Page 41 of Grasp the Thorn
The deceased Marquess of Raithby, Rosa had quickly discovered, was Aunt Belle’s measure against which all other men were found wanting.
“Bear has been sending me presents, Aunt Belle. Things to help me be the kind of wife he contracted for.”
However, Aunt Belle, having read the letters and examined the presents, insisted her view was the correct one. “He is apologizing in his own way, Rosa.”
The most recent present was a silver dressing set, with painted ivory inset into the handles, the tray, and the backs of the mirror and brush. “Fairies.” Aunt Belle’s eyes grew misty. “Raithby used to say I was his good fairy.”
“You loved him very much,” Rosa stated. Was he my father? She had not yet asked whether Aunt Belle was her mother. She could hardly demand to know whether Raithby had sired her, especially since the man who had raised her lay upstairs, miserable with the ague he had not been able to shake off.
“I was his mistress for thirty years. Twenty-eight, in truth, though few would believe it. He rescued me when I was very ill, and asked only my friendship. It was two years before he came to my bed, and then only after his wife had taken up with one of her lovers.”
Thirty years, and I am thirty-six. Raithby was not my father, then.
Aunt Belle didn’t notice her preoccupation, being absorbed in her memories. “God will take that into account, do you not think? That we were faithful to one another and did as little harm as we could? I am certain Raithby must be in Heaven, waiting for me.” She squeezed Rosa’s hand, which she was holding. “I think I will rest a little now, my dear girl.”
Aunt Belle seldom complained, but Maud confirmed Rosa’s fear that she was fading. “My lady was sick before his lordship died, ma’am. But with him gone, she does not want to live, and that’s a fact.”
“The journey cannot have been good for her.”
“Coming to you was good for her, ma’am. She rallied for that. It didn’t last, but she will die happy knowing what a sweet lady her sister raised.”
CHAPTER 28
At Lion’s suggestion, Bear took his questions about Pelman to Wakefield and Wakefield, an enquiry agency with a reputation for knowing everything, or being able to discover it. The principal of the firm proved his worth within minutes, looking thoughtfully at his own ceiling and then announcing, “Interesting. Excuse me one moment, please.”
He exited by a door at the back of his office, and returned a few minutes later with a scrapbook, open to a newspaper clipping of an advertisement. The name of the newspaper was neatly written above the clipping, along with the date, March 15th, 1810. Six years ago.
“Misters Jarrod and Evan Throckwhistle offer a reward of seventy pounds for information leading to discovery of the whereabouts of Lawrence Pelman and his sister Olivia Pelman.”
Bear let his raised eyebrows ask the obvious question, and Wakefield obliged. “We were asked by a colleague from Glasgow to find out whether the man had come back to London, which Mrs Pelman (sister to the Throckwhistle brothers) understood to be his childhood home.”
“Mrs Pelman.” Bear tapped the clipping with one finger as he considered that. “He abandoned his wife, then?”
“After divesting her of her dower fund,” Wakefield said, adding, with a tight smile, “which makes her brothers most anxious to find him.”
“He has spent the last six years in Kettlesworth on the Wirral Peninsula, south of Liverpool.”
“His sister, too?” Wakefield took paper from a drawer and wrote down the locations. “I understand Mrs Pelman has a few jewels she wishes to recover from Miss Pelman.”
Poisonous pair. Bear hoped the Throckwhistles caught up with them. “Miss Pelman, too.”
Wakefield blotted the sheet carefully. “I shall send a message to Glasgow immediately. Thank you, Mr Gavenor.”
“One more thing. I’d like you to find someone for me.”
When he explained the details, Wakefield refused the commission. “I have already been employed to find Mrs Clifford. The Marquess of Raithby is most anxious to return her to her home in Trenton. The lady is ill, I understand, and Raithby believes himself under an obligation to ensure that his father’s dear friend is safe.”
“Will you at least let me know if Raithby is successful? I believe the woman to be related to my wife, and I would like to be able to tell Mrs Gavenor that Mrs Clifford is being cared for.”
With Wakefield’s agreement, Bear was content. More than content. In a few days, he would be home.
Aunt Belle spoke frankly about physical intimacy between men and women, advising Rosa about what to expect, but she refused to discuss what she called harlots’ tricks.
“Tricks to deceive one another have no place between lovers, Rosa. That is what you want, is it not? For your husband to love you as you have begun to love him? I know how to weave a spell of sensation into a rope to lead a man by his cock, and I know the limits of that cord. It will snap at the first tug, the first frost.” For a moment, she looked unseeing at her cup of willow bark tea, sweetened with honey. Her eyes were bleak. The lines around her eyes spoke of the pain she mostly ignored, or an older pain from the years before Raithby.
“I found that out. Matthew lost interest and passed me to a friend, though I had borne his child and given it up as he demanded.”
Me? Rosa wanted to ask. Was it me?
