Page 24 of Grasp the Thorn
Rosa found that hard to believe. “That cannot be so. Surely… We have been at odds all my life, Hugh. Families do not behave like that, do they?”
Bear’s eyes turned bleak. “Family members make the bitterest of enemies, Rosa. I shall tell you the story as it was told to me. You deserve to know what is behind Lady Threxton’s behaviour.”
CHAPTER 17
As Bear drove away from the cottage later that day, he berated himself for being every kind of idiot.
Today, he had failed Rosa not once, but several times. First, he should have realized she had nothing fit to wear to church. He’d seen the much-mended and faded gowns she wore every day, and knew she’d had little to no income for years. He’d not had time to repair the matter, since it wasn’t until she paled and stiffened at the church gate that he’d even thought about her gown.
What courage she had. Head up, back straight, she’d marched into church beside him as proud as a duchess in silken splendour, and if her hand trembled on his arm, not a soul but him would ever know.
Second, he had not thought about the reaction of the villagers when they heard the banns. Not until the rector started speaking and the whole church went silent. Then came the buzz of whispers, and Lady Threxton standing. They brushed through it, thanks to the squire’s intervention and the rector’s support, but Bear could have bypassed the risk by simply not taking her to Matins today.
She’d impressed him again after the service, accepting good wishes with a smile and word of thanks, and ignoring those who glowered from a distance.
Third, he’d mentioned her relationship with the squire’s family, and followed up by telling her the full story. Of course, she went straight to her father when they arrived at Rose Cottage and demanded to know whether the tale was true.
At first, he had been bewildered by the question, then he took one of his erratic dives into the past, and began berating Rosa, calling her Belle.
“All you thought of was yourself, Belle. You knew better than to sneak off with a gentleman, and no true gentleman would have asked it of you. Especially since Pelman was all but betrothed to your cousin. Look where your selfishness led. You, disgraced and abandoned. Your uncle sick from the horror of it all, and your cousin so bitter against you that she has had Rosie thrown out of her home. The best thing you can do for any of us is go back to London and leave us alone.”
After that, he would only say, “Go away,” until Rosa gave up.
His outbreak seemed to confirm the rector’s story but raised more questions. How did Pelman get into the story? Not the current Pelman, clearly, since he would have been a small child or not even born at the time of the scandal. Which sister gave birth to the baby?
“Ancient history,” Rosa said, her eyes damp but her lips smiling.
Not ancient as long as it had power to affect Rosa. Bear was two weeks away from vowing to love and cherish her all his life, and he was doing a poor job of it so far.
He could fix the wardrobe; had already invited her to take a day trip to Liverpool with him on the first fine day so they could buy what she needed without the villagers commenting. He couldn’t help but wonder about Lord Hurley’s will. Did the old man truly make no provision for his librarian and the librarian’s daughter? By all accounts, Mr Neatham had been given a pension when he retired, and Rosa had been Lord Hurley’s pet, whatever the propriety of the relationship. The matter needed further investigation.
As for Rosa and her cousins, he had no idea how to fix that old breach. Rosa’s naive belief that families did not feud across generations brought a grim smile. She’d never met his mother, who had despised him from birth and hated him from the day her husband and daughter died on an outing that was meant to be his. A special treat just for the two men of the household, his father had said. Bear, at eight years old, had been so proud and so excited. Until his sister Felicia spoiled her copybook and claimed that Bear had done it, so his father took Felicia instead.
“It should have been you,” his mother said when they brought the news of the carriage accident. Runaway horses. No survivors.
“It was a horrible accident, Hugh,” said his great aunt, when she arrived two days later. “No one’s fault, unless it was your father’s. Your mother is mad with grief.”
Perhaps. His mother seemed sane enough, if vicious and unpleasant, but on that one point, Mother remained adamant until her death twenty years later. Her darling daughter had been killed in an accident, and it was all Bear’s fault that Felicia had been there instead of Bear.
For the second reading of the banns, Rosa wore one of her new gowns. One of five, and more to come. Bear had found a dressmaker who kept a stock of gowns with the long seams sewn, and had insisted on buying all those that suited Rosa’s size and colouring. Only one had been ready to collect at the end of their long day in Liverpool, and she’d worn it home on the ferry, wrapped against the wind in one of her new shawls, with one of her new hats tied firmly under her chin.
It had been a busy week.
The new cook started work the next day, which was Wednesday, and just in time, for Bear’s Liverpool work crew crossed on that morning’s ferry, and Bear brought the foreman to dinner.
Warned by a message, and armoured in her new gown, Rosa was able to meet Mr Caleb Redding with equanimity. With Maggie to serve and Sukie sitting with Father, she presided over the table, where the two men initially tried to keep the conversation general, but soon succumbed to discussions of the work that needed to be done to set up camp at Thorne Hall, especially since the local weather watchers were predicting a long spell of rain.
Rosa waved off their apologies, fascinated by this insight into the man she was to marry.
“That one end of the stable block is mostly sturdy enough,” Mr Redding said, “and shoring up anything rickety will be easy. But plugging all the leaks? If we put our dormitory in there, we’ll spend all our time fixing holes, and none on the real work.”
“And if we don’t,” Bear argued, “we’ll get even wetter when the wind gets up and the tents blow away.”
They argued back and forth, until Rosa ventured, “Could you put the tents up inside the stables?”
Stunned silence greeted her question. Both men looked into some distance as they thought, then exchanged a glance and nodded.
“A brilliant suggestion, Miss Neatham,” Mr Redding said, but it was Bear’s proud smile that warmed her to her toes.
