The Headmistress of Rosemere (4 page)

Normally Patience would stay and wait to greet the surgeon herself, but something else equally as important weighed on her mind. Rawdon. Her brother. As the school’s legal owner, he must be informed of this.

Not wanting to wake any of her sleeping students, Patience opted to take the servants’ staircase from the kitchen to the west wing. The stairs were old and uneven in this part of the house, so she lifted her candle high to illuminate all of the bows and gaps.

Her head throbbed. She could recall a time not so long ago when there was nothing more romantic than the idea of a handsome, injured stranger being brought to their doorstep in the midst of a snowy dawn. Especially when that stranger was as dashing and wealthy as Mr. William Sterling. Her days of impressionable youth were long behind, and yet, she could hardly deny that the sight of him, attractive despite his wounds, awoke a long-forgotten dream within her. She was curious about him, much more curious than she ought to be, considering her circumstances.

She quickly rebuked herself. She needed to focus on maintaining order in the school to which she had dedicated her life, not spin childish fantasies about a man who was not even aware of her existence.

At least that is what she attempted to convince herself of.

At the top of the stairs, Patience paused. The hallway, which in her youth seemed endless, was only a narrow corridor with rooms off of both sides and a sitting area at the end with a wide
bay window overlooking the courtyard and stable. No matter how softly she stepped, the old floor creaked and groaned under her weight. Not wishing to wake her mother, she tiptoed down the corridor, paused at the door to her mother’s room, then went across the hall to her own.

Once in her bedchamber, Patience placed the candle on the narrow writing desk and sat down. Her body screamed for the rest and warmth afforded by her bed, but her mind raced with her thoughts. She took up a quill and spread a fresh piece of paper before her. Surely with news of a predawn visitor and violence on the moors, Rawdon would return. Since his sudden departure six months ago, she had received but two letters: one announcing that he had arrived in London and another saying that he had been detained. He claimed he was needed in London to settle their father’s business interests following his death. There had been no further explanations. At first she had expected his return daily. But now she didn’t know when he would return.
If
he would return.

Patience loved the school—and her young charges within its walls. It had been her home since the day she was born. But the heavy weight of seeing to all the details alone wore on her. She set her lips, angry that her brother had abandoned her. She dipped her quill in ink and pressed the tip to the paper.

She would tell him just that.

3

W
illiam winced as he drew each breath. But at least the relentless cold somewhat numbed his pain and called his attention away from the throbbing on his face and the aching in his ribs.

The black branches and restless fog seemed in constant movement around him, blurring in and out of focus. Even Angus seemed to sense his master’s weary state, for his gait was unusually slow. Every one of the beast’s footfalls racked William’s frame.

Rosemere was just more than a mile from Eastmore Hall. The ride should be an easy one, for dawn’s light was making everything familiar.

Snow started to fall yet again, gently and dreamlike at first, with fluffy white flakes floating down in the morning’s budding light. The spicy scent of cold and ice surrounded him, and the frosty grass crunched beneath Angus’s hooves. But even though the worst of the storm had passed, the winds, angry and wild, continued to make their presence known. He dared not wish for calmer weather,
for despite the bitter bite, the discomfort fit his crime. Did he not bring this—the beating and all associated with it—upon himself?

He could almost hear his father’s voice in the silent morning.

A fool and his money, be soon at debate, which after with sorrow, repents him too late
.

When had he become the fool his father warned him about? The sheer magnitude of his loss made him feel sick, lost.

Gambling. Thousands of pounds gone, and by his own deed. Once the wealthiest man for miles, now beaten as a warning to pay a debt he could not pay. And he could blame no one else.

It was his fault. His own reckless fault.

He pulled Angus to a halt as he again crested Wainslow Peak. Before him, veiled in the pale light of morning, stretched Sterling land. At its center stood Eastmore Hall, a majestic stone testament to his family’s steadfast spirit. How arduously his father had tried to instill in him a keen business sense. A sharp eye for numbers. An ambitious spirit. But those traits had seemed to pass on to his younger brother, Graham, not to him. How many times had his father rebuked William’s impulsive nature, his tendency for mischief?

His father had invested all in husbandry, stating repeatedly that it was what Eastmore must invest in if it were to remain in this part of England. But William had never been interested in sheep. Or farming. He’d been interested in naught but horses. The faster the animal, the stronger the beast, the more they fascinated him.

As a young man with coins in his pocket and an eye for misguided adventure, he and his chums rarely lacked for exploits. But his actions had been foolish—youthful escapades. His pattern had not turned self-destructive until his heart paid the price for his folly.

Isabelle
.

He’d given his heart to her, and she’d matched him with her restlessness, her wildness of spirit. But it was her betrayal, her sudden disappearance, that broke his soul and hurled him down the
path to his ruin. How he had tried to bury the pain under any diversion. He’d gambled on one too many horses—and lost. The money he owed might as well be a king’s ransom.

Regret pressed upon him, aching far more than the wounds marring his face and his body. In the depth of his self-loathing but two choices remained: He could turn his back on his inheritance, sell Eastmore Hall and the land associated with it, pay his debt, and lead a poor but free life. Or he could try for luck one last time. That option beamed brighter, called louder. He was a gambling man, was he not? One not easily intimidated by loss or ruin. The higher the stakes, the higher his interest and the more he invested. He would right past wrongs and restore Eastmore Hall to its former glory, or he would accept his demise. He needed time. Three months.
Until Captain Rafertee returned
.

And a little bit of good fortune would hurt none.

The morning dawned gray and contrary. A quick glance through the latticed panes of Patience’s bedchamber window confirmed that a generous dusting of snow covered the grounds of Rosemere, and by the look of the low-hanging clouds and wispy fog, more might be looming.

Within the school’s stone walls, the sleeping house was springing to life. An hour or so had passed since their early-morning visitor’s departure. The scents of strong coffee, hot chocolate, and baking bread filled the corridors, and the excited chatter of girls going about their morning routines resounded.

If she pressed her eyes shut, Patience could imagine that things were as they had always been, back when her father was living. But try as she might, the simple act of closing her eyes and pretending did not change the fact that her father was gone.

Or that her mother could not cope with the loss of him.

Or that her brother had deserted them when she needed his help the most.

As Mary helped her dress in a somber gray mourning gown, similar to the ones she had worn every day since her father died, Patience contemplated the mysterious visit from Mr. William Sterling. The tales she had heard of him, passed on in hushed tones in the village, rang rich with mystery and extravagance. But the man who’d lain in George’s bed that morning was hardly the man embodied in those stories. He’d seemed rough. Harsh.

Maybe even dangerous.

And yet . . . intriguing.

The memory of that bold expression in his ice-blue eyes refused to leave her alone. Perhaps it was the lure of things unknown. Of things beyond the walls of Rosemere. Of a world—a life—she would never know or understand. Or simply the thrill of possible romance.

Patience looked out the window and glanced down at the snow drifts that hugged the skeletons of rose bushes and shrubs. Had he made it home to Eastmore? Had he but stayed at Rosemere as she’d prompted, he’d be safe and warm. But then she’d likely have had another predicament, for how would she keep even one of her twenty-nine charges from discovering his presence?

She determined to think of it no more. What was done was done, and as soon as she stepped down those stairs, she would not have a moment of solitude until night once again fell on the moors.

She would have it no other way.

Patience sent Mary on her way to finish preparing breakfast for the girls, fastened her father’s pocket watch on a chain about her neck, and tucked a stray ebony lock of hair beneath her ivory comb before stepping into the corridor. After securing her door, she stepped across the way to her mother’s. She hesitated before
placing her hand on the door’s brass handle. Truth be told, she would need more energy to face her mother than she needed for all the pupils waiting below.

Every morning was the same. She’d greet her mother with all the enthusiasm she could muster, but she never knew what to expect. Some days were better than others, and Patience allowed herself on those days to hope that perhaps her mother’s zest for life was returning. But then there were the other days, when grieving tears robbed her mother of speech, and she could barely rise from her bed.

Patience forced a smile to her face, brightness to her eyes, and tapped on the door. “Mother?”

She waited. No response came.

“Mother, are you awake?”

Still silence.

Patience turned the handle and stepped inside Margaret Creighton’s dark room. Light filtered through the drawn curtains, barely bright enough to illuminate her mother’s figure still abed.

Patience sighed. ’Twould be one of those days.

With determined steps, she went to the window and pulled back the brocade fabric in one sweep. Silver brightness reached to the corners of the chamber, reviving the space and soliciting protests from her mother.

“Patience! What are you doing? Close those coverings at once.”

“It’s time to rise. We’ve much to do today.”

“I am not well.” Her thin voice was muffled beneath the pile of quilts and coverlets. “Let me be.”

Patience ignored her mother’s tone, refusing to allow her to continue on in such a fashion. “Mother, you must.” With a quick scan of the room, she noted she was not the first to try to wake her. It had been Mary, no doubt, who had left a tray of tea on the writing desk, the steam still curling from the tiny pot. She poured her mother a cup and took it to her. “Drink this.”

With a
tsk
, her mother pushed her hand away. “Do you not hear me? I am unwell.”

Patience swallowed the resentment swelling within her—the response had become their daily ritual. “You must at least try to get up.”

“Why?” Her mother sat up in a huff, her graying hair hanging limply about her face from beneath her sleeping cap. “Why should I?”

Patience returned the rejected tea to the tray and moved to the wardrobe. She was so weary of the same conversation day after day. “I will give you twenty-nine sound reasons why you must get up, and they are all downstairs, waiting to learn.” Patience pulled a black muslin mourning dress and stays from the wardrobe and held them in front of her.

Her mother only huffed. “That was your father’s vision, not mine.”

“Well then, that leaves us with one option, does it not?” Patience slipped the dress over her arm and returned to the bed. “We should close the school. But seeing that you and I have nowhere else to go, and we rely on the school’s income to live on month after month, we would have no choice but to move to the poor house.”

“How can you be so unfeeling?” Tears filled her mother’s eyes, and Patience immediately regretted her bluntness. But how long could she continue to allow her mother to stay in bed, swathed in her misery, refusing to live her life?

Patience sat next to her mother on the bed, set the gown and stays aside, and took her mother’s hand in hers. “No words could describe how much I miss Father. But he would want us to move forward and continue the work he started. It would break his heart to see you in such despair. Please, you must try.”