“Rose.” He reached for her.
She brushed his hand away. “Don’t. Please don’t.”
“Rose. I’m sorry. It was a joke.”
“I know it was a joke.” Her voice shook. “Of course it was a joke. It’s always a joke to you.”
She grabbed her cloak from the floor, found her gloves in the growing darkness.
“Rose.”
Had he not been able to decipher her voice before? He’d not been listening hard enough. Now, now that he’d opened his mouth a moment too soon and spoken just a little too much… Now, he could hear the hurt in her tone.
“Rose. Sweetheart. I never meant to hurt you. You know that. You must know that.”
She pulled on her gloves. “I know that. Stephen, I…” Her voice dropped. “You must know how I feel about you. But I don’t think you understand. This isn’t easy for me, and you aren’t making it any easier. I want to trust you. I am trying to trust you. I even trust your intentions.” Her voice dropped. “I don’t trust your results.”
“Rose.”
She shook her head. “It’s late. I promised my sister I’d be home just after four, and who knows now what time it is. I have to go.”
“Rose.”
“Thank you.” She swallowed. “For bringing me here and arranging for a telescope.”
“At least let me accompany you—”
“I think you’ve spent enough time with me at the moment. Please, Stephen. I told myself I wouldn’t—and look at me. I need to think.”
He rocked back, feeling as if he’d been punched. But he bit back his sharp reply. He’d hurt her first, after all. He’d talk to her when the sting of his ill-timed words had died down, when he was feeling more like himself—less vulnerable and more in control.
She swung down the ladder. He could scarcely see her descending into the gloom.
“Be careful,” he called after her in a low voice.
She didn’t say anything in response, not for a long while. But he heard her reach the top of the turret. She didn’t move for a long time. He wondered if she was looking up at him, if she could see him in the gathering darkness. He wondered what she was thinking.
“I should have been careful hours ago,” she said. “It’s rather late for that.”
THE HOUSE WAS NOT DARK when Rose returned; the lamps on the bottom floor were all lit. Rose could see a silhouette moving against the front window.
She thought back uneasily to the last toll of the clock. It was now…who knew how long after six?
The door was not locked. Her stomach hurt as she turned the handle, but it swung open on easy hinges and she walked into the light.
“Now.” Patricia’s voice was hoarse and ragged.
It took Rose a moment, standing there blinking in the blinding light, to understand that her sister was not talking to her. Patricia sat on the sofa in a robe. Her hands were on her knees; she grimaced as she spoke, her whole body tensing.
Doctor Chillingsworth sat on a chair before her, looking at a watch.
Rose could see the tension in her sister’s face, the grit of her teeth, the faint sheen of sweat at her temples. Rose stood in place, unsure of what she was observing.
The doctor, however, raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Really, Mrs. Wells,” he said reprovingly. “Do you really think that you can falsify a contraction and convince me?”
Patricia’s hands gripped her knees. “Falsify? I wouldn’t lie about such a thing.”
Chillingsworth met this with a wave of his hand. “Exaggerate, then. The too-prominent grinding of teeth, the low noise in your throat—Mrs. Wells, you are a doctor’s wife. It does not behoove you to behave in this fashion.” Chillingsworth stood. “There is no cervical dilation; the, ah, contractions, as you call them, do not seem particularly intense. And the baby still has not turned. You’ve at least three weeks remaining by my estimation. This is false labor once again, Mrs. Wells. Try to sleep, and do make an effort not to bother me with trivialities until it is truly your time.”
Patricia’s face was a mask. Rose stepped forward, all the heat rising to her face. “Doctor Chillingsworth, my sister does not—”
Patricia interrupted this defense with a swift shake of her head. “Thank you for seeing me, doctor. I’m much obliged to you for putting my fears to rest. Now that you’ve explained what I must look for, I shall be sure not to bother you again until it is time.”
“See that you don’t.” Chillingsworth ran a hand through his hair and glanced at his pocket watch once more. “Right in the middle of dinner,” he muttered. He dropped the gold disc into his waistcoat pocket and gathered up his bag.
Patricia did not say anything until after he had left. For that matter, she didn’t say anything immediately then. She simply sat on the sofa looking at Rose, while Rose stood in place, afraid to speak.
“I’ve been frantic,” Patricia finally said. “Waiting for you to come home. I was afraid something had happened to you. I looked all over—up and down—I went to the Observatory myself, and they told me you weren’t there. I was so frantic, and then I thought my contractions were starting.”
It didn’t matter what Stephen’s intentions were. It didn’t matter what he wanted. It didn’t matter how sweet or how gentle he had been. It didn’t even matter how much she loved him, how much she still yearned to run back to the spire and fall into his arms.
He hadn’t made her forget herself; she’d just forgotten her sister.
Rose came in and sat on the chair Chillingsworth had vacated. “I’m so sorry, Patricia. But the transit of Venus…”
“Would not have been visible after sunset,” Patricia said. “Or with the clouds that rolled in. I do listen to you. What were you doing?”
“I know it looks bad, but—”
“It is bad. I’m responsible for you, and you disappeared out from under my nose. Being out past sunset—that does not look good, Rose. Please tell me that you were with Dr. and Mrs. Barnstable the whole time, celebrating…whatever it is that astronomers celebrate.”
Rose swallowed. “Um.”
“Please tell me that Mr. Shaughnessy was not with you.”
Oh, she could see it now. Patricia was right. It didn’t just look bad. It was bad. What was she to do, lie to her sister for the rest of her life? Tell her she was marrying a man who would carry on in such a fashion? Their father had scraped and worked so hard to achieve even the barest measure of gentility. Was she to give it up so easily?
Rose examined her knuckles. “Did I…” She swallowed. “Did I not mention that I’ve been tutoring him in the methods of calculating astronomical distances?”
Patricia’s eyes grew wide. “No. You know very well you did not mention any such thing.”
“He may have set up a telescope in the church spire. So I could observe the transit.”
“Together?”
Rose nodded.
“Alone?”
Another nod. Rose felt her cheeks burn in mortification.
“Did he hurt you?” Patricia demanded.
“No. He wouldn’t.” Not the way Patricia meant it anyway. “And don’t look at me like that—I don’t know what you must think of him, but he wouldn’t hurt me.” He would tell her that she was beautiful and brilliant. He would say that he liked her. But in the end, it would always come down to this—that if anyone found out that he was pursuing her, they would instantly think the worst.
“Oh, Rose. What am I to do with you?”
“How should I know?” Rose asked bitterly. “I don’t know what to do with me, either.”
Patricia didn’t hesitate. She held out her hands. Rose stood, going to her, wrapping her arms around her.
“Sometimes,” Rose said, “I can make myself remember that we live in two different worlds—he in his, and me in mine. Other times, I think that we live in the same place—one world, so much better because he’s in it. I think I could fall in love with him, if only I dared.” She swallowed. “But I can only dare to do so man
y things at a time.” Her voice was thick. “And now, daring to do this one… I left you.”
“Oh, Rose. You mustn’t worry about me.”
So like Patricia, to insist she needed nothing for herself.
“How can I not? I promised Doctor Wells I’d be here for you, and I wasn’t.”
“Shh. You’re here now. And I do understand. Hypothetically speaking, I might have been willing to sneak out at night to see Isaac, when I was your age.”
Rose smiled wanly. “Why, Patricia. We are speaking hypothetically, are we?”
“Oh, shh. Then say it’s realistically speaking, too. Just…don’t meet a man alone at night unless you’re sure he’ll marry you.”
Rose sighed.
“And, ah, even then… Don’t let things go too far.”
“Whatever do you mean by that?” Rose asked innocently.
Too innocently, apparently, because Patricia gave her shoulder a slap. “Hussy. You’re not that naïve. If you feel like falling asleep afterward, you’ve done too much.”
“Oh, dear. I feel like falling asleep now,” Rose told her, shutting her eyes.
“Cuddling with your sister doesn’t count,” Patricia said severely. “I don’t have designs on your virtue. All I ever want to do at this point is sleep. Use the chamber pot and sleep.”
“How indelicate.”
“Anyone who thinks that ladies are delicate has either never been pregnant or has put the experience from her mind out of sheer horror.”
Rose snorted. For a long while, they did not say anything. Rose held her sister’s hands, her head resting against her shoulder. She could almost pretend that they were still young, that she was a child and Patricia not much older, that she was once again falling asleep to the sound of her sister’s heartbeat.
But they weren’t. Rose was twenty. Her sister was pregnant, and she had to take care of her. She had not thought anything would ever make her forget that…but then she’d underestimated Stephen Shaughnessy for too long.
He made her think this would all be easy—that all she had to do was love him and then all her problems would disappear. They wouldn’t, though. They would multiply: his problems with hers. All he could do was what he’d managed tonight: He could make Rose forget herself long enough for real danger to threaten.
Rose buried her head in her sister’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll never leave you to worry like that again. I promise.”
“I know.”
After a long while, Patricia’s hands squeezed her shoulders—not hard, but long—five seconds, then ten. Rose turned and looked at her. Her sister’s breath came ragged; her jaw squared. Eventually, though, Patricia relaxed and glanced at the clock. “Forty-seven minutes,” she said calmly. “They were forty-seven minutes apart.”
“You had another contraction?” Rose sat up even straighter. “We should go get—”
Patricia shook her head. “False contractions, remember? Doctor Chillingsworth was just here.”
“But—”
“Even if they are real,” Patricia said, “which I doubt—they’re still forty-seven minutes apart. They’ll have to come much faster before it’s time. We can fetch him then.”
Chapter Seven
ROSE HAD EXPECTED TO SEE Mr. Shaughnessy on her walk into the observatory the next morning, but she did not encounter him. She wondered all day if he might come by, asking for another lesson—an excuse, of course, but she’d not have expected him to balk at inventing an excuse to see her—but every time the door opened, it was not him.
She was beginning to think that her worst fears had been right—that all he’d ever intended was a seduction, that he’d never wanted anything more—when she encountered him on her way home. She saw him, his scarf flapping in the wind, his hands in his pockets. He paced along the pavement, his face solemn. She did not know what to say to him.
He caught sight of her and gave a little shake of his head—not denial; by the tension that seemed to leave him, it rather looked like relief.
He came up to her. “Rose.” His voice was low. “Before you send me on my way, let me be as clear as I can be. I love you. I have loved you for months, and I don’t wish to do without you. I want to marry you. I want to buy you telescopes. I want you to have my babies. I want you, Rose. You and only you.”
Oh, how it hurt to hear those words. She had suspected they must be true, even if part of her hadn’t been able to make herself believe it.
“I love you,” he said. “I didn’t say it directly last night, and I ought to have. I love you. Marry me.”
“Listen to you.” She gave him a sad smile. “Have you given any thought at all to what this would mean? Given your reputation, it will be a terrible scandal if—when—you marry. Everyone will assume the worst of me.”
“At first. It will blow over, though,” he said confidently.
“Stephen. Think. Have you considered what it would mean for us to have children together?”
His eyes softened. “At length.”
“No, you beast. I don’t mean the begetting of them. Have you thought about what it would mean to have black, Irish, Catholic children?”
He blinked, slowly, and frowned. He really hadn’t thought about it.
“You told me the awkward, difficult bit will only be the beginning,” she said. “But it won’t be. It’ll be difficult in the middle, over and over. It’ll be difficult at the end. It will never stop being difficult, and the only reason you don’t know that is that you haven’t considered the possibility. At some point, Stephen, you’ll realize this is not a joking matter.”
He spread his hands. “Maybe. But I’m not a worrier, Rose. It’s not in my nature to fret about the future. Things happen as they do.”
“Yes, and four years in, you’ll realize what you’ve landed yourself in. You’ll discover that it’s not all kisses and telescopes. I give you credit for good intentions, Mr. Shaughnessy—but I don’t think you’re serious.”
He spread his hands. “I’m not grave and sober, Rose. But I am serious about you. I know who I am and how I feel—and I’m not going to walk away from you simply because things may prove difficult. I don’t worry about the future not because I’m blind to it, but because I don’t see the point.”
“Don’t see the point! How can you want me if you don’t even bother to think about what marriage to me would entail?” Her hands were shaking. “How can you say you love me and want to marry me, when you haven’t even considered what that would mean?”
“At least I’ve said it,” he snapped. “You haven’t said what you mean at all, and I wish that you would. It’s not that you think it will prove too difficult for me. You think it will be too difficult for you.”
“My life is going to be difficult no matter who I marry.” She raised her chin. “That’s why I need to find someone who takes it seriously.”
He leaned down to her. “There. Now you’re saying what you mean. Finally. If you want a man who takes things seriously, you don’t want me.”
She opened her mouth to deny it…and then shut it. Her heart was breaking. She did want him. She wanted his laughter, his terrible jokes about mathematics. She wanted him handing her the key to the spire and telling her to go up alone. She wanted his practiced hands on her, coaxing her, seducing her, while he murmured in her ear. She wanted everything about him except…him.
“You don’t make me forget myself.” She shut her eyes. “But you make me forget who I have to be. You don’t need an anvil, Stephen. You are the anvil. And you’re right; I can’t marry you.”
His lips thinned. He looked at her, his eyes wild and fierce. And then he turned his head away and shrugged. “So be it. I’m an amusing fellow with no hidden depths. There’s always some reason why I’m not suitable. I won’t fret over it.” He straightened, casting her a look. “I never do.”
“Stephen…”
He shook his head. “Tell me if you change your mind, Rose. I won’t alter mine. I
may be frivolous—but I’m not faithless, and I’m not fickle.”
“Stephen.”
She didn’t know what to say beyond that. She reached out and took his hand in hers. She couldn’t bring herself to say words, didn’t know what she could say even so. She just squeezed his fingers, not wanting to let go. Not being able to hold on.
“Be careful, Rose,” he said with a nod of his head. And then he was drawing his hand away.
His thumb brushed hers briefly—but it was as temporary a warmth as his presence in her life. He smiled at her. “If you see me about,” he said, “do talk Sweetly to me.” And on that, he touched his hat and left.
ROSE SHUT THE DOOR behind her. Her hands were shaking; she felt sick to her stomach. But she had done it. She’d cut ties with Stephen Shaughnessy—and she’d survived it. She looked about the entry and frowned.
The house was dark. The sun had not yet set, but it was close enough to evening that a few lights ought to have been on. There were no lights in the front room, the dining room, the back pantry.
She frowned and tentatively called out. “Patricia?”
A door opened upstairs. A few moments later, Mrs. Josephs put her head over the railing.
“Your sister is not feeling so well, Miss Sweetly.”
Rose frowned. “Has she seen the doctor?”
“Not since last night,” the older woman said. “She says it’s just more of that false labor again. She doesn’t want to bother him.”
Rose felt a pit of foreboding open in her stomach. “Didn’t he say that false labor pains are supposed to stop? How can she be sure that it’s false labor, and not something else?”
Mrs. Josephs shook her head. “I’ve never been blessed with a child, Miss. Really, I don’t know a thing about it.”
Rose shook her head and then carefully ascended the stairs. Her sister’s room was dark, but Patricia was not in bed. She was walking a figure eight pattern on the carpet.
“Rose.” Patricia looked up as her door opened. “You’re back. Don’t worry about me; I’ll feel well soon enough. In fact, I don’t feel so badly now.” She managed a creditable smile.