Page 47 of Grasp the Thorn
Puzzled, Bear repeated, “The more?”
“When we—you know—when we did that, before the pain and even after it, a bit, I was certain there was something more.” Rosa blushed scarlet as she spoke, and her state of undress showed that the blush reached down her neck to her lovely breasts. Which, if Bear was wise, he would ignore in favour of listening to what his wife was saying. “Something I was reaching for. Aunt Belle said I was lucky to feel that way so soon. She said there is more, and you could show it to me.” She began to slip her arms back into her sleeves, and Bear managed to drag his eyes from her nipples.
“Promise you will talk to me,” Bear said. “Tell me how you feel—what you like and what you don’t like.”
Rosa smiled. “I will if you will. Promise you won’t go away if either of us fails. Stay and talk to me, Bear, instead of retreating into yourself.” She frowned down at her bodice, which was now missing several buttons.
Bear picked up a shawl that was draped over the sofa and wrapped it around Rosa so the deficiency in buttons was hidden from any watching servants. “I will if you will,” he told her. Then he picked her up and carried her up the stairs to their bedroom.
The next day, Bear took Rosa into the village to finalize the arrangements for the funeral. Rosa kept darting glances at Bear from under her eyelashes, her cheeks heating as she recalled the activities of the night. And the early morning. Aunt Belle had refused to describe the ‘more’ she was reaching after, and she had been right, Rosa decided. It was beyond explanation, and Bear had earned the smug expression that settled on his face when Rosa told him that.
They stopped outside the inn, and left Jeffreys to care for the horse while they walked to the rectory. At the corner, they waited for the passing of a smart traveling carriage, dusty now with travel but still gleaming with gilt and polish through the dust.
They reached the other side of the road when the carriage pulled up, and a man as elegant as his equipage leapt down without waiting for his servants to lower the steps.
“Mr and Mrs Gavenor?” he called, and they stopped to wait for him.
The man bowed, a shallow inclination of his head and upper body. “How fortuitous that you are visiting the village at this moment. I was coming to see you.”
Bear returned the bow with the same depth of courtesy. “Have we met, sir?”
The man waved the remark off. “No, no. But Lion described you as a sort of blond mountain, and—of course—I would have known Mrs Gavenor anywhere. You are the exact image of Aunt Belle, Mrs Gavenor. I see you, and I am ten again, being invited to take another biscuit. She always kept biscuits to treat us when we rode over.”
Ah. Now Rosa knew who he was. “Lord Raithby, I assume.” Aunt Belle’s stories about the affection between her and the marquess’s children were true then.
“My wits have gone begging!” Raithby exclaimed. “Yes, I am Raithby, though I cannot say I am accustomed to it yet. Aunt Belle? Did she come to you? Is she well?”
“I am sorry,” Rosa said. “She died just two days ago.”
Raithby’s eager smile faded. “I am too late, then. But she came to you? She died happy?”
“She died fully confident that she would be reunited with your father,” Rosa said.
“And she saw her niece before she died.” Raithby smiled. “That would have pleased her. She sometimes spoke of you, Mrs Gavenor. She wanted very much to meet you, if she could do so without her position causing you harm.”
“We are on our way to the rectory to arrange her funeral, Raithby,” Bear said. “As an interested party, would you care to join us? We could do with your social position to persuade our reluctant minister of Mrs Clifford’s respectability.”
Raithby bowed again. “I am at your service.”
Bear began walking again, his hand covering Rosa’s where it rested on his arm.
“You must wonder at my wishing to be here.” Raithby strolled on Rosa’s other side. “The fact is she made my father happy. She was also kind to a group of neglected children and encouraged him to spend time with us. It was thanks to your aunt that I grew up knowing the love of a father. I will always be grateful to her for that.”
“My mother,” Rosa said, with a sideways glance at Bear to see if he objected to this disclosure. He merely grinned and gave her hand a light squeeze.
“I always suspected, and she confirmed it when I gave her your letter.”
“I have only just discovered it.”
“We are almost brother and sister, Mrs Gavenor. Rosa, I should say, because Bear is brother-in-arms to one of my dearest friends, and you are my sister not-quite-in-law.”
Bear pressed Rosa’s hand closer into his side, but made no comment. They were at the rectory gate, and shelved further discussion until after the interview with Vicar Snaith.
It was a quiet funeral. Rosa had bowed to custom and stayed at home, after making Bear promise to tell her all about it. Bear thought he and Raithby would be the only mourners, but Sir Gerard Threxton, wearing a black armband, arrived as the service was starting. He lingered to speak to Bear after the interment. “My condolences to your wife, Gavenor.” He turned his hat in his hands, looking down at it as if for inspiration. “Mine and Lady Threxton’s, that is.”
“Good man,” Raithby said encouragingly, and Threxton shot him a grateful look. “Well, yes. Cousins, you know. As Lord Raithby said when he called yesterday, families should stick together.” A mystery solved. Bear decided he should be grateful for Raithby’s interference, rather than irritated that he, rather than Bear, had given Rosa peace with her remaining family.
“M’ mother… She is living in the past, Gavenor. You understand. But my wife sees the sense of dropping the feud.”
