Page 39 of Grasp the Thorn
Maud grumbled some more, the obvious affection between the two warming their voices.
Finally, she left, shutting the door behind her.
“Now, Rosa, you shall tell me what has you cast in the dumps,” Aunt Belle instructed.
Rosa looked at the horrid book, and Bear’s note. Perhaps Aunt Belle could explain. “Here. I had a note from Mr Gavenor today.” She passed it to Aunt Belle, who donned her little gold rimmed spectacles and scanned it quickly.
“Ah. So you are disappointed that he is delayed?” Aunt Belle narrowed her eyes and examined Rosa’s face. “No. Something more.”
Rosa passed her the book and the bookmark.
“How pretty!” Aunt Belle said of the bookmark, and, “Andrew Delargey! Why, he is on everyone’s lips, or so I am told. A recluse, they say. No one has met him; not even his publisher. Some think the name a pseudonym, which means he could be anyone. How very exciting to think one might be at a poetry reading and the man sitting next to one might be the poet himself!”
“The bookmark was in this place,” Rosa said, opening the book to the offending poem. Aunt Belle laughed as she read it. “Yes, I heard that Society’s favourite poet has recently been disappointed in love, and that his latest book is full of allusions to his false lady. Did you think this intended for you, Rosa? Is your husband the kind of man to send such an insult? I would not have thought from his note he was at all familiar with the poet or his poems. Is he likely to have purchased the book on the recommendation he mentioned and just opened the pages at random to put the bookmark in?”
Rosa nodded thoughtfully. Yes. Very likely.
“I think, dear child, that I would like to hear more about this marriage that leaves you so unsure of yourself. Yes, and of your husband, too. I daresay it is his fault; he is a man, after all, but you shall tell Aunt Belle everything and we shall see what might be done.”
“I do not know if anything can be done. He married me because the rector said he must, and because he needed a hostess for his business entertainments and a chatelaine for his home. Oh, and a child, though how that is to happen when he won’t… He said my reputation was of no moment, and that he did not believe what the Pelmans said. Oh, but he does. He does.”
Rosa burst into tears and entered the arms her aunt held out to her, finding comfort in the silky, perfumed embrace and the murmured endearments.
She was permitted to indulge for several minutes, then Aunt Belle passed her a handkerchief and commanded her to ring the bell for tea. “Weeping is useful, in its way. But strategizing is better, and for that I need facts, Rosa. Tell me about your reputation. And about the Pelmans, a name I know all too well, to my sorrow.”
The meeting with Denthorpe went better than expected. They enjoyed dinner together in a private room at Fournier’s, and hammered out a deal on the townhouse over the exquisite dishes for which Fournier’s had become famous. They even managed to sketch broad areas of agreement on the second estate, the one with twenty or twelve houses, depending on whether anything could be salvaged from those left open to vandalism and Mother Nature.
Denthorpe and his agent left, promising to sign in the morning, as soon as the papers they had amended a dozen times in the course of the evening had been copied in a fair hand. Lion and Bear lingered for one more celebratory drink.
“Me for my Dorrie tomorrow, Bear, and you for your Rosa,” Lion said.
“I’ll drink to that,” Bear agreed. His size was a benefit on such evenings. Both Lion and Denthorpe were more than mellow, and Thomas, the agent, had been drinking lemonade for much of the evening.
When they stood to leave, Bear caught Lion’s arm to steady him, and they went arm-and-arm through the door of the private dining room and across the floor of the restaurant. Bear paused when he saw Lord Hurley at one of the tables.
“There is someone I wish to talk to,” he murmured, more to himself than to Lion, but his friend showed the uncanny ability to shake off the alcohol, a skill that had saved him and his command more than once. A keen glint replaced the sleepy humour in his dark eyes.
“Hurley? I have your back, Bear, but try not to eviscerate him. Fournier’s wife wouldn’t like it.”
They came up on each side of Hurley, each taking a chair from an unoccupied table and seating themselves uninvited. “Hurley,” Bear greeted his quarry, ignoring the other three men at the table. “Just the man I wanted to see.”
“You bought it sight unseen,” Hurley said, his slurred voice indicating he had imbibed even more freely than Bear and Lion. “I told you it was a wreck.”
“Not as bad as I feared,” Bear reassured him. “I did get one surprise, though. One of the cottages I thought was mine turned out to belong to a Miss Neatham and her father.”
Hurley flushed bright red. “Who told you that? Pelman? He promised he would never tell. I suppose he wants it for himself, but I’ll tell you this, Gavenor, he already has a wife, so if Rosabel thinks to get his ring on her finger, she’d better watch out.”
Bear filed the information away. A wife, eh? That might reward further investigation. “You make very free with her Christian name,” he observed.
Hurley barked a bitter laugh. “My own half-sister, after all. And my uncle leaving her one of the best properties on the estate. Thankfully, her supposed father was too sick for her to attend the reading of the will, so she never knew.”
The disgusting cur. He’d cheated Rosa of her inheritance. But…Hurley’s half-sister? The pieces slipped into a new pattern. The Neathams had just the one child, after eleven or twelve years of marriage. He’d ignored the rumours that claimed Rosa was the fallen sister’s child, but perhaps they were true. “Your father’s daughter by Mrs Neatham’s sister Belle.” It was not a question.
Hurley’s eyes roamed over the other men at the table. “Belle Clifford. My half-sister’s mother was Belle Clifford. I ask you! What would you have done if you found part of your inheritance had been left to a woman like that? The base-born brat of Raithby’s mistress? She had no right to it.”
Bear managed, with some difficulty, to keep his hands from closing around Hurley’s neck.
“I was never more shocked,” Hurley continued. “I’d even offered her carte blanche before I found out. Thank God, she turned me down. I could have bedded my own sister! No, better leave her to Pelman. Turned him down, too, but he said he’d have her in the end.”
