Chapter 13 – Rosalie – Bought and Paid For

"Thank you Ellen," I said as the housekeeper laid the breakfast tray on the table.

Ignoring her, Royce took the post and began flipping through the envelopes as I helped Ellen take the dishes off the tray. Eggs and bacon for Royce, fresh fruit and pancakes for me. "This looks lovely."

"Letter for you," Royce said, tossing it carelessly towards me as I was slicing an apple. I put down the knife and popped a piece of the sweet fruit into my mouth as I opened up the letter.

Dear Miss Rosalie, thank you for the doll I love her and play with her every day her name is Rosie it was so nice of you to send her to me she is my favourite thank you please tell Emmett I love him and miss him hugs and kisses from Elizabeth Adeline McCarty

I giggled for a minute, and then realised that Royce was looking at me quizzically. "It's a letter from McCarty's little sister," I told him. "I sent her a doll, and she's written a thank you letter."

"Why on earth would you have sent her anything?" Royce asked.

I shrugged. "Why not? Mother gave me a trunk full of my old dolls and they're just sitting up in the attic gathering dust. I read a letter she wrote to McCarty and she seemed like a sweetheart, so I sent her one. That's all."

Royce was scowling at me.

"What?" I said in exasperation. "I don't understand why you care! I sent a doll to a little girl whose family doesn't have much money. It's nothing important!"

"McCarty's family though," Royce muttered.

I felt a shiver of unease run down my spine. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Royce's eyes bore into mine. "I've seen the way he looks at you."

I tossed my head. "Royce, you're being ridiculous. He's friendly, that's all."

"He looks at you like he can't believe you're real," Royce said flatly. "I've ignored it because he's good at his job and he keeps his mouth shut, but if I thought for one second there was something else between you and him…"

"Well there isn't," I snapped. "He's polite and friendly and he escorts me everywhere because you don't want me to leave the house alone. That's the end of it."

I resolutely began buttering toast, ignoring Royce as he irritably snapped opened the paper and began reading. But my hands were sweating and the knife slipped in my grasp, because I couldn't deny the tiny grain of truth in Royce's words.

McCarty did look at me and I knew it. I liked it too; it had always bolstered my ego to know that men found me attractive. But there was more than avaricious desire in the way McCarty looked at me; there was a genuine tenderness that touched me and that I had unconsciously responded to. Royce's words had made me suddenly terrified that he had noticed.

I'm married! McCarty is my driver and gardener and nothing more! Just because he's always kind and easy to talk to, and makes me laugh…

I ruthlessly quashed the thought.

McCarty was outside, splitting wood, when I went searching for him later on. He was behind the garage, his shirt off and tossed over a bush, bare-chested as he swung the axe.

I stopped dead, my hand covering my mouth. Oh, look at him… I had never seen a man made so perfectly. Emmett. His name drifted through my mind and I became uncomfortably aware that, for the first time in my life, I was reacting physically to the sight of a man. My heart thudded faster and my body felt flushed as I stared at the way his muscles moved through his back and shoulders as he raised the axe and brought it down hard.

For heaven's sake Rosalie, what's wrong with you?

"McCarty!" I called sharply.

McCarty swung around to face me, his face gleaming with sweat. "Ma'am?" With some dexterity he threw the axe into the air and caught it with his other hand. "Do you need me?"

"I wanted to go and see Vera," I said, struggling to hold on to my composure as he stepped closer to me. Oh, I can smell him… It wasn't the smell of hair oil and scent like Royce, but a sharper, more natural smell. Masculine…

"Are you all right ma'am?" McCarty asked curiously. "You look a bit bothered."

"I'm fine!" I snapped. "I want to visit my friend; can you walk with me please?"

"Aye, the wood can wait." McCarty reached out and grabbed his shirt, swiping it across his face and looking a little embarrassed. "Excuse me ma'am. I'll just go and wash up and get dressed."

Ten minutes later I was striding down the street, McCarty walking at my side wearing a clean shirt and with his damp hair still bearing the marks of the comb.

"You really don't have to come with me you know," I said, a little petulantly. Ridiculously too, since I was the one who had asked that he come with me. "It's only a few streets, I used to walk it alone all the time."

"You know I have to come with you," McCarty said mildly. "I'll stay out of the way once you're safe there."

"I had a letter from your sister," I said, changing the topic abruptly. "She wanted to thank me for the doll." For a moment I relaxed and gave him a genuine smile. "I loved her letter."

McCarty chuckled. "They make me laugh every week," he admitted. "Her spelling's improving, but she still writes like she's never heard of a full stop."

"Does she go to school?" I asked.

McCarty gave me a look. "We're not that poor that we don't go to school," he said shortly.

"I'm sorry," I said awkwardly, a moment later. "I didn't mean that. I just didn't know if she was old enough…"

"I'm sorry," said McCarty, the tension leaving his body too. "I shouldn't jump to conclusions. I just sometimes get defensive about my family not having much money, because my Pa works just as hard as any of the men here in Rochester. It's only that what he does doesn't pay that well. And my Ma has raised ten children without much help and I hate to think that anyone might be looking down on them."

"I don't look down on you or your family," I said, a little surprised to realise how true it was. I had to admit I had always been something of a snob, but McCarty himself was beginning to make me see things in a different light. "They raised you, and you're…" Feeling my face heating up with embarrassment I let my voice drift away.

McCarty gave me that slow, sweet smile that I'd never seen him give anyone else. "Well, thank you Miss Rosalie," he murmured. "And to answer your question, Elizabeth goes to school. She's well ahead of the other kids though, because when my Ma was sick she taught her a lot. Ma couldn't do anything much around the house, but she could sit up in bed with Elizabeth and teach her the ABCs. She's a smart little thing, and she's getting along real well."

He sounded so proud of her. I wished for a moment that I had had a sibling, one who might have taken some of the pressure off when I was growing up, and who might be as kind and caring to me now as McCarty was to his sister.

"Why don't you come in?" I said as we came in sight of Vera's house. "Vera and I will visit in the sitting room, but you could sit in the kitchen and have a cup of tea."

McCarty hesitated. "Are you sure? I don't know if I'm supposed to."

"I'm sure," I said, mounting the steps and knocking with the shiny brass knocker. "It will be fine…Vera, hello!"

"Rosalie!" Vera opened the door and hugged me. She smelled like baking bread. "Hello!"

"Vera, it won't bother you if McCarty has a drink in the kitchen while we're talking, will it?" I said.

"Not at all." Vera stooped down and collected Henry, who had crawled up the hallway after her, and smiled at McCarty. "It's nice to actually meet you."

"You too, ma'am," he said, smiling easily as he reached a hand out to Henry. "Hey big fella."

Henry gave McCarty a drooling smile and swung a fist at him. McCarty chuckled and caught it in his big hands for a moment. "You're gonna be a boxer? Good move, but I'm a bit out of your weight class I think."

Vera laughed and stepped back, inviting us both in. "Rosalie, can you take Henry into the sitting room? I'll just find Mr McCarty a cup of tea, and then bring in something for us."

I carried the baby into the sitting room and sat on the floor with him, handing him his toys one at a time so he could hurl them across the room with a delighted screech. When Vera came in with the tea things I sat up on the sofa and held him on my knee while he gnawed on a cookie.

"You're so good with him Rose," Vera said, looking at me thoughtfully. "Do you think you might be…"

I shrugged and shook my head at the same time. "I don't know. It's too early to know for sure."

"How is that part of things going?" Vera said delicately. "It all worked out well?"

I hesitated, long enough that Vera's face turned from interest to concern.

"Oh Rose, it's not? You can talk to me if you want to."

I played with one of Henry's dark curls and thought, absurdly, about McCarty's dark curly hair. Shaking my head to clear it I said awkwardly, "It's….difficult. I'm not sure what he wants from me. And…it hurts."

Vera bit her lip, and then rose and went to the bookshelf. Rummaging around for a moment she pulled a small volume out from behind some other books and then came and handed it to me, her face resolute. "Perhaps this will help?"

She took the baby and I dusted the crumbs off my hands and looked at the book. Married Love, was the title, and I flipped it open to a random page and skimmed quickly. "Vera!"

"I know, it's scandalous," Vera giggled, relaxing when she realised I wasn't disapproving. "Believe it or not, my mother gave me that. Since Papa died she's been reading newspapers and going to a woman's group and getting all kinds of modern ideas! But the book- it's written by a lady doctor and it was published in Britain ages ago, but wasn't sold here because it was considered obscene. They changed the ruling on it in 1931, so when I got married my mother bought it for me."

I couldn't help laughing. I loved Vera's mother.

"Read the book, Rose," Vera counselled. "I can't promise it will help you, but the more you know about yourself, and about what goes on between husbands and wives the better. Maybe Royce would read it too? Jim read it, and that helped us talk to each other more openly."

I nodded doubtfully. Royce was my husband, but he wasn't my friend in the way that Vera and Jim seemed to be friends. I couldn't see him reading anything. He seemed perfectly satisfied with what went on in the bedroom. Thoughtfully I slipped the book into my purse, and began playing peekaboo with Henry.

Vera's book was absorbing. I had never read anything that spoke so frankly about marriage and the relationship between husband and wife. It made me see the vast gulf between what Royce and I shared and what was ideal, the ideal that I wanted. Where was the respect between Royce and I that would make such a relationship possible? He didn't respect me, not really. He could be light and joking and loving and sweet with me, but he could be jealous and petty and cruel when he wanted to be too. And the more I saw of that side of him, the less I respected him and the more likely I was to snap back and be petty and nasty in return.

Reading Vera's book though, I began to think that perhaps it was possible to mend. Maybe we could change things, both of us try a little harder, and this marriage might be everything I had hoped for when I was a naïve girl.

I was anxious to share my new insights with Royce, but we had his parents and some other business associates over for dinner and it certainly wasn't dinner table conversation! Instead I left the book on the bed and dressed up to play the beautiful, sophisticated hostess, pretending perfect contentment with my life. It was a part I played well, and I smiled and talked and accepted the many compliments with grace.

I was happy to see them go. Royce and I stood at the door and waved as his parents climbed into the car and Lachlan closed the door for them. I could see his clear resemblance to McCarty in the mouth and eyes, and I gave him a wave too before Royce closed the door and held me close, kissing me gently.

"As always Mrs King, an excellent evening," he said teasingly, and I laughed.

"Thank you Mr King."

"They're always looking at your stomach you know," Royce added conversationally.

"What?!"

"My mother and father- they're just waiting for you to get pregnant. Every time I see her lately Mother is asking me if we have any special news for her." Royce ran a hand down over my belly. "I don't know…do you think you're any fatter?"

I pushed his hand away. "Oh, stop it! It'll happen when it happens, and you can be sure I'll tell you as soon as I know!"

Royce laughed and kissed me again, his hand already starting to open the buttons of my dress. "Well, if we want to get you pregnant there's only one thing to do," he murmured lasciviously.

"Oh yes, about that…" I struggled to get away from his hands as we climbed the stairs and entered our room. "I wanted to talk to you."

I finally ducked away from him, my unfastened dress slipping off so that I was only in my underwear as I took the book and gave it to him. "I read it this afternoon. I thought maybe you could read it too and…"

"What the hell?" Royce had tossed his tie and half unbuttoned his shirt before he took the book and glanced at it. "What are you doing reading smut like this?"

"It's not smut!" I protested. "It's about being married, and Royce, maybe if we both read it we could make some things better…"

"What? Are you saying there's a problem?" Royce's voice was low, as he tossed the book on the dresser and stalked towards me. His face was dark with anger.

"Not a problem exactly," I said, backing away from him. "But it's…it's hard for me sometimes Royce. I want to do what you want and make you happy, but I don't always know what that is! And sometimes…well, nearly all the time…it hurts, and maybe if we do something it wouldn't…"

"So you don't like it? So who cares?," Royce snarled. "I like it and that's all that matters."

"But it's not all that matters!" I shouted. "We should be a partnership Royce, and you treat me like…"

"For fuck's sake Rosalie, shut up!" Royce roared.

"I won't! You need to listen to me…"

Royce lunged towards me and hit me. Open handed, across the face, with a crack that seemed to echo through the room.

For a moment there was silence, as Royce glowered at me and I held my hands against my burning face and stared at him.

"If you ever, EVER hit me again…" I hissed.

"What?" Royce smirked at me. "You'll hit me back?"

"Maybe," I said, wishing I could scratch his eyes out of his head.

"I'd like to see you try," he snorted.

"I'll tell my father." I threatened. "He won't let you hurt me like that."

"Oh yeah?" Royce laughed maliciously. "My father's his biggest client now and makes him most of his money. Do you really think he's going to lose that because you run to him telling tales like a child? And my father doesn't give a shit what I do to you as long as I fill your belly and you give him the grandchild he wants." He stalked over to me and gripped my chin, forcing me to look up at his eyes glinting with cruel amusement. "Face it Rosalie, you're mine…bought and paid for, and damned if I won't do what I want with you."