Rothwell Brothers 3 - Secrets of Surrender by Madeline Hunter

Rothwell Brothers 3 - Secrets of Surrender by Madeline Hunter

Author:Madeline Hunter
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

K yle had not lied. The way north was cold in late January. As they crossed into Durham County the sky hung low with damp clouds.

The land became hil y farther north, and also increasingly bleak. They rol ed through vil ages large and smal . Rose came to recognize the ones where col iers lived. The residue from the nearby pits, carried out on the clothes and bodies of the workers, left its mark in ways big and smal .

As they neared Teeslow, she grew nervous. Kyle had discouraged her coming, but relented when she pressed the matter. She wanted to see this home of his and meet his aunt and uncle, but there was the chance she would not be welcomed.

“Are there other relatives and family besides them?” she asked.

“Not living. They had two daughters, younger than I am. Both died of cholera when I was in Paris.”

“Did you always live with them?”

He did not mind the conversation, but he did not welcome it, either. “My father died in a mining accident when I was nine. My mother had passed away a few years before. Her brother took me in.”

Soon their carriage entered the vil age. Rose examined the few lanes and stores, the clusters of cottages. Coal dust marked the sil s and jambs of some buildings, and the faces and garments of some residents.

They did not stop in the vil age, but continued down the road to another lane that aimed north. A nice stone house waited at its end. Two levels high, it looked similar to the smal er homes that could be found on southern estates, the ones in which a steward or tenant might live.

“It is not what I expected,” she said.

“You thought it would be a tiny cottage of five chambers at most? They lived for years in one, back in the vil age. I built this for them five years ago.”

He alighted from the carriage. “I wil go in while you wait here. I am not expected, and you wil be a complete surprise.”

He walked to the door, opened it, and disappeared. Rose watched the house. She saw a woman’s face briefly at a window. No doubt his aunt was peeking to see the complete surprise.

He was being very careful. When she met them, their faces would mask their thoughts much as his often did. If they disapproved of her, or thought her a bad match for their nephew, they would not reveal that in a moment of surprise.

Kyle returned and handed her down. A woman appeared in the doorway, smiling a welcome.

“Rose, this is my aunt, Prudence Mil er.”

Prudence was ready with kind words and friendly expressions. “We are so pleased that you have come.”

A slender woman with dark hair and sparkling eyes, Prudence had reached her middle years with much of her beauty intact. Rose pictured her at twenty and thirty, pale-skinned and dark-eyed.

Since Prudence had greeted her alone, Rose assumed that Kyle’s uncle was at the mine. As soon as they brought her to the sitting room, she learned differently.



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