“I’m sending them, Rosa,” he said firmly. “You have enough to do with your father to care for, and I won’t have you making yourself sick.”
She still frowned, but she nodded. “You have made up your mind, and I must obey,” she groused.
Not a good loser, his Rosa. Bear suppressed a smile and said peaceably, “In this, I will have my way. On other occasions, it will be your turn.”
Rosa gave a sheepish smile. “I am being silly, am I not? Very well, Hugh. Send your servants. I suppose I will have to get used again to being always under someone’s eye.”
How quiet a life she must have led, Bear reflected as he and Jeffreys drove away toward the village. She’d been without servants, caring for her father on her own, for the six years since Lord Hurley died. As far as he could tell, she had little to do with the neighbors. For six years, it had been only her and her father, and he absent in his own mind. No wonder she was so self-contained.
He would be changing all of that. He hoped she would find it a change for the better.
***
In the village, Bear sent Jeffreys to secure rooms at the inn and to see to the horses while he visited the Rectory.
“Mr. Gavenor,” the rector said when he was announced, “you are speedy about your business, sir.”
“To some effect, I am pleased to say.” Bear took the offered seat. “Miss Neatham has done me the honor of consenting to be my bride. We would like the banns called, Dr. Whitlow.”
“Immediately? Starting at tomorrow’s service? Certainly, Mr. Gavenor. May I say how pleased I am? I wish you both very happy.”
“Yes, immediately, and with the wedding as soon as possible.” It would be at least two weeks; a time that stretched before Bear like eons. Not that he didn’t have plenty to do, he reminded himself.
“On Sunday after Matins, then, two weeks from tomorrow.” Dr. Whitlow rewarded Bear with a benign smile. “Congratulations, Mr. Gavenor. I shall call on you and Miss Neatham to discuss the obligations of marriage, as is my duty, and to arrange the details of the service.”
“If we set a time, I shall let Miss Neatham know and arrange to be there myself. I have moved into the village until after the wedding.”
The rector inclined his head and nodded slightly. “A good idea. That, and the wedding, should serve to still some of the tongues. I regret to say that Sir Gerard and his lady wife are set in their convictions, and Miss Pelman stands with them. Mr. Pelman said all that was proper, but I feel no conviction as to his sincerity.”
“Mr. Pelman is a snake,” Bear grumbled. “Dr. Whitlow, I have another mission today. I intend to hire some help for my betrothed, who has been managing all the work at Rose Cottage, including looking after her father. I would like at least two maids to live in. I want a cook, too, and a handyman to do repairs and other jobs, and perhaps a little bit of gardening. The handyman would be a casual hire, coming when my betrothed needs him.” A bit of mending, a bit of gardening. The handyman would definitely not be living in; not, at least, until he and Rosa were married. The busy tongues of her enemies needed no more ammunition.
“Hmmm. The two middle Hesketh sisters might be interested. Some extra money in that household would be helpful. With the harvest so poor…perhaps the Colley son? A cook, you say? That might be a little more difficult.”
Bear had intended to offer Rosa a choice, but perhaps it was better to depend on local expertise. “How should I proceed, rector? I had thought of putting word out in the village and setting a time for interviews. I also need local labor for the work on Thorne Hall. I have a skilled team coming across from Liverpool, so the men here don’t need to be experienced, but they do need to be willing and strong.”
The rector considered that, his hands steepled under his chin, his fingers tapping his lips. “Write me a list, Mr. Gavenor. The position, the quality and skills needed. The servants for Miss Neatham are urgent, I take it? When will you need the work crew?”
“I would prefer Miss Neatham not to be alone with the full care of her father. If we could find her at least one maid, as soon as possible, I would be easier in my mind.”
The rector nodded. “Then, I suggest we visit the Heskeths. If you are satisfied, and they are willing, you will have met the immediate need. And the work crew?”
“My foreman will select and hire the men. I expect him any time in the next week. We will be taking men on for casual hire through the next six months, I imagine. Perhaps nine.”
The rector looked pleased at that, and well he might. Bear would be providing wages for the rest of the dismal summer and well into winter, perhaps even spring. “When would you be free to visit the Heskeths, sir?” Bear asked.
“No time like the present.” The rector stood. “They live just a five-minute walk away, on a small holding near the river, and I imagine we will find them at home, in this rain. Will you excuse me while I find a hat and an umbrella, sir?”
The Heskeths, so the rector explained as they walked, had farmed here since time immemorial, owning enough land to make them prosperous in good years, though seasons like this stretched their resources.
“Two fewer mouths to feed, and the girls’ wages, will help,” Bear commented.
“Yes, and old Mr. Hesketh lives with them yet, and is in his second childhood, so they are accustomed to the elderly.”
At the farmhouse, a rambling place that looked as if successive owners had added on since before the Norman Conquest, they were ushered into a tiny but pristine parlor, where the rector presented Bear’s request to Mrs. Hesketh, a comfortably cushioned lady perhaps a decade older than Bear. She frowned, her fair brows drawing together over her nose.
“Mind, I don’t hold with the gossip. I never saw Miss Rosa up to anything a lady shouldn’t, nor her mother before her. My own mother worked at Thorne Hall before she wed, and my sister more recently.” She examined Bear carefully, peering at him as if weighing the risk of her next words. “I do not wish to offend, sir, but I’ll not have my girls going into a house of sin, Mr. Gavenor, and the whole world knows that you and Miss Rosa have been living there together.”
Before Bear could respond, the rector spoke up, “Now Mrs. Hesketh, Mr. Neatham and Mr. Gavenor’s manservant have both been there all through, and Mr. Gavenor assures me he has been merely boarding at the cottage to be close to Thorne Hall. Nothing untoward has happened. Not, at least, at Rose Cottage, though I am disappointed in the spiteful tongues of some in the village. Mr. Gavenor has now moved into the village to await his wedding to Miss Neatham.”
Bear thought it time to take a hand. “My betrothed had a fall several weeks ago, Mrs. Hesketh, and I worry for her alone in the cottage with her frail, elderly father to care for. The rector here told me what people were saying, and I hoped to save Miss Neatham from further embarrassment. If you could see your way to permitting your girls to offer their help, I would be very grateful.”
At that point, the door to the parlor opened, and three young women, each a younger copy of their mother, carried in refreshments: a tea pot, plates of scones, a tray with cups, milk and sugar.
“These are three of my daughters, Mr. Gavenor,” Mrs. Hesketh said. “Polly, Maggie and Sukie. Polly is to be wed in a few weeks, so I’d be sending Maggie and Sukie. If Mr. Hesketh agrees. If they are willing to go.”
The daughters looked their questions but busied themselves laying out the tea makings.
Mrs. Hesketh said, “Mr. Gavenor is marrying Miss Rosa and wants maids for Rose Cottage. Just for a few months, mind. If your Da agrees, I’ve a mind to let you go.”
After a scone and a cup of tea, Bear and the rector walked back to the village, leaving the two excited girls packing. “They seem very confident that Hesketh will give his permission,” Bear said.
The rector laughed. “Mrs. Hesketh’s is the approval that counts in that household. But she maintains the fiction that Hesketh is the final authority. You have your two maids, Mr. Gavenor. And I have just had a thought�
�if you are not looking for fancy cooking, I may have someone…”
“Excellent,” Bear told him. “Plain English cooking will suit me fine.” Will it suit Rosa? he wondered, then dismissed the thought. She could hire a fancy French chef when they were closer to civilization, if that was what she wanted. Which, for some reason, reminded him of something else he wanted.
“Dr. Whitlow, where can I buy a bed large enough for a man of my size?”
Chapter Sixteen
As her betrothed assisted her into his chaise on Sunday morning, Rosa was conscious of two conflicting emotions. One was relief that she could leave the house for long enough to attend the church service, since the new maids had shown themselves both willing and able to look after her father in her absence. The other was trepidation. She and Bear would be the center of attention once the banns were read for the first time. The Pelmans and the Thrextons would find something to censure, made up or real, and they had their supporters in the village.
I would feel more confident if I had something suitable to wear, she thought.
Bear had dressed for the occasion in pale breeches and stockings, a dark blue coat over an embroidered waistcoat with a creamy froth of lace at neck and cuff. He didn’t favor the excesses they showed in the fashion magazines she sometimes saw at the village shop, but the materials were of the best quality and beautifully cut to fit his frame.
Rosa’s Sunday-best gown had had more than six years of use, new clothes being a luxury the Neathams could not afford after the new Lord Hurley stopped the pension the former Lord Hurley had once paid. She had tried to keep it from dirt and harm, but six years was more than 300 Sundays, even allowing for those when she could not find anyone to sit with her father and had to miss services.
Turning the back panel to move the shiny spot, carefully mending tears, and cutting off the cuffs to replace them with a band taken from another gown could not disguise the fact that her Sunday-best would be a Monday washday gown for almost any other woman in the parish.
Next to Bear, she looked like a pauper, which was not far from the truth.
The mile to the village passed quickly, with just enough time for Bear to ask after her father, and tell her about his success in finding a gardener and to name the cook who would be coming on Wednesday. She had met the woman. Mrs. Gillywether came from a local family but had married a farmer over in Lancashire. She had only recently moved back to live with her brother.
“You have the final say, Rosa,” Bear assured her.
Jeffreys waited at the church gate to take the horses, and Bear handed Rosa down with as much reverence as if she were a duchess. As Rosa expected, people stared, but the bells proclaimed that Matins was about to begin, so she did not have to talk to anyone. Bear offered his arm and escorted her up the path and down the aisle. Straight back, Rosa. Smile and nod to those who smile and nod at you. Keep walking. Pretend you are wearing silk.
Usually, she slipped into the back, standing with the villagers. Today, Bear took her straight to the box pews at the front, to the Thorne Hall box that she used to sit in before Lord Hurley died. Back straight, Rosa. You have every right to be here.
From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the squire’s mother glaring at her. “Why does Lady Threxton hate us?” she had asked her mother, long ago when she was a child. “She is still cross because she thinks your aunt took something that was hers,” Mama answered, which left the child Rosa not much wiser, and questions to Father or Lord Hurley were ignored or shushed. The breach between Thorne Hall and Threxton Grange just existed, with no explanation or remission.
The psalm singers led the opening hymn, and the rector began the service.
The stir when she entered the church on Bear’s arm was nothing to the hum that ran around the church when the rector proclaimed from the pulpit, “I publish the banns of marriage between Hugh Richard Gavenor and Rosabel Marianne Neatham, both of this parish. This is the first time of asking. If any of you know of any cause or just impediment why these two should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it.”
The dowager Lady Threxton half rose, but her son the squire, whispering urgently, persuaded her to sit again. Bear surveyed those who were whispering, his chin high, a small smile playing about the corners of his mouth. He gave a light, encouraging squeeze to Rosa’s hand, and she smiled back. If he could pretend to be proud of a scarecrow like her, the least she could do was support him.
The gauntlet of comments and stares Rosa had expected to run on her way back to the chaise was not as bad as she’d expected. Several villagers presented their congratulations to Bear and their best wishes to her, slowing the couple’s exit. By the time they reached the porch, where the rector waited to greet them while much of the parish watched, the Pelmans and Thrextons had left the church and the churchyard.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Bear asked as they drove away from the village. “You were so tense when we arrived, I felt I was leading you to your execution.” His grin suggested that he thought his remark funny.
“I thought Lady Threxton was going to object to the banns,” Rosa said.
She fell silent as Bear negotiated the slope down to the temporary bridge and up the other side. Back when they could afford a gig and horse, Father used to insist that she let him concentrate at such moments. Bear apparently had no such qualms, since he said, “Just as well her son stopped her from embarrassing herself in public.”
“And us,” Rosa pointed out.
He shot her a smile, even as the horses turned the sharp corner to climb back up to the road. “They can only embarrass us if we let them, Rosa. Your cousins are clinging to ancient history, when most of the main actors in that drama are dead. Pelham has taken advantage of that for his own purposes, but is heading for a fall if he thinks to continue.”
“My cousins?” Rosa asked. “I don’t have family apart from Father. An aunt, but she died long ago.”
“You don’t know?” Bear pulled the chaise to the side of the road and gave Rosa his full attention. “Rosa, the rector told me that your mother and Lady Threxton are cousins.”
Rosa found that hard to believe. “That cannot be so. Surely… We have been at odds all my life, Hugh. Families do not behave like that, do they?”
Bear’s eyes turned bleak. “Family members make the bitterest of enemies, Rosa. I shall tell you the story as it was told to me. You deserve to know what is behind Lady Threxton’s behavior.”
Chapter Seventeen
As Bear drove away from the cottage later that day, he berated himself for being every kind of idiot.
Today, he had failed Rosa not once, but several times. First, he should have realized she had nothing fit to wear to church. He’d seen the much-mended and faded gowns she wore every day, and knew she’d had little to no income for years. He’d not had time to repair the matter, since it wasn’t until she paled and stiffened at the church gate that he’d even thought about her gown.
What courage she had. Head up, back straight, she’d marched into church beside him as proud as a duchess in silken splendor, and if her hand trembled on his arm, not a soul but him would ever know.
Second, he had not thought about the reaction of the villagers when they heard the banns. Not until the rector started speaking and the whole church went silent. Then came the buzz of whispers, and Lady Threxton standing. They brushed through it, thanks to the squire’s intervention and the rector’s support, but Bear could have bypassed the risk by simply not taking her to Matins today.
She’d impressed him again after the service, accepting good wishes with a smile and word of thanks, and ignoring those who glowered from a distance.
Third, he’d mentioned her relationship with the squire’s family, and followed up by telling her the full story. Of course, she went straight to her father when they arrived at Rose Cottage and demanded to know whether the tale was true.
At first, he had been bewildered by the question, then he took one of
his erratic dives into the past, and began berating Rosa, calling her Belle.
“All you thought of was yourself, Belle. You knew better than to sneak off with a gentleman, and no true gentleman would have asked it of you. Especially since Pelman was all but betrothed to your cousin. Look where your selfishness led. You, disgraced and abandoned. Your uncle sick from the horror of it all, and your cousin so bitter against you that she has had Rosie thrown out of her home. The best thing you can do for any of us is go back to London and leave us alone.”
After that, he would only say, “Go away,” until Rosa gave up.
His outbreak seemed to confirm the rector’s story but raised more questions. How did Pelman get into the story? Not the current Pelman, clearly, since he would have been a small child or not even born at the time of the scandal. Which sister gave birth to the baby?
“Ancient history,” Rosa said, her eyes damp but her lips smiling.
Not ancient as long as it had power to affect Rosa. Bear was two weeks away from vowing to love and cherish her all his life, and he was doing a poor job of it so far.
He could fix the wardrobe; had already invited her to take a day trip to Liverpool with him on the first fine day so they could buy what she needed without the villagers commenting. He couldn’t help but wonder about Lord Hurley’s will. Did the old man truly make no provision for his librarian and the librarian’s daughter? By all accounts, Mr. Neatham had been given a pension when he retired, and Rosa had been Lord Hurley’s pet, whatever the propriety of the relationship. The matter needed further investigation.
As for Rosa and her cousins, he had no idea how to fix that old breach. Rosa’s naive belief that families did not feud across generations brought a grim smile. She’d never met his mother, who had despised him from birth and hated him from the day her husband and daughter died on an outing that was meant to be his. A special treat just for the two men of the household, his father had said. Bear, at eight years old, had been so proud and so excited. Until his sister Felicia spoiled her copybook and claimed that Bear had done it, so his father took Felicia instead.
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