Page 18 of Snowbound Regency Christmas
‘You will never be a country gentleman,’ Rosie teased, which brought a genuine smile to her houseguest.
‘Never.’
He sounded so decisive this morning, and not the weary man who begged off on whist and went to bed early. His eyes looked as tired as hers, but she already knew he possessed a reservoir of strength she could only imagine.I do believe the workhouse is in for a real battle,she thought, basing her supposition on something she couldn’t define.
She put on her warmest cloak and let the sailing master hand her into the gig. The three of them sat rump to rump on the slightly wider seat. ‘Your cloak smells of brine, sir,’ she teased as Papa spoke to his horses and they started to Ashburton.
‘Nice odour, eh?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so only a few days ago,’ she said, thinking of no objection as his arm circled her waist. After all, the man had to stay on the seat, didn’t he?
Ashburton came soon enough. ‘Do you know where the workhouse is, Papa?’
‘I do. Your brother-in-law and I each acquired a field labourer from there.’
‘I didn’t know, Papa. What happened to Pete’s after harvest?’
‘Pete hired him permanently, and he had the good sense to marry the goose girl.’
‘Bravo,’ Andrew said. ‘What about your workhouse labourer, sir?’
‘He wanted to go to New Hampshire, America, so I paid his way. I get a letter every year.’
‘Papa, you are a philanthropist,’ she teased.
Her joking ended when they turned onto Warwick Road, and she saw a dismal pile of grey stones ahead. ‘So grim,’ she said, much subdued.
Papa patted her knee. ‘This is why I sent a workhouse man to New Hampshire. I didn’t want a good man damned by his hedgerow birth to be punished for his poverty inthisplace.’
Rosie kissed his cheek, grateful beyond measure for such a father. She glanced at Andrew sitting on her other side. Could there be two such excellent men in one gig?
She didn’t think the bleakness outside could be duplicated and worsened inside, but it was, with dirty walls and not much furniture. ‘Rough ground,’ she whispered when they entered the building. She said it quietly enough so Andrew could not hear.
Amazing man, to have such acute hearing. She felt his gloved hand in hers and she took heart.
Papa knew where to go, which relieved her. A workhouse was no place to wander. Her heart broke at the sight of children with lowered eyes and uncombed hair, sitting in silence, waiting for…something. Three bony women dressed in grey sacking huddled together, the middle one weeping.
Papa stopped in front of a wary-eyed man sitting at a high desk, the kind of perch where everyone had to look up. Rosie saw it as another way to humiliate people who, from the looks of them, had been fed a steady diet of humble pie.
‘I must speak to the guardian,’ Papa said, in a voice Rosie wasn’t familiar with.
‘I will see if he is in.’
‘He is in,’ the man holding her hand said. It was also a voice she was unfamiliar with, a voice of absolute command, even beyond Papa’s. It was the voice of someone who knew suffering even more extreme than this. Still, he held her hand. She squeezed his.
‘Who may I say is—’
‘Sailing Master Hadfield and Frederick Harte from Endicott. We are not patient people.’
Rosie felt prickles up and down her back. No wonder France and Spain were learning how implacable and relentless the Royal Navy was. As they stood in the dismal corridor, Rosie committed herself. Even if she never saw him again after Christmas, she wanted the man still holding her hand to know something important. She stood on tiptoe, one eye on her father, who watched the sad little ones, and leaned close. ‘You may think you are not a hero, Andrew, but you are. Don’t quibble.’
He smiled at her words, a boyish grin that threw off years of war. ‘You’re a hero, too, Miss Rose Harte. I may have a presumptuous little plan for Mrs Hale, once we spring her from this midden. That is, if others are agreeable.’
The guardian stomped into the corridor, his luncheon napkin tucked in his collar, his eyes blazing, clearly not a man to be disturbed at meals. Rosie knew in her heart of hearts that the guardian didn’t stand a chance. He just didn’t know it yet.
Chapter Eleven
Andrew eyed the guardian. ‘Mrs Mary Hale is an inmate at this institution. Aye or nay?’
