Rose (20 page)

A glimmer of understanding pierced the fog. George saw some of the same faults in himself he had seen in his father. He was afraid he would make the same mistakes.

“You’re not the least bit like your father,” Rose assured him. “You may not always want to take responsibility—no one likes it all the time—but you accept it because you love your brothers.”

“But—”

“You know no one else can do what you’re doing. If you join the army, you won’t leave until they can take care of themselves.”

“Pa left us,” George muttered.

“You could have stayed away after the war, but you didn’t. You could have gotten fed up with Monty or Jeff and left, but you didn’t.”

George didn’t look convinced.

Rose decided it was time to get to the core of the problem. If George wasn’t willing to mention it, then she would.

“If you’re trying to tell me you made a mistake in marrying me—”

The transformation was instantaneous. There was nothing confused or apologetic about the George who sat before her now.

“I never said anything about not wanting to marry you. I didn’t, did I?”

“No, but I thought you meant—”

“I wanted to marry you more than I ever thought possible. But everything ought to be perfect for you. You ought to have a husband who loves you more than life, who’s worthy of the love you have to give, who wants the same things you want, who won’t destroy everything he touches.”

“There’s nothing destructive in you.”

“Yes, there is. The most deadly of all.”

“What?”

“My blood.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s bad blood in my family. It’s in all of us.”

If she hadn’t known he was deadly serious, she would have thought the alcohol had completely clouded his brain. A knock sounded at the door. Salty came with a pot of steaming coffee and two mugs.

“I thought you might want some.”

Rose shook her head. She waited impatiently for Salty to pour the coffee. She was anxious for George to sober up so she could understand what he was talking about.

Even though he hated coffee, George swallowed it down. It was probably too hot to taste. It must have burned his mouth and throat. Maybe he was too drunk to feel it.

“I’ll be next door if you need me,” Salty said, and he let himself out.

“What do you mean about bad blood?” Rose asked the minute the door was closed.

“I can’t give you children.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Just that. I can’t give you children.”

Did he mean he was physically incapable of being a father? Was he afraid she would stop loving him if he was?

“Explain it to me.”

For a moment she thought he would refuse. It was obviously something he didn’t want to share with anyone, even his wife.

“There’s bad blood in our family, and it’s getting worse with each generation. Pa was a rotten father, and he had seven rotten sons. I can’t give you children knowing the kind of father I’d make or the kind of sons I’d sire.”

“You mean—”

“Do you think I could knowingly put you through what my mother endured?”

Ghosts again. The past had a more powerful influence on George than the present.

George went on talking, but Rose didn’t listen any longer. She didn’t have to. She wasn’t afraid of ghosts. Nor George’s fears. She knew they were groundless. She could have laughed aloud with relief.

Only she didn’t. No matter how ridiculous she might think they were, they were very real to him. She couldn’t see the damage their parents had inflicted on him and his brothers or
judge the severity of the scars. Neither could she measure his fear that he would do the same to his children, especially if they were to be as difficult as his brothers.

Though he might see every ugly attribute of his father in himself, she knew he’d make a perfectly wonderful father. Hadn’t she seen him be just that with his brothers?

It was up to her to help him feel the same way.

But she couldn’t change everything at once. She had to take it one step at a time.

“So you understand why I couldn’t come to your bed tonight,” George concluded.

Rose throttled her excitement. She had to be very calm. There was no room for error. There was always a chance that if he didn’t come to her bed tonight, he might never come. She must remove this barrier first. She would have to leave the ghosts for another night.

“I realize you don’t love me—there’s no need to feel guilty. You never said you did—but are you still certain you want to be married to me?”

George came out of his chair with a rush. He paused to grip the arm until he got his balance, but he reached her side rather quickly. He sank down on the bed next to Rose, took her hands in his, and looked into her eyes.

“More than anything I’ve wanted in my whole life. I tried not to marry you. I tried to keep from thinking about it, but I couldn’t. That’s why I kept drinking those toasts. I kept putting off coming back, telling you I’d done the one thing I couldn’t do.”

“Could you be happy with me if I agreed to have no children?”

“But you’ve always wanted a family.”

“Answer my question.”

Rose had made up her mind. She knew there would be times when she would bitterly regret this decision, but experience had taught her she couldn’t have everything. She had George’s affection, loyalty, and support. She felt certain that one day she
would have his love as well. For that she would endure any sacrifice.

George was shocked to realize that not once during the whole evening had he considered leaving Rose. He couldn’t imagine being without her.

He wondered if his father might not have felt the same way when he met and married the young and beautiful Aurelia Juliette Gascoigne. He could remember when they seemed happy together.

He shivered. Could it happen to him?

“Yes.”

He meant it now.

Rose said, “There’s something else I want you to promise me.”

George felt the chill of iron fetters winding about him, binding him, restraining him, tying him down.

He resolutely forced down the apprehension trying to seep into his veins. Rose loved him. She wouldn’t expect him to do anything he couldn’t. And he would want to do anything that would make her happy.

“Promise you’ll tell me if you ever start to feel our marriage is suffocating you.”

“What will you do?”

“I’ll let you go. I want you to stay with me because you enjoy being with me, because even though you have the freedom to go anywhere on earth, there’s no place you’d rather be. For the happiness that would bring both of us, I will be willing to give up having a family.”

“I couldn’t let you do that.”

“We all have to make choices, George. You asked me to marry you even though you were afraid that rot would topple you in the end. I’m willing to take the chance I can be happy without a family. Isn’t that fair?”

George nodded. He didn’t trust his voice.

“And for the record, there’s no rot in you. I’m not trying to change a word of what I just said. I just want you to know I
believe you’re the strongest man I’ve ever met. I believe you can do anything you want.”

Even after too much whiskey, George marveled at how wonderful Rose’s confidence in him felt. He might be his father’s son, but with Rose’s help, he wouldn’t have to turn out to be like his father.

Rose dropped her eyes and looked at her hand, held tightly in George’s grasp.

“In case you want to come to bed, you can’t father a child tonight.”

“You mean…”

Rose looked up. “I’ll always tell you.”

Rose withdrew her hand. Deliberately, she removed her robe.

It took George a moment to understand what she meant. She’d offered to be his wife on his terms, without the fear of children, without the fear of failure. The magnitude of her gift, the selflessness of her sacrifice, nearly overcame him.

Nearly.

His conscience reminded him that he still didn’t love her, that he shouldn’t take her innocence when he had nothing to give in return, but he clubbed the noisy little bastard into silence. Rose had invited him into her bed. As long as it was all right with her, he meant to accept the invitation.

George’s body responded immediately. He felt a little guilty that his needs should intrude on such a nearly holy moment, but he had become aware that Rose sat before him in nothing but her nightgown. The pull that had always existed between them leapt into full strength.

George staggered to his feet and threw open the door. Salty’s door pushed open in almost immediate response.

“More coffee,” George shouted. “And hot water for a bath. This is my wedding night, and my bride is waiting.” He had to lean against the doorway to steady himself.

“Ssshh!” Salty hissed. “It’s past one o’clock. You’ll wake up the hotel.”

“Wake ’em up,” George shouted.

“Can’t you do something with him, ma’am?” Salty asked Rose.

Rose couldn’t suppress a smile. “I already have.”

Salty grinned back. “He’ll be back here in half an hour even if he has to take a bath in the creek.”

“Don’t know why he can’t get his bath in the morning like everybody else,” the attendant grumbled as she hauled two buckets of hot water up to the tub in Salty’s room.

“You only get married once,” Salty explained. He carried two buckets as well.

“Don’t know what he wants a bath for anyway,” the woman grumbled. “He won’t do it regular, so she needn’t expect it. He’ll just come to her in all his dirt and sweat, take his pleasure rough like, and be snoring inside five minutes.”

“Gentlemen behave differently,” Salty said.

“Humph! He’s a man, ain’t he? He’s drunk, ain’t he? What’s so all-fired different about him?”

George didn’t feel very steady on his feet when he opened the door to their room. His bath had been warm and the coffee hot, but his head still felt like the inside of a bell tower during the ringing of the tocsin.

Worst of all, he felt terribly sleepy, almost as if he had been drugged. He wasn’t used to whiskey. Unable to forget his father’s violent behavior when he drank, George had stayed away from alcohol. It was a relief to know it didn’t affect him the same way, but this feeling was bad enough.

Rose was waiting for him. In bed.

God, she looked lovely in the lamplight. He’d never thought much about hair. He’d always pictured beautiful women pretty much like his mother. Her blonde hair had been the color of new corn silk. Long and straight and thin, it had added to her fragile appearance.

Rose’s masses of curly brown hair flowed over her shoulders
and the pillow like the spilling of a cornucopia. It was like an invitation to bury his face in its bounty. He’d always thought she was beautiful, but now, in the dim light, against an all-white background, he realized her greatest beauty lay in her simplicity. Her lashes weren’t overly thick, her lips weren’t overly full, her eyes weren’t deep and hypnotizing. But everything fitted together as a part of the most enchanting, human, kind, warm, and inviting face he’d ever seen.

He noticed the dusting of tiny freckles over her nose and cheekbones. He ought to keep after her to wear her sunbonnet every time she left the house, but he would hate to see her face and hair covered up for the sake of a few freckles. He didn’t mind them. In fact, along with her riot of curly hair, the freckles made her seem girlish. When the imps of mischief danced in her eyes and she started to play with Zac or tease Monty, she was just like a tomboy.

But there was nothing tomboyish about her tonight.

Like some earth mother, she invited him to lean his head against her breast, to rest for a moment in her arms, to replenish his strength from her deep well of constancy. Even as she surrendered herself to him, admitted her weakness, she became his strength.

George didn’t understand how that could be. Maybe he would understand better when his head didn’t feel like a block of wood. He did understand that Rose had issued an invitation he wanted to accept, but his senses had started to feel dull, his body heavy. He tried to revive the surge of desire that had coursed through him when she issued the invitation, but his body only felt more leaden. Even his mind seemed to want to give up the struggle, to save it for another day.

Rose smiled to herself. She had always seen George as a commanding personality, sure of himself, impressive because of his size and his self-confidence. She had felt relatively small, weak, and ineffectual.

Now the roles were reversed.

“I never thought about my wedding night,” George said after
he’d closed the door behind him. “But if I had, this certainly wouldn’t have been the way I’d have come to my bride.” He didn’t approach the bed but remained standing a few feet away.

Rose felt as if he were asking permission to come to their bed.

“It’s more important that you came.” She folded back the covers and patted the sheet.

He hesitated.

“I’m ashamed to come to you this way.”

Rose patted the bed again. “You haven’t, yet.”

George crossed to the bed. “The husband you deserve would have come to you full of pride and confidence.”

“The husband I want
has
come to me. But like the rest of us, he carries a load of guilt, mostly heaped on him by someone else. I want to help make that burden lighter.”

George dropped down on the bed.

“I don’t deserve such understanding.”

Rose reached out and grasped his hand, pulling him gently toward her. “Let’s not talk of deserving. Let’s talk instead of what I want to give you, what you want to give me.”

George leaned toward her until his cheek rested on her shoulder.

“I hardly know what I can give you,” he said. “As far back as I can remember, I made up my mind never to marry. The change came so quickly it caught me unprepared.”

Rose pulled him down until he rested against her. The feeling was absolutely delicious. She had waited so long to cradle him in her arms, to have him close, to know he belonged to her. She wanted to savor the moment, to wrench every bit of sweetness from it. She wanted him to make love to her. She wouldn’t feel their union was complete without it, but she realized that this feeling of closeness, of sharing of himself, this opening the door to the past which still tormented him, was even more important than sharing his body.