come to a sad end when a man cannot find a friendly bed beneath his own roof.”

  Aisleen did not move until both young gentlemen had withdrawn, and then she rose from the bed “You are a witness, Roberts,” she said forcefully. “You saw what happened. I am innocent!”

  “What I saw will not make much difference to the outcome.” Roberts’s neutral expression did not alter, but she thought she saw sorrow in his eyes before he turned away.

  As he started to close the door he paused to add, “I’d lock the door if I—”

  She saw that he was staring at the key inserted in the outside lock. He took and pocketed it. When he looked up at her again, his expression had softened. “You’ll not be troubled again this night, Miss Alice. I’ll see to it myself.”

  When he was gone, Aisleen poured water into her basin, stripped off her gown, and began to wash herself. Water ran in chilling rivulets over her thighs and arms, but she did not care that she shivered so hard that her teeth chattered. Any sensation was preferable to the shrinking revulsion of moments earlier. They had dared to touch her, the pair of them, had put their hands on her legs and waist and thighs. If Roberts had not appeared when he did…

  “Oh, God!” she moaned. Dropping the cloth, she sank to her knees, her body trembling in the aftermath of the assault.

  The tears did not last long, and soon she retrieved a handkerchief from her belongings and mopped her face.

  Long ago, she had accepted the fact that one’s life was seldom ordered to one’s desires. To be powerful, one must first be born a man, like her now-dead father or Nicholas Maclean. Yet physical assault was new to her. Never before had she felt so vulnerable, so helpless, so utterly useless in the face of a threat.

  “Well, it’s done,” she murmured, but as she climbed into her bed she knew it was not. Only minutes earlier she had considered seeking a new post. That was not the same as being discharged for misconduct and without references. She was a spinster without recourse and without support. Her situation was not unlike the plot of some tawdry melodrama. If it were not so pathetically real, she would scoff at her circumstance.

  With a sinking feeling, she realized that she was once more at the mercy of forces beyond her control. The Macleans were likely to believe Roberts, but they might also, like most people conscious of their position in society, be quite willing to deprive her of employment in order to keep scandal from beneath their roof.

  “Oh, Holy Mother, what shall I do?” She had not yet saved enough to live on while she sought a new post. If she were dismissed, she would be destitute.

  Waterford, Ireland: February 1857

  Aisleen sat stiff-backed in her chair as her mother ladled a generous serving of Soup Meagre for the man who had asked for her hand in marriage.

  “Och, won’t that set a man up just fine,” Patrick Kirwan declared in a hearty voice tainted, in Aisleen’s mind, by an uneducated brogue.

  Aisleen stared down at her own soup plate, where bits of cabbage, parsnips, onion, and sorrel swam in a creamy puree. Fresh vegetables were difficult to obtain. Only the wealthy could afford to pay for their importation from England. She had already appraised Mr. Kirwan’s well-appointed dining room, noting that it was larger than the combined tiny rooms she shared with her mother. Mr. Kirwan was a man of parts. What was his interest in her impoverished mother?

  She had been horrified when she arrived in Waterford three weeks earlier and found her mother talking excitedly about the man. Their marriage was all but accomplished, and she had not even been informed.

  “Will ye not say grace for us, Aisleen?” Kathleen Fitzgerald asked when she had served them all.

  After a quick, reassuring smile at her mother, Aisleen recited grace, noting from under lowered lids that Mr. Kirwan made the sign of the cross with the easy grace of a man accustomed to the gesture. So he was Catholic. That was small comfort. What was his interest in her mother?

  “Well now, isn’t it as fine a supper as ever any man had set before him?” Patrick Kirwan praised as he reached for his spoon. “Gracious company and gracious surroundings; a man could think himself apace with kings.”

  Aisleen looked across at her mother and, to her consternation, found her blushing. Kathleen Fitzgerald looked radiant and very pretty with her rich golden hair caught back from her face in a black hair net. Her gown of green-and-black check accentuated her slender waist and full bosom. Except for the fine lines about her mouth and eyes, she might have been a young girl with her first beau.

  Aisleen glanced again at Mr. Kirwan and saw that he was smiling boldly at her mother. He was big, broad-shouldered, and deep-chested and had a quick, engaging smile. She understood her mother’s interest in a man who wore a splendid frock coat when much of Ireland remained ill fed and nearly naked from the lingering effects of the famine years. But what were his reasons for pursuing her mother? When he suddenly looked across at her, Aisleen looked away.

  It was the flash of good humor in his gray eyes that she suspected most. Nicholas Maclean had had charm, and yet he had cost her her job without regret. Never would she forget his smirking salute as Roberts handed her up into t
he carriage that took her away. He had smiled as though they had shared some great lark that was at an end. Her own father had been charming to a fault, until he began to drink. Charm was suspect.

  To keep her thoughts at bay, Aisleen lifted a spoonful of soup to her mouth. “Why, Mother, this is delicious.”

  “Thank ye, dear, but part of the praise should go to Mr. Kirwan. He’s responsible for the fresh vegetables as well as the slice of veal and oysters from which I’ve made our supper pie.”

  Mr. Kirwan smiled. “Were little enough, yer mother refusing the salary I offered her.”

  “What salary?” Aisleen questioned sharply. “Didn’t she tell ye?” Patrick Kirwan asked. “Kathy, darling, ye promised ye’d talk it over with the lass. And being the right sensible lass I see her to be, she’ll agree with me.”

  Kathleen Fitzgerald pinkened a second time. “I wanted to wait until the two of ye had met.” She looked beseechingly at her daughter. “Aisleen, ye’ll remember that I wrote ye about the gowns I copied for Mrs. Gorham from the London fashion plates she showed me. I sketched them myself and even made a few small changes in the designs before I cut the patterns. Mrs. Gorham was so pleased with the results that she gave me permission to shop for her and charge her personal accounts.”

  “That is how we met,” Patrick Kirwan said with a wink at Kathleen “She’s as meek as a mouse and as clever as a cat, yer ma, but she’s nae head for business. I told her that the first day.”

  Ignoring the comment, Aisleen waited patiently for her mother to continue.

  “Mr. Kirwan owns a fabric shop as well as Kuwait Mills,” Kathleen continued after a moment’s hesitation. “We met when I was in his shop to select a bolt of cloth.”

  “A fateful day that was,” he added. “One look at yer ma’s sketches told me she’s as clever as she is pretty.” He smiled at Kathleen. “She gives them away, did ye know? Nae, ye couldn’t be knowing or ye’d have said the same as I. She should make her customers pay for the sketches. Sold three of them in me store, but she won’t take the money.”

  Aisleen turned to her mother in amazement. “I knew your sketches were splendid, Mother, but why did you not tell me that people were willing to pay you for them?”

  Kathleen smiled. “They are willing to pay Mr. Kirwan for what hangs in his shop.”

  “’Tis the same thing,” Patrick maintained. “Five shillings each, and she could make more if she heeded me advice.”

  Aisleen saw the intent expression on his face, and all at once she understood his interest. It was so simple she nearly smiled. Mr. Patrick Kirwan wanted control of her mother’s talent, and marriage was the quickest and easiest way of ensuring that he would always have it.

  “I agree that your advice is sound, Mr. Kirwan,” she said with a direct look at him. “I shall begin at once to encourage Mother to set up a business of her own.”

  “That’s the ticket,” he answered with a smile she did not expect. “Did nae I tell ye she’d see my way in it, Kathy?”

  Kathleen shook her head with a small smile. “Perhaps Aisleen should consider setting herself up in business. As for myself, I am quite content.”

  For the first time, Patrick Kirwan regarded Aisleen with a deep, penetrating gaze. “Are ye not satisfied with yer post in Yorkshire?”

  Aisleen felt her cheeks warming with embarrassment, but she held his gaze. “I am no longer employed there. I am seeking a new post.” She glanced at her mother. “Perhaps in London.”

  “London? Ye cannot be thinking of returning all the way to England, not when I’ve not seen ye these last twelve years,” Kathleen protested. “Can ye not seek a situation closer by?”

  Aisleen flashed her mother a look of annoyance. She did not want to discuss her private life before a stranger. She had seen the look of surprise Mr. Kirwan quickly masked when they were introduced. She was nothing like her mother. That look had discomforted her. She did not want his approval, but neither did she want his pity. “I am ever resourceful, Mother, never fear.”

  “Well, I will,” Kathleen answered in motherly concern. “Until ye’re settled I cannae think of anything else.”

  “She’s well spoken,” Patrick Kirwan said. “One would think her English born and bred by the sound of her.”

  Aisleen did not look up, uncertain whether he considered that a compliment or not.

  “The very thing!” he continued, as if struck by inspiration. “I could use a lass of learning in me shop.”

  Kathleen looked at him with gratitude. “Ye have such a place open in yer business?”

  “Musha, I did not say that. But I’ll be making a place, if that’s what Miss Aisleen should want,” he suggested with a broad smile.

  Made. The thought hung in Aisleen’s mind. A position could be made for her—not filled or earned by her, but made. She would be an afterthought in his business, like an extra flounce cut from a piece of leftover cloth meant to be swept up with the rest of the scraps. Was she always to be unnecessary to the world in which she lived: an extra piece, an afterthought, a redundant woman? Aisleen shivered.

  “’Tis a wonderful suggestion,” Kathleen answered in delight. “It means ye could remain here, with us.”

  “Aye, we’d be a family,” Patrick Kirwan added. “That is, if yer mother will have me.”

  Aisleen rose to her feet. “I—I don’t feel well. It must be something I ate earlier. Do go on without me. I’ll walk home—it’s not far.”

  She saw the look of hurt crowd out the joy in her mother’s eyes, but she could not remain. She had to remove herself from them before she began to vent her anger and frustration and hurt.

  Fifteen minutes later, when the door to the rooms she shared with her mother had closed behind her, Aisleen rested her head against it. She did not cry. She had not cried since the night Nicholas Maclean attacked her and was determined never to do so again. What she needed was a plan to set herself and her mother free from the tyranny of their womanhood.

  Nevertheless, she could not keep back the ungrateful, small knot of hurt she felt at the thought of Mr. Kirwan’s courtship of her mother. There had never been a suitor in her life, and it seemed there never would be.

  “Wouldn’t have him in any case,” she said aloud and straightened up. She did not need or want any man’s approval. She must convince her mother to think likewise.

  Yet later, in bed, she wondered what it would be like to have a man look at her as Patrick Kirwan had looked at her mother. He had seemed besotted, as though he could not drink in enough of her beauty. Was that love or merely the lust that had gleamed in animal brightness in Nicholas Maclean’s eyes?

  Aisleen sighed in resignation. She was destined never to know. What she did know was that men could not be trusted.

  * * *

  “Whatever would I do with me patterns if Patrick did not sell them?” Kathleen asked the next morning as she and Aisleen shared a pot of tea in their parlor.

  “You could sell them yourself,” Aisleen answered, helping herself to a slice of soda bread.

  “Sometimes ye have the strangest notions, lass,” her mother answered with a gentle shake of her head.

  “In England, many women have their own businesses,” Aisleen maintained. “Seamstresses who design gowns for the wealthy call themselves modistes, and they do very well for themselves. They drive elegant carriages and command their own servants.”

  “Musha, what would I be doing with servants?” Her mother chuckled. “As for a carriage, I cannae drive one.”

  “You would not need to,” Aisleen replied patiently. “You would hire a driver, and a footman, and as many seamstresses as you like. You would sketch the designs, have tea with your customers, and leave the drudgery to others.”

  “Ye flatter me, Aisleen. Even if all ye say were true, it would nae be me wish to embark on so strenuous a venture at me age.”

  “You are but forty-two, Mother, and in better health than you’ve ever been,” Aisleen countered.

&
nbsp; Kathleen smiled as she regarded her daughter. “What’ll ye be thinking of Mr. Kirwan?”

  Aisleen smiled. “I can say without equivocation that he is not worthy of your consideration.”

  Kathleen’s eyes filled with reproach, but she said quietly, “How can ye be so very certain of the man when ye’ve only just met?”

  “One does not need a second whiff to know when a fish is spoiled,” Aisleen answered She saw the hurt in her mother’s eyes deepen, but she felt she must speak the truth. “He sees in your talent a means to increase his wealth, Mother. He did not even bother to hide his interest. Did he not claim that you could live well from the sums you might earn? What else could make him offer for you?”

  “What else, indeed?” Kathleen answered softly.

  Aisleen blushed. “You know that I think you are wonderful and clever and still quite beautiful.”

  “For a woman of my years,” Kathleen suggested wryly.

  Aisleen’s cheeks reddened further. “You could have a life better than that you now live without giving up your freedom to a man who would use you and ultimately do you injury. If you do not heed me you will end up a prisoner of marriage once again.”

  “Where can ye have heard such nonsense?” Kathleen questioned in mystification. “Marriage is the natural course for a woman, unless the Church calls her.”

  “Was your life with Da happy? What did he offer you besides poverty, misery, and humiliation?”

  “Ye have been listening to the English suffragettes!” her mother said suddenly. “They are unnatural women with unnatural goals. When ye find a man whose manner suits ye, ye’ll understand ’tis nonsense, this talk of liberation.”

  “There’ll never be a ‘when’ for me, Mother,” Aisleen said abruptly.

  Reproach filled Kathleen’s eyes. “I know that the first years of yer life were hard ones, what with an ailing mother and a—a very troubled father.”

  Aisleen stiffened. “You may speak plainly, Mother. Da was a man who loved drink more than his own kin.”