Christ!He just wanted to get back the girl he loved and then design a few goddamn ships. Was that too much to ask?
Dressing quickly, he slipped the gun into his coat pocket. He wasn’t about to try anything stupidly heroic. He headed straight for the police department and convinced a detective and a sergeant to return with him to his room.
Gingerly, the detective pushed the door open while Finn peered past him.
“Fuck!” he swore. The man was gone.
***
“Mama, you are not going to change your plans to marry Mr. Nickerson. Do you hear me? You are not.”
Rose had returned from class to find Evelyn ringing her hands.
“I have decided that I can’t leave you. Not alone in this enormous house.”
“The house is quite reasonably sized, and I assume I will still have an allowance from Father’s will and can keep Emily and Jillian, though I may let Bridget go as two maids seems excessive.”
“Maids and cooks are not family,” her mother reminded her. “Besides Emily and Jillian go home at the end of the day. If you terminate Bridget, you will be all alone at night.”
“Then I won’t. Or I’ll think about it. I don’t have to decide at this moment. Why are you suddenly in such a state, Mama?”
Her mother sighed. “It was one thing to know you were moving out to live with your husband, and I with mine. It is another for me to be the one to move out and leave you here, a single girl.”
A widow, Rose nearly said, as that was how she had become used to thinking of herself for so very long.BeforeWilliam. Ever since he’d left the States, she almost felt like one again.
“Not simply a single girl,” Rose pointed out. “A divorced woman.”Or nearly so, if Reed would get on with it.“As such, it is perfectly appropriate for me to stay here alone. What’s more, I love this house, Mama, and can think of nothing better than remaining in it and caring for it. I want to continue to dine where we have had so many lovely meals together and to sit in Father’s study, where I still sometimes think I can smell his aftershave.”
Her mother stared at her. Then she smiled. “Maybe it is I who is afraid to move on. I have lived here so very long.”
Setting down her shopping bag, Rose considered her mother a moment. “Do you love Mr. Nickerson?”
Her mother blushed prettily. “I do.”
“Then you must marry him and enjoy many years with him. His house is so lovely. All it lacks is your warmth.” She clapped her hands with enthusiasm. “Once you are there, it will feel like your home because you will make it so.”
Her mother looked unconvinced.
“Think of the gardens,” Rose added. “All yours to putter in.”
“I donotputter,” her mother admonished, though a flash of keenness crossed her face. “Mr. Nickerson does have some fine planting beds, not to mention an Italian-crafted fountain.”
“Knowing how everything has turned out for me,” Rose confessed, “if I had the opportunity to start a new life with the man I love, I wouldn’t hesitate. And neither should you.”
Her mother crossed her arms and stared. “How did you become so grown up and so wise, my little flower?”
Rose simply smiled. She wished she hadn’t learned all her lessons the hard way. However, since she was staying put on Beacon Hill, she thought about her new plans for her old home.
“Mama, if I do wish to redecorate or change anything around, you won’t mind, will you?”
“No, of course not. You will be mistress of No. 7 Mount Vernon Street and you can do as you please.”
Rose nodded. It was actually more than a little thrilling — the notion that she was to become an entirely independent woman with no one to whom she would answer.Good grief, she could barely conceive of such freedom.She might redecorate the sitting room in a fashionably medieval style. Or with some Empire pieces that had recently come back into style. Perhaps even an exotic oriental style. Squinting, Rose let her gaze wander around the room and imagine it.
Hm,maybe she would just get a cat.
“I’m going to put on an apron and try out a recipe I learned today,” Rose told her mother, who had long since stopped appearing shocked that her well-bred daughter liked to work in the kitchen alongside their cook.
“I may have to send someone out if Emily doesn’t have everything I need, such as coriander.”
