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Show Page 12 my acquaintance being my father-I usually behaved as a prudish booby around men, my tongue a dead thing in my mouth. Perhaps knowing Edward had helped me overcome that folly. (Yet Richard Kean was not at all like Edward, though I suspected they were near to each other in age.) Perhaps I was simply too numb from Aunt Mary's death to worry how I should behave around men. It was so dark below when I reached the bottom of the ladder after my brief meeting with Lieutenant Kean, I near regretted my decision to leave the fresh air. But then I thought how pleasant a few moments alone would be, time in which to gather my thoughts and think about my future. Yet when I reached my sleeping area, someone was there ahead of me, bending with her back to me and pawing through the chest in which Aunt Mary had kept her belongings. Rose Hawkings! "Pray tell, what are you doing?" I asked her, somewhat timidly. Rose dropped the shawl she was fingering (Aunt Mary's favorite) and turned to face me. "My, you near put me in a fine froth, you did, creeping up on a body that way," she said. She was smiling but I noted the minx's eyes did not meet mine. "What are you doing?" I repeated, more boldly this time. "Just givin' you a hand, girlie, that's all," said Rose, her smile disappearing and a hard look creeping onto her face. Rose is a fetching lass in a lean, hungry way, but the savage look on her face made me think of naught but a cornered fox |
