Pretty Little Rose Read online

  “I must confess I did not bring you to the park merely to walk alone and undisturbed.”

  “You didn’t?” Don’t sound too eager, she thought. Let him make the move. This is it, you are about to be kissed.

  “No, I didn’t.” His hand slid round her back, drawing her towards him. He nodded his head down towards her and Rose reached up on tiptoes, closing her eyes ready.

  When his lips pressed against hers, she was surprised and then shocked. Surprised, first of all, because she had been told the first kiss would be soft and gentle and this was nothing like that, his cold wet lips were pressing hard against hers and there was nothing gentle about it. The shock she felt moments later was caused by her complete lack of feeling anything romantic at all. She had expected her heart to soar, angels to fly past blowing trumpets, the ground to move beneath her. All she felt was his wet cold lips and the slightest scent of something unpleasant, something she couldn’t quite place. Had he had fish for dinner?

  She went to pull away from him but he held her so firmly in place, she could not move. Nor could she breathe. She tried to tell him to stop but he only pressed his lips harder to hers, his tongue slipping into her mouth like a dead fish, cold and slippery and utterly alien.

  All of a sudden, she wanted to leave the park. She wanted to go home. This was wrong, this was all wrong. She tried to pull away from him again but he ignored her, his hands sliding down the back of her cloak, reaching under it, groping her through her dress, seeking out her bottom, his hands gripping her tightly despite her attempts to break free from his grasp.

  “Stop,” she managed to mutter but he ignored her, pressing himself into her and moving her downwards with him, forcing her towards the ground. “Stop, Jonathan, let me breathe.”

  “Hush,” he whispered back. “Don’t be afraid. It is all right to want this. I’ve wanted it since the moment I first laid eyes upon you.”

  “I don’t want this,” she said as his lips pressed against hers again. She twisted her head away from him but he moved with her, kissing her cheek with those cold lips of his again and again. She could feel his body pressing into hers as she was pushed down onto the grass below her. Laid on her back with his bulk pressing on top of her, she fought to free herself, trying to push him off with her arms flailing. “Get off me!”

  “It’ll be over soon,” he said, reaching down towards his waist, fumbling with his trousers. “Don’t fight it. It’s fine, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I know you want this as much as me. Just keep still.”

  “No,” she hissed. “Let me up or I’ll scream.”

  “You won’t,” he snapped, his eyes flashing in the darkness, “unless you want to feel the back of my hand.”

  “Would you like to feel the back of mine, sir?” a deep voice asked in the darkness.

  Rose glanced past Jonathan. There was a figure towering over them both, hardly visible in the gloom. He must have been surefooted for she had not heard him approach. Before she had a chance to react, the figure had taken hold of Jonathan and was lifting him into the air, leaving him dangling for a brief moment, his legs kicking ineffectually at nothing.

  “Who the devil are you?” Jonathan snapped. “Unhand me this instant.”

  “As you wish,” the figure replied, dropping him to the ground with a thud.

  Jonathan leapt to his feet, his trousers falling to his ankles as he did so. Rose couldn’t help but let out a terrified giggle at the sight, covering her mouth as Jonathan scowled at her before turning his attention back to the shadowy figure looming over him. “You will regret that. I was boxing champion in my year at Eton.”

  Jonathan’s fist lashed through the air but the figure easily ducked away from it, landing a swift punch of his own a moment later. “Perhaps you should have spent more than a year there,” the figure said, landing a second punch in Jonathan’s midriff, causing him to buckle forwards, the breath forced out of his lungs. “You might have learned a little about how to treat a lady.”

  Rose had been frozen in place throughout this exchange but as the figure moved towards her, she scrambled to her feet. “Look out!” she shouted as Jonathan threw a punch at the back of the figure’s head.

  He spun round, leaning back as the flying fist swept through the air where his head had been a moment ago. “You need more lessons, do you?” He reached out and caught Jonathan’s arm in the blink of an eye. He forced it backwards, Jonathan letting out a strangled squeak of pain. “It is bad manners to attack a man when his back is turned. In the navy, they would snap your arm for such an offence. Though we are on land, perhaps I should carry out the punishment anyway.” He twisted the arm further back on itself as he continued. “What do you think?”

  “No, no,” Jonathan begged, waving his other arm frantically. “I’m sorry, please, don’t.”

  The figure laughed, letting go of his arm. “I think it’s time you headed home,” he said. “Parks can be dangerous places after dark. Ne’er do wells tend to come out at night, don’t you agree?”

  “Y…y…yes,” Jonathan stuttered. “Couldn’t agree more. Goodnight, Rose. Goodbye.”

  “Wait,” Rose called after him as he sprinted off into the night. “You would leave me with this…this…” Her voice faded away to nothing.

  “This what?” the figure said, turning back to her once more, his face shrouded in shadow. “This man who just saved you from being one more crime statistic in the ledger of the Assizes? This knight in shining armour who put his life and looks on the line for you? The dashing fellow who thought only of assisting a damsel in distress?”

  “The complete stranger who might do anything to me,” she replied, taking a wary step backwards from him.

  “Oh don’t flatter yourself,” he said with a chuckle. “Even if you were my type, which you’re not, the only ladies worth picking up after dark normally charge an exorbitant fee.”

  “How dare you, sir! Are you suggesting I am a lady of the night?”

  “I am suggesting nothing. I am sure you were on the ground in the park in the middle of the night with him on top of you with his trousers undone for a perfectly respectable reason.”

  “I do not like your tone, sir.”

  “Well, you needn’t listen to it anymore. Off you go home.”

  “You are infuriating!”

  “Yet you’re still here.”

  “Oh, I’m going, you can count on that,” Rose said, turning away from him and marching back towards the park entrance. She looked back when he coughed loudly.

  “One more thing,” he shouted after her. “You might want to rethink the company you keep.”

  She spun on her heels and stomped away.

  “And get that dress cleaned,” his fading voice called out one last time. “Those grass stains might reveal more than you want about your perfectly innocent stroll in the park.”

  Chapter 3

  “I want to thank you again, Papa.”

  Titus leaned back in his chair, taking a long slow drag on his cigar before speaking. Finally, in a plume of purplish smoke, he addressed the young woman who had spoken from the opposite side of his desk. “Now, Stephanie, it is time you ceased calling me Papa. You are no longer my student, nor my concern.”

  “Come, come,” Stephanie replied. “You cannot think me a concern, surely?”

  Titus smiled inwardly. “Do you forget what you were like when I first took you in? The incessant whining. Oh, Father, don’t leave me with him, let me stay at home. Why do I have to have a tutor? You must hate me. You smell, I hate you.”

  “Stop, it is shameful to even think I was once like that.”

  “You were like that and worse. You were a spoilt brat, plain and simple.”

  Stephanie nodded, at least having the decency to look embarrassed. “I was.”

  “But do not be downhearted. You are no longer the little girl who came to me. You are now a mature young woman and you are to be wed. You have come a long way, Miss Dubois, and I am not ashamed to
say it is primarily down to your own hard work combined with my expert tuition.”

  “Modest as ever.”

  “Modesty is for failures. I am a success; you are proof enough of that.”

  “I will miss you, Papa.”

  “That’s enough,” Titus snapped. “You should get used to calling me Mr. Burlingham and I shall call you Miss Dubois. Or should I call you the future Lady Rochester?”

  “It certainly has a ring to it, doesn’t it? Lady Rochester. Who would have thought it?”

  “Not me when you had a tantrum and broke three of my windows on your first day here.”

  “I am sorry for how I was back then. I was foolish and immature. I am no longer that person.”

  “Correct. Now you better be off before I get accused of trying to seduce you for myself.”

  “Papa! I mean, Mr. Burlingham. That is downright indecent.”

  “Go on, get out of here or I’ll have to charge your parents for another quarter.”

  He watched her go, sighing happily at the sight of her as he looked out of his office window. On the street, she looked no different to any of the other women walking back and forth. She held her head high and spoke gracefully to her parents who were waiting by the carriage. He frowned as Mr. Dubois Esq. left his wife and daughter and walked back into the office, rapping politely on Titus’s door.

  “Come,” Titus boomed out, taking another puff on his cigar as Mr. Dubois walked in and took a seat opposite him. The chair creaked loudly, not used to such huge bulk descending on it at once. “What can I do for you, Mr. Dubois? If it’s about the bill, I am not open to negotiations.”

  “No, no, nothing like that. We are more than happy with the service you have provided us. It is just…”

  Titus waited a moment. “It is just that you don’t know how to end sentences?”

  “No, not that. Listen, I know you said you were taking a rest between pupils. I just wondered if I might be able to change your mind at all. You see, we have another daughter, and she is exhibiting many of the same symptoms of oncoming womanhood as Stephanie.”

  “If you are suggesting I take on another Dubois, I am not sure I can afford the glazier’s bill.”

  “I would pay any amount you desire.”

  “Money is not the issue here, Mr. Dubois. I have had not a single day to myself in more than two years. In that time, I have turned no less than twelve spoilt little brats into a dozen decent society ladies. Twelve, sir! I am taking a break for a spell.”

  “But, Mr. Burlingham, might you reconsider for an old friend?”

  “I make a point of never making old friends. They ask too much of me. I am taking a break and that is my final word on the matter. There are many other excellent tutors out there who would leap at the chance to teach a Dubois how to grow up and prepare for marriage.”

  “But they are not you. Your reputation, sir, surpasses all. Look at Stephanie out there.” Mr. Dubois waved a hand towards the window. “She is a different person. Just look at her. You have changed her.”

  “Indeed I have. You appear to be pointing at a horse.”

  “Am I? Oh, drat these spectacles. More trouble than they’re worth. But listen, please take her on, I beg you.”

  “I am a polite man, Mr. Dubois but if you do not leave this office and take your daughter home, I will cease to be polite.”

  “You will not listen to reason, sir?”

  “It has never done me any good before. I say good day to you and there is an end to the matter.”

  Mr. Dubois stood up, pushing his spectacles up his nose as he did so. “I do wish you would reconsider.”

  “Good day, Mr. Dubois.”

  “A good day indeed when an honest man gets nowhere with his hired help.”

  If he were trying to get a rise out of Titus, it did not work. The tutor did not look up from his papers until he heard the office door open and then close. Glancing out of the window, he caught a glimpse of what looked like a short but fiery argument between husband and wife whilst Stephanie sat glumly in the carriage, looking out at them. The argument ended with Mr. Dubois being clapped across the head by his wife, causing his hat to fall into the gutter. Titus smiled, turning back to his cigar.

  That’s marriage in a nutshell, he thought as he reached across the desk for the pile of correspondence that awaited his attention. A hat in a gutter. Never see me ending up like that, sullying a decent bonce warmer.

  Yet they were so desperate to get Stephanie married off, they’d paid twice his usual rate for his expertise. Strange what people thought important. He couldn’t deny that the money was handy though. It was the reason he could afford to take a break. The excess income should cover his bills nicely for a month or two, allowing him a chance to catch his breath after the toughest assignment he’d ever had.

  It was no exaggeration to say that Stephanie had been a nightmare when she arrived. It had been like sharing a home with a particularly obnoxious nine-year-old girl, though one with enough strength to lift a unique second century Roman bust from its plinth and reduce it to little more than dust by throwing it out of the window. It had survived the collapse of the Ancient and robust Empire but a drop from the window of the third floor of Titus’s house to the stone steps below was too much. Her first attempt to overthrow the dictatorship of Titus, as she called it at the time.

  It had also been her last attempt. A few spankings later, she was an entirely different girl. In just over two months, he had used his unique mixture of punishment and reward to turn a spoilt brat into the future wife of the fifteenth in line to the throne. Or fourteenth in line, it was touch and go if that doddery old sot in Scotland would see out the season.

  She had been hard work but the end result was worth it. Deal with the post and then head off on holiday, time for a rest. Leaving the end of his cigar in the ashtray, he opened the first letter and read the contents. Another request. Apparently, news hadn’t yet filtered through high society that he was not currently for hire. They all seemed to know he was done with Stephanie and were eager for him to take on their daughter.

  Reading through one letter after another, Titus marvelled that there were so many spoilt children in the country. Was no one capable of raising a respectable woman? But then, if they did, he would be out of a job and then where would he be? Dependent on his brother for hand-outs once more. No, he was not going back there again. Thaddeus could keep the estate, Titus preferred his independence.

  His mind wandered to the previous evening. It had been his independence that allowed him to walk out late at night whenever he wished. It had been Stephanie’s last night and he had felt safe enough leaving her at home to walk out and take the night air. He had been surprised to find the park open when he reached it. He had been even more surprised to find a woman in there, laid on her back, being assaulted by that most infamous of cads, Jonathan Carlisle.

  He returned to the pile on his desk, trying not to get distracted, working his way through slowly. There was not a single interesting missive amongst them. Not one. When all were done, he rang the bell on his desk and seconds later, the office door opened and Mrs. Cartwright appeared. “Yes, sir?”

  “Standard reply to all these. I’m heading off once I find my coat.”

  “Back of your chair, sir. There is one more before you go, came just a few minutes ago. Shall I tell them you are unavailable?”

  Titus looked at the envelope in her hand. It was pink. Why was it pink? “I better have a look at it first,” he said.

  He took the envelope from her and tore it open, pulling out a piece of folded paper which exuded perfume that assaulted his nostrils. As his eyes scanned down the contents of the letter, he smiled. Rereading it made his smile broader still.

  “Standard reply, sir?” Mrs. Cartwright asked.

  “No, I think I’ll handle this one personally.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Not even sure I wanted a holiday, he thought as he took a fresh sheet of paper and
began to compose a response. Who needs time off when there’s a Winter in need of help, not only that but a Winter willing to pay four times his usual rate?

  Chapter 4

  Rose knew what they were going to say before they had even opened their mouths. She looked across at her parents, sitting upright next to each other on the sofa in that way they did when they wanted to be “proper” parents. They looked like salt and pepper pots, she thought to herself. Her mother’s black hair in a bun beside her father’s shock of white could not have fitted the mental image better if she had them placed in the centre of the dining room table whilst she ate.

  “I suppose you are wondering why we called for you?” Mr. Winter asked, motioning for Rose to sit.

  “To interview me for a position on the staff?” she replied, doing her best to keep a serious expression on her face. She failed.

  “Wipe away that grin, little lady,” Mrs. Winter snapped. “This is not a laughing matter.”

  “I heard you two talking,” Rose said, fiddling with her hair. “I know you want a tutor to take me on.”

  “Oh, eavesdropping were you? How very like you.” Mrs. Winter turned to her husband. “Aren’t you going to say anything to her?”

  Of course,” he replied. “You know I don’t like you listening to our private conversations, Rose.”

  “You listen to mine.”

  “That is not the point. I am your father.”

  “So you can break the rules but I can’t?”

  “What about the rule about not sneaking out at night? You left despite me expressly forbidding it.”

  “Your father expressly forbade it,” Mrs. Winter echoed. “Care to explain why you ignored his command?”

  Rose shrugged. “You have no proof I went out.”

  “There is your dress covered in grass stains which may never come out. It sickens me to think how those stains got there. I tell you, I have had enough. Either you tell us both the truth this instant or you face the consequences.”