One Perfect Rose (10 page)

As they strolled toward the river, he said, “Perhaps your smile isn't exactly like a sunrise, but you do have a sunny nature.”

“Why shouldn't I when I'm both lucky and happy? I've a wonderful family, interesting work.” She grinned. “The satisfying knowledge that if it weren't for my organizational skills, the company would be in chaos.”

“You could take the facts of your life and create a tragedy,” he pointed out. “An orphan, adopted by itinerant parents who have to struggle for a living, widowed very young, forced to work in the family business, an uncertain future.”

She gave a peal of laughter. “I suppose you're right, but I prefer my version of my life. All futures are uncertain, so why cast myself as a tragedy queen? It sounds deucedly uncomfortable.”

“The older I get, the more I appreciate how great a blessing it is to be born with a happy disposition,” he said reflectively. “Just as it is a great curse to be always gloomy even when one has been lucky in life.”

“You're right—apart from life's normal problems, I've always been happy, and I can't take any credit for it. Mama says that even when I was a grubby little brat, I was always smiling.” She gave him a slanting glance. “How would you describe your native temperament? You're not the gloomy sort, are you?”

“No, but certainly trained to sobriety. A man of affairs must be responsible and reliable.” He gave a self-mocking smile. “He must also be rather boring.”

She laughed, her hand tightening on his arm. “You are never that. I'm sure you've been exercising that dry humor since you were in the nursery.”

“True. Luckily, few people recognize my subversive streak.”

She chuckled again. They'd reached the pathway that wound among the trees lining the riverbank. The shady track was a cool refuge from the afternoon sun. She inhaled deeply. “Mm-m, smell the trees and flowers and grasses. I love the lush days of late summer.”

Stephen picked up a dry fallen leaf and tossed it into the river. It spun lazily in the current as it drifted slowly downstream. “The harvest season is beginning. After the corn is gathered, autumn will come. All too soon it will be winter.”

Hearing an undertone of bleakness his voice, she said, “Then spring will come, and the world will be young again.”

He was silent for a moment. Then, his gaze on the water, he quoted softly, “‘To every thing, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die, a time to mourn, and a time to dance.'” Turning to her, he said with quiet intensity, “And now it's high summer, and time to live.”

She realized with unnerving clarity how dangerously close she was to losing her head over him. It would be so easy for something—the warmth of his smile, the honesty of his words—to push her over the precipice to emotional disaster. Luckily she was not a young girl, or she might have jumped off that cliff herself.

Yet though she could not let herself love him, she was starkly aware of the passing time. Soon he would be gone, leaving her world safer but less alive. Reckless again, she let go of his arm and took his hand in hers. It was large and warm and strong.

He threaded his fingers between hers. Then, hand in hand, they followed the path along the river. She still enjoyed the loveliness of the day, but that had become a background to her acute awareness of Stephen. It was remarkable, really, how much could be said without words.

A mile or so down the river, they reached a grassy glade where a willow tree spread strong, gentle arms. By unspoken consent they sat on a thick branch that formed a natural bench. The water flowed lazily, lapping among the reeds. Rosalind said, “It's hard to believe that this is the same river that almost drowned Brian.”

“Is it really? Here it's placid as a pond.” Stephen squeezed her hand, then released it as he said ruefully, “We've been discovered. Your father didn't only talk about me helping out until he gets a new actor. He's seen how I look at you, and knows that it isn't Jessica who needs to fear my wicked ways.”

She made a face. “I should have known he and Mama would notice. They're both fearsomely observant. But probably it was the way I looked at you, not the reverse.”

He bent forward and picked a golden rockrose, rolling the stem between his thumb and forefinger. “I had the vague, superstitious hope that as long as nothing was said aloud, we were…safe.”

She nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. “But there could be no future, so there had better not be a present. Correct?”

“Correct.” He swallowed, his throat tightening. “I wish it were otherwise.”

So did she. For a moment she considered asking him outright if he was married, but decided she'd rather not know. There were other possible reasons why there could be no future for them. Perhaps he could not afford a penniless wife, or perhaps he would not lower himself to marry a woman of unknown ancestry and low station. Or maybe what he felt for her was mostly lust, and his conscience would not permit him to seduce her.

Since none of the reasons she could imagine were comfortable, it was better to leave the subject alone. Lightly she said, “Wrong time, wrong place.”

“And the wrong man.” He turned to her, his gaze burning. “But you, Rosalind, are a perfect rose.” He tucked the golden rockrose behind her ear.

His hand hovered in midair by her head. Then, his motions jerky, as if they were against his will, he caressed her cheek. There was a faint, erotic roughness in the pads of his fingers as he brushed back a strand of her hair and skimmed the edge of her ear.

He cupped her chin. She became absolutely still, sure that a single movement would shatter her. The beat of the blood in her throat was hard against the heel of his hand, and she did not know if she was more afraid that she would surrender or that she would run away.

Desire palpable in his eyes, he said huskily, “You send all my good intentions straight to Hades, Rosalind.”

He bent for a kiss, his mouth demanding. Her eyes closed and her lips opened under his. Passion scorched through her body, sharpening her senses to preternatural acuteness. She loved his scent, a male tang that underlay the country fragrances. All around them narrow willow leaves rustled in the breeze, weaving a hypnotic song. She stroked his head, and the soft waves curled silkily around her fingers.

His breathing roughened and he drew her closer, lifting her onto his lap. She twisted so that they were pressed breast to breast. Her thigh slipped between his and she straddled his leg, finding heat and hardness and intimate closeness.

His hand cradled her left breast, and his thumb stroked her nipple through the thin muslin of her gown. She gasped as hot, spiky sensations jolted through her body. Her pelvis began rocking in an instinctive plea for greater closeness.

He groaned and his hands slid to her hips, pulling her hard against him. She felt his body throbbing, shockingly intimate. Then in one smooth movement, he lifted her from his lap and laid her on the velvety grass, coming down beside her. He kissed her throat and the sensitive hollow below as his hands caressed her everywhere. His touch was flame, and she vibrated with a longing to be consumed. It had been years, too many years, since she'd known a man's touch, and never had she felt such fierce desire.

A tug at her bodice, then cool air flowed over her breast. “So beautiful,” he whispered. His tongue touched her nipple lightly, teasing and licking, before his mouth closed around the taut flesh. She went rigid with pleasure, her breathing ragged and her hands mindlessly kneading his shoulders.

Then he caressed her thigh, his palm warm on her bare flesh, and she realized how close they were to the point of no return. Her body was on fire with wanting, but she knew with sudden terror that if they joined together, her defenses would crumble and she would be irrevocably in love with him. It would be hard enough to lose Stephen as matters were now. If they became lovers, it would tear her into pieces when he left.

As his hand slipped between her thighs, she gasped, “No. Please, no.” Yet she made no move to stop him, and knew with treacherous certainty that if he continued, she would accept him with mindless hunger.

But he stopped. After pulling her gown down again, he moved away, swearing with an intensity that was all the more scalding for the softness of his tone. He rolled onto his stomach and braced his elbows on the green turf, burying his face in his hands.

Shaking with reaction, Rosalind whispered, “I'm sorry.”

He fell silent, and she saw the iron tension in his shoulders. After a long, long moment, he looked up with a crooked smile. “It's not you I'm angry with, Lady Caliban, but myself. I'd sworn I wouldn't do anything like that. And though you might not believe it, in general my self-control is very good.”

She did believe it, and supposed she should be flattered that he was so susceptible to her. She
would
be flattered, and delighted, if there was any future for them.

But there wasn't. She sat up and ran her fingers through her hair, which had fallen about her shoulders. “Good sense is the very devil, isn't it?”

“It certainly is.” His wry smile deepened. It's the great tragedy of my life that all my devils are so blasted respectable.”

She smiled, releasing her breath in a sigh of relief as she saw the rueful warmth in his gaze. They could never be lovers, but at least they were still friends.

Still shaken by the tempest of interrupted passion, Stephen sat up and leaned against the trunk of the willow tree. Rosalind was watching him with sumptuously loosened hair and fathomless regret in her brown eyes. She looked altogether entrancing, and he wanted, more than anything in the world, to reach for her again.

Touching her would be madness, of course. He looked away and breathed slowly as he mastered his desire. It was harder to control his thoughts. He wanted to maintain their closeness by engaging her mind and spirit. He wanted to know what made her the woman she was. Discarding manners, he asked bluntly, “What was your husband like?”

“Charles?” Unoffended by the question, she slowly finger-combed her tawny hair as she considered her answer. “He was an actor. Rather like Edmund Chesterfield, actually, though more talented. Handsome, often quite charming. I was eighteen, a susceptible age, when he joined the company. Naturally I fancied myself madly in love. My parents weren't wild about the match but couldn't think of a good reason to forbid it. We were married within a year.”

She shifted to straighten her gown. The movement put her into a shaft of sunshine that filtered through the willow leaves, burnishing her hair into a halo of gold and amber and sandalwood. She did not look like a woman who was still mourning; she looked like a pagan goddess of the harvest, her bountiful curves a promise of fertility and life. Stephen swallowed, hard. “Was Jordan unkind to you?”

“Well, he never beat me, but he was a chronic womanizer. I was shocked the first time. I thought all men were like my father, who never looked at a woman other than Maria. But Charles looked, and a good deal more.” She grimaced. “At least he cured me of romantic illusions, which was no bad thing.”

Stephen imagined Rosalind as a radiant young bride. She would have given herself, body and soul, with complete generosity. And that greatest of gifts had been wasted on a selfish swine. “What a fool Jordan was, not to realize what he had.”

“Frankly, I thought that myself,” she said with tart humor. She twisted her glowing tresses into a knot at her nape and stabbed a hairpin into the middle. “However, Charles didn't think with his mind, but with…a lower portion of his anatomy.”

Stephen smiled wryly. “Men often do, I fear. How did he die?”

Her gaze went to a brilliant blue kingfisher as it dived into the water with a splash that sounded loud in the stillness. “We'd been married for three years when he was offered a contract at a theater in Dublin. He said it was a great opportunity, and went to Ireland immediately. He was supposed to send for me after he settled in, but he kept delaying. Six months later he was shot by the husband of a woman he'd seduced.”

Stephen winced. “Good Lord, how theatrical. And not decent drama, but farce.”

A smile tugged at Rosalind's lips. “Too true. I grieved for Charles, but I've never been quite able to forgive his sheer bad taste for dying in such a vulgar way.”

Their gazes met, and they both began to laugh. In the past two weeks, Stephen had carefully preserved a hundred mental images of her, but this was how he would remember her best: laughing with the rueful compassion of a woman who had seen much of the world and learned that laughter was the best antidote for life's trials.

Damning the fate that had brought them together too late, he stood and held out his hand. “Time to go home, Lady Caliban. Is there a quicker way than along the river?”

She took his hand and came lightly to her feet, a graceful goddess. “If we cut across that field, we'll come to a lane that leads directly into town.”

He tucked her arm in the crook of his elbow because it was less provocative than walking hand in hand. Not that it mattered. Every breath Rosalind drew was pure provocation.

By the time they reached the quiet lane, Rosalind had regained her self-control and they were chatting idly about the upcoming performance. Still, beneath her surface ease was sharp regret that the golden afternoon was spilling away like the sands of an hourglass. There could be no more such intimate occasions. It would be too risky.

They rounded a curve and found an open wagon halted in the lane while the driver argued with a wiry man on horseback. Rosalind frowned at the angry voices. “They sound ready to do murder. I wonder what the argument is about.”

Then a woman's cry sliced through the air, coming from the bed of the wagon.

“What the devil!” Stephen broke away from Rosalind and strode to the wagon. “Has someone been injured?”

The driver, a burly man with harsh features, shrugged. “The wench says she's in labor.” He turned and barked over his shoulder, “See that you don't whelp yet, girl. Not till I have you out of Cowley Parish.”

The man on horseback exclaimed, “I told you that you'll not bring her any farther, by God! The citizens of Whitcombe won't pay for her bastard.”

Stephen's face darkened, and he muttered an oath under his breath. Rosalind caught up with him and asked quietly, “What's happening?”

“According to the poor law, place of birth determines what parish pays to support a pauper child,” he explained grimly. “Which means that some parishes try to move a pregnant pauper girl to save the cost of supporting her and her baby.”

Another sound came from the wagon, this time a despairing whimper that broke Rosalind's heart. She looked up at the arguing men and said fiercely, “Have you no decency? While you're squabbling, that girl is suffering.”

The men broke off, and the one on horseback shifted uneasily in his saddle. “Not my fault. I'm Joseph Brown, an alderman of Whitcombe. It's sheer chance that I came along this way and discovered that Cowley Parish is trying to unload this girl on us. The Cowley vestry is notorious for sloughing off their responsibilities.” He scowled at his opponent. “Crain here is the overseer who does the dirty work.”

The overseer gave a hoarse chuckle. “And I'm bloody good at it. Soon as I pass that elm tree, the girl and her brat are yours.” He cracked his whip to start the team moving, ignoring Brown's angry protest.

Face like granite, Stephen leaped in front of the wagon and caught the bridles of both horses. When his weight had dragged the team to a halt, he ordered, “Rosalind, get in the wagon and see how the woman is doing.”

Crain bellowed, “Damn you, mind your own business! I'm taking this whore into Whitcombe Parish!” He raised his whip and slashed furiously at Stephen.

Stephen jerked his arm up to protect his face. The lash curled around his forearm with a vicious crack. Quick as a cat, he grabbed the thong with both hands and yanked the whip from Crain's grasp. The black leather sailed through the air like a furious snake.

Effortlessly Stephen reached up and caught the handle in his right hand. Then he lowered the whip and coiled it with menacing calm. “You'll shut your mouth and stay put, or you will rue the day you were born,” he told Crain in a voice that could have cut glass. “I promise it.”

Crain paled and Brown swallowed hard, clearly glad that Stephen's fury was not directed at him. Rosalind gaped at Stephen's transformation into a man of terrifying authority. It would take a brave person to disobey him.

A moan spurred her into action. She scrambled up the back wheel and into the wagon. Lying in a bed of hay was a terrified girl no more than seventeen or eighteen years old. Normally she might be pretty, but now her swollen body was writhing with pain, and her soft brown hair was plastered to her skull with sweat.

“Don't worry,” Rosalind said soothingly as she dropped into the hay by the girl and took one clenched hand. “You're not alone.”

“But…the baby's coming right now.” The girl's hazel eyes were dazed with fear, and the skirt of her shabby gray dress was soaked. “I…I'm so afraid.”

Rosalind squeezed her hand. She wanted to offer comfort, but she was alarmed by the fact that birth was clearly imminent. If there were any complications, the girl and her baby could be dead in minutes.

Stephen came to the edge of the wagon and briefly laid a hand on her shoulder as he looked inside. “Brown, bring a midwife or physician immediately.”

Responding to the commanding voice, the alderman turned his horse to obey. Then he hesitated. “Promise you won't move the wagon beyond the elm.”

“I assure you that this wagon isn't going anywhere.” Stephen turned to Crain. “Unless you know how to deliver a baby, I suggest you get yourself out of the way.”

The overseer sputtered, “That little slut can't drop her bastard in my wagon!”

“Then you shouldn't have put her in it,” Stephen retorted. “Now
move
!”

Crain opened his mouth for another protest, then wilted under the force of Stephen's gaze. The overseer scrambled from his seat and withdrew to a point where he could watch what was happening.

Stephen swung into the wagon and knelt on the other side of the girl. Rosalind gave a sigh of relief. Having him near made it seem as if everything would be all right.

“What's your name, my dear?” he said in a voice that was startlingly gentle after the way he'd dealt with the men.

“Ellie, sir.” She squinted up at him. “Ellie Warden.”

“Well, Ellie, it appears that you're going become a mother any minute. Is this your first baby?”

She nodded.

“Then you're bound to be nervous, but don't worry. Women have been having babies from the dawn of time.” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from her face. “We know what to do, so you have nothing to fear.”

Rosalind glanced up and gave a horrified shake of her head to indicate her ignorance. Stephen saw, and responded with a faint nod that told her not to worry.

Ellie's hand clamped onto Rosalind's, and she cried out again.

“The pains are very close. It won't be long now,” Stephen said calmly. He handed Rosalind his handkerchief and silently mouthed the words “Keep her attention.” Then he began gently adjusting the girl's body and clothing to prepare for the birth.

Rosalind wiped the sweaty face again. “Have you always lived in Cowley?”

“I was born in Norfolk, and my pa brought us here ten years ago,” Ellie replied, seeming grateful for the distraction. “He was a carpenter and he had a good job. Bought us a little cottage and fixed it up ever so nice, but after he died three years ago, there was no money. We've no family here, so my ma had to ask for parish relief to keep us from starving.” Another pain struck. She closed her eyes, and her hand clamped fiercely on Rosalind's, but she did not cry out.

When she could speak again, she continued, bitterness in her voice, “The vestry men said everything of value we had must be sold to pay back the parish funds. When my mother was dying, they took the feather bed from underneath her and sold it. Then when she was gone, they took the cottage away from me. And now they're throwing me and my baby away as well.”

How could men calling themselves good Christians behave so vilely? Thomas Fitzgerald, who'd never set foot in a church in Rosalind's memory, was a thousand times better a man than the vestry council. Clamping down on her anger in favor of more practical matters, Rosalind asked, “Can your child's father help you, Ellie?”

The girl's face twisted. “Danny and I were going to be married, but there were no jobs here, so he went into Wales to work at a slate quarry. He…he was killed in an accident the day before coming home to be wed.” She drew a shuddering breath. “We…we only did it once. He never knew he was going to be a father.”

“You've been unlucky, but that's over now,” Stephen said soothingly. “Soon you'll be holding your baby in your arms.”

For a moment Ellie relaxed. Then another pain convulsed her. “Jesus help me, I'm dying!”

“No, you aren't,” Stephen said firmly. “This may hurt like the devil, but that's normal. You're doing very well. The baby's coming quickly now, and everything will be all right. I promise it.”

The next painful minutes blurred together for Rosalind. She held Ellie's hand and made encouraging remarks. Her gaze avoided Stephen and the progress of the birth. Though she'd treated fevers and bruises in the troupe, that was very different from midwifery, and she didn't want to risk fainting or anything equally foolish.

Ellie gave a last wrenching cry. Then silence, until a thin, indignant wail sliced the air. Stephen said triumphantly, “Well done, Ellie! You have a handsome little boy.”

Rosalind glanced up and saw that Stephen was cradling a red-faced, kicking infant. The baby looked small in his large hands. He used handfuls of hay to carefully wipe the tiny body clean. By the time he'd finished that task and cut the cord, the afterbirth had been delivered. He said with a smile, “You did a swift, efficient job, Ellie. You obviously have a talent for making babies.”

Ellie gave a crooked smile and reached out. “I want to hold him.”

Stephen laid the infant in his mother's arms. He stopped crying immediately. Wonder spread over the girl's face. “He is beautiful, isn't he?”

“He is indeed,” Rosalind said warmly. Surreptitiously she flexed her numb right hand, trying to restore sensation after the effect of Ellie's paralyzing grip.

Travelers were approaching. She looked up and saw a small, sturdy woman driving a pony cart at a fast clip with Mr. Brown trotting behind. The woman halted her cart by the wagon. “Are you the girl…? Ah, I see you are.”

She leaned forward for a closer look. “And what a fine healthy boy you have there! I'm Mrs. Holt, the midwife. Didn't want to wait, did you, my dear?” She gave a deep chuckle. “But I wager you'll want some help learning how to care for him. I'll take you both to my house. You can stay until you're stronger.”

Stephen climbed from the wagon and said quietly, “I'll take care of her expenses, Mrs. Holt. See that the girl gets some new clothing for herself and the child.”