AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There was a silence while Jasper swallowed. I’d never seen him look so lost for words, but he quickly recovered his composure.
‘Well, well, how do you do, Rose? Forgive me. I can see you’re not a gypsy, anything but.’ He chuckled.
Rose grinned and dropped a low curtsy. ‘Pleased to meet you again, sir. We didn’t get a chance to be properly introduced last night.’
Jasper looked a bit uncomfortable. ‘Er, no, I was a little under the weather last night. Do forgive me.’
‘Of course,’ said Rose brightly. He gazed at her, a small smile playing on his lips, and I groaned inwardly.
Meanwhile, Sebastian was taking in this exchange and met my anguished eye with his sympathetic one.
Help! I implored him silently. He coughed, and the flirtatious atmosphere was instantly dispelled.
‘Thank you, girls. That will be all for now,’ he said. ‘I’ve left a list of chores with Maggie. Mercy, you can get Rose acquainted with the way things are to be done.’
As we curtsied and left the room, I sensed Jasper’s eyes following us, but it wasn’t my back they were trained on—I was sure of that.
I was worried about Rose. The way Jasper had eyed her with barely concealed desire shot arrows of fear through my heart. Rose had made no comment or shown any sign of returning the interest, but now she knew that Jasper was soon to be rich (more fool me for telling her). Was there any reason she would resist his advances if he decided to make them?
From what I knew of Rose, she had been in trouble on at least one occasion, but perhaps there had been more. Common sense would surely prevail on her part. Why would she risk the small pocket of security she had living here? There was a very real chance that she would find herself alone, friendless, and starving in the woods again if she made any wrong move. If she became involved with Jasper, I wasn’t sure I could be a stalwart friend and keep the news to myself. And I doubted Sebastian would be pleased to have his friend carrying on with one of his servants.
As the days passed and none of my fears came to pass, I relaxed. I grew used to Jasper’s salivating glances whenever Rose walked into the room, and my confidence that the situation would not become more heated grew whenever she barely looked at him or answered him in curt sentences.
I knew from our conversations at night in my room that she found him ‘arrogant’ and ‘conceited’. I didn’t disagree. Jasper was all that she said. But I had found his weakness, and it had endeared him to me. It was written in a letter that I kept tucked away in an old apron at the back of my bottom dresser drawer, where no one could find it. I felt as long as I had his letter, I had some kind of control over the situation.
Then something changed. One morning, instead of answering Jasper’s enquiry to her health with a curt ‘Very well, sir’, she blushed and lowered her eyes and barely whispered a reply.
I kept pouring Sebastian’s coffee but glanced at Jasper, who smirked and bit into his toast. What was wrong with her? Was she slowly but surely falling under his spell like the rest of womankind?
In the kitchen, as we cleared away the breakfast things, she seemed subdued.
‘Rose, are you all right?’ I enquired tentatively. She looked at me, her expression clouded.
‘I wish I were you,’ she replied. I was bewildered. What girl in her right mind would ever wish to be me?
‘You can’t mean that,’ I said stiffly.
‘I do, I truly do,’ she said and, without further explanation, walked out of the kitchen.
I pondered her words all morning as I went about my chores. I felt disconnected from the household, as if something were happening beyond my comprehension. I didn’t see Rose again that morning to question her strange statement. In the late afternoon, I took my duster into the library room to give the books a thorough going-over as it had been a while since I had.
Part of me wasn’t surprised to find Jasper there bent over Rose. She was lying awkwardly on the chaise longue, and he was kissing her neck. Her blouse was half off her shoulder, revealing an expanse of creamy white perfect flesh. The other part recoiled in horror as he murmured his appreciation and ran a hand over her bodice. I backed away slowly and carefully so as to not make a sound. The last thing I saw was Jasper hitching up her skirt to caress her white thighs and Rose, her eyes full of sorrow, looking at me over his shoulder.
I ran out of the house and into the field at the back until I reached the willow tree. My hands were shaking uncontrollably. All that I had feared was coming to pass. I breathed slowly and deeply. How Rose was acting and what she had said now made sense to me. Jasper had obviously started making advances, and she was powerless to stop him. The irony of it was that I was the one who was in love with him, and I would’ve changed places with her in a heartbeat.
To witness him making love to her was so painful I didn’t know whether I could bear to face either of them again. Not for the first time, I felt myself to be cursed with this face that drove men away.
What earthly advantage could it possibly be to have looks that caused pity rather than desire? Rose didn’t know what she was talking about. I stayed outside under the willow until dusk fell. With a sigh, I trudged back to the house and prepared myself to face the worst: that Jasper and Rose were now in love.
In the kitchen, Maggie was preparing supper—a juicy rabbit stew by the looks of it. There was no sign of Rose. ‘Mercy, there you are, love. I was wondering where you’d got to. Can you fetch Rose for me and get her to come and set the dining room table?’
With a sigh, I trudged upstairs to my bedroom. Rose was lying face down on the bed in her chemise, unmoving. She’d changed out of her maid’s dress, and it was discarded on the floor in a heap.
‘Rose? Maggie needs you to set the table.’
Rose didn’t reply, so I went over to her and touched her on the shoulder. ‘Are you asleep?’ Her head moved from side to side imperceptibly.
‘What’s wrong then? Are you ill?’ I have to say I didn’t have much sympathy in me at that moment—not until she turned her face around, and I saw a giant red welt on the side of it. I gasped.
