The Roses of Feldstone, page 26
Cover image: Woman Looking at Mansion © Lee Avison / Trevillion Images
Cover design copyright © 2018 by Covenant Communications, Inc.
Published by Covenant Communications, Inc.
American Fork, Utah
Copyright © 2018 by Esther Hatch
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any format or in any medium without the written permission of the publisher, Covenant Communications, Inc., P.O. Box 416, American Fork, UT 84003. The views expressed within this work are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Covenant Communications, Inc., or any other entity.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are either products of the author’s imagination, and are not to be construed as real, or are used fictitiously.
First Printing: August 2018
ISBN 978-1-52440-755-1
To my mother, who introduced me to the city library, the bookmobile, and the paperback book exchange. Thanks to her, books lined the walls of our basement and carpeted the floor near our beds. We didn’t grow up surrounded by luxury. We grew up surrounded by books.
Acknowledgments
This book literally never would have been written if it weren’t for my writers group—Paula Kremser and Alice Patron, thank you for being there every week! Laura Rupper, Tammi Bird, Monique Bird, Audrey Mangum, Josie Chilton, Lindy Hatch, Jen Hatch, Brook Andreoli, Lisa Kendrick, April Young, Karin Smith, Heidi Maxfield, Lora Jean Buss, Carrie Westover, Shauna Swinyard, and Lisa Rowley. Thanks for your critiques and inspiration. You read my novel when it was just a Google doc and covered it in much-needed comments. Every time someone read and enjoyed it, I was encouraged to keep going. A huge shout-out to Kim Dubois, who took the time to do some amazing copyedits before I submitted my manuscript to the publisher. If she didn’t know what a run-on sentence was before she started, she certainly did after.
To my four boys—Logan, Christian, Vincent, and Everett—thank you for making me want to be productive in my free time and for putting up with me when I was absorbed in finishing just one more scene.
Thank you, Greg, for saying, “There was never any doubt,” when my manuscript was accepted for publication. Everyone should have someone who believes in them like that. Sorry I gave you mono.
Thank you, Covenant Communications, for taking a chance on me.
And finally, I want to thank anyone who reads this book. My plan for The Roses of Feldstone is to bring a few hours of enjoyment to you. I didn’t really think this book was going to change anyone’s life—but in the end, it changed mine. Thank you for reading it!
“Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boist’rous, and it pricks like thorn.”
—Romeo (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene IV)
Chapter 1
I should have begged my parents to let me stay in London with Elizabeth.
The air in the carriage thickened as we rolled up the familiar birch-lined driveway of Feldstone Manor, William’s home. I tried to draw in a deep, calming breath, but no matter how hard my lungs pulled, they didn’t seem to fill properly. My parents and I had spent four tedious hours smelling each other’s sweat and tasting the same dust with this destination in mind, and yet, if I were given the choice, I would turn the horses around and happily sit through four more hours if it meant I could return to London.
At least at the moment, Mama wasn’t complaining about the travel conditions. Country roads were more poorly maintained than those in London. This didn’t shock me, but it never ceased to amaze Mama. However, right now, she had given up her rant about the state of the roads so she could gripe about what the long drive had done to her hair.
I reached up to assess the state of my own hair but quickly jerked my hand away. It didn’t matter what I looked like; I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.
“Rose,” my father said, interrupting my mother’s tirade for a blessed moment. “Can you get this blasted dog off of my foot?”
I bent forward, trying to ignore the way my stomach revolted at the motion, but my mother beat me to the wrinkled ball of tan fur.
“Oh, you poor thing!” Mama said in the sickeningly sweet voice she used only with Daffodil. She lifted up her pug—named after her favorite flower—to eye level, touched its nose to her own, and then placed the dog on her lap. “I know how much you hate carriage rides, but it will all be worth it in the end.” I tried once again to take a deep breath of the dense air, but to no avail. I could manage only shallow puffs.
Daffodil had slept through all but five minutes of the journey before rising on her fat little haunches, looking out the window at the forested view, sighing, and going back to sleep. I, on the other hand, had felt nauseated since the city of Wycombe.
This was always the worst part, I reminded myself—seeing William for the first time. Every jostle of the wheels over the impressive stone-paved courtyard brought me closer to him, and I wasn’t ready. Over the course of the drive, I had spent too much time thinking of what I would say to him, but now that we were almost there, everything seemed to flee from my mind. I leaned forward in order to look past my mother and out the window. As much as I wished my parents hadn’t dragged me here, the first view of Feldstone Manor was always breathtaking.
It was just so immense. Its size was always shocking, even though this was our fourth visit. Moss grew on some of the main-floor stone, and it only added to the sense of long-established grandeur. The east and west wings were lined with windows on all three floors, and the main entrance of the home boasted an intricate stone archway. Every time the butler struggled to open the massive wooden front door, I was reminded that nothing was done by halves at Feldstone. If a larger door could have been opened, it would have been installed there. The manor was as formidable as it was timeless. I counted on it never changing, but today, something was different.
“Oh, Sir John!” my mother exclaimed, grabbing my father’s hand to make sure he was paying attention to her. She seemed to think that was the only way to assure his attention, and she was probably right. “Look at the changes they have made since we were here last year! It must be so nice to have twelve thousand pounds a year to make such improvements.”
My father looked out the window and obligingly gave a small grunt.
I followed my mother’s gaze to make sure she was looking at the same change I had seen. “Do you mean those ghastly lions they have placed on either side of the entrance?” I asked. “I am not certain I would call that an improvement.”
“Oh, Rose”—she shushed me—“you only say that because they replaced those old rosebushes. Anyone can have rosebushes, but not everyone can commission such fearsome statues.”
“But they were the only soft feature anywhere near the entrance of the home,” I reminded her. I wouldn’t put it past William to have gotten rid of the roses to spite me. He knew how much I adored those bushes, and the lions really were appalling. He couldn’t have found anything I hated more to replace the roses. Once again, I lamented the day my father and the earl had become fast friends during a hunting trip with a mutual acquaintance.
The family must have been alerted to our arrival, for the Earl of Chatsworth exited his home to greet us. Towering directly behind him was William. William had been tall since I had known him, but he seemed larger, broader, and more unyielding today. He had lost his softness, just as his home had. I tried not to notice the way his arms filled out his well-tailored jacket. It was a reminder that he had grown older and more powerful. He was no longer the young man I had first met. I couldn’t see his eyes from this distance but knew they would still be the same gray eyes that seemed to read my every thought—and then judge me for them.
If only he weren’t so good-looking, perhaps we could get along, I thought. I tried to remember all the barbs I had been practicing on the long ride here, but sure enough, they had fled. I blamed the lions. It was a brilliant move on his part, to throw me off like that.
A footman took my hand as I grasped my rumpled gray traveling dress and descended from the carriage. Compared to William’s crisp, immaculate appearance, I already felt at a disadvantage. Ahead of me, my mother’s pug escaped her arms and ran right up to the base of one of the stone lions to relieve herself.
“Daffodil!” my mother exclaimed in horror as she shuffled quickly over to her silly dog.
I smiled slightly. Maybe it was time I gave that dog another chance. She obviously shared my taste in decorations.
I measured the space between myself and the entrance to the home. Just ten more steps and I would be next to William, and I still couldn’t manage to recall a single one of my well-thought-out disparaging remarks. I squared my shoulders. I was eighteen now, not a young, naive fifteen-year-old. I curtsied to his father, and then made my way to William. The curtsy I gave him was more of a cursory bob. I would have hated for him to think I respected him in the least.
“Rose,” he said as I looked up from my curtsy-bob. He looked down at me with his awful smirk that had been driving me to distraction for three years. Well, really, just the past two. Our first year together had been filled with genuine smiles. “It’s pleasant to see you again.”
See me! Not be with me, not talk with me. As if he hoped he would only have to glance at me once in a while from a distance throughout the five-week stay.
Something witty. Something stinging. Something . . .
“William,” I replied.
His smile deepened, creating distracting lines on either side of his mouth. His gray eyes seemed to spark with amusement. He must know how hard I worked to come up with scathing replies to anything he said. “You must not find all roses pleasant though,” I said, not willing to be at such a disadvantage so early on in the visit. “Seeing as you had your front rose garden removed. It is too bad. They were one of the few things to love in this household.” This last part I said more quietly, not wanting to distress his father, the earl.
William just shrugged, his shoulders making a lazy journey upward. “They were diseased,” he replied.
Everyone else was moving into the house, and William and I were alone at the back of the group, so no one would notice if I put my hands around his neck and squeezed. Just a little bit, just enough to scare him. I was staring at his neck, and he must have noticed because he chuckled before saying, “Come in, Rose.”
We shouldn’t have called each other William and Rose. He was Lord Telford, and I was Miss Davenport. Now that my four elder sisters were married, there was almost no use for my given name anymore. But we had met when I was still young enough that calling each other by our Christian names wasn’t scandalous, and our fathers had insisted on it. They’d said that with how often we planned to visit, we should act more like cousins.
It really was time we stopped though. I had come out two seasons ago, so as inappropriate as it had been in the past, it was even more so now. More than that, though, it was a constant reminder that William still thought of me as a young girl. If he had felt that it was truly inappropriate, he would have stopped. William was nothing if not proper.
William reached for my elbow to escort me in, and I pulled away. I could make it up the three steps to the doorway without his assistance. I heard him sigh and then listened to the crunch of his footsteps as they followed mine.
Ahead of us, Lord Chatsworth was telling my father about the new firearm he had purchased.
My mother was busy verifying with the housekeeper that she had the same room as last year. “It is the one that gets the most sun in the morning,” she said.
Five weeks, I thought. I would be in his household for five weeks. I had done it before, and, saints help me, I would be doing it again next year. I just needed to suffer through it. And for heaven’s sake, I needed to figure out how to hold up my half of an intelligent conversation.
I was shown to my usual room, and a footman delivered my trunk. Lydia, my borrowed lady’s maid, rifled through my gowns, occasionally pulling or shaking one to try to remove the creases from their journey. “I will only have time to iron one gown before you join the others in the drawing room. Which gown would you like to wear for dinner, miss?” she asked.
“The mauve one,” I replied. The mauve dress was a hand-me-down from my older sister Elizabeth, but it looked as though it had been made for me. It somehow made my eyes look two shades greener. It was lower cut than most of my evening gowns but not so low as to be scandalous. After the gown was ready, Lydia started working on my hair. I smiled as I watched her dexterous hands wrap locks of my hair on top of my head in intricate patterns. She was one of my favorite things about visiting Feldstone Manor. She was as pleasant as my own lady’s maid at home but infinitely more skilled with her hands. As frustrated and embarrassed as I was with my mother for economizing by not bringing Johanna, I really did love having Lydia work on my hair.
With emerald drop earrings dangling from my ears and my dark hair piled up on my head, I glanced into the mirror. My cheeks didn’t need any pinching; my face was flushed enough as it was. “Why don’t you stand up so I can look you over?” Lydia asked. I stood from the chair, which made me almost a foot taller than her. She was petite, and I was, as my mother put it, “unusually large.” In truth, I was not large—just tall. I had no hips to speak of. The only curves I could boast of were, at best, adequate.
“You look majestic,” Lydia said. “It is always fun to have such a beauty to dress.”
I smiled at Lydia in thanks and then practiced that smile in the mirror for a moment. I was suddenly feeling better about the evening ahead of me. I was headed to battle, and this ensemble was my favorite armor. With one more thank-you to Lydia, I turned and walked to the door.
I entered the drawing room with my head poised. My father and Lord Chatsworth sat in leather club chairs near the grand fireplace. Although they were nearly polar opposites in appearance—my father was shorter and heavyset, with dark features, and Lord Chatsworth was lean and tall—they had one thing in common. It was what had brought them together in the first place: the love of the hunt. Although I couldn’t hear their conversation, I knew they would be discussing what hunting excursions they would find most enjoyable over the course of the next few days. Mother was composing a letter at the writing table, most likely letting my eldest sister know we had arrived safely. William stood next to the bookshelf, his head bent over a book. Father and the earl set aside their papers and stood to greet me, my father giving me a proud glance.
“My, Rose, don’t you look lovely this evening,” my father said. “She has grown even more beautiful this year. Isn’t that true, Chatsworth?”
“Most definitely,” the earl replied dutifully.
“Thank you both,” I replied, still standing in the doorway, not certain where to pass the time until dinner was announced.
William hadn’t even looked up.
The men sat back down, and I decided not to join them or my mother but to walk over to where William was reading. I wanted to see what was so captivating that he would forget common etiquette, and I hadn’t put on all this armor for nothing.
“What book is it that has you so enthralled, William?” I asked. He surprised me by snapping the book closed and balling his right fist as if he were hiding something there. Maybe I had been wrong; perhaps he hadn’t been reading at all.
“Rose,” William said, putting his right hand behind his back. It was most likely a trap, but I couldn’t help but fall into it.
“What are you hiding?” I lowered my voice. “Something scandalous?”
He scoffed and looked at me, eyes widening slightly at the sight of my neckline. He took a half step back. “Of course nothing scandalous,” he replied.
“Well then, may I see it?”
“No,” he answered, taking another short step away.
I stepped forward and grabbed his hand in a movement so fast no one else in the room could have followed it. I turned my body to block the view from our fathers as I tried to pry open his fingers.
“Rose!” he whispered quietly but with force as he backed away once again and pulled his hand away from mine. I felt something in his hand rub lightly on my palm as he pulled away.
Inspecting my hand, I saw a faint black smudge, and I knew exactly what it was. “Charcoal!” I announced in a triumphant whisper, holding up my hand as proof. “William, do you still draw?” I asked, surprised. Our first year here, I had discovered that William had a love for drawing the small animals he found in the garden. Each of his sketches was more amazing than the last, but I had to bribe him with stolen fruitcake for him to show me any of them. I had assumed after that first year that he had stopped to pursue more gentlemanly pursuits, but apparently, he hadn’t. He just hadn’t trusted me anymore with his secrets.
“Has Cook laid out any fruitcakes?” I asked him, wondering how well he remembered that first year.
“Please,” he said. “It would take much more than my own fruitcake to convince me to show you what is in my sketchbook.” I smiled. He was treating me like a child, but at least he remembered.
“Trifle?” I asked, and he chuckled.
“The contents of this book are worth more than a trifle to me.”
“Ah yes, I suppose they would be.” I sighed, looking longingly at his small sketchbook, remembering the way he had been able to make squirrels, hedgehogs, and dormice come to life with just a few strokes.
“Isn’t there anything I could tempt you with to get a peek at what you have in there?”
William’s gaze dropped to my mouth for half a heartbeat, but he quickly looked up and gave me his lopsided grin. “Sorry, Rose, nothing you have could tempt me to show you even a single drawing in this book.”
