“Shit!”
Rose had discovered many uses for her new favorite word, although she wished she had fewer opportunities to use it. She swept her hand over her faded navy cotton skirt, hoping to dislodge some of the unidentifiable sludge that had transferred from her former bed on Abby's sofa onto her clothing. Resigned to a future of washing—and learning how to wash, she supposed—Rose shoved a loose lock of hair behind her ear and resumed her work.
Rose had watched the sun come up through Ben’s bedroom window. She couldn’t see the sun, just the slow spread of pink light up the alley wall accompanied by the uptick in city sounds, carts rolling through the street, dogs barking, children laughing. With a jolt of guilt, she remembered being irritated by the maids coming in to bank her fireplace after she stayed out late at a ball, moaning and whinging when she was roused before noon.
What a ninny.
Not surprisingly, Ben’s makeshift bed had been empty when she entered the parlor, its linens folded neatly and placed on the leather chair. She went to the stove longing for tea, only to realize she did not know how to light it.
Dear Timothy,she thought, Be sure to give your maids a raise.
Flustered and frustrated, she couldn’t stay in the apartment for a moment longer. And so Rose had spent the past hour picking through the bits of plaster scattered across the floor while her doubts attacked her. What was she even doing in New York? She had already wasted more than a week of her month in America; how long could she wait until she went to Boston to face the inevitable?
A piece of ceiling disintegrated in her hands, and Rose held in her wail. There was no point in staying in New York. Abby had her own life with Cass, and there was no room for Rose. She had pushed the most honorable man she’d ever met out of his own bed, humiliating herself in the process. But before she left, Rose would attempt to make things right.
“What are you doing here?”
Rose looked up to see Ben standing in the doorway, dressed in just his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows and slacks. All thoughts dashed from her mind at the sight of him. “I was trying to help. You let me stay with you, so it’s the least I could do.”
“You shouldn’t be up here.” He crossed the threshold cautiously and raised one brow. “Did you move the pile from over there—” he pointed, “—to over there?”
Shoulders drooping, Rose nodded. “Shit.” She wiped her hands on the apron she found in the kitchen and wrapped around her dress to protect it from the muck.
Ben spoke in a rush. “I need to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For how I spoke to you last night. How I treated you.”
She wrung her hands together as the sting of his rejection flared once more. “You were honest with me.”
“But you’re a lady, and I forgot that. I apologize.”
An unexplainable irritation rose in her throat. He had lumped her into an entire group of people, dismissing her without even recognizing she may not fit the mold into which he ascribed her. She stepped forward, and his eyes flew to meet hers. “You need to stop apologizing and actually listen to me. You treat me as though I’m untouchable, and you’re keeping me pure until I leave. But I can’t stay away from you.”
His eyes were wide, searching, but wary. “You can’t.”
The response was a statement, an affirmation and not a question, and Rose pushed on, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I’ve never felt like this, not with anyone.”
“Like what?”
“So forward,” she whispered. “So wanting.”
His lips parted, and Rose felt a glimmer of hope that perhaps she could make him understand what she barely understood herself.
“May I see your hand?” Her lips curled into a tentative smile.
Ben blinked and raised his hand, palm up, but kept a distance as though worried she might bite him.
She lifted her own hand, then grimaced at the grime coating her fingers. With a nervous laugh, she darted around him into the kitchen and washed her shaking hands in the basin. After drying them on her skirt, she returned to Ben, still standing in the same position.
With a slow exhale, Rose placed her palm on his, the air between them crackling with anticipation. “I never wanted a touch before yours, Ben, let alone a kiss. I don’t know how to explain it, but when I heard you speak at the rally, I felt like something happened in me, like there was a current pushing me towards you.” Her voice trembled, her fingers quivering over his. But he never dropped his hand, merely kept the silent support as he held her gaze. “I saw you, and I wanted to be with you every moment. I couldn’tstopthinking about you.”
“Rose, I—”
“You don’t have to say it.” Rose squeezed her eyes shut as shame crawled up her spine. “I’m a complete nightmare, and whatever you feel for me isn’t enough to overcome the reasons you won’t come near me. But I wanted to feel your touch one more time before I left.”
His fingers flexed under hers. “Where are you going?”
