Page 8 of Grasp the Thorn
She hurried off down the street, and he watched dutifully until her front door closed behind her, wondering how influential the Pelmans were in the local community. Could he avoid a closer association and still do business here?
“Are you coming, Mr Gavenor?” the sick-bed nurse called from halfway down the steps. He collected himself and followed, and soon re-entered the miserable house.
CHAPTER 5
Mr Gavenor was gone for a very long time; so long, that Rosa began to wonder if he intended to return. Rosa managed to scoot across the floor on her bottom to fetch a book to pass the time. Getting back up on the couch seemed too much trouble, so she remained on the rug, leaning against what used to be her chair.
The book was an old favourite, but it couldn’t engage her interest, which kept hopping back to the pain in her ankle and her anxiety about her father. A little about Mr Gavenor, too. She hoped he had not come to harm. Not that she wished to stay the night in his cottage, but he seemed a kind man, if a little gruff.
All right. A lot gruff. Oddly enough, that reassured her. The kind of facile charm that Pelman turned on as if with a tap hid a familiar danger, for he expected to be rewarded with liberties she had no intention of permitting. Not, at least, from Pelman, for though she was running out of other ways to protect and care for her father, he was not the only man in England. If she must sell herself to someone, it would not be to the man who had driven her to such a necessity.
Except she had not the first idea how to find another man who might want a virgin well past her youth—and one with few feminine graces.
Once again, Rosa reviewed the litany of her marketable skills.
She could teach reading and writing, but the Pelmans had convinced the locals she was not fit to associate with children.
She could make botanical observations and illustrate them with drawings. She had thought she might be able to sell a pamphlet, or perhaps even a book, but her hopes were dashed when the printer to whom she sent samples returned an enthusiastic letter that raised her hopes then dashed them with a quote for the money she must advance. Apparently, authors must pay the costs for publication and distribution. The sum required was more than she had seen in one place in her entire lifetime.
She could sew neatly, although without enthusiasm. Sewing currently kept them alive, since those who could afford a seamstress preferred to hire someone for the long seams of their gowns, at the very least. The employment paid a pittance, but even a pittance was better than nothing.
For the rest, she could translate from and to Greek and Roman, and make a reasonable fist of Hebrew. Baron Hurley had often given her such work to do; yes, and paid her, too, for all that she was woman, but Lord Hurley had been dead for years, and no one else wanted an informally trained female translator.
She could keep house, if anyone wanted a housekeeper tainted with scandal and burdened by a bedridden father who constantly mistook her for her mother or her aunt. After Thorne Hall was damaged by fire, she kept house at Rose Cottage for her father. She’d been feeding them mostly from her garden, her goats, and her hens, all of which Pelman had confiscated when he had thrown her and her father out.
She had considered complaining to the squire about Pelman trampling on her rights, but the residents of Thorne Hall and Sir Gerard’s family had been estranged for as long as she could remember, though she had never heard why. The squire was known as a fair man, if hard. He would uphold the law. If Rosa had something to prove the law was on her side, she would swallow her pride and pay him a visit.
But without evidence, she would not get a fair hearing from a man who seemed to hate her just because she was the previous Lord Hurley’s librarian’s daughter.
Unfortunately, as that horrid sneak Pelman had said, she had only her word that she owned the goats, both presents from Lord Hurley. He had gone on to point out that the garden was part of the cottage, and if she took the hens, where would she put them? Then, mightily condescending, he had given her ten shillings in compensation for four fine layers and a bantam that was sitting on eggs.
Rosa had taken the money. She needed it to keep them fed. A fortnight, her hens had bought her. Perhaps three weeks. Six of those days were now gone.
How did the hens fare in this dreadful weather? Perhaps she would be able to see them from the scullery window.
She employed the bottom-shuffling method to make her way to the hall and the umbrella stand, then pulled herself up so that she could collect the walking stick. Leaning heavily on that, hobbling to keep as much weight off her foot as possible, Rosa made her way to the kitchen, where a pot simmered on the fire, and then through to the scullery. Sheets of rain obscured her view into the back garden, each wind gust battering water against the window panes.
Between the rain and the hens’ reluctance to be out in such weather, she’d see nothing this afternoon. Now that she was up, however, she could steep some willow-bark tea. Mr Gavenor had returned her basket to the larder, aligning it as precisely to the edge as she would have herself.
She scanned the shelves, noting gaps where her stores of food had been depleted. Pelman, no doubt, helping himself to anything that appealed. She could find no milk and none of the goat’s cheese she had been forced to leave behind. The basket she kept for fresh eggs held half a dozen. The lay from the last two days? If so, the hens were well, and she certainly didn’t grudge the eggs to Mr Gavenor, if he was the one who collected them. Not after his kindness to her.
Mr Gavenor’s hands had been so gentle when he examined, and later wrapped, her ankle. For all his size, his touch was delicate, and it had been generous of him to go out into the storm to assuage her worries.
What could be keeping him so long? The stew was evidence he intended to return. With one hand, she set a kettle of water to boil while balancing her weight on the walking stick, then stirred the stew. It smelt wonderful, but would taste even better with a couple of potatoes baked in the ashes. This year’s crop, she thought, would be rotting in the inhospitable ground, but she limped into the larder and reached to the bottom of the storage box to fetch two potatoes from the previous year’s harvest.
While she was at it, she cored two apples and filled the holes with a spoonful of honey and some black currant jam. She placed the filled apples in a small pot nestled among the embers. They would make a nice, sweet dish with dinner.
There. She should sit again. Her ankle throbbed so she could barely think, but, at least, Mr Gavenor would come home to a hot meal.
CHAPTER 6
Bear’s mood lifted as he topped the last rise in the road and saw Rose Cottage. It’s tiled roof glowed in the sun, which had dropped below the clouds as it set in the west. He’d been much longer than he’d expected, but, at least, the rain had stopped.
Mr Neatham’s reaction to the nurse had been gruelling. He’d objected to being washed and changed, fighting weakly and finishing in helpless tears. “Who are you?” he kept asking. “Why are you doing this?”
Mrs Able had been firm but kind, which made Bear feel a little better. He’d sent a good meal from the inn, enough food for both nurse and patient. He’d been tempted to stop and have some himself, but he’d put a stew on that morning, to simmer by the fire, and needed to get back. Miss Neatham was on her own, and injured.
He let himself in the front door and looked into his study. No Miss Neatham. The blanket he’d draped over her was there, but the woman was gone. For a moment, he heard Miss Pelman’s voice again, “I am surprised such an experienced man was taken in.”
