Page 31 of Grasp the Thorn
She looked at those words for a long time, more than half tempted to kiss them, but Brownlee was waiting, regarding her with calm brown eyes. He was a man in his middle years, sturdily built, with pleasant features and a face that fell naturally into laugh lines. Instinctively, she felt she could trust him with her father, but she asked him questions about his previous positions, and then took him upstairs to meet Father.
Father sulked in his chair by the fire, and rounded on Rosa as soon as she entered. “Rosie, I don’t know what you are about, keeping such a maid. She refuses to bring me my trousers and my boots, and I must away to Thorne Hall. I am already very late, and what will Lord Hurley be thinking?”
Sukie, the calmer and kinder of the sisters Bear had hired, had her lips tightly pressed together and one cheek bore the imprint of a palm in fading scarlet.
“Oh Father,” Rosa said. “Oh Sukie, I am so sorry.”
“Didn’t move quite fast enough, Mrs Gavenor. Don’t you worry none. But how to calm him, I do not know.”
Brownlee addressed Father directly. “Dressing you will be my job now, sir. I am Brownlee, and I have been hired to look after you.”
“A valet? Lord Hurley has hired me a valet? How very kind of him.” Father frowned. “I had one. He has gone off somewhere. Do you mean to stay, Brown? Eh?”
“For as long as you need me, sir,” Brownlee replied, unperturbed by the truncating of his name. “If you give me a minute to find out where things are, I will have your clothes directly.”
Rosa’s face must have expressed her alarm, because Brownlee murmured, “A short walk will do him no harm, and will help to turn his mind elsewhere, ma’am, if you permit.”
“He does not like to be carried,” Rosa warned.
“Just downstairs. Mr Gavenor’s purchases for Mr Neatham’s comfort should be offloaded by now, and we shall put the invalid’s chair to use immediately. Now, Miss— Sukie was it? Would you be kind enough to show me how Mr Neatham likes his things to be kept?”
Father beamed. “I like this one better than the big fellow, Rosie.”
Rosa, as she later examined the other items her big fellow had sent for her father’s comfort, disagreed with her father. She liked the big fellow a lot. Far more than was comfortable, given the constrained atmosphere between them.
Still, the parting kiss had been promising. Plus, he had thought of her in Liverpool; had sent her all these things and Brownlee to ease her load. She pulled his letter from her pinafore pocket and, looking around quickly to make sure she was unobserved, pressed a kiss to his signature.
CHAPTER 22
Bear detoured to spend a few days in Birmingham, where a run-down block of townhouses built early in the last century was being sold to fund the owner’s interest in racehorses. Back at his hotel, after spending the day going over the derelicts with a local builder, he found his mail had caught up with him, which included a letter from his wife.
Had she liked his present? He had realized afterwards that he’d bought her nothing personal, and had shopped that afternoon to remedy the lack. A package containing a length of figured green and gold silk for a gown, a pretty bonnet, and a shawl in the same tones sat waiting for him to pen a note to go with them. Should he have purchased jewellery, as well? He hadn’t been able to interpret her reaction to the ring, and as things stood, didn’t want to risk giving her an item she might see as suitable for a mistress.
Especially since he wouldn’t be there to see her face when she opened the package.
But a man might buy his wife a gown and bonnet, surely?
He put the letter to one side and dealt with the business correspondence first, but his eyes kept drifting to Rosa’s letter. Did she miss him? He snorted at the thought. After four days of marriage, and most of them awkward? She missed him like a sore tooth, no doubt.
The letter, when he could put it off no longer, was oddly reassuring. She thanked him for Brownlee and the few things he’d sent to make the care of the invalid more convenient. He’d done nothing that required thanks. She was his wife, and his duty was to provide for her care, which meant caring for her father.
She reported on the wellbeing of the household, with a couple of anecdotes that brought a smile. She had resolved a small dispute on the building site by instructing them to move the planned ice pit to the shaded side of the house, and the kitchen door so that it opened onto that part of the courtyard. She hoped she had not overstepped her authority. He checked the sketches and nodded. She was quite correct.
She addressed the letter to ‘Honoured Sir,’ but the signature was a little more encouraging. ‘Yours truly, Rosa.’ She said nothing about the village. Perhaps the weather had been too poor for her to make the trip. He hoped she was having no further trouble with the squire’s mother and the Pelmans. The marriage should have spiked their guns, but Bear still could not be easy.
For the dozenth time since he’d ridden away, he wanted to turn back, sort out his marriage, and not leave again until he could bring her away with him. As if they loved one another. As if they wanted to live in one another’s pockets. No. He had work to do, and so did she. If she met with a problem she couldn’t manage, she would tell him. Would’t she?
The villagers had divided into two camps. In some ways, Rosa had been more comfortable when she’d been the outsider—the leper who lived in the desert, was avoided by everyone, and stayed out of their way as best she could.
Marriage changed everything. Not for the Pelmans and the Thrextons, who would not acknowledge her existence, but continued to talk about her behind her back, and sometimes right in front of her—though without naming names. They had their supporters, too; people who were happy to believe the worst of her, especially if it curried favour with the gentry.
On the other hand, more people than she expected were prepared to take up the cause of the new Mrs Gavenor, whose husband employed half the village and paid liberally. No. That was a little unfair. Several people had explained, shamefaced, that they had never believed the scurrilous lies, but had felt unable to stand up against the most prominent members of the village. Now that Bear stood behind her, and had turned the Rector to her support, they were pleased to welcome her back into their lives, their shops, and their parlours.
Being a bone of contention in the village meant trying not to aggravate one side while soothing the other, especially when her champions resorted to fisticuffs, as happened in her husband’s work crew not long after she received his first letter.
Rosa arrived for the aftermath, the foreman Caleb Redding wading into a free-for-all and laying about liberally to separate those who refused to stop throwing punches.
“There’s the whore now,” one of the men muttered when he noticed her, prompting another scuffle and a roar from Caleb, “The next man to throw a punch or make a foul remark is dismissed!”
