Page 25 of Snowbound Regency Christmas
‘I give up. I surrender,’ the sailing master said. ‘Good night to all you rascals!’
Rosie wanted to escape upstairs to her bedchamber for a good cry, but lingered as Andrew thanked her father for his kindness. ‘I suppose I will never know an ordinary Christmas, but this has certainly been one to remember. Reverend, we’ll leave early.’
‘You are welcome here anytime,’ Papa said. ‘Isn’t he, Rosie?’
All she could do was nod and smile. She left the room when the others gathered around the sailing master to wish him well on future voyages. To her dismay, she realized she was beyond tears, which would have been a cleansing relief. It was time to resign from clerking at Gooding’s Maritime Naval Stores and return home. She never wanted to see the ocean again.
Her troubled heart raised another objection. What if, after some fleet action or other disturbance, he needed someone to comfort him? ‘Who will hold your hand then?’ she asked the silence.
Rose waited all night, listening for Andy to mumble or cry out. To her dismay, she heard nothing. Lying in bed, she gathered her scattered thoughts. Only days ago, all she wanted was silence, which meant he was on the mend and didn’t need her. But after her stupid mistletoe and their kiss in the meadow, she wanted an excuse to go to him at night, as she had before. There was no excuse, and she could not do it.
Not that she didn’t want to get into bed with this man she knew—knew!—she loved; she did. Blame Aunt Dorothea, who, years ago, gently explained the rules of courtship and marriage, none of which seemed to apply in this time of war and turmoil. Rosie stayed in her bed, wide awake, regretting every moment of her indecision. Some instinct told her that Master Andrew Hadfield would never come to her bed. Another instinct assured her that he wanted her precisely as much as she wanted him. In her practical mind,heartachewas a word fit only for bad novels. But what else was this feeling except heartache? Her heart ached because she knew he would not make the move. He had spoken several times about his trade, and the misery it extended to other innocents—Mary Hale and Matilda Madigan, for example.
‘Drat your hide, you’re too good a man, Andy,’ she whispered into the dark. ‘You think you are sparing me from a sad life. Did you ever think that my life is going to be a barren desert without you?’
She closed her eyes as dawn came, only to be shaken awake what seemed like minutes later by…by Mary Hale?
‘Wake up, Miss Harte! You’ve overslept and Master Hadfield and Reverend Ewing are about to leave!’
Rosie sat up, shook her head to clear the fog and leaped out of bed. ‘Why didn’t my aunt…?’
‘She didn’t know what to do,’ Mary said as they hurried down the stairs. ‘My dear, she doesn’t understand what it is to love a navy man, and I know you love Master Hadfield.’
Rose ran past the mirror in the hall, determined not to look at it because she knew her hair was a fright and her flannel nightgown so old that Methuselah’s wife probably wore it.
She dashed past Aunt Dorothea in the entry way, not even slowing down for the gravel of the driveway. The chaise was already moving.
‘Stop!’
She knew that voice of command. She had heard it only the day before yesterday in the workhouse. The post-chaise rider did precisely that as Andy flung open the door. He grabbed her and held her close, speaking softly as only a sailing master could, at rare times. ‘I’ll be back.’
‘When?’
‘I don’t know. Kiss me quick. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I’ll stay at the Drake tonight, and we sail the day after Christmas.’ He held her off for moment. ‘I will be back,’ he said, then kissed her with all the energy of his heart, mind, body and soul. She knew it.
Rosie stood there, hardly feeling the cold gravel biting into her bare feet. The man she adored put his hand on her head like a benediction, then left her.
Mary Hale and Aunt Dorothea shepherded her into the house.
‘I love him,’ she said simply. ‘I truly do.’
Dorothea and Mary Hale sat close to her, part of that great sisterhood who knew what it was to love a man. Suddenly, she didn’t want them there. Both had actually known the physical love of husbands, and she had nothing. She sobbed out that horrible fact, then regretted making them sad for their own losses. ‘I can’t say anything right. Forgive me.’
When she dared look, she saw two women she knew she could never hate. Dorothea took her hand. ‘My dearest darling, my little brother knew before any of us.’
‘Papa?’ she asked in disbelief. ‘Surely not.’
‘He’s in the cattle byre. Go talk to him. Um, here are your dressing gown and slippers, you wild woman.’ Aunt Dorothea kissed her cheek. ‘He has something to tell you.’
Rosie grabbed her robe and picked her way to the byre, where Papa contemplated one of his placid cows chewing her cud.
‘Papa, what do you have to tell me?’ she demanded.
As she stared at the indecision on his face, she understood a great truth. This man she admired and who always did the right thing, was probably picking his way through life the same as she was. She knew uncertainty, and she saw it on his face, too.
‘Two things. That first morning, I told Andy Hadfield a real whopper.’
‘Papa?’
