Read Sweet Rosie for Free Online Page B

cold badly. He glanced up and caught her eye and smiled. For once, there was no sarcasm in his voice when he spoke.
    ‘We’re like an old married couple here, aren’t we?’
    His words shocked her. ‘Well, I don’t know about that, I thought you hated me being here.’
    ‘You are a foolish little lady! Of course I don’t hate you being here. You are quiet and decent with none of the forwardness of some women I’ve met. All in all I find you a pleasant companion.’
    Lily began to glow; her cramped inner feelings began to unfold a little. Being described as a pleasant companion was certainly not great praise but at least it was a start.
    ‘Lily,’ James said, ‘are you a good needlewoman?’
    ‘I’m not bad.’ Lily had always mended her own clothes. Never rich, she had patched petticoats and sewn on buttons more times than she cared to remember.
    ‘I wonder; would you do a little sewing for me?’ He pointed towards the stairs. ‘Up in my room, in the corner of the wardrobe, there’s a good shirt. It’s a little too large for me and needs to be altered. Could you tackle it for me?’
    Lily was eager to please though she could see that the job would be a little more than sewing on buttons or doing some patching. ‘I’ll have a look at it.’
    ‘Go on then, you little goose, go get it.’
    Lily hesitated for a moment, not sure if she was being friendly or simply acting like James’s servant. Then, with a shrug, she left the room. She was deep in thought as she climbed the winding stairs of the cottage. On the small landing, she paused to look out of the deep-silled window. It was dark in the garden with only a slant of moonlight to highlight the rosé arbour.
    She loved it here so much; the cottage had become her home, had given her a feeling of being in a safe haven. Even when her husband died, she had not been lonely, well only a little. Sometimes she missed Tom but mostly she felt relief that at last she was free. And then James had come along to destroy her dreams. But perhaps even now, she could rescue something from the situation. It seemed her hopes of a relationship with James might still come to fruition.
    She lit the candles and opened the wardrobe door. There were suits and breeches, jackets and shirts. Lots of shirts. She took them out one by one, trying to judge which one needed altering. At last, she gave up. She went to the top of the stairs and called out to James.
    ‘I can’t find the shirt you want altered, will you come and show me?’ She glanced around uneasily, was she wise inviting James to come up to the bedroom? The girl James had employed to clean and cook for him was asleep in the lean-to at the back of the cottage. If James meant to ravish Lily, there would be no-one to hear her screams.
    But would she scream? Or would she let him have his way? Men once tasting the fruits of lust found it difficult to stop. Giving a man your body seemed to enslave him, at least in Lily’s experience.
    James came up the stairs reluctantly. He stood beside her and peered into the darkness of the wardrobe. He was very close; she could smell the clean scent of soap and she glanced up at him from under her lashes. He was quite a handsome man; she would not find his advances too distasteful, would she?
    Lily had never enjoyed being with a man. The strange excitement that seemed to fill them when they took her had never affected her. She was unresponsive as a lover, she knew it and yet that had done nothing to deter the men in her life. Of course Tom had been an old man and grateful that she allowed him any intimacies at all.
    ‘Fetch the candle over here, Lily,’ James said. She did what he asked and he held it aloft moving the flame precariously close to the clothing. ‘Ah, here we are.’ Triumphantly, he held out the shirt. It hung limply in his hands, like a headless corpse in the candlelight.
    ‘Where does it need to be altered then?’ Lily asked.
    ‘Ah, now I’m not quite sure. I’ll