Read Online Rose by Leigh Greenwood - Free Book Online

places and stood waiting for her to be seated, but they either looked at her with anger in their eyes or didn’t look at her at all. George held her chair. Rose sat down, but a second look at their faces changed her mind. She stood up, her chair scraping angrily on the still damp floor.
    “I think it would be better if I ate later.”
    “No, you don’t,” Monty exploded, all rigidity vanished. “You made this fuss about us washing and dressing up. If we have to be miserable, you do, too.”
    “It wasn’t my intention to make anyone miserable,” Rose tried to explain. “A certain standard of behavior is expected of gentlemen when they come to the table. If you continue eating as you did before, no one will ever believe you’ve been properly reared.”
    “Have you ever spent the night out in the brush?” Monty demanded. “Have you seen Cortina’s men when they come? Have you watched your friends fall dead from the saddle, their bodies trampled beyond recognition?” His shouted words didn’t lessen the earnestness of his questions.
    “No.”
    “Gentlemen don’t live like that. Only animals. It’s not easy to change just because you walk through a door.”
    Yet George had changed. He must have seen even more terrifying, brutalizing sights during the war. Still, he managed to put it aside when he came to the table. But Rose couldn’t say that to a boy who had been fighting brutal, vicious men since he was twelve.
    “I’m sure Miss Thornton doesn’t need a graphic description of what it means to live in south Texas,” George said, “but it is possible for men to put aside their battle manners when they come home. They’ve been doing it for centuries.”
    “If you weren’t so anxious to murder those poor farmers, you—” Jeff began.
    “You self-righteous ass!” Monty exploded. “If you’d had to crawl on your belly through the brush, or swim through a cottonmouth-infested stream to keep one of those poor farmers from killing you, you’d sing a different tune.”
    “That’s enough,” George said.
    “You can’t mean to listen to his bleating.”
    “No, but I don’t imagine Miss Thornton wants to listen to you either.”
    “She’d better. Our guns is the only thing that’ll keep her safe in her bed.”
    “Are,” Jeff said.
    Monty threw his milk across the table. He aimed for Jeff’s head, but his brother dodged, and the glass shattered against the far wall. Fragments fell into the woodbox and scattered under the stove.
    “If you don’t keep that bastard’s mouth shut, I’ll shut it for him.”
    “Jeff, I’ve told you not to correct the boys.”
    “I can’t stand to hear them sound like untutored fools.”
    “Then don’t listen. If Pa didn’t think their education was important enough for him to see to, then you leave it alone. How do you think they feel knowing we got special tutors while they got nothing?” George cast a meaningful glance in Rose’s direction. She knew he was telling Jeff not to air the family’s dirty linen in front of her.
    “Monty, apologize to Miss Thornton.”
    Rose’s startled, protesting gaze flew to George’s face. She didn’t want to be made part of this confrontation.
    “I’ll be damned if I will,” Monty swore. “Let Jeff do it.”
    “Apologize, or leave the table. We’ve already ruined her first dinner. It’s inexcusable to ruin a second.”
    “Go to hell!” Monty shouted and left the room.
    Hen half rose in his chair, his coldly furious gaze fixed on Jeff.
    George motioned him back in his seat. “Jeff, if you can’t leave Monty alone during dinner, you’ll have to eat some other time. You don’t have to like the way the twins looked after Ma or this place, but you have no right to complain. You weren’t here.”
    “Of course I wasn’t doing anything important, only defending my country and losing my arm,” Jeff stated, furious.
    Rose didn’t know who to sympathize with more. It must be awful for the twins to suffer from a