Lady Prout flushed, Olivia squeaked and fluttered, and Gabriel regarded Lacey with a look fit to turn her to stone.
Loathing, Lacey saw in his eyes, or was it her own for him she saw reflected there?
She removed his mackintosh, tossed it his way, and allowed Julian to lead her and Bridget toward the carriage house door, Gabriel yelling for her to take the coat against the weather, but she ignored him.
“Cricket,” she said, before rushing into the rain. “Let’s run between the raindrops.”And pretend the water on our faces isn’t tears.
The following morning, Bridget climbed into Lacey’s lap the minute Lace sat, last at table, but those assembled seemed no less anxious for her appearance than they had been the first day for Bridget’s.
Perhaps they expected her to appear in traveling clothes after the preponderance of “devil talk” the day before. “I can face Prout,” she declared. “Mercy, I can faceanything for Bridget,” she added. Let Gabriel make of that what he wished. It would take more than a vicious old woman to chase her away. “Why is everyone so quiet,” she asked. “Goodness, you’d think—”
Gabriel produced a letter and held it out to her.
Lacey regarded it with furrowed brow. She looked at Mac, stoic, at Ivy, who nodded for her to go ahead and take it.
She grasped Bridget’s chin and turned her face so they were nose to nose. “Do you know what’s in this silly letter?”
Bridget nodded. “Somebody’s dead. Your distinct—”
“Distant,” MacKenzie corrected.
“Distant,” Bridget repeated. “Your distant cousin. He’s a man. NannyMac cried. Papa said a bad word.”
Lacey’s hands began to tremble. She stared at the letter in the center of the table in the same way Bridget had regarded her mother’s trunk, wishing she understood yesterday this feeling of fear mixed with dread. “Bridget,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Tell me his name.”
“Lace,” Gabriel said.
“I’ll do this my way, if you please.”
Gabriel sighed. “MacKenzie, can’t you do anything with her?”
“I am in the room, Gabriel,” Lacey said. “Bridget? His name?”
“Something . . . Davenwood.”
“Daventry?” Lace heard the panic in her own voice. “Not Nick.” The faces around the table blurred before her eyes.
Ivy grasped her hand. “It’s Victor, little one, not Nick. Knickerbocker’s all right. Had a letter from him just last week.”
Lacey released the sob she’d been holding. Mac tried to take Bridget, but Lace wouldn’t let her go. “No. Don’t. I’ll be fine.” She hugged Bridget close and looked up at Gabriel. “How did it happen?”
“You know what an adventurer he was. Got lost in some godforsaken stretch of Canada.”
“Then, they don’t— That is, they have no . . . proof?”
“He’s been missing for more than two months in a remote area, Lace. Proof enough.”
She nodded, saddened despite her dislike of Nick’s older brother. Then she realized who stood to inherit. “Ivy, this means Nick will inherit the title, the house, my old house. He might come home!”
Ivy’s smile was forced, probably because he too had seen Gabriel’s face turn to stone. What an idiot she was. Gabriel had always been terribly jealous of her friendship with her cousin Nick and it only got worse over time. Surely worse after she named Nick as the father of her stillborn babe.
No, Gabriel was the idiot. Nick was her dear friend. Gabriel, the love of her life. Which he should bloody well know.
“Cricket, my sweet,” Lacey said. “How would you like to have a dress-up tea party this afternoon and invite some of the little girls we met yesterday at the puppet show?” Lacey would allow no more sadness to mitigate Bridget’s joy. Victor had lived a long and wild life. She would mourn him privately.
Ivy cleared his throat. “Lace, as the closest member of Victor’s family here at home, it’s rather up to you to arrange for a memorial service.”
Lacey regarded the stern faces around the table, one in particular. “Gabriel, I would like a memorial service a week from today. Announce it in church on Sunday, would you?” She turned to Ivy and nodded firmly, putting period to his censure. “There, that’s done.”
“Nanny, tea party for . . . oh, ten at four o’clock.”
“Bridget, I’ll get the pony cart, you get your cape. We’re going calling.”
Gabriel stood in the library window and watched the pony cart wend its way toward the village until it slipped entirely from sight.
Nick Daventry. Nick Daventry. Nick Daventry. Even the cadence of the name dogged him as Gabe made his rounds about Rectory Farm to speak to his workers about the haying in one field and the flax in another.
A gentleman farmer, when vicariate duties allowed it, Gabriel liked his life, though his woolly flock didn’t impose nearly as great a challenge as his flock of churchgoers. God’s knew, he even enjoyed tossing down a mug or two with a few of his non-churchgoers on occasion.
Only one thing in his life had been missing. And now she was back. But was she his? For a day or so, he’d thought perhaps she was. Then old Lady Prout reminded him that for months he’d been treading water in a shallow pond, on rocks that could cut you and make you . . . him . . . makehim bleed. He’d been pretending not to understand that the designing old crow would only hand over the funds he needed to build a new church if he married her puppet of a daughter.
He’d thought if he handled the woman just right, the church contribution could be made and Olivia could look elsewhere for matrimony. Lord,he was as bad as Ivy with his puppets.
Gabriel hated that the bishop was forcing his hand. They didn’t need a new church. The existing one was fine, if not as grand as the old prelate would like.
Yesterday at the puppet show, when Prout insulted Lacey, Gabriel had wanted to give Prout a proper set-down, tell her what he really thought of her . . . till she mentioned the church. He’d shut his mouth then to consider his options, and there’d been Gorham, Lacey’s veritable knight in shoddy armor, charging her attacker with a bejeweled lance. It appeared that even fake jewels glistened with a light on them.
That namby-pamby popinjay of a pauper had more teeth than brains; couldn’t Lacey see that? Yes, Gorham had certainly shone bright againsthis poor performance in defending Lace, Gabe thought morosely. The truth was, he’d feared venting feelings that would open a Pandora’s box. To his mind, admitting passion was a great deal worse than Prout’s ire.
First Gorham to contend with, and, botheration, now Nick was coming home. Gabriel had never been more frustrated in his life. Well, yes, he had been—more broken, at any rate.
Just the name Daventry brought it all back. Lord, he detested the man.
Gabriel remembered how frightened he’d been after he and Lacey had made love for the first time. Frightened and elated at one and the same time and eager, as well, to love her again despite the possible ramifications of their fall from grace.
But no worry had marred the perfection of their love in Lacey’s bright, happy eyes, or so he’d thought. Lace had glowed. She’d smiled. She was happy, at least for a time.
Then he heard the gossip, whispered throughout the parish. The Lady Lacey Ashton was with child. Disgraced. Her mother was enraged. He’d heard the woman had ranted and demanded for days that Lacey name the father, swearing to break the man responsible for her daughter’s fall.
Despite those threats, Gabe had gone to the Towers, hat in hand, to face the furious and powerful harridan, knowing he stood to lose his living, his very heritage—his grandfather’s and his father’s parish—Lacey’s mother was that mad.
Six months ordained, and he’d become a worse shepherd and manager than his forebears, and that was some grand failure.
Oddly enough, Gabe hadn’t cared. All he’d ever wanted was Lacey. Just the thought of the child they’d created with their love and, Lord, he’d been as mindlessly happy as
he was mindlessly frightened.
He scoffed now remembering what a fool he was.
Lacey had met him that morning in the blue salon, just before her mother came down.
If he lived to be a hundred and ten, he would never forget Lacey’s words to him on that crisp fall day. “It’s not yours, Gabriel. My baby’s not yours. Nick Daventry is my child’s father.”
The words hurt even now. In that first horrific moment, they might have been an axe blade between his shoulders for the pain he’d felt.
From that day to this, as far as Gabriel was concerned, Nicholas bloody Daventry could go straight to hell.
Later, around six, he returned to the Rectory still troubled and noticed that the best parlor looked as if squirrels had taken up residence.
In the doorway, he stepped on something that cracked and picked up the arm of an ugly French figurine that had once belonged to his grandmother.
MacKenzie, mumbling and sweeping up its remains by the hearth, hadn’t yet noticed his presence. Neither had anyone else.
For the first time that day, Gabe felt himself relax.
Lacey had her head tucked beneath the front of the camel-backed settee, her crinolines bobbing into the air, affording him a lovely and shocking view of her sweet bottom, clad in what he believed were calledpantalettes.
Never before, Gabe realized, had lust and tenderness and the urge to chuckle or wring someone’s neck, come upon him all at the same time.
“Can you see it?” Lacey called, obviously searching for something. But whom did she address?
“I can, almost, but it’s wiggling a lot,” Cricket said, either from behind or beneath said piece of furniture, judging by her muffled response.
“You have it, then?”
“Ouch. Not anymore.”
“Where did it go?”
“Up. Inside.”
Lacey’s quivering petticoats gave Gabe the impression she had suffered a shock, and before they finished their flutter, she backed out and sat on her knees, hands on her hips. “Bridget Kendrick, are you telling me that your kitten has disappeared into the sofa stuffing!”
What kitten? Sofa stuffing?
Cricket came tottering into sight on shoes with heels thrice her size, trailing a god-awful green dress and a red boa for half a yard, and wearing a straw hat his mother had favored. From the hat’s brim dangled a clump of papier mâché cherries, topped by a molting bluebird.
Gabriel barked a laugh and clapped a hand over his mouth.
Bridget and Lacey looked up in unison, both regarding him with stunned surprise. MacKenzie grumbled the louder—for her share of attention Gabe would wager—so he confiscated her broom and sent her on her way. “Just see to dinner,” he said. “We’ll take care of everything.”
Her rusty old Scot’s laugh mocked him as MacKenzie walked away.
Gabe turned back to the two people he loved most in the world. One would rather step around him as look at him. The other was bound to break him for good one of these days, especially if she discovered the continued existence of his foolhardy love. Yet he wallowed in their regard, too beguiled to move from their proverbial paths.
Since there was no changing destiny, he pulled out a chair, sat, and crooked his finger to bring his comically adorable little one over to him. She must actually have regarded him long enough to catch his summons because she came.
“Lovely dress,” he said.
Cricket’s eyes came alive. “It’s Mama’s. MyLacey made it smell like the water meadow again.” Bridget shoved her arm under his nose . . . so he could sniff, he imagined. So he did, nodded, and kissed her offered elbow. “I’ve heard you call her MyLacey before but I don’t know why.”
“That’s—”
He raised a hand to quiet Lacey. “I’d like Bridget to explain, if she would.” He regarded his daughter again, his rush of love so overwhelming, clearing his throat became necessary before he could speak. “Haven’t you noticed, Cricket, that everybody else calls her Lacey?”
Bridget nodded. “I remember that Mama used to call her that, but NannyMac called her MyLacey the day I met her, and I like it ever so much better.”
Lacey looked at him with a plea, and darned if he didn’t experience another rush of love, one that made himwant to tumble headlong into the sea-green depths of her eyes where he could die happy. For a moment, he allowed his emotions to show, letting her glimpse her power over him, and she looked away, but not before he saw a hunger mixed with fear.
He knew exactly how she felt.
“Can’t I call you MyLacey?” Bridget asked, stepping from her slippers onto the sofa to reach and undo a bodice button or three of Lacey’s while shyly awaiting her answer.
“Of course you can, sweetheart.” She kissed Bridget’s nose and winked at him over his daughter’s enticing plea, the color in her cheeks matching the rosebuds marching across the bit of underbodice Cricket had revealed. “MyLacey can be your special name for me,” Lacey said, “like Cricket is your papa’s pet name for you.”
Bridget turned and gave him a single, strong nod as if to say, “See, I told you,” much as Lace had done this morning to Ivy in regard to Victor’s memorial service. Had Bridget learned that from Lace in the short time she’d been here? Or was prideful stubbornness a natural Ashton trait that his daughter inherited from her mother?
“Now tell me about this kitten,” Gabe asked his daughter as he folded his arms to listen and distract his attention from Lace rebuttoning her dress the way he’d like to do—No, he’d undo it the rest of the way, first, and then—
“Julia gave the kitten to me.” Bridget raised her empty hands. “But it’s dist-a-peared.”
“No, it’s not,” he was mostly pleased to report.
“It’s not?” his lovelies said together.
Gabe carried Bridget to the settee and pointed to the spot on the padded back where the outline of two little kitty paws pushed on the fabric from the inside.
“Oh, my, God,” Lacey said. “It’ll suffocate. We have to take the sofa apart.”
Gabe sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.” He removed his frockcoat, rolled up his sleeves, and unhooked his cleric’s collar. Then he turned the sofa around and got on the floor behind it with them.
Two hours later, the settee’s tapestried back had been flipped to the front, and Bridget sat on the floor cuddling a tiny, blue-eyed angora kitten who wanted nothing more than to catch those cherries wobbly-bobbing from her hat. Or was it the bald bird the fluffball coveted?
He’d spent so long bent in half trying to get the kitten out, Gabriel could barely straighten, so Lacey rubbed his aching back. “You’re getting old,” she said, rubbing hard along his spine, and he chuckled because her hands on him felt so good he wanted to kink it every day. And as for feeling old, he’d never felt younger or more alive. “If I’m old, you’re old,” he said, to turn his thoughts and get her eyes to twinkling.
“Not for three years yet. Even so, you’ll still be older than me.”
MacKenzie came in and gasped. “I thought you were going to clean this up. It’s thrice as messy.”
Lacey chuckled. “We noticed.”
“Er, perhaps I’ve come at a bad time?” asked an unexpected male voice.
“Julian!” Lacey shot to her feet.
Forgotten on the floor, Gabriel took satisfaction in the fact that Lacey was not dressed for callers. Her bodice had been splattered with raspberry jam and the back of her skirt looked as though she’d sat on an Eccles cake.
“I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” she said, trying uselessly to tidy herself.
Beautiful. She looked beautiful.
Gorham tilted his head, considering. “You look like a queen.”
Their visitor should take a row on the river Arun, without oars in a leaky boat, Gabe thought. But since the dolt looked so uncomfortable with his outlandish compliment to Lace hanging in the air, Gabe felt more in control. He stood and stretched to his full imposing height,
just so he could look down on Gorham. Then he placed his hand on Lacey’s shoulder, adding possession to power.
“Ah . . . is dinner still at eight?” Gorham asked awkwardly.
“Oh, Lord,” Lacey said. “I forgot I invited you.”
Gabe chuckled. Serve the man right.
Julian did not take the unintended slight well.
An hour later, Bridget’s running dialogue on her first-ever dress-up tea party kept dinner from being a compete waste with Lacey’s admirer making calf eyes at her across the table.
“Margaret’s mother makes dolls and doll dresses; did I tell you? She said perhaps I could go and play at her house tomorrow?”
For a little girl who’d rarely spoken until Lacey arrived, his Cricket took to making up for it with a vengeance, talking as fast as she ate.
“Clarissa’s nicer than Gwyn.She poked her finger into Nanny’s lemon tarts.”
Lacey focused on Bridget, winced at the ill-mannered tart-poke, and ate very little.
“I told Sara Jacques that I want to call my kitten Merry. She said that’s Mouse’s name, and I know that, but I like it, anyway. I’ll ask Mouse next time I see her, or I’ll ask Hedgehog when Ivy comes back on Sunday.”
“You’re eating awfully fast,” Lacey told Bridget.
“I’m hungry. Lydia said our pig should not be named Lady Cowper. She said we should call our cow that. Do you think so, Papa . . . Gabe?”
He regarded Lacey across the table. Bridget had addressed him directly. Finally. “I think our pig is perfectly happy with the name she has. Though I suppose we could reassign their names and call them the Ladies Cowper and Pigger.”
Cricket’s eyes widened to the size they’d been when Tweenie stole his sock, and Gabe decided he should tease her more often.
“How can you be hungry?” Mac asked. “After all the sweetmeats you ate this afternoon?”
Bridget yawned in answer and that was all Mac needed. She stood. “That’s it. Bath time, lovey. Then bed. My little lady’s had a tiring day.”
Lacey rose as well, bringing Gabe and Gorham to their feet, but Mac waved them all back down. You three finish and go to the parlor—the second parlor, that is—and I’ll bring tea ’round in a bit.”
Annette Blair Page 6