Page 23 of Grasp the Thorn
“These are three of my daughters, Mr Gavenor,” Mrs Hesketh said. “Polly, Maggie and Sukie. Polly is to be wed in a few weeks, so I’d be sending Maggie and Sukie. If Mr Hesketh agrees. If they are willing to go.”
The daughters looked their questions but busied themselves laying out the tea makings.
Mrs Hesketh said, “Mr Gavenor is marrying Miss Rosa and wants maids for Rose Cottage. Just for a few months, mind. If your Da agrees, I’ve a mind to let you go.”
After a scone and a cup of tea, Bear and the rector walked back to the village, leaving the two excited girls packing. “They seem very confident that Hesketh will give his permission,” Bear said.
The rector laughed. “Mrs Hesketh’s is the approval that counts in that household. But she maintains the fiction that Hesketh is the final authority. You have your two maids, Mr Gavenor. And I have just had a thought—if you are not looking for fancy cooking, I may have someone…”
“Excellent,” Bear told him. “Plain English cooking will suit me fine.” Will it suit Rosa? he wondered, then dismissed the thought. She could hire a fancy French chef when they were closer to civilization, if that was what she wanted. Which, for some reason, reminded him of something else he wanted.
“Dr Whitlow, where can I buy a bed large enough for a man of my size?”
CHAPTER 16
As her betrothed assisted her into his chaise on Sunday morning, Rosa was conscious of two conflicting emotions. One was relief that she could leave the house for long enough to attend the church service, since the new maids had shown themselves both willing and able to look after her father in her absence. The other was trepidation. She and Bear would be the centre of attention once the banns were read for the first time. The Pelmans and the Thrextons would find something to censure, made up or real, and they had their supporters in the village.
I would feel more confident if I had something suitable to wear, she thought.
Bear had dressed for the occasion in pale breeches and stockings, a dark blue coat over an embroidered waistcoat with a creamy froth of lace at neck and cuff. He didn’t favour the excesses they showed in the fashion magazines she sometimes saw at the village shop, but the materials were of the best quality and beautifully cut to fit his frame.
Rosa’s Sunday-best gown had had more than six years of use, new clothes being a luxury the Neathams could not afford after the new Lord Hurley stopped the pension the former Lord Hurley had once paid. She had tried to keep it from dirt and harm, but six years was more than 300 Sundays, even allowing for those when she could not find anyone to sit with her father and had to miss services.
Turning the back panel to move the shiny spot, carefully mending tears, and cutting off the cuffs to replace them with a band taken from another gown could not disguise the fact that her Sunday-best would be a Monday washday gown for almost any other woman in the parish.
Next to Bear, she looked like a pauper, which was not far from the truth.
The mile to the village passed quickly, with just enough time for Bear to ask after her father, and tell her about his success in finding a gardener and to name the cook who would be coming on Wednesday. She had met the woman. Mrs Gillywether came from a local family but had married a farmer over in Lancashire. She had only recently moved back to live with her brother.
“You have the final say, Rosa,” Bear assured her.
Jeffreys waited at the church gate to take the horses, and Bear handed Rosa down with as much reverence as if she were a duchess. As Rosa expected, people stared, but the bells proclaimed that Matins was about to begin, so she did not have to talk to anyone. Bear offered his arm and escorted her up the path and down the aisle. Straight back, Rosa. Smile and nod to those who smile and nod at you. Keep walking. Pretend you are wearing silk.
Usually, she slipped into the back, standing with the villagers. Today, Bear took her straight to the box pews at the front, to the Thorne Hall box that she used to sit in before Lord Hurley died. Back straight, Rosa. You have every right to be here.
From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the squire’s mother glaring at her. “Why does Lady Threxton hate us?” she had asked her mother, long ago when she was a child. “She is still cross because she thinks your aunt took something that was hers,” Mama answered, which left the child Rosa not much wiser, and questions to Father or Lord Hurley were ignored or shushed. The breach between Thorne Hall and Threxton Grange just existed, with no explanation or remission.
The psalm singers led the opening hymn, and the rector began the service.
The stir when she entered the church on Bear’s arm was nothing to the hum that ran around the church when the rector proclaimed from the pulpit, “I publish the banns of marriage between Hugh Richard Gavenor and Rosabel Marianne Neatham, both of this parish. This is the first time of asking. If any of you know of any cause or just impediment why these two should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it.”
The dowager Lady Threxton half rose, but her son the squire, whispering urgently, persuaded her to sit again. Bear surveyed those who were whispering, his chin high, a small smile playing about the corners of his mouth. He gave a light, encouraging squeeze to Rosa’s hand, and she smiled back. If he could pretend to be proud of a scarecrow like her, the least she could do was support him.
The gauntlet of comments and stares Rosa had expected to run on her way back to the chaise was not as bad as she’d expected. Several villagers presented their congratulations to Bear and their best wishes to her, slowing the couple’s exit. By the time they reached the porch, where the rector waited to greet them while much of the parish watched, the Pelmans and Thrextons had left the church and the churchyard.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Bear asked as they drove away from the village. “You were so tense when we arrived, I felt I was leading you to your execution.” His grin suggested that he thought his remark funny.
“I thought Lady Threxton was going to object to the banns,” Rosa said.
She fell silent as Bear negotiated the slope down to the temporary bridge and up the other side. Back when they could afford a gig and horse, Father used to insist that she let him concentrate at such moments. Bear apparently had no such qualms, since he said, “Just as well her son stopped her from embarrassing herself in public.”
“And us,” Rosa pointed out.
He shot her a smile, even as the horses turned the sharp corner to climb back up to the road. “They can only embarrass us if we let them, Rosa. Your cousins are clinging to ancient history, when most of the main actors in that drama are dead. Pelham has taken advantage of that for his own purposes, but is heading for a fall if he thinks to continue.”
“My cousins?” Rosa asked. “I don’t have family apart from Father. An aunt, but she died long ago.”
“You don’t know?” Bear pulled the chaise to the side of the road and gave Rosa his full attention. “Rosa, the rector told me that your mother and Lady Threxton are cousins.”
