The Headmistress of Rosemere (Whispers on the Moors)

by Sarah E. Ladd

  She quickly rebuked herself. She needed to focus on maintaining order in the school to which she had dedicated her life, not spin childish fantasies about a man who was not even aware of her existence.

  At least that is what she attempted to convince herself of.

  At the top of the stairs, Patience paused. The hallway, which in her youth seemed endless, was only a narrow corridor with rooms off of both sides and a sitting area at the end with a wide bay window overlooking the courtyard and stable. No matter how softly she stepped, the old floor creaked and groaned under her weight. Not wishing to wake her mother, she tiptoed down the corridor, paused at the door to her mother’s room, then went across the hall to her own.

  Once in her bedchamber, Patience placed the candle on the narrow writing desk and sat down. Her body screamed for the rest and warmth afforded by her bed, but her mind raced with her thoughts. She took up a quill and spread a fresh piece of paper before her. Surely with news of a predawn visitor and violence on the moors, Rawdon would return. Since his sudden departure six months ago, she had received but two letters: one announcing that he had arrived in London and another saying that he had been detained. He claimed he was needed in London to settle their father’s business interests following his death. There had been no further explanations. At first she had expected his return daily. But now she didn’t know when he would return. If he would return.

  Patience loved the school—and her young charges within its walls. It had been her home since the day she was born. But the heavy weight of seeing to all the details alone wore on her. She set her lips, angry that her brother had abandoned her. She dipped her quill in ink and pressed the tip to the paper.

  She would tell him just that.

  3

  William winced as he drew each breath. But at least the relentless cold somewhat numbed his pain and called his attention away from the throbbing on his face and the aching in his ribs.

  The black branches and restless fog seemed in constant movement around him, blurring in and out of focus. Even Angus seemed to sense his master’s weary state, for his gait was unusually slow. Every one of the beast’s footfalls racked William’s frame.

  Rosemere was just more than a mile from Eastmore Hall. The ride should be an easy one, for dawn’s light was making everything familiar.

  Snow started to fall yet again, gently and dreamlike at first, with fluffy white flakes floating down in the morning’s budding light. The spicy scent of cold and ice surrounded him, and the frosty grass crunched beneath Angus’s hooves. But even though the worst of the storm had passed, the winds, angry and wild, continued to make their presence known. He dared not wish for calmer weather, for despite the bitter bite, the discomfort fit his crime. Did he not bring this—the beating and all associated with it—upon himself?

  He could almost hear his father’s voice in the silent morning.

  A fool and his money, be soon at debate, which after with sorrow, repents him too late.

  When had he become the fool his father warned him about? The sheer magnitude of his loss made him feel sick, lost.

  Gambling. Thousands of pounds gone, and by his own deed. Once the wealthiest man for miles, now beaten as a warning to pay a debt he could not pay. And he could blame no one else.

  It was his fault. His own reckless fault.

  He pulled Angus to a halt as he again crested Wainslow Peak. Before him, veiled in the pale light of morning, stretched Sterling land. At its center stood Eastmore Hall, a majestic stone testament to his family’s steadfast spirit. How arduously his father had tried to instill in him a keen business sense. A sharp eye for numbers. An ambitious spirit. But those traits had seemed to pass on to his younger brother, Graham, not to him. How many times had his father rebuked William’s impulsive nature, his tendency for mischief?

  His father had invested all in husbandry, stating repeatedly that it was what Eastmore must invest in if it were to remain in this part of England. But William had never been interested in sheep. Or farming. He’d been interested in naught but horses. The faster the animal, the stronger the beast, the more they fascinated him.

  As a young man with coins in his pocket and an eye for misguided adventure, he and his chums rarely lacked for exploits. But his actions had been foolish—youthful escapades. His pattern had not turned self-destructive until his heart paid the price for his folly.

  Isabelle.

  He’d given his heart to her, and she’d matched him with her restlessness, her wildness of spirit. But it was her betrayal, her sudden disappearance, that broke his soul and hurled him down the path to his ruin. How he had tried to bury the pain under any diversion. He’d gambled on one too many horses—and lost. The money he owed might as well be a king’s ransom.

  Regret pressed upon him, aching far more than the wounds marring his face and his body. In the depth of his self-loathing but two choices remained: He could turn his back on his inheritance, sell Eastmore Hall and the land associated with it, pay his debt, and lead a poor but free life. Or he could try for luck one last time. That option beamed brighter, called louder. He was a gambling man, was he not? One not easily intimidated by loss or ruin. The higher the stakes, the higher his interest and the more he invested. He would right past wrongs and restore Eastmore Hall to its former glory, or he would accept his demise. He needed time. Three months. Until Captain Rafertee returned.

  And a little bit of good fortune would hurt none.

  The morning dawned gray and contrary. A quick glance through the latticed panes of Patience’s bedchamber window confirmed that a generous dusting of snow covered the grounds of Rosemere, and by the look of the low-hanging clouds and wispy fog, more might be looming.

  Within the school’s stone walls, the sleeping house was springing to life. An hour or so had passed since their early-morning visitor’s departure. The scents of strong coffee, hot chocolate, and baking bread filled the corridors, and the excited chatter of girls going about their morning routines resounded.

  If she pressed her eyes shut, Patience could imagine that things were as they had always been, back when her father was living. But try as she might, the simple act of closing her eyes and pretending did not change the fact that her father was gone.

  Or that her mother could not cope with the loss of him.

  Or that her brother had deserted them when she needed his help the most.

  As Mary helped her dress in a somber gray mourning gown, similar to the ones she had worn every day since her father died, Patience contemplated the mysterious visit from Mr. William Sterling. The tales she had heard of him, passed on in hushed tones in the village, rang rich with mystery and extravagance. But the man who’d lain in George’s bed that morning was hardly the man embodied in those stories. He’d seemed rough. Harsh.

  Maybe even dangerous.

  And yet . . . intriguing.

  The memory of that bold expression in his ice-blue eyes refused to leave her alone. Perhaps it was the lure of things unknown. Of things beyond the walls of Rosemere. Of a world—a life—she would never know or understand. Or simply the thrill of possible romance.

  Patience looked out the window and glanced down at the snow drifts that hugged the skeletons of rose bushes and shrubs. Had he made it home to Eastmore? Had he but stayed at Rosemere as she’d prompted, he’d be safe and warm. But then she’d likely have had another predicament, for how would she keep even one of her twenty-nine charges from discovering his presence?

  She determined to think of it no more. What was done was done, and as soon as she stepped down those stairs, she would not have a moment of solitude until night once again fell on the moors.

  She would have it no other way.

  Patience sent Mary on her way to finish preparing breakfast for the girls, fastened her father’s pocket watch on a chain about her neck, and tucked a stray ebony lock of hair beneath her ivory comb before stepping into the corridor. After securing her door, she stepped across the way to her mother’s. Sh
e hesitated before placing her hand on the door’s brass handle. Truth be told, she would need more energy to face her mother than she needed for all the pupils waiting below.

  Every morning was the same. She’d greet her mother with all the enthusiasm she could muster, but she never knew what to expect. Some days were better than others, and Patience allowed herself on those days to hope that perhaps her mother’s zest for life was returning. But then there were the other days, when grieving tears robbed her mother of speech, and she could barely rise from her bed.

  Patience forced a smile to her face, brightness to her eyes, and tapped on the door. “Mother?”

  She waited. No response came.

  “Mother, are you awake?”

  Still silence.

  Patience turned the handle and stepped inside Margaret Creighton’s dark room. Light filtered through the drawn curtains, barely bright enough to illuminate her mother’s figure still abed.

  Patience sighed. ’Twould be one of those days.

  With determined steps, she went to the window and pulled back the brocade fabric in one sweep. Silver brightness reached to the corners of the chamber, reviving the space and soliciting protests from her mother.

  “Patience! What are you doing? Close those coverings at once.”

  “It’s time to rise. We’ve much to do today.”

  “I am not well.” Her thin voice was muffled beneath the pile of quilts and coverlets. “Let me be.”

  Patience ignored her mother’s tone, refusing to allow her to continue on in such a fashion. “Mother, you must.” With a quick scan of the room, she noted she was not the first to try to wake her. It had been Mary, no doubt, who had left a tray of tea on the writing desk, the steam still curling from the tiny pot. She poured her mother a cup and took it to her. “Drink this.”

  With a tsk, her mother pushed her hand away. “Do you not hear me? I am unwell.”

  Patience swallowed the resentment swelling within her—the response had become their daily ritual. “You must at least try to get up.”

  “Why?” Her mother sat up in a huff, her graying hair hanging limply about her face from beneath her sleeping cap. “Why should I?”

  Patience returned the rejected tea to the tray and moved to the wardrobe. She was so weary of the same conversation day after day. “I will give you twenty-nine sound reasons why you must get up, and they are all downstairs, waiting to learn.” Patience pulled a black muslin mourning dress and stays from the wardrobe and held them in front of her.

  Her mother only huffed. “That was your father’s vision, not mine.”

  “Well then, that leaves us with one option, does it not?” Patience slipped the dress over her arm and returned to the bed. “We should close the school. But seeing that you and I have nowhere else to go, and we rely on the school’s income to live on month after month, we would have no choice but to move to the poor house.”

  “How can you be so unfeeling?” Tears filled her mother’s eyes, and Patience immediately regretted her bluntness. But how long could she continue to allow her mother to stay in bed, swathed in her misery, refusing to live her life?

  Patience sat next to her mother on the bed, set the gown and stays aside, and took her mother’s hand in hers. “No words could describe how much I miss Father. But he would want us to move forward and continue the work he started. It would break his heart to see you in such despair. Please, you must try.”

  Patience reached for a linen handkerchief on the small rosewood table next to the bed. “You need to get out of bed. Let’s go downstairs for breakfast today. Louisa has been struggling with her French. Perhaps you could spend time with her. It might brighten your spirits.”

  “I do wish Rawdon would return. What could possibly be keeping him from us?”

  Patience drew a sharp breath and demonstrated control over every muscle in her face to keep from showing her frustration. Rawdon. Always Rawdon.

  Her mother’s refusal to accept that her brother had abandoned them offended Patience. How could her mother not see what he had done? And yet, day after day, she spoke of him as if his return were imminent.

  Patience, too, had anticipated his return—initially. But it had become clear that he had no such plans. This meant the responsibilities of running the school fell to her. How she wanted to remind her mother of this detail. The memory of Rawdon’s departure was enough to ignite Patience’s own temper.

  But Patience kept her opinion of Rawdon to herself—her mother would never hear it. “Rawdon has been gone for six months. We have heard from him only twice. I think you should prepare yourself for the fact that—”

  “Don’t you dare!” Her mother’s voice shook with sudden intensity. The older woman’s pale eyes narrowed and filled with tears. “He will soon return and set all to right. You shall see.”

  He will set all to right? Patience bit back a retort. No matter how hard she had worked these many months to keep the school running efficiently, her effort, ignored by her mother, seemed little more than a whisper on the wind.

  4

  Feeling exhausted even before the day was truly under way, Patience carefully closed her mother’s door and let the brass handle slip from her fingers. She sighed. She would give anything to have her mother back, the mother she remembered. The mother who was full of life, full of overflowing love. Margaret Creighton was but a shell of the woman who occupied so many of Patience’s fondest memories.

  Lost in her own torrent of thoughts, Patience was startled when Cassandra Baden, fellow teacher and dear friend, turned the corner from the servants’ stairs.

  “Patience!” exclaimed Cassandra, face flushed, brown eyes wide. “You must tell me quickly, and you must tell me every detail. What happened this morning? I heard a man’s voice, I heard Mary fussing, and I thought—”

  Alarmed that someone else knew of their surprise visitor and petrified that her mother would hear, Patience grabbed Cassandra’s hand and pulled her to a cushioned bench in the sitting area at the corridor’s end. “Shh!”

  “But what happened? I do not under—”

  With a wave of her hand, Patience silenced Cassandra, and then, once certain they were alone, she leaned close. “Was he loud? Do you think the girls heard?”

  Scrunching her face in thought, Cassandra shook her head. “I do not think so. Who was he?”

  Patience chewed her lip. “It . . . it was Mr. Sterling.”

  Cassandra frowned. “Mr. William Sterling? Here?”

  Patience paused to consider her words—and how much she would reveal of her suspicion about what had really happened. “Apparently he was out riding and had an accident and took shelter in our stable. George found him while tending to his morning duties.”

  “Was he injured?”

  Patience unwillingly recalled the man’s blood-stained lips, swollen eye, and gashed forehead. And as much as she tried to deny it, she remembered the feel of strong muscle beneath his woven shirt when she tried to force him to be still. “He had cuts and bruises, was unconscious for a time, but as soon as he regained his senses, he left.”

  Patience could interpret the expressions shadowing her friend’s face without her friend uttering a sound. Time had made them closer than sisters. “I know what you are thinking. It wasn’t the least bit romantic, Cassandra Baden.” Patience spoke the words to convince Cassandra as well as herself. “He was abrupt, almost rude. And he reeked of spirits.”

  Cassandra’s smile vanished, as if she’d just gotten caught up with her childish romantic fantasies.

  Patience sat up straighter. “You know how such men are. He will no doubt send his steward out to collect our rent at the end of the month as always, and we shall not hear from him again.”

  “I suppose you are right,” Cassandra said, glancing at the door to Mrs. Creighton’s bedchamber. “I take it you did not tell your mother?”

  Patience shook her head. “No, and I think we should not speak of it. Such stories will only lead to rumors
and tall tales, neither of which we need. George, Mary, and Charlie are the only ones who saw him. At least I think they are the only ones.”

  “And Mr. Rawdon Creighton? Will you inform him of the visit?”

  Patience stiffened, hearing her brother’s name for the second time that morning. She knew of Cassandra’s relationship with her brother. In fact, Rawdon had confided in Patience his plans to propose marriage to her pretty friend. But days after he made that bold statement, their father died. And on the dreary August morning after the funeral, a somber Rawdon departed for London, declaring that he needed to settle business for their father.

  He never returned.

  Patience believed he had betrayed them both, and yet Cassandra continued to defend him, very much like his own mother.

  Patience fixed her eyes on the floor’s broad wooden planks. Their father, whether she liked it or not, had named Rawdon, not her, as the one who was to care for the school. “I wrote to him and explained the situation this morning. George will post it today.”

  “Surely after such news he will return to Darbury.” Wistful hopefulness haunted her friend’s tone, who then said, with forced gaiety, “But the next time there is such a happening, I expect you to come get me. I am starved for excitement.” She stood and reached to pull Patience to her feet. “Have you had breakfast?”

  Patience looked at her mother’s door—again. In the past, the Creighton family ate breakfast in the privacy of their family dining room instead of the dining hall with the staff and students. It had been part of their effort to maintain life as a normal family unit—as normal a family life as could be had in a house shared with dozens of students and a full teaching staff. But with her father dead, her brother out of town, and her mother indisposed, it seemed silly to take breakfast alone. “No.”

  “Then come and eat with the teachers in the dining hall.”

  Patience didn’t protest as her friend nudged her along the narrow corridor and down the stairs. With each step toward the dining hall, the comforting sounds and scents of morning intensified. She took a deep breath, appreciating the scent of jams and rolls, coffee and tea.