A Bouquet of Thorns by Tania Crosse Page A

must be just after four in the morning. In the faint light, she gazed on her husband’s slumbering face. It was Ned’s fault, not Charles’s, that Seth had been recaptured. And without that, Charles would never have sold Gospel. Charles had been appalled at what she had done, she understood that. Despite the promises he had made on that terrible day, in his mind, a convicted criminal must be guilty. It was against the law to help an escapee, and the Charles Chadwicks of this world never broke the law. They adhered to every rule of society. And Rose defied them at every turn. She had pushed him too far and so it was no wonder she had incurred his wrath. She did not love him, and he could be blamed for that no more than he could for Seth’s punishment. And she knew he had been genuinely shocked at the sergeant’s brutality. But he had broken his promise at least to listen to Seth’s story, betrayed her trust. And as for selling Gospel, she could never,
ever
forgive him.
    But it didn’t help. Oh, Seth. Seth . . .
    She couldn’t lie there a minute longer. She heaved the bulk of the unborn child upwards and, wrapping her dressing gown about her, silently let herself out of the room and padded along the richly carpeted landing. Perhaps she should go down to the kitchen, bring the banked-up range into life and make herself a soothing hot drink? But what she really needed was to talk, and there was only one person . . .
    â€˜Florrie!’ she whispered urgently up in the servant’s room on the top floor, wanting to wake Florrie but without too much of a start.
    The older woman’s eyes flickered and then stretched wide with surprise. But apart from being slightly arthritic and on the wrong side of plump, at barely fifty years old, Florrie Bennett enjoyed good health and could easily cope with being woken at the crack of dawn, though her round face immediately creased with concern.
    â€˜What is it, cheel?’ she answered, her mind at once alert.
    â€˜Oh, Florrie,’ Rose groaned, ‘I just can’t get Seth out of my mind. What they’ll do to him. And ’tis so unfair . . . so unjust. And Gospel. Oh, what’ll become of him? I want him back!’
    Her face crumpled, her lovely eyes spangling with tears and her throat raked with pain. Her quivering lips drew back from her teeth and she managed to gasp one shuddering breath before the first howl of despair strained from her lungs. Florrie was out of bed in an instant, her arms awkwardly about the frail form of the girl who, in Florrie’s heart, was her own daughter. Rose buried her head in Florrie’s ample bosom, trembling against her as closely as her bulge allowed. Without a thought for the propriety of the situation, Florrie drew her into the warm bed beside her.
    â€˜If only Father were still alive,’ the girl muttered desolately, and all the pent-up grief seemed to escape from her soul in an exploding stream. She shook, weeping against Florrie until the anxious woman thought the child’s heart would break. ‘He’d have done something about it, I know he would. Oh, I miss him so much . . .’
    She was lost again in the swirl of her misery, and Florrie calmly patted her shoulder. She wasn’t the only one who missed her dear Henry. If only he was still alive. Alive and fit and running the Cherrybrook gunpowder mills. Then Rose would never have married Charles, Florrie was not such a fool that she hadn’t always known the truth, despite what Rose had said. The marriage must work. For the sake of Rose’s sanity, it had to. But Florrie was terrified for her. The story of the wrongly convicted man was one thing. The way Rose had told it to her was another. Anger over the injustice of it was fair enough, but when Rose had spoken of the fellow himself, her eyes had shone, her face lit with something the girl herself did not recognize. But Florrie did. And Rose would hate Charles for