Rose(16)

Shaking with rage, instinct her only guide, Rose acted. Grabbing hold of the table, she lifted it off the floor and turned it over. The roast and gravy and the hot vegetables crashed to the floor between the twins. As the five males stared at her in stunned surprise, the dogs attacked the overturned meal.

Just then George entered the kitchen. He alone had taken time to wash.

Everyone began shouting at once.

“Stop it,” Rose cried.

They paid no attention to her. The dogs continued to eat everything on the floor.

Rose whirled about, grabbed up the full coffeepot, and raised it as though she were about to fling its boiling contents over everyone in the room.

Dead silence.

“Now you listen to me,” she said, panting from the force of her rage, “or I swear, by God, I’ll never cook another thing for you as long as I live.”

“You crazy fool,” one twin said. “George, you can’t believe…”

Rose raised her coffeepot threateningly.

“Monty, you were taught not to interrupt a lady.”

George might have decided to strip his relationship with Rose of every vestige of emotion, but she had no difficulty seeing the fury that blazed in his black eyes. She wondered if he had ever hit a woman. She had never seen a man in the grip of such rage. Not this kind. It was pure, cold, and dangerous.

“But you can’t let her…”

George directed his blazing look at his brother. “Let her speak. Then you may have your say.”

Rose didn’t know how she would ever learn to tell Monty and Hen apart, but at the moment she didn’t care if she never saw either of them again. Only George’s anger seemed to have any ability to curb either one of them.

“Okay, tell me what’s wrong.”

He had given a command, just like he would to a private in the army, and he expected her to jump. Well, she would jump, but she doubted it would be the way George expected. She would get a few things straight right now. She may have made a mistake in assessing George’s character, but she didn’t mean to make any more.

“My name is Rose Thornton,” Rose announced after a pause to control the still-boiling anger which made it impossible to speak with a steady voice. “Yesterday your brother hired me for the express purpose of keeping house for seven”—she groped for a suitable word—“men.”

George’s glare prevented another outburst, but Rose couldn’t be sure whether he intended the look for her or his family.

“I nearly went back to Austin when I saw this place. But I had made an agreement, and I intended to stick to it. However, I refuse to work in a house where people don’t even have the courtesy to speak to me before they dive into their food. Your brother led me to believe you’d been brought up as gentlemen.” She pointed to the mess on the floor. “I see he was mistaken.”

“She can’t blame that on us,” Tyler said, appealing to his brother. “She turned the table over.”

The one who hates women, Rose thought. But he had managed to overcome his dislike long enough to come to the table.

“I couldn’t get your attention any other way,” Rose pointed out. “Nothing else could stop you from tearing at your food.”

“Didn’t any of you introduce yourselves?” George asked.

Rose could see the rage remained, but it burned less brightly. Something new lurked in his eyes. She had no idea what it might be.

“I guess we were too excited at the sight and smell of food we could eat.”

That was the one with only one arm. Jeff. The one who spent two years in a Yankee prison. He wouldn’t speak to her at all if he ever learned her father had fought for the union  .

“They didn’t even wait for the blessing,” Zac said a little self-righteously, Rose thought. She decided Zac was extraordinarily adept at guessing which way the wind would blow and getting clear of its stiffest blasts.

“It was the food,” the other twin said. Hen. He appeared to be quieter than his brothers, but he might be more dangerous. Zac had said Hen liked shooting people.

“But she had no call to turn the table over. Now the dogs got it all.”

The other twin. Monty, the one who liked cows. He looked more aggressive than Hen, but what could you say in favor of anybody who actually liked longhorns, the most ornery beasts in God’s creation?

“I suppose you had a reason for wanting their attention so badly,” George said.

His father should have named him Solomon, she thought. He’ll probably offer to divide me down the middle to keep peace in the family.

“I most certainly did,” Rose said, abandoning all her preconceived notions about George or his family. If she had to fight for some degree of consideration, she might as well start right now. They would know she expected to be treated as a human being.