Page 24 of Snowbound Regency Christmas
‘Right,’ came her quiet reply. ‘Oh, yes. When I think of all that you have done for me…’
They left a content and satisfied man, sitting at peace in his soon-to-be vacated vicarage. ‘I’ll write to the chief surgeon at Stonehouse immediately,’ Andrew told Rosie as they started back to the farm. ‘Rose, it was your idea and it’s brilliant.’
‘You’d have thought of it,’ she allowed. ‘I just gave you a nudge. You’re the hero.’
She did something wonderful then that he knew would comfort him for years to come at sea, even if he never saw her again. She rummaged in the basket of holly and ivy. What was she looking for?
‘Ah.’ She took out a misshapen holly sprig and stood tall to hold it over his head. ‘I know mistletoe when I see it, Master Hadfield.’
It wasn’t mistletoe; surely she knew that. No fool, he pulled her shockingly close and kissed her. As wonderful as her lips felt, he positively basked in the way her arms circled him. She clasped her hands together in the middle of his back. He couldn’t have escaped her grasp if he tried, and he did not try. He was no expert at kissing. Neither was she. They figured it out with amazing speed.
Thank goodness Matilda had skipped ahead, wrapped in her own world, which gave them a small moment to be wrapped in theirs. ‘Mine is a dangerous occupation,’ he told her. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’
He did know. He wanted to tell her he loved her. He wanted to marry her. He wanted to father her children. He wanted her to always meet him at the dock. Come to think of it, that was all he wanted in the first place, someone to see him off on a voyage. Now that he had met this woman, he knew he wanted more. He wanted someone to see him home from sea, as well. He wanted someone to share his home and bed. That much wooing probably needed more time than he had, thanks to Napoleon.
It could wait because it had to. He looked into her eyes. ‘Rose Harte, you’re a delight,’ he said simply. ‘Let’s go home.’
She nodded. He crooked out his arm and hers slid naturally through it. He was still smiling until he came inside the farmhouse. Fred Harte, too serious, met him at the door with a letter. ‘I wanted to tear it up, Andy,’ the farmer said. ‘But that would probably land me in prison forever.’
He took the letter. The insignia on the envelope told him what was inside. He opened it, read and felt suddenly hollow. ‘The Navy Board orders me to report to Plymouth no later than Christmas Eve. My new ship, theAlbemarle,will sail the day after Christmas. I must leave tomorrow.’
His heart broke into a thousand pieces. When Rosie cried out, it broke a thousand times more.
Chapter Fourteen
Ican do this, I can do this, Rosie thought as she smiled through the afternoon, making things as easy as she could for the man she loved, a man governed by duty, who was leaving in the morning via post-chaise. She knew he would not declare himself now.
Papa was surprisingly grim at the news. ‘Andy, we will miss you.’
‘I will miss you, too,’ her man said. ‘All of you.’
Papa insisted on delivering the sailing master’s note to Reverend Ewing himself, informing the cleric that if he was serious about Stonehouse, a post-chaise would meet him in the morning at the vicarage. He came back scowling, plopping himself into a chair in the kitchen, where Rosie folded the same napkin over and over.
‘Daughter, those awful Keetings were already in residence! Reverend Ewing is trying to pack. I told him to be here by nightfall. I hope he doesn’t mind the little chamber off the sitting room.’
Dinner tasted like weeds and ashes, which faintly surprised Rosie. She ignored it, pleased to see Mary Hale so animated.You will fit in well here, Rosie thought, happy to see her far removed from the desperate-eyed escapee from the workhouse.I wish I could smile. Andy is leaving.
Would this evening never end? Curled up in her favourite chair in the sitting room, she knitted and listened to Andrew explain life on the blockade of the French and Spanish coasts. She heard the eagerness in his voice, and knew where he really wanted to be, despite the danger.
A farmer dropped off Reverend Ewing and his dog, just as Papa was taking little glances at his timepiece, something he always did before he stretched and announced that it was time for bed.
‘I could not stay there,’ the cleric said, by way of apology. ‘I trust there is room for my dog in Stonehouse.’
‘The convalescents will love him,’ Andrew said.
‘I am not surprised you could not stay there another minute,’ Fred said. ‘We have long known how worthless all of Keeting’s offspring are, up to and including our new and unwanted vicar. Now the brother who indulged in trade has paid off Sir William’s debts, and his son will be vicar forever.’
Papa set them laughing next. He declared that perhaps he would begin attending church with the Methodists. ‘They are probably rascals, but I hear they sing well! Beg pardon, Vicar.’
‘Not vicar anymore, Mr Harte. Call me Reverend Ewing.’
‘If I must.’ Papa leaned back in his old rump-sprung chair. ‘I know you too well to think you would have said anything mean to the usurper of your living.Iwould have.’
‘Well, I had a moment…’ Reverend Ewing replied. ‘I asked the Keetings if they knew that the Royal Navy hero who has been charming all Endicott was the same fellow they refused to rescue from the mail coach in their post-chaise that evening Rosie came home.’
‘I am no hero,’ Andy said firmly.
‘Stuff and nonsense,’ the farmer said, unperturbed. ‘I watched you rescue our kind Mary Hale here from the workhouse. Now you have found fitting employment for Reverend Ewing, someone we will miss.’ He leaned closer in that conspiratorial way that Rosie remembered from precious moments in her childhood, when he gave her all his attention. ‘I stopped at the pub on the way home. What did I learn but three of the young labourers have left to join the navy. Face it, Andy, you are Endicott’s hero.’
