The Headmistress of Rosemere Read Online Free PDF Page B

all to right? Patience bit back a retort. No matter how hard she had worked these many months to keep the school running efficiently, her effort, ignored by her mother, seemed little more than a whisper on the wind.

4
     
    F eeling exhausted even before the day was truly under way, Patience carefully closed her mother’s door and let the brass handle slip from her fingers. She sighed. She would give anything to have her mother back, the mother she remembered. The mother who was full of life, full of overflowing love. Margaret Creighton was but a shell of the woman who occupied so many of Patience’s fondest memories.
    Lost in her own torrent of thoughts, Patience was startled when Cassandra Baden, fellow teacher and dear friend, turned the corner from the servants’ stairs.
    “Patience!” exclaimed Cassandra, face flushed, brown eyes wide. “You must tell me quickly, and you must tell me every detail. What happened this morning? I heard a man’s voice, I heard Mary fussing, and I thought—”
    Alarmed that someone else knew of their surprise visitor and petrified that her mother would hear, Patience grabbed Cassandra’s hand and pulled her to a cushioned bench in the sitting area at the corridor’s end. “Shh!”
    “But what happened? I do not under—”
    With a wave of her hand, Patience silenced Cassandra, and then, once certain they were alone, she leaned close. “Was he loud? Do you think the girls heard?”
    Scrunching her face in thought, Cassandra shook her head. “I do not think so. Who was he?”
    Patience chewed her lip. “It . . . it was Mr. Sterling.”
    Cassandra frowned. “Mr. William Sterling? Here?”
    Patience paused to consider her words—and how much she would reveal of her suspicion about what had really happened. “Apparently he was out riding and had an accident and took shelter in our stable. George found him while tending to his morning duties.”
    “Was he injured?”
    Patience unwillingly recalled the man’s blood-stained lips, swollen eye, and gashed forehead. And as much as she tried to deny it, she remembered the feel of strong muscle beneath his woven shirt when she tried to force him to be still. “He had cuts and bruises, was unconscious for a time, but as soon as he regained his senses, he left.”
    Patience could interpret the expressions shadowing her friend’s face without her friend uttering a sound. Time had made them closer than sisters. “I know what you are thinking. It wasn’t the least bit romantic, Cassandra Baden.” Patience spoke the words to convince Cassandra as well as herself. “He was abrupt, almost rude. And he reeked of spirits.”
    Cassandra’s smile vanished, as if she’d just gotten caught up with her childish romantic fantasies.
    Patience sat up straighter. “You know how such men are. He will no doubt send his steward out to collect our rent at the end of the month as always, and we shall not hear from him again.”
    “I suppose you are right,” Cassandra said, glancing at the doorto Mrs. Creighton’s bedchamber. “I take it you did not tell your mother?”
    Patience shook her head. “No, and I think we should not speak of it. Such stories will only lead to rumors and tall tales, neither of which we need. George, Mary, and Charlie are the only ones who saw him. At least I think they are the only ones.”
    “And Mr. Rawdon Creighton? Will you inform him of the visit?”
    Patience stiffened, hearing her brother’s name for the second time that morning. She knew of Cassandra’s relationship with her brother. In fact, Rawdon had confided in Patience his plans to propose marriage to her pretty friend. But days after he made that bold statement, their father died. And on the dreary August morning after the funeral, a somber Rawdon departed for London, declaring that he needed to settle business for their father.
    He never returned.
    Patience believed he had betrayed them both, and yet Cassandra continued to defend him, very much like his