the only girl he’d ever loved.
A few feet away, Ezra Stark’s magnificent coach stood ready to convey him to London and a new life filled with possibilities—a far cry from sleepy Ashby Croft, with its cob-n-thatch cottages and meandering muddy lanes that led to nowhere.
Rose’s slender fingers curled around the frayed edges of his open coat front. “I’m afraid you won’t come back to me,” she whispered. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Don’t be a daft little goose.” He tried to cajole a smile from her, but the effort was a lost cause.
Painfully aware she’d been abandoned by everyone else who should have cared for her, he pulled her close and breathed in the light scent of rosewater she’d favored ever since he’d bought a bottle for her birthday last spring.
Her sadness tore at his heart. She’d endured more disappointment and hardship in her sixteen years than a soul should have to bear in a lifetime. All he wanted was to make her happy.
He kissed the top of her head, savoring the feel of her in his arms. He dreaded leaving her, but he had to go. Mr. Stark had made it clear he wanted to be away before the village fully awakened.
“Listen to me, luv.” Sam dabbed Rosie’s tear-streaked face with the embroidered handkerchief she’d fashioned for him last Christmas. “This is our chance. Mr. Stark thinks I have a real gift for numbers. The clerk’s position he’s offered me is a stunner of a job. At sixty quid a year there’ll be no need for more gambling or thieving to earn our daily crust.”
He motioned to the ramshackle inn across the rutted street where she slaved as a maid for a pittance. The stagecoach waited out front and several travelers were already milling about in preparation to leave. “I want more for you than working your fingers to the bone day in and day out. Maybe someday we can even buy a cottage by the sea like we always dreamed of.”
“But...” She glanced nervously toward the gleaming lacquered coach and matched team of four gray horses nickering impatiently. “What if Mr. Stark isn’t who he claims ta be? What if—”
“He is, Rosie, no doubt. I told you before, if you’d seen how high-an-mighty Sir Percival was bowing and scraping around him you’d know you needn’t fret.” He tucked the handkerchief in his coat pocket and cupped her shoulders. The threadbare gloves she’d darned for him too many times to count did little to protect his callused hands from the late-autumn chill.
A gust of wind tugged at the brim of Rose’s worn brown cap, exposing her golden-blond hair. Having grown up as orphans, neither of them was used to the fineries of life, but if he had his way, it wouldn’t be long before she was turned out in the softest linen and richest silks. She deserved jewels and servants to see to her every whim. He was bound and determined to give them to her.
“I’ll be back from London within a month...afore the trees are bare. I’ll save every ha’penny and the minute I come back we’ll get married just as we always said we would.”
A ray of sunlight pierced the gloomy morning. A tremulous smile turned her soft, pink lips. “I like the sound of that. It’s about time I brought you up to scratch.”
“And here I was thinking I’d finally be making an honest woman of you.” He grinned. “Jus’ proves how much we need each other.”
Her faint smile faltered. “I can’t help feeling something bad is bound to happen.”
“Worrywart.” He tweaked her chin and laughed, despite the tightness banding his chest. How he dreaded leaving her when she was so afraid. They’d never been parted more than a day or two, but there was no help for it if they were ever to be more than a pair of bootlickers. “I’m going to town, not to war, sweetheart. Besides, even if I turned up my toes—”
“Don’t say that!” She leaned back in the circle of his arms, her stricken gaze pinned to his face. “I couldn’t bear it if you were taken from me forever.”
“You could never be rid of me for good. We’re a pair, you and me—the sand and surf, the moon and stars—”
“A goose and ’er gander?”
“Exactly.” He chuckled, relieved to see her smile. His thumb brushed tenderly across her wind-reddened cheek. He pulled her back against his chest, pleased by her wish for him to stay. His mother, whoever she was, had discarded him on the steps of the orphans’ asylum and no one else had ever cared a whit about him, except Rosie. “You have to know you’re all that matters to me. All I’ll ever care about.”
She sniffed against the rough wool of his shirtfront. “You say that now, but you might meet someone, a pretty London miss who—”
“Silly girl.” He squeezed her, snorting at such nonsense. She was as irreplaceable to him as his own heart. He’d been a lad of three the first time he saw her, a red-faced infant who’d been dumped on the orphanage doorstep. Even then he’d known she’d be important to him. In the sixteen years since, they’d become inseparable. She was everything to him, the reason he breathed and dreamed.
He nuzzled her ear. Squeezing his eyes shut, he missed her already. “I love you,” he said gruffly.
Her arms tightened around his waist. “You know I love you, too. More than anything.”
A few feet away, the coach’s door swung open. The forbidding presence of Ezra Stark remained out of sight inside the magnificent conveyance, but there was no mistaking his tone. “It’s time, Blackstone. Or have you reconsidered my offer?”
Sam stared at the tufted, burgundy velvet lining the door. The luxurious fabric probably cost more coin than he managed to scrape together in a year. How grand it would be to be like Ezra Stark who, according to the lads down at the pub, had more wealth than he could spend in ten lifetimes.
The shadowed figure moved within the coach. “The day is wasting, man. Make your choice.”
Now that the moment of reckoning had arrived, Sam wondered if he was making the biggest mistake of his life to leave all that he knew and everything he held dear. His hand still clasped in Rose’s tight grip, he took a step forward then stopped. His gaze darted back to Rose. Her chin quivered.
If she asks me to stay once more, I won’t go. I won’t rest till I find a position in service somewhere and—
“I sketched this for you.” She reached into her dress pocket, extracted a small roll of paper and handed it to him. “Don’t look at it until you’re gone. Promise you’ll come to fetch me as soon as you can, Sam. I know you want to find us a proper place to live, but I don’t need anything grand. I only need you.”
An ache swelling in his chest, he ignored Ezra Stark’s silent demand for him to hasten and accepted the gift. He leaned forward and kissed Rose’s cold lips, committing their softness and her warm response to memory. “You have my word as long as you promise you’ll wait for me.”
“Now who’s being a silly gander?” She pasted on a brave smile. The rain began to fall, helping to disguise her tears, but he wasn’t fooled. Pulling her crocheted shawl tighter around her shoulders, she hugged her small waist. Deep-blue eyes watched him with equal parts of uncertainty and trust. “Never doubt me, Sam. I’ll wait for you forever if need be,” she promised as he climbed into the coach.
Chapter
