by Mary Balogh
Lady Pascoe’s eyes had focused upon hers. “You do indeed have a glib tongue,” she said. “I will hold you accountable, Mrs. Bennington, for any harm that comes to that child. Go, now. She is waiting for you.”
* * *
• • •
The butler opened the door into a large, comfortable room, brightly furnished, filled with sunlight. Gil stepped inside with Abby—and his heart stopped.
She was over by the window with Mrs. Evans—a tiny, dainty child in a frilly white dress with white shoes. Her very dark hair had been combed back from her face and tied high on the back of her head with a large white ribbon. The rest of her hair hung loose to her shoulders. She had a narrow face with a pointed chin and large, dark eyes.
Wary eyes.
She ducked half behind Mrs. Evans’s apron as the woman smiled and clasped her hands at her waist. One dark eye and the white bow were still visible as well as half the white dress and one white shoe.
Katy.
Oh good God.
His heart remembered to beat again—with painful thumps that robbed him of breath.
The door closed behind him.
“Good morning, sir, ma’am,” Mrs. Evans said, and Gil remembered her lilting Welsh accent. “We have been waiting impatiently, but now we are shy. Here is your papa at last, cariad. And your new mama.”
Cariad. A Welsh endearment, Gil could remember her explaining when his daughter was a baby. The word for love.
Katy did not emerge from behind the apron. Neither did Gil emerge from wherever it was he had taken refuge. Somewhere inside himself. He stood rooted to the spot, his hands crossed behind him while Abigail proceeded farther into the room.
“Mrs. Evans,” she said, extending her hand and smiling warmly. “Gil has told me about you. How pleased I am to meet you. And Katy. Did you dress up in your best clothes to see Papa?”
One little hand went up to touch the ribbon and she ducked an inch or two farther behind the apron.
“New shoes,” she said.
And oh, God, her voice! High pitched and tiny, just like her.
“Oh. Let me see,” Abigail said, and one little foot was pushed into full view and her skirt hoisted almost to her knee. “Very pretty. Do they pinch? Sometimes new shoes do.”
A shake of the half-hidden head. And then for a moment both eyes came into view as she darted a glance at Gil. She pointed at him and then hid again.
“Not a day has passed,” Mrs. Evans said, “when I have not told her about her papa and how he loves her and will come as soon as he is able to take her back home.”
“And now he has come,” Abby said.
“I have a dolly,” the child told her.
“Oh?” Abby said. “May I see her?”
“Sleeping,” Katy said.
“Ah, then I will speak very softly,” Abby said. “May I see?”
And his daughter stepped right out of her hiding place and reached up a hand for Abby’s before taking her to a doll’s cradle nearby. “Sleeping,” she said, pointing and turning her head for a swift peep at Gil.
“Ah, yes, so she is,” Abby said softly. “She is warmly tucked up beneath her blanket. We must not wake her.”
Katy peeped again and pointed. “Papa,” she said.
“Yes,” Abby said. “He has come to see you and now he is shy. Just like you were a little while ago. Should he go and hide behind your nurse, do you suppose?”
“No-o!” And Gil’s heart stopped again as his daughter laughed, a child’s delighted giggle. She pointed again. “Papa has an ow?”
“On his face?” Abby said.
“An ow,” Katy said again.
“It was a big ow,” Gil said. “But it is better now.”
“Papa cry?” Katy asked Abby.
“A whole pailful of tears,” he told her. “Then the ow went away. But this stayed.” He pointed to his facial scar.
“Kiss better?” Katy asked.
“Do you want to try it?” Abby asked, but the child shook her head vigorously and half hid behind her.
“Give her time, sir,” Mrs. Evans said.
“I have a dog,” Gil said.
“Puppy?” An eye peeped at him again, and then the whole of her came into sight as Abby moved beside her and smoothed a hand over her hair.
“A big puppy,” Gil said, showing Beauty’s height with his hand. “A great, big softie. She likes children. She likes to shake hands and she likes to stand still to have her head patted.”
Again the delighted giggle. “Big softie,” Katy said, and went off into peals of giggles again. “Big softie.”
“She would love to meet you,” Gil said.
Katy shook her head, serious again. “Grandmama will not let puppies,” she said. “Or kitties. Only in the kitchen. For the mice.”
“Do you like kittens?” Gil asked.
“I love kitties,” his daughter assured him.
“Perhaps,” Gil said, “when you come home with me and your new mama, we will have a kitten that will be all your own.”
He glanced at Abby, and she did not look dismayed. Was that a bribe he had offered? But he meant it. If a kitten would make his daughter happy, then she would have one. Beauty would probably love it too once she had recovered from a touch of jealousy.
“Would you like to meet Beauty?” he asked. “That is the puppy’s name. Not here if Grandmama does not wish it. Perhaps— Mrs. Evans, does Katy get taken out for walks in the park?”
“Not often, sir,” the nurse said, frowning, by which Gil understood that it never happened. “Just sometimes in the garden.”
“Would you like to see the park and meet Beauty, Katy?” Gil asked.
His child, all big eyed, nodded, and then went darting across the room to tug at Mrs. Evans’s apron. “May I, Nanny?” she asked. “Please, please, please? See the puppy?”
“If your mama and papa can arrange it, of course, cariad,” Mrs. Evans said, smiling down at her and then at Gil. “It will be such a treat for her, sir.”
“This afternoon while the sun still shines,” he said. “I will have a word with General Pascoe on my way out. I shall send a chaise to fetch you and meet you by the Serpentine.”
Mrs. Evans smiled.
Katy turned an eager face toward him before becoming suddenly shy again and pulling her nurse’s apron over her head.
“Big softie,” she said, and giggled again.
Gil looked at Abby and smiled.
Twenty-three
Gil had smiled.
For the rest of the day Abigail felt rather as though she walked on air.
He had smiled.
Oh, it was largely because he had seen his child again and had heard her voice and her laughter and had begun, very tentatively, to establish a relationship with her. But it was at her, Abigail, that he had smiled with dazzling warmth. Including her in his happiness.
She did not believe she had ever been happier in her life.
Well, perhaps on her wedding day. And during her wedding night.
They arrived early at the park in order to allow Beauty a good run about an empty expanse of grass, endlessly chasing a large stick and bringing it back. But she wagged her tail, panting loudly, when it was time to reattach her leash, and trotted happily beside them as they made their way to the Serpentine, whose waters were sparkling in the sunshine.
Abigail took Gil’s arm, but he shrugged it off and grasped her hand instead.
“Have I been silent and morose again?” he asked her.
If he had, she had not noticed. For this morning he had smiled, and that had made all the difference.
“No.” She shook her head. “I think I should hate it if you felt obliged to chatter all the time. I think perhaps you would hate it if I did.”
“Can companionship
flourish in silence, then?” he asked her.
She thought about it and shook her head. “Probably not,” she said. “Neither, I suspect, could it flourish in endless chatter. I think really close friends ought not to think about whether they are talking enough or too much or even just the right amount. As soon as conversation or its lack becomes self-conscious, companionship slips.”
“Hmm. I will have to think about that,” he said. “You have done much of your living inside yourself, have you not, Abby? I noticed that about you almost from the start. And the same has always been true of me. Do you suppose it will always remain that way?”
“Yes,” she said, frowning in thought for a moment. “Marriage ought not to change two people. That, I think, would lead to unhappiness for one or both. It should only . . . enrich who they already are.”
“So we will no longer do all our living within and hoard all our secrets to ourselves,” he said.
“I hope not.” She smiled at him. “How did this start?”
“I think it started,” he said, “when you stepped past the corner of the house and saw me half naked, an axe in my hands, and I saw you horribly indignant and haughty because I had witnessed your terror.”
“I was not terrified,” she protested.
“Oh yes, you were,” he said.
“Yes, I was.” She laughed. “Big softie. That description amused Katy, did it not?”
“She is smaller than I expected,” he said. “How could I possibly have created—cocreated—such a dainty little thing, Abby? And all decked out in white for our visit.”
She had no chance to answer. They were walking along the path beside the Serpentine, Beauty on a short leash because there were other people around now, several of them eyeing the dog warily or giving her a wide berth as they passed. But then there was a shriek, and a little figure in pink detached herself from her nurse’s hand and came hurtling toward them, arms outstretched, her eyes upon Beauty.
Katy.
She stopped abruptly, however, when she was still a safe distance away and pointed. “Puppy,” she said.
“Stay at my heel, Beauty,” Gil said quietly as he stepped off the path so as not to impede traffic. And he did what he had done at Hinsford with Wren’s and Anna’s children. He released Abigail’s hand, went down on one knee, and held out a hand toward his daughter. “Come. Put your hand in mine. She wants to meet you.”
Katy was not at all sure she wanted to meet Beauty. She might not have been sure she wanted to meet her papa this close either if her attention had not been wholly focused upon the dog, who woofed gently. Katy sidled off the path and reached out one hand until it was enclosed in Gil’s. He drew her to the side away from Beauty and then sat her upon his thigh.
“Puppy,” she said, pointing. “Big puppy.”
“Bigger than you,” he said. “Big softie. She is happy to meet you. See her tail waving?”
Abigail turned her head to smile at Mrs. Evans.
“Let me show you how to make friends,” Gil said, taking Katy’s hand palm-down in his. “You let her sniff the back of your hand like this, you see, so that she will get to know you. It tickles?”
“Ye-es,” Katy agreed.
“And then,” he said, “you turn your hand over like this so that she can sniff your palm too.”
Katy shrieked with laughter suddenly and snatched back her hand. “Puppy lick. Nanny, look at me. Puppy has a cold nose. Again, Papa.”
Beauty lowered her head obligingly and Gil patted her head, his daughter’s hand enclosed in his own. But Katy pushed it away after a couple of pats. “Let me, Papa,” she said. “Let me.” And she patted Beauty’s head with growing enthusiasm until the dog lifted her head and licked the child’s wrist.
“Big softie,” Katy said, laughing.
“Her real name is Beauty,” Gil said.
“Beauty,” Katy said, patting the dog’s head again and pointing to herself with her other hand. “My name is Katy. Grandmama calls me Katherine, but I am Katy.”
Beauty woofed.
“Down, Papa,” Katy commanded, and slid off his knee to get closer to the dog, which was indeed larger than she. She patted Beauty’s side, stretched her arms along her, and laid one cheek against her. Beauty panted and stood still.
And Gil, still kneeling beside them, had tears swimming in his eyes. Abigail turned her head to converse with Mrs. Evans as some of them spilled over and trickled down his cheeks. He would be mortified if he knew she had noticed.
* * *
• • •
They came near to quarreling again during the evening while they were seated side by side on a sofa in their sitting room. It had started out well enough. They had been reminiscing about the pleasures of the day—the visit to the Pascoes they had so dreaded turning suddenly and unexpectedly into that first meeting with Katy; the walk in Hyde Park during the afternoon. Katy had eventually insisted for a few minutes upon holding Beauty’s leash in her own hand, and they had allowed it while Gil gave quiet instructions to the dog.
Abigail used the moment to have an earnest conversation with Mrs. Evans, who had told her that the general and his lady had always given their granddaughter the best of care but very little of their time.
“Make that virtually nothing in the general’s case,” she had added. “Lady Pascoe is affectionate when she does visit the nursery, and Katy likes her grandmama. But the tie is not a deep one, Mrs. Bennington. I would not say this to anyone but you or the lieutenant colonel, but you are her parents and I know you will worry about what taking Katy away from the general and his wife may do to her—and them. Provided you take me with you, ma’am—and I earnestly hope you will—Katy will have the continuity to smooth her way from one home to another.”
The best moment of all during the afternoon had come half an hour or so after they had begun strolling along by the water. By that time Katy’s energy was flagging. She had spent it not only holding Beauty’s leash, but then tripping along between Abby and Mrs. Evans, a hand in each of theirs while she chattered away. She told Abby about her doll waking up after Mama and Papa left this morning and about the kitten she was going to have when she went to Papa’s house—black with one big white patch over its eye—and about one of her new shoes that hurt after Mama left and Nanny took them both off and put some ointment on her heel to stop a blister and let her go without shoes until they came out. But at last she had been walking with lagging footsteps, and yawning.
“No,” Katy had protested when Mrs. Evans had suggested it was time to go home for a nap. “Not tired.”
A few moments later she had slipped her hands free and darted forward to where Gil was walking with Beauty. She had stopped in front of him and raised her arms.
“Up,” she had said.
And that most wonderful of moments had happened. He had picked up his child—she weighed nothing at all—and she had wrapped her arms about his neck and burrowed her head between his shoulder and neck and promptly fallen asleep.
They had reminisced, he and Abby. But now they had almost quarreled, for with nothing left to say about this morning or this afternoon she had introduced another topic entirely.
“No,” he said. He had been saying nothing but no for the last few minutes, and finally she had fallen silent. It was not the silence of easy companionship of which they had spoken earlier in the park, however. And so he had been left with the last word, but it did not feel final. The echo of it accused him and made him want to rip up at her and stalk into his bedchamber and shut the door behind him like a petulant schoolboy.
She tipped her head sideways and rested her cheek against his shoulder. She did not play fair. How could one rip up at someone who had just made such a trusting, affectionate gesture?
“I really do not want to have anything to do with him,” he said unnecessarily, since she had not protested his latest no.
“And I do not suppose for one moment that he wants anything more to do with me. I do not know who on earth persuaded him to put in that appearance in court.”
He had been severely shaken at seeing his father for the first time ever. It had struck him too that his father had been seeing him for the first time. He was uneasily aware that they looked a bit alike. How could one look like a total stranger, who happened also to be one’s father?
Abby had suggested that they invite Viscount Dirkson to join them for coffee tomorrow morning. In vain had he reminded her that he was to take Katy riding on his horse in the morning—she had been wildly excited when he had suggested it even though it had been made clear to her that Mama and Nanny would not be accompanying them, or even Beauty. And he had already capitulated on the matter of a Westcott family tea tomorrow afternoon at the home of the Earl of Riverdale—a sort of welcome to the family for him as well as a farewell to them before they left for Gloucestershire within the next few days. Katy was even to be brought there to meet and play with her cousins in the nursery.
Now this. It was too much. It was the last straw.
“He was a friend of my father’s,” Abby said. “I daresay someone in the family informed him and he decided to attend.”
“Interfering busybodies,” he said.
“Yes.” Instead of bristling with indignation and giving him the quarrel for which he was itching, she laughed.
There was a lengthy silence, during which she kept her head where it was and slid one hand down his arm to cover the back of his hand. He did not turn his hand over to grasp hers. The wiles of women. They did not play fair at all.
“It would have to be early in the morning,” he said irritably. “I promised Mrs. Evans I would come for Katy at half past ten.”
“I shall write now, then,” she said, “and have the letter delivered tonight. I will invite him to join us here for breakfast at half past eight.”