Page 26 of The Perfect Rose

“Frederick Hastings, if you continue to compare me to your animals, I will have your head,” she fumed as she marched up to him. She planted her hands on her hips and tilted her head back to glare at him in close range.

He knew it was a threat, but if she kept looking at him like that, he might offer the rest of his person along with his head. He considered them to be a package deal, anyway. He smiled instead. “Thank you for proving my point.” He reached out and took hold of one of her soft curls and held it up to the side so that it was next to Bug. “Don’t you see it now? Precisely the same color.”

Rose’s cheeks flamed. She parted her perfect lips no doubt in order to verbally put him in his place when Miriam took her hand.

“Oh, Lady Rose,” Miriam said, “Don’t take Frederick seriously. He can’t help but to pester and tease a person. Take his pets for example, he couldn’t even give them proper names. Dragon and Bug? A name can have such an impact on how they are seen.”

“I understand that better than you know. I’ll meet you outside.” Lady Rose dropped Miriam’s hand and spun away from Frederick, then left, her head held high.

Miriam’s eyes narrowed into the smallest of slits. “I expected you to at least be kind, Frederick.”

He took his sister by the shoulders and whispered. “You cannot have everything, Miriam. When I am kind, you are upset. When I’m silly, you are upset. What am I allowed to be precisely?”

She opened and closed her mouth a few times like a fish gasping for water.

Samuel came up behind her and took her elbow. “Miriam.” It was a single word, and it disarmed his sister from battle faster than a general disarming one of his own soldiers. He watched his sister turn her face up to Samuel’s and sighed. Samuel smiled at her and handed her a book. Frederick felt as if he were interrupting a private moment; he turned his eyes down to the book to break the tension: Romeo and Juliet. He should have known.

Samuel cleared his throat and Frederick turned his eyes back to him. “If you like Lady Rose so much but refuse to marry her, you would do best to leave her alone, Freddy.”

If Frederick thought Miriam had looked like a fish, he dared guess he himself looked like a whale. “I . . . what . . .”

“Come with me, Miriam.” Samuel cut through Frederick’s very elegant speech. “He may need a minute to prepare for our departure.”

As Miriam looked back at Frederick over her shoulder, he saw only maternal-like concern now, and he almost melted into a puddle there on the stable floor. Looks like that made him wish that his parents were still alive. If that were the case, he wouldn’t need to be guided by his friend in matters of the heart.

He rested his forehead on Bug’s neck. Was Samuel right? He took a deep breath as he assessed his own heart. The organ had been dormant and shut off from feeling for so long, it had felt exciting to open it up to Lady Rose. Samuel was right. He found Lady Rose capable and determined and distractingly beautiful. He cared for her, more than he ought. But he’d been fooling his heart all along; there was only one way this would end. Although it was helpful for Frederick to show Lady Rose attention to make the other gentlemen at the house party jealous, it was unkind of him to be sincere in his interest. Unkind to them both. Because, in the end, he wouldn’t propose marriage to her. She was too much like Kendra. Both women were beautiful and smart and disarming and confident: charming qualities that would always be burned into Frederick’s mind as untrustworthy attributes; tools that a woman could use to disarm a gentleman and get what they want, without a care for what they gave in return.

Lady Rose embodied all those qualities, in addition to being challenging and headstrong and perfect. She was also wounded in ways that Frederick couldn’t fully understand. He shook his head. It wasn’t his job to understand. His job was to help Lady Rose find a small piece of happiness by assisting her to be settled with a gentleman worth his salt, someone who would be good to her, even if the match wasn’t one Frederick would choose for her. Almost anyone would be better than Mr. Dillard.

Lord Hanby had already begun his advances toward his pursuit of her. Frederick’s job was done. Now he needed to step back and watch what happened. Or perhaps not watch—that would likely prove to be painful.

He led Bug out behind the stablemaster, who had saddled the rest of the horses necessary for their party. Samuel, Miriam, Mr. Owen Redford, and Lady Rose would be joining them. The ladies had already mounted their mares and were a stone’s throw down the road.

Frederick turned to Samuel. “Thank you, for setting me straight. I’ll do better.”

Samuel nodded before he mounted his stallion, with Mr. Owen Redford mirroring him just behind.

Frederick fisted his hands and then released them slowly, he needed to think about something other than Lady Rose.

“Owen, do come join us and tell us about your boats,” Frederick insisted.

Owen’s horse cantered forward. “I’ve been making them for Christmas for the little ones around town. I have to get an early start with so many children running about.”

“Boats?” Samuel asked.

Frederick smiled. “Yes. Owen has been carving little boats from tree branches for as long as I can recall. They make him quite popular amongst the boys around these parts. They race them and trade them and play navy with them. It’s quite the thing to do. I enjoyed many of the same pastimes when we were young.”

Owen was gifted with a knife and a chunk of wood, but it was boats especially that held all his attention. He was quite obsessed with them. And although the boats never got too complex, they were well loved. It was difficult not to love something that Owen made. The simplicity of his mind was endearing. Owen was actually very bright, although not always understood by those that didn’t know his demeanor.

As Owen began animatedly regaling Samuel about some of his latest boats, Frederick realized just how dedicated Owen had always been. That dedication reached out into each aspect of his life, as a brother, a friend, a carpenter. Frederick could remember a handful of times when Owen had an idea take hold in his mind and no matter how absurd it was, he would see it through, many times at the expense of his dignity. When Frederick was sixteen—Owen must have been twelve—the lad had the idea that if he took Miriam to the church, she would marry him. They had all gone to the church, and poor Miriam, not having the slightest clue of what was happening, had then broken his heart when she told him that she wasn’t ready to be married. Owen hadn’t been seen for a month, so deep was his embarrassment.

There had always been an unspoken pact that people just didn’t mention Owen’s unique mental capabilities. How would Lady Rose respond to him on their outing today?

Samuel asked Owen more about his carving as the group caught up to the ladies. Frederick kept his eyes on the path as they rode; he didn’t want to give rise to any more suspicions about his intentions toward Lady Rose. Before he knew it, he was leading the group, Miriam and Samuel riding together, and Lady Rose and Owen trailing behind them. Frederick felt like a chaperone on a lovers’ picnic.

They came to the Smith’s cottage and dismounted. Miriam unloaded a basket she’d prepared, and she went with Lady Rose to the front door to deliver it. Frederick, Samuel, and Owen rode around back and found Mr. Smith working in the garden.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Smith. How is your family faring today?” asked Frederick. The Smith family had just had another baby a few months ago, a cherub of a little boy with blue eyes and a perpetual gurgle—this particular baby was always making noise.