Matt helped him to sit. Reed caught his breath, and waited for the room to settle. “In case I did not already say it, Matt. Thank you for saving my life the other day. I’m proud of you.”
Matt nodded. “I’ll get Kitty.” He ran as fast as Bekah had that morning.
Chastity laughed, a sound akin to music, as they led her into the kitchen, eyes closed, one child holding each hand, and two pushing from behind. “Can I open them now?”
“Not yet,” Luke said, hopping on one foot when he saw.
“One more step, Matt said. All right. Now!”
The look on Chastity’s face could only be termed exquisite, her astonishment just reward for his hard labor.
Grinning, Reed stood, and like a knight before his lady fair, he bowed, kissed her hand with a flourish ... and the floor rose up to greet him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Back in bed, Reed’s head throbbed, his side flamed, while he found himself in awe of Chastity in high dudgeon. She might be breathtaking in her righteous fury, but she spoiled the effect when she slapped a cloth against the knot on his head.
“Damnation, that hurt!”
“Which is no more than you deserve!” She unbuttoned his trousers to alleviate the pressure against his wound to such a degree that, despite his determination not to prove her anger just, Reed sighed in relief.
“Big stupid fool,” she snapped. “What in Hades did you think you were doing? Strutting like a peacock, bowing like a jester, you with a hole in your side, and only yesterday a raging fever.”
“You were supposed to be pleased.” Why was that so difficult to understand? “I wanted to surprise you.”
“Well you succeeded, make no mistake. If your fever returns, I’ll beat you.”
Reed lost track of her tirade, remembering another fever, one that could only be relieved with her hands upon him, or his upon her. “Beat me, please,” he whispered.
She ignored him.
Had he really stroked her breast? Or did he dream the erotic moment? Would she have allowed him? Likely not, since she thought tempting him was dangerous. So true.
Reed shifted in discomfort. If he continued this line of thought, she would get a different surprise—a new display of his raging need. With an effort, Reed turned from earthy speculation. “How long have I been ill?”
“Four days.” She tugged his trousers the rest of the way down, testament to her mood, and threw the blanket over him, dropping the offending garments with such ire, he expected her to stomp on them—to show what she wanted to do to him—which bore no kinship to what he wanted to do to her.
Warm memories, with which he could not bear to part, returned. “Was I dreaming, or did I? Did you let me—”
“No!” The violet depths of Chastity’s wide eyes became dark and fathomless. “Give me your shirt.” She looked everywhere but at him, so when she tugged on his shirt, it caught on his ear.
“Damn it, Chastity, you’re giving me a worse beating than I took when the floor hit me.”
“You are no gentleman, Reed Gilbride.”
“I never said I was.”
Chastity nodded toward their wide-eyed audience. “Do you want soup?”
Reed pushed himself up in the bed. “Did I dream a certain moment?”
“What do you want, Reed?” she asked with a controlled anger she could not be charmed out of. He was treading dangerous water, he realized, unsure of how to retreat and keep his skin.
Luke and Matt giggled, the rats. Mark smirked, and Bekah went to stand by Chastity, lending support in her own silent way. Women did tend to band together, a fact of life, Reed supposed. He only wished the boys had made a similar statement. He would have a talk with them. Men needed to stick together, too.
Wait a minute. What was he doing, setting himself up as their teacher, as if they were a family? Blast it, he had to get the devil out of here. “I need to get up. Give me my shirt.”
“Fine.” Chastity tossed it, hitting him in the face with decided satisfaction. No doubt about it, the nun enjoyed a good fight. “Hungry?” she asked in all innocence.
“Hell, yes. I could eat some chicken right now.”
“How about a wing?”
Did she know? He examined her expression, but her countenance remained bland, unrevealing. He had best remember not to play piquet with her.
“You are out of luck,” she said. “The one you bagged the day you got hurt got roasted and eaten two days ago.”
She did know. He hid a smile. “Who skinned and cleaned it?”
“Matt did, but he showed me what to do. Funniest chicken I ever saw.”
She’d put her prejudice aside so the children could eat. He should have realized she would do anything for them—even steal his heritage, no doubt—if he gave her half a chance.
Matt sniggered. “Said she knew it was a rabbit all along ... just before she threw up.”
“Matthew!” Chastity pointed a finger toward the door. “Out. Take your brothers and sister with you.” She scooted them out and came back to slam pots.
“Such a sweet woman; such a tart temper.” Reed held his side as he chuckled.
“I hope it hurts.”
“Do you have any idea how pretty you are?”
Chastity pushed a bowl into his hand. “Eat and don’t go making up to me. If you had reopened your side, you might have bled to death. You make me so mad, I could beat you.”
He had been liking that idea. “I did not know you were such a crosspatch, but give me a few days and you can beat me all you want.” He winked. “What did the nuns think of your temper?”
“I am not a crosspatch.”
“Really? What did they say when you raved and threw things?”
“They never saw such a display.” She raised her chin a mite higher.
“Didn’t they. now?”
“This was the first time my indignation—provoked by your idiotic behavior, I might add—ever got the better of me.”
“Should I be honored then, Chastity Somers, to have caused such a passionate display?”
“Reed Gilbride, you’ve a rare talent for stupidity.” She made for the door. “Passion has nothing to do with it,” she said in parting and left him for the rest of the day. Fit punishment that bored him to distraction.
That night, after she tucked the children into bed, she fluffed his pillows and assured herself of his comfort, before she sat in a kitchen chair with her mending.
“I have to get out of this bed, or I’ll go mad.”
“It’s too late,” she said then cut a piece of thread with her teeth. “You’re already dotty. I knew it the moment I saw you.” She placed that mended shirt atop a neat stack.
“When you climbed out that workhouse window, the first time I saw you, the situation seemed rather reversed.”
“That was not the first time; it was too dark to see anything that night. Besides, rescuing the children was a rational, intelligent act.” She pushed a chestnut curl back into the confines of her braid.
Reed itched to untangle it all and let it fall free. “Brilliance and madness are two sides of the same coin.”
She turned her attention to a half-made pinafore.
“The first time I thought you mad,” said he, “a specter greeted me, hair blazing down her back, knife in hand.”
Chastity tilted her head. “I judged you mad when I saw you fight off a bevy of children as if they could do you harm. A big brute of a man with ten times their strength, afraid.”
“Not fear in the sense you’re implying, and I take exception to your tone, but to speak truth, they do scare the bejesus out of me, more often than not.”
He caught her smile, though she directed it toward her sewing. Chastity?” he said, and waited ‘till she looked up. “You mean that big, naked, brute of a man you saw that night they robbed me?”
That’s what they both remembered, he had no doubt. Talk of madness forgotten, their gazes locked for as charged a moment as when he slipped
his hand inside her gown.
Her in-drawn breath revealed her physical reaction to the memory. She looked away, then toward her lap, as if she could not identify the items in it, or why they were there. She examined the needle in her fingers as thoroughly.
“It’s a needle,” Reed said.
Nodding, she chose a tiny stocking, speared it with a vengeance, and gave a startled exclamation. As she sucked her injured finger, her color returned.
Reed chuckled, an odd contentment catching him unaware. He liked this time of day, the children in their beds, sexual awareness sparking between them—heat lightening without rain—no rhyme or reason, just a bolt from the blue. He had never experienced the like.
Sex had always been physical—for taking and enjoying. He never equated it with verbal foreplay, which happened often with Chastity and brought pleasure in the form of heightened awareness and anticipation. A danger, this side of sex; it could lead down perilous paths, toward a time when he would pull her beneath him and bury himself in her silken sheath.
He failed to stifle his groan.
Chastity looked up, a question in her expression.
He needed a diversion from this painful sparring, at least for him, with such a formidable opponent. “I will concede we have both appeared mad on occasion. But the last two days, you wavering between sweet compassion, and the stubborn end of a French dragoon, has seemed a form of madness in itself.”
“You have hardly inspired compassion. Of all the fool things, rising and hurting yourself. When I got you off the floor and saw you bleeding again, it was all I could do not to—”
“Enough!” Reed held up a hand. “I misjudged my abilities, I admit, but nothing can change that.”
“I’m sorry.” She came and sat beside him on the bed, her apology surprising him, her nearness making him ache. “You frightened me,” she said. “The thought of you hurt. Again.”
His emotions, he hated to note, tangled with his physical reaction to her. She cared that he had been hurt. Did she? Devil it, he was going mawkish—just because it mattered to her what happened to him?
Damnation, he liked it better when no one gave a bloody bedamn; he was less confused, more in control.
She didn’t care; she likely wanted him stuck in bed, so she could find and destroy the evidence of his birth. She might already have it. She’d had ample time with him unconscious.
Just because they decided to search together, did not mean she would keep their pact. She already admitted she would do anything for the children, he had best remember. “I have got to get out of this bed.”
“How about a compromise?”
That she seemed unperturbed by his surliness aggravated and confused him as much as everything about her did. Whenever he thought he understood her, she baffled him. He would not like her so-called compromise; this he knew.
“Stay in bed one more day, to heal,” she said. “I’ll feel better and so will you.”
“Done,” he said, but he would not give her the satisfaction of leaving him for a minute. Search behind his back, would she? “But I will not stay in bed alone.”
Her eyes widened. He shook his head. “I mean, stay with me, here, in the kitchen. I do not care how you spend your time—cooking, talking to the children, sewing, whatever. Just keep me company.”
Chastity nodded, seeming at a loss for words.
They argued for half that last day. And when things calmed, Reed baited her again; he could not seem to help himself. “Why do you need to open a children’s home?” he asked. “There are orphanages and workhouses all over England.” God he wanted to take her into his arms.
“Not like mine, Reed.” Her voice was as soft as her look. “Here, the children will be loved. Finding these four was like God’s personal blessing. I knew that my dream would become a reality. I love them, already.”
“Love. Bah!” Suddenly all his frustration—emotional, physical, sexual, finding her here with the children, his accident, his parentage, his whole bloody, God-forsaken life—melded in a rush of ire. “Who do you think you are? Some kind of angel sent by God? “Damn it, there is no such being, no such thing as love.”
She backed away, her horror fueling his frustration. “You’re doing it for yourself, Chastity. Face it. You’re just as selfish as the rest of us. You’re opening a home, not to give love to the children, but to get it for yourself.”
As if he slapped her, Chastity placed her hands on the counter, seeking support, as if she might crumble without something solid to cling to. Lowering her head, she took a trembling breath.
“Chastity,” Reed whispered, hating himself, hurting with her, angry he had fallen into the trap.
After a horrible silence, she raised her chin, straightened her back, and turned to face him, again. “Yes,” she said, quite clearly. “Yes, I’m doing it for the children’s love. Damn you and thank you, Reed Gilbride, for showing me. I do need them to love me. Yes. I need love desperately. Until this moment, I did not know that about myself. But, Reed, they need me to love them just as much. Perhaps more, because they are children. And children, for some reason, expect to be loved.”
“I, however, did not expect it,” she said. “It has been a surprise to discover they love me in return. At least, I think it was a surprise. Your words confused me, and yet you clarified a perplexing matter at the same time. “But I think they need to love me. I think, more than to receive love, children need to give it. They do it naturally and demonstrate it, often. Even Mark, though he tries not to. They are willing to love you, if you let them.”
Her words made him queasy and fidgety. She had pierced something inside him, something he believed impervious, and he almost hated her for it. “There is no such dim-witted thing as love!” he snapped, voice thundering and blade sharp. The louder he spoke, the stronger he believed, and the more relieved he became. “Love is a myth, a legend begun by mindless females in and out of convents. Even this ridiculous home of yours is a myth. Where will you be when you lose your dream? You’ll fail, if you ever get the chance to try, and I am going to stay and watch.”
He closed his eyes to purge the sight of her pain, the result of his words, as he’d purged himself from her concern, though he took no satisfaction in either. Truth to tell, despair all but choked him.
He heard her approach and looked up. She held her chin high, her shoulders back. “You will not watch,” she said, “because you will be gone from here. Get out.”
“You have no right.”
“I do. I have the authority of the executor of the St. Yves estate.”
Reed stood, allowing the covers to fall away, wanting to shock, seeking the upper hand, the strength to walk. He grabbed his clothes as she watched.
After an astonished moment, Chastity turned her back, wishing she could stare him down, no matter his state of undress. “What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
She ached at the thought. “I did not mean—”
“You did, and as far as the executor of this estate is concerned, we will see what he thinks about your having stolen the children from the workhouse. We’ll see which of us is forced to leave.” Reed walked, or rather limped, toward the kitchen door.
Losing Sunnyledge was not Chastity’s greatest fear at that moment; Reed and his precarious physical condition, was. “Reed, do not— Wait. Let us—”
“Too late, sweet Chastity Somers.” The door shut behind him with a single, final clap.
“Godspeed,” Chastity whispered.
After minutes, or hours, of watching the door, she stretched out on his makeshift bed, buried her face in his pillow, inhaled his scent, and wept.
* * *
Thea lowered the door to the dumbwaiter. Foolish, foolish woman deserved no better, coming here, expecting to get Sunnyledge for herself. ‘Twas tantamount to robbery. If anyone deserved Sunnyledge, it was her, for all the years she put in here.
She lowered the ropes to the cellar and ran through the underground
passage. Edward was getting away without paying. She had to follow him, find out where he was going. No, wait! She faltered. Edward had already paid. It was his son she had to stop. Reed, he was called. She needed to keep him here, by fair means or foul. She could not let her plan go awry. She had waited too many years for satisfaction to slip from her fingers now.
‘Twas for the best that she failed with the arrow. She had been too eager. Slow revenge was sweeter than quick. She could accomplish much, given time.
She needed to be more careful. If she rushed her fences, she might keep her lover’s other son away. She wished he would arrive soon.
Did he resemble Edward as Reed did? Clive said they had not looked alike at birth, but who could tell with babies? She was only glad that Reed bore no resemblance to the simpering twit who bore him.
The Vindicator spent the next few days following her wandering puppet while gathering wolf bane and hemlock. When she was certain he planned to stay nearby, and she had all the ingredients she needed, she would return to bake cakes and cookies for the children.
* * *
Chastity had missed Reed for three days, and she feared he might go to Mr. Sennett, after all. Yet, beneath his hard exterior, something good and worthy lived. She sensed it from the beginning. Before ever setting eyes on him, in the dark of night at the workhouse, she knew she could trust him, yet with his threat still echoing in her heart, how could she be certain?
She supposed she was a fool. She could not bring herself to tell the children that her time and theirs, together, might be over. Whatever time they had left, she wanted to make special. To do that, she needed a diversion, or the lot of them, her included, would sit right down and bawl.
When her allowance arrived from Mr. Sennett that morning, Chastity decided to take the children on a jaunt to the village, to take their minds off missing Reed.
On the way, they plodded listlessly behind her, until the village came into view, children’s laughter drifting on the crisp spring breeze, and then they passed her and urged her along.
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