Spring 1821

Rosalind & Henry

‘Here’s the tincture,’ Oma said, handing the bottle to Rosalind.

‘And this is elderflower, you said?’ Rosalind asked, writing down notes in her medicinal journal. They were together in the restored sixteenth-century glasshouse, among the many plants they had begun to grow there.

‘Ja, elderflower, with a bit of willowbark,’ Oma confirmed. ‘Together, the effectiveness against the swollen joints is very good.’

Rosalind nodded, her quick, tidy writing recording the information.

‘Elderflower tea assists with fevers, and bronchial and other catarrh infections, ja,’ Oma added.

No longer facing a future where she had no choice but to become a midwife, Rosalind had set aside her apprenticeship with Oma at first. But more than a year had passed at Linwood since their arrival, and within a few months, Rosalind found herself feeling restless. She soon realised she missed benefitting from Oma’s instruction. Now she met Oma almost every day. Weather permitting, they walked through the vast acres of Linwood’s grounds, looking at the plants, picking some, and discussing medicinal remedies. On days of unpleasant weather, or if Rosalind could not take time away without neglecting other duties, they remained close by, in the glasshouse, where they had begun to cultivate many useful and beautiful plants.

‘I am most pleased with the effects of the stinging nettle tincture on your mother, Rosie,’ Oma said.

‘Oh yes,’ Rosalind agreed. ‘She has had many good days of late, and I daresay the nettles are the cause.’

‘Ah, there you are, my dearest.’

Rosalind turned, smiling widely, as her husband entered the orangery. He looked dashing as ever, his hair windblown, his neckcloth untied. He had been riding, she could see, which was nothing unusual. Henry liked to ride the grounds as often as possible, especially since he made it a project to rebuild many cottages for his tenants.

‘I’ve had a letter,’ Henry said, raising a folded page. ‘I thought you might find it interesting if I read it to you.’

Rosalind raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh? Whatever gave you that idea?’

‘You shall see.’ Henry grinned. ‘I’ve asked them to bring in some tea. Shall we sit?’

Oma took her leave, and Rosalind joined Henry at the white-painted table installed at one end of the glasshouse. Not for the first time, Rosalind mused about how much she liked having a place to sit that was almost outdoors when the weather was too cold for the garden. She loved being surrounded by plants. What was more, Aristotle had adopted the orangerie as his preferred napping place, so she spied the large cat curled next to a pear sapling in a pot, one of several to be later transplanted once they had grown large enough.

‘So, what is so special about this letter? We have so few acquaintances in common,’ Rosalind said.

Henry opened the letter, peering at her over it. ‘This is from one of those few,’ he said teasingly.

Rosalind gave him a mock glare, pretending to be cross with him. ‘Why, Lord Linwood, will you keep me in suspense?’

‘We have had the honour of a letter from none other than Lady Alfreda herself,’ Henry revealed.

‘No!’

‘Indeed, see for yourself.’ He showed her the signature, and indeed, it unmistakably read, ‘Lady Alfreda.’

‘Gracious heavens,’ Rosalind said.

‘Shall I read the letter to you now, my love?’ he asked, just as a maid brought in the tray of tea.

‘Certainly, at once.’

‘Very well.’ Henry cleared his throat and held up the letter, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement.

‘My Lord and Madam,

I greet you warmly this day for I write with happy news.’

At this, Henry looked up at Rosalind, his eyebrows raised inquisitively.

‘Go on,’ Rosalind urged him.

‘I am recently married. My bridegroom is beside me now, and we both laugh to think of the look on your faces when you learn his identity.’

Henry stopped again, his expression perplexed.

‘Oh, do go on, Henry!’

With a little shake of his head, he did so. ‘It is none other than Madam the Countess’s own brother, Mr Gilbert Read.’

‘What?!’ Rosalind gasped. ‘I cannot have understood that correctly. She cannot mean to say that she has married Bertie.’

‘Indeed, Bertie and I were wed yesterday in a small ceremony here in London,’ Henry read with incredulity in his tone. ‘By Jove, that is precisely what she means to say, Rosie. Can you believe it?’

‘I declare, I am amazed.’

 ‘We should like very much to come and visit. Pray inform us of when it would be convenient to you,’ Henry read on. ‘And then she simply spins the usual phrases wishing us well.’

‘What a jest! I must be in a dream.’

‘Lady Alfreda, married to a commoner,’ Henry said in astonishment.

‘Bertie, married to a noblewoman!’ Rosalind countered with even greater disbelief.

‘Well, I see no other recourse than to invite them at once, for we must have the whole story.’

‘Indeed, ’tis imperative. I shall write immediately.’

And she did.

Mr Gilbert Read and the Lady Alfreda Read arrived at Linwood one month later, just as summer was beginning to hint at its own arrival. Mrs Read was beside herself with delight. As the sensible, unadorned carriage came up the drive, Mrs Read hurried down to meet it with such haste that Oma had to run to catch up with her. Rosalind and Henry followed at a more measured pace, both of them feeling a bit of anxiety at how the visit might unfold.

As Bertie descended first, giving a hand up to his wife, his eyes widened at the sight of Oma, then brightened with genuine affection as Mrs Read could not refrain from stepping forward and taking his other hand in both of hers.

‘Bertie, Bertie, my dearest boy,’ the lady effused.

Bertie brought her hand to his lips, giving his mother a kiss and a smile. ‘Dear Mama, I do hope you are well.’

Meanwhile, Lady Alfreda descended the carriage. She looked about her with a sharp, quick gaze, but none of the affected charm she used to employ. Pretence seemed to have left her entirely. As she approached Henry and Rosalind, she met their eyes steadily and gave them a sincere smile.

‘Lord and Lady Linwood,’ she said. ‘I thank you for your invitation. Bertie was most hesitant to contact you, but I told him we must make amends once and for all, for we all belong to the same family now.’

‘Very well—and may I say, candidly—said,’ Henry replied.

‘I have acquired a taste for candour,’ Lady Alfreda said. ‘I find I cannot do without it now.’

‘Indeed,’ Henry said, and Rosalind smiled.

Mrs Read and Bertie joined them then, his mother’s arm held tightly in his. ‘Good afternoon, Rosie. And my Lord Linwood,’ he said with a bow.

Henry returned the bow, and Rosalind turned her smile on her brother. ‘Since we are being candid, I must say, Bertie, I think I have never been more bewildered than when we received Lady Alfreda’s letter. Pray, do come inside and take tea. I must know all about the last year and a half of your life!’

Within, Eira was seeing to the tea things in the parlour they preferred to the drawing room. ‘Welcome, Bertie. My Lady Alfreda.’

Once everyone was seated and served, Mrs Read exclaimed, ‘Oh, Bertie, do tell me you’ve found a way to settle matters so you needn’t hide any longer.’

‘Indeed, I am in the clear,’ Bertie said with a look of ease on his face that Rosalind had not seen for many years. ‘Although I cannot claim to have done it alone. Lady Alfreda had a hand in it, as well as some old friends.’

‘How so?’ Rosalind asked, taking a sip of tea to hide the ambivalence she felt—what scheme had his friends carried out, she wondered, that they could not have managed five years ago?

‘They arrested Thistlewood last February,’ Bertie said. Rosalind knew the name well; Thistlewood was one of the firebrands who had led Bertie so far astray. ‘’Tis to him I owe the main debt of gratitude, for he told them I had nothing to do with the riot at Spa Field.’

‘And Lady Alfreda?’ Henry asked.

‘My lovely wife wrote to several influential peers and convinced them to take Thistlewood at his word.’

‘Then were you courting her already last winter?’ Rosalind asked rather more plainly than might be considered polite. She glanced in alarm at Lady Alfreda, but the latter was sitting with an expression of cheerful quiet on her face.

‘Oh no,’ Bertie said. ‘My dear?’

Thus prompted, Lady Alfreda took up the tale. ‘After that disastrous ball,’ she said without rancour, ‘I felt my very life was over.’ At this, she laughed.

Rosalind blinked and exchanged a quick look with Henry, but the lady seemed genuinely amused by the memory.

‘My sister, Arabella, would crow at me every time she saw me; such was her utter delight at my undoing,’ Alfreda recalled. ‘Oh, how horrid she was. And I soon received several letters from Augusta, my other sister, consoling me for what a hobble I had made of everything. She said I always had a place in her household, for many of her circle also entertained maiden aunts.’

Henry snorted in sympathy and scorn for such callous treatment.

‘I simply could no longer abide it. I insisted we go to London, so my mother and I went, but I found no solace in the society there to which I was accustomed. ’Twas you, My Lord, who ruined it all for me.’

‘Oh, I say!’ Henry exclaimed in consternation.

Alfreda chuckled. ‘’Twas something you said, indeed,’ she replied and then turned to look at Rosalind. ‘He told me I should not allow others to define my worth. In fact, he said I should tell them to go to the Devil!’

‘Henry!’ Rosalind said, her cheeks warming.

‘And I told him I hadn’t any choice,’ Alfreda said, her gaze going hazy with memory. ‘And Lord Linwood said, “Is that really true? Or do you cling to the idea, for the alternative is too frightening to contemplate?” How those words have echoed in my mind since then.’

Everyone was quiet for a moment. Rosalind felt a tingling excitement. Hadn’t she and Henry cast aside the expectations of society? What a happy life they now had! And to think, Lady Alfreda and Bertie must have done so as well …

‘I began to visit acquaintances I had avoided in the past, for they were known as bluestockings,’ Alfreda said. ‘Before long, I was attending lectures by Orator Hunt. And who did I encounter there?’

Rosalind laughed, looking at Bertie, who grinned back.

‘Orator Hunt believes in all of the ideals of my old Spencean revolutionary friends, without the violence,’ Bertie said. ‘And he is a great speaker. What an inspiration it is to see him.’

‘Bertie and I are very involved in the movement,’ Alfreda said. ‘We wish for peaceful reform.’

Henry marvelled at the change in her; gone was the seething anger under the surface, covered by a veneer of gracious, counterfeit charm. She was her own person, at last. Meanwhile, Rosalind gazed happily at Bertie. Her dear brother had come back to her, she felt. After the years of impotent rage and disorientation, the buried guilt and shame over their father’s death driving him to distraction, she knew he had found his way at last.

***

The next morning, Rosalind and Eira went for a walk to gather fen violets, which Oma used in a tonic for treating coughs. The violets grew in marshier areas, and Eira wrinkled her nose as her boots picked up mud.

‘Oh, come now,’ Rosalind chided her, ‘you cannot mean to remain indoors until the earth is dry. With all the rain, how will you ever go out?’

‘Would never going out be so very bad?’ Eira countered.

Rosalind smiled a little sadly. ‘Perhaps Linwood is not as well suited to you, dear Eira, as it is to me. I think Oma, Mama, and Henry all love it here as well. But you … would you not prefer the life of the city?’

Eira frowned. ‘My heavens, what brought on this line of questioning?’

‘In Town, you would likely spend most of your time indoors, and no one would think twice about it.’

‘And I suppose I mayn’t complain of soiling my boots without being shipped off to London now?’

‘No one is thinking of shipping you off, you goose. I am only concerned about your happiness, dearest.’

Eira laughed. ‘Do you remember, Rosie? I spoke similarly to you two years ago.’

‘Now that you mention it, I do recall,’ Rosalind said with a grin.

‘I am delighted to be your companion and lady’s maid, Rosie. I have all the fabric I could ever dream of, and I spend my time designing gowns! ’Tis just what I like most.’

‘But you are beautiful and clever, and very accomplished, Eira,’ Rosalind persisted. ‘Here in Linwood, society is scarce. But were you in Town, you would find suitors very soon, I daresay. Henry has many relations, and we could find someone to host you before long.’

‘Oh, what an echo of my own words,’ Eira exclaimed. ‘But that is simply out of the question,’ Eira said firmly. ‘I shan’t be sent away from Linwood, and I will ask you not to suggest such a thing again.’

‘You prefer to remain here, then?’ Rosalind asked, still anxious. ‘Helping me?’

‘Yes,’ Eira said resolutely.

Rosalind sighed. ‘I confess, ’tis a comfort. I shall need as much help as I may have soon enough.’

Her words were mostly lost on Eira, however, for she was still annoyed. ‘That is true, and I should like you not to forget it! I am quite proud of my contributions to the household here, you know.’

‘As you should be,’ Rosalind said, amused. ‘Now, let us turn to the task at hand. Look there; I told you we should find the violets on this side of the wood.’

***

‘What a day! You never told me your brother was such an avid fisherman,’ Henry declared as, wrapped in a caftan, Rosalind entered the bedchamber after her bath. Henry was putting out all of the lamps but the ones by the bed.

‘I daresay I’d forgotten,’ she owned. ‘Papa used to take him fishing, ’tis true, why, it must be ten years ago at least. How jolly that he’s rediscovered it now, with you.’

‘And how did Lady Alfreda spend her first day at Linwood?’

‘Reading!’ Rosalind exclaimed with amusement. ‘She went into the library after breakfast and did not emerge until just before dinner.’

‘Hound’s teeth! A bluestocking, indeed,’ Henry said.

‘I think Hippolyta kept her company. She’s become an affectionate cat.’

‘Good for the both of them. Those cats had a part to play in my own rejuvenation. Everyone should have a cat to help them become more fully themselves.’

Rosalind laughed, her eyes dancing as she looked at him. Henry crossed to her, gazing down at her with that tender look in his eyes that always gave her butterflies in her belly.

‘And what of you, Lady Linwood? How was your day?’

‘Very pleasant,’ she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. ‘Although I confess I did miss you.’

‘Bother having guests!’ Henry said in mock irritation. ‘It interferes with my beloved daily habits.’

‘Tomorrow, we must insist on all having tea together.’

‘Or perhaps you and I might creep away.’

At this, he kissed her deeply, and she melted into his arms.

The caftan fell away in a heap on the floor, and she was nude in his arms. Henry made a low growling sound of appreciation, which sent thrills through her. Pulling back, he stroked his rough palms over her silky shoulders, tracing fingertips along her collarbones with studied appreciation. Rosalind sighed, closing her eyes and rocking back, allowing Henry to hold her as he slipped one arm around her and lowered his mouth to her breast.

His other hand soon slipped around her as well, so that one hand pressed into the small of her back, and the other caressed her bottom as he kissed and tasted her nipple. Her body yielded, loosening in his arms, so he swept her up and carried her to the bed. With gentle stroking, he parted her thighs, finding that she was already wet for him. Rosalind sighed again, turning on her side and rolling her head to rest her cheek and forehead against his muscular chest. She ran her hand over his strong arm and large shoulder, loving the sensation as much as the first time she had done so. Lying with him on the bed, he seemed a giant, handsome and formidable. He propped himself over her, kissing her mouth, jaw, and throat with a hunger that excited her beyond words.

His mouth travelled lower, and she whimpered, knowing what he intended. Running her fingers into his wavy hair, she revelled in its silky texture. He kissed the soft indentation between her belly and her hipbone. Then he kissed her mound.

‘Henry …’ she breathed.

He positioned her legs over his shoulders and began to tease her most secret place with his tongue.

She gasped, arching her back at the sudden pleasure, aching for more as he licked her nether-lips playfully. With his hands, he held her hips as they bucked with the thrills he gave her.

He rose up, replacing his tongue with a finger, caressing her until she moaned. Then she felt his tip, and he plunged into her, filling her as she desired.

Her legs wrapped around his hips, holding him tightly. He thrust deeper, and her fingers dug into his back. As they rocked together, the pleasure within her built, tightening into a ball of rapture. At last, it snapped, breaking apart like a ripe fig, sweet as honey. She cried out as the waves of bliss shuddered through her. As the sensations overwhelmed her, she heard Henry gasp as well, and his rhythm hastened as he rode the crest of his release.

Their pleasure spent, they collapsed in each other’s arms, wrapped together as though their bodies had been made to fit together.

Henry kissed her forehead and stroked her hair away from her face.

‘How full my heart is, my love,’ he said.

She smiled at him. ‘Is it very full, darling?’

Henry gave a little laugh and gazed at her in amusement. ‘Indeed, as full as full can be, I should say.’

‘Oh dear,’ she said with affected concern.

Henry frowned. ‘Whatever is the matter?’

Rosalind looked down, trying not to smile. ‘’Tis only that, well … I had hoped there might be a bit of room left in your heart …’

‘A bit of room? What can you mean by this?’

‘I daresay the one who will require it shall be very small,’ she continued. ‘At least at first.’

Henry stared at her, blinking once.

She looked up at him, her eyes full of mischief. ‘Might you find a little spot in your heart if a baby were to come along, do you think?’

Henry’s face blanked. Hurriedly, he propped himself on an elbow to better face her. ‘Rosalind, what are you saying? Speak plainly.’

She laughed. ‘I think you know, Henry.’

‘I—I cannot—that is to say—do you mean it? Is it true? Is there—?’ He placed a hand on her belly in a reverent manner quite new to him.

‘Yes,’ she said happily. ‘Oma confirmed it for me this morning, before my outing with Eira. We think the baby is likely to arrive sometime after Christmas.’

‘Upon my soul!’ Henry exclaimed. ‘Upon my soul! A baby!’

They laughed together, and embraced, happiness filling and surrounding them like a blessing.

***

On January 26, 1822, Rosalind gave birth to a healthy boy named William for her late father. Oma presided over the birth, and all went very well.

That summer, Phillips wed Eira, and by the following May, they had a child of their own, Caroline.

By the end of the decade, seven children played together at Linwood, often visited by their three cousins, the children of Bertie and Alfreda. ’Twas a raucous, merry time for all, and as they grew to adulthood, they remained close friends all. They had happy lives ever after.

THE END

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