Page 56 of Rose and the Rogue
Well, patience was difficult, but she did her best.
Meanwhile, Poppy was reading to herself, grumbling over the latest selection. “Ugh, the early versions of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ are horrible! She’s in the castle and this prince comes, but he doesn’t rescue her, he just beds her—while she’s sleeping!—and he gets her with child and she only wakes up after giving birth and her babies cry so much she can’t sleep anymore…which is probably the most realistic part of the tale.”
“Does a different prince rescue her?” Rose asked, only half listening, lost in reminiscing.
“No, the same one comes back and takes her home, but his mother is an ogre. Not as a euphemism. She’s a literal ogre and she eats the babies.”
“You’re making things up, I’ve never heard that in ‘Sleeping Beauty’!”
Poppy slapped closed the cover of the book she was holding. “I’m reading the original version, which is in French. They didn’t make that version for the nursery.”
Alice came out to the garden. “Excuse me. Letter for Miss Rose.”
Poppy took it and said, “It’s from Heather.”
Rose hid her disappointment, hoping for word from Adrian. “She wrote us only a couple days ago, and Heather’s not the most diligent correspondent. What’s she say?”
Poppy read aloud:
Dear Rose,
It is imperative that we meet in person, for I have news that I dare not put to paper, and it cannot wait. Thanks to some business on Uncle’s part, I shall be in London on Thursday. I’ll call on you as soon as I am able. Will you stay home to meet me?
Heather
“It is Thursday!” Poppy said then. “Heather must have written just before she got in the coach.”
Rose took a breath, disturbed at Heather’s tone, so different from her usual breeziness. “What dire thing can have happened?” she asked Poppy. Rose remembered Heather’s antics from their schooldays. She was bold and fearless from the first, so whatever occurred must be terrible indeed. “I wonder if she needs our help?”
“I can’t imagine,” said Poppy. “This is very odd. Well, we were supposed to call on Lady Sara and a few others, but I suppose it can be put off. Perhaps it’s good that Aunt Gertrude is at her church function all day.”
“Indeed,” Rose said. Her mother was a good person, but not exactly a beacon of calm in a storm.
“It’s only addressed to you,” Poppy mused. “I wonder why.”
“She must have been in a state when she wrote it,” Rose guessed. “She knows you are the one who reads me my letters anyway.”
The girls waited anxiously as the hours ticked by. A few callers came, but not Heather. Then at four o’clock, Alice breathlessly announced Heather had arrived.
“For pity’s sake, send her out here!” Rose ordered.
Heather came out onto the terrace and moved to greet them both. “I have only a short time, as we’ve got to return home later today. Uncle Fitz’s been insistent that we not stay in London a moment longer than necessary.”
“How are you getting on with him?” Rose asked, knowing that Heather had clashed with him in the past few months.
“Oh, it’s up and down, depending on how much he’s been drinking. Some days I hate him, and other days I remember that he’s Papa’s brother and he’s doing his best, or at least what he thinks is the best.”
Then Heather embracing them tightly, first Poppy, and then Rose, who she held longer.
“Oh, my dear,” Heather breathed. “I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry!” Rose told her. “Of course we want to hear what has happened to you. We’ll do anything we can to help, of course.”
Heather pulled away, startled. “Happened to me? Oh, sweethearts, no! It’s what’s happening to you, Rose.”
“What?”
“You’d better tell us everything,” Poppy added in a low voice. “Let’s sit. I have a hunch we’ll need to when we hear.”
