Page 12 of Snowbound Regency Christmas
He didn’t sound sorry for himself. As she knitted and glanced at him now and then, his eyelids grew heavy and he slept, his expression peaceful. She watched the sleeping man, his hands open and relaxed, and not bunched into fists from last night’s ordeal. This wasn’t the same man on the mail coach. ‘Good,’ she said softly.
Rosie took the tray to the kitchen at the same time Papa came inside, blowing on his gloveless hands. His eyes brightened to see her, making her certain Papa intended this Christmas visit to encourage her to remain here.
Papa had his own news. ‘It’s not precisely balmy outside, but I think the road to Endicott is safe enough.’
‘Not yet, Papa,’ Rosie said quickly. ‘Master Hadfield needs to rest another day.’I don’t want him gone nowwas what she didn’t say.
Papa had no argument. In fact, he surprised her. ‘I wasn’t planning to uproot him yet.’
‘Didn’t the ostler tell us last night that the inn was full?’ Rosie asked. ‘Where will he stay?’
‘Tell you what, Rosie. I’ll pick up my flour from the miller, so Dotty will make us all manner of Christmas delights. I can inquire about a room at the inn.’
I hope you don’t find one, Rosie thought. ‘I suppose you must.’
She should have kept her eyes on her knitting. It touched her heart, even surprised her, to see Papa regarding her with tenderness.I am cherished, she thought simply.
‘Daughter, do you have that chronicle thing in your pocket?’
‘I do.’ She pulled it out and handed it to him.
‘I plan to stop at the public house on my way home and share this around,’ he told her. ‘I can’t think of a time when anything exciting happened in Endicott, at least not since Farmer Goodwin’s wife ran away with his brother.’
‘Papa!’
Aunt Dorothea, strait-laced, proper aunt, laughed with him, to Rosie’s amazement. She shook her head. ‘Sometimes I wonder about you two,’ Rosie said, then added something from her heart. ‘Maybe I should stay here and organize you both.’
‘I wish you would,’ Papa told her.
There was no overlooking Aunt Dorothea’s wistful expression, or the way she kissed her brother’s cheek and said, ‘Fred, do look in on my house when you are in the village.’
‘As always,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ll only be in town long enough to spread around the news about a hero staying at my farm.’
After he left, Rosie watched her aunt gaze into nothing, and scolded herself for never fully appreciating Dorothea’s decision to leave her own home and move to the farm to raise two girls. She had been in Dorothea’s house on Chandler Street several times, admiring the furnishings and air of comfort. Her late uncle had been a solicitor who died of a wasting disease that left his physician helpless. As her aunt gazed out the window, Rosie knew she was seeing herself on Chandler Street again.
‘You want to be on Chandler Street, don’t you?’ Rosie asked softly, not wanting to wreck whatever memory her selfless aunt enjoyed, thinking of earlier times.
‘I cannot deny it. Horace has been gone so long. Why am I still attached to brick and mortar on a pretty street?’
Her aunt had never spoken like that, talking to her woman to woman, and not aunt to niece. ‘Because you have good memories,’ Rosie said. She kissed her aunt. ‘You would like to live there again.’
‘Your papa needs me here.’
‘Not if I decide to return home.’ There, she had said it.
‘That is true,’ Aunt Dorothea said. ‘I think you are old and practical enough to keep your father from folly.’ They laughed together.
The afternoon dragged. Rosie wondered how much good cheer Papa was downing in the pub. Restless, she tiptoed upstairs and peeked in Andrew’s room. To her relief, the sailing master slept peacefully. It touched her heart to see that his fingers were now curled around his thumbs, something she had noticed when her little nephew slept with no cares. She watched the even rise and fall of his chest, and found herself breathing along with him.
‘Aunt Dotty, I think Master Hadfield is surely fit enough to eat dinner downstairs with us,’ she announced as she returned to the kitchen.
‘I was going to suggest the same thing,’ her aunt said. ‘Do you know, I think he is a charming man.’ She laughed. ‘I recall a time when Vicar Ewing admonished the young ladies in the parish to beware of navy men.’
‘I remember,’ Rosie said. She leaned closer. ‘I was too young to understand what he meant.’
Her aunt gave her a long look. ‘The vicar might have been half in jest, you know.’
‘Perhaps. Somehow I have managed to survive eight years in naughty Plymouth without a regret.’
