Half an hour later, Gorham helped Lacey from her chair and followed her from the dining room. Gabe pouted until she turned to look for him. “Aren’t you coming?”
As much as he hated to leave her alone with the blustering dandy, he was concerned about Bridget. She’d been almost too excited. “I’ll tuck Cricket in and come right back.”
This was her chance, Lacey thought, to tell Julian that anything more than friendship between them wouldn’t work. She couldn’t be courted. Not with Bridget’s situation so precarious.
For half an hour, she tried to bring the conversation ’round, but every time she’d begin, Julian would say something absurd such as “her eyes were more brilliant than emeralds,” or, worse, “her cheeks could give apples lessons in bright and delectable.” To the latter, she laughed outright.
“Any man would be honored to have you for wife,” Julian said, bringing her back with a vengeance. “Make me the happiest of men and—”
“Vomit,” Gabriel said. He’d heard how Julian began, of course. “Bridget’s sick,” he said with accusation from the doorway, his demeanor thunderous. “She’s crying for you.”
Lacey stood and looked from one man to the other. What could she say? She shrugged and left the room.
“I’ll show you out,” Gabriel offered Julian as she approached the stairs.
He caught up with her before she reached the top.
“What did you do,” she asked. “Shove him wordlessly out the door?”
“I said good-bye.”
Lacey rolled her eyes but forgot her exasperation when she saw Nanny trying to make a weeping Bridget lie down. She let Bridget go when they entered, and as soon as she did, Bridget sat up with a whine. “MyLacey, my tummy hurts.”
“We’ve got her, Nanny,” Lacey said. “Go to bed. We’ll be fine.”
“This is no parlor that needs cleaning,” Nanny said from the door , “but I expect the two of you can manage this one.”
Gabriel started to remove his frockcoat and stopped. “Want to unbutton?” he asked Bridget, but she laid her head on Lacey’s breast and whimpered.
Lacey warmed when Gabe caught her watching him undo his shirt studs and quirked an inquisitive brow, but she didn’t turn from his gaze. He was settling in, becoming comfortable, the way she liked him best, collar in his pocket, sleeves rolled up.
Something about him, dressed, or, rather, undressed, in that at-home way, made her want to curl up in his arms before a fire and weave her fingers through the longish hair at his nape.
“MyLacey?” Bridget placed her hands on either side of Lacey’s face to get her attention.
“I’m sorry, sweet, what is it?”
“Can I have a drink of water?”
“I’ve got it,” Gabe said, filling a cup from the pitcher. He sat on the edge of the bed and handed it to Bridget.
She drank it down in one long gulp as if she’d thirsted for a week. Then she became violently ill.
When the spasms passed, Lacey and Gabriel washed her and got her bed changed.
“She needed that,” Gabe said a while later, standing beside his daughter’s bed, while Lacey stroked her brow.
“She’s sound asleep,” he said. “Go to bed. I’ll stay with her.”
“I’ll go and change,” Lacey countered, “and when I get back, you can do the same. We’re neither of us sweet and fresh.”
He nodded. “Go on.”
In her room, Lacey toyed with the idea of changing into another dress, rather than her night-rail and wrapper, but that was foolish. This was Gabriel, after all. He’d . . . well. This was nothing. Nevertheless, she took the time to brush her hair, then she decided at the last minute to let it curl down her back rather than braid it.
She unpacked the gift her friends at Peacehaven had given her when she left. An elegant China silk wrapper of buttercup yellow, trimmed in lace, hand-embroidered, and threaded with ribbons and love. After Lacey put it on, she gazed at her reflection in the cheval glass, and pulled the ribbons tighter beneath her breasts. How foolish, primping to sit with a sick child. Nevertheless, she pinched her cheeks before she left her room.
Gabriel stood when she entered, and by the light that leapt in his eyes, she knew he approved. Those same eyes hardened as quickly, however, and he left the room in silence.
Deflated, Lacey touched Bridget’s brow, then she pulled up her discarded covers and went to open the window to cool and air the room.
Looking out, she wondered where to go from here. Some time later, Gabriel placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. He wore a Spanish blue brocade dressing gown. Mercy. If she’d thought he looked good in shirtsleeves . . .
A different fire leapt in his eyes, one of intent. Before she could fathom it, he took her in his arms and kissed her with the same greedy hunger he’d shown the day he returned from divinity school.
Forever, Lacey thought, sliding into the perfection of his kiss. It had seemed forever, a lifetime, since they’d kissed like this.
He slid his big hands up and down her back, everywhere, as if he needed to learn her before time ran out.
Lacey lost her ability to think. Her head swam, her body ached. She opened to him and kissed him back, the way she knew would drive him wild.
It did. His kiss deepened. His body roused and sought closer contact with hers.
They broke for air. “Oh, God, Oh, Gabriel.”
He shifted nearer and took her mouth again, his long arms so tight about her, his hands came back around her to caress the sides of her breasts, moving closer and closer to the place where she ached.
Her soul rejoiced; her body wept for more.
“Papa? MyLacey? What are you doing?” When Bridget’s voice broke their sensual fog, they jumped apart so fast, Lacey hit her head on the window.
“Cricket,” Gabriel said, needing to clear his throat before his words could emerge as more than a rasp. “Ah, Cricket, I see you are—”
“How do you feel, sweetheart?” Lacey asked, since he could barely form a sentence.
“I’m thirsty. Hungry, too.”
“I’ve heard this song before,” Gabriel said in a more natural voice.
Lacey put Bridget’s slippers on her. “Her stomach is empty. Perhaps she could have a piece of toast to nibble on?”
“As long as I get more of what I was nibbling on.”
CHAPTER SIX
Lacey bustled Bridget downstairs for toast, but the wee thing fell asleep in her lap, a quarter slice in her hand.
Gabe rose to take her, caressing Lacey in the process, almost by accident, she believed, sending skittering spirals of heat to every nerve in her body. “Don’t move,” he said with purpose. “I’ve more of the same.”
How could she ache for him as if she’d never left his embrace? As if five years had not passed.
She rose and wrapped her arms around herself, chilled, bereft, grateful now that Bridget had awakened when she did. Everything between her and Gabriel was happening too fast, again. Like the first time, there were issues between them, more now than then, questions, lies, doubt, uncertainty. More than ever, she was a threat to losing him his livelihood, possibly forever. There was also Nick Daventry. Olivia Prout. Julian, now, until she sethim straight.
Never mind the deceit and pain—hers, his—that would remain between them unless—
“We have to talk,” Gabriel said from the bottom of the stairs. With his hands buried in the pockets of his dressing gown, he looked as dark and inscrutable as the night he’d turned to find her in his barn watching him. He never looked more like that fallen angel, except at this moment. Still, she wished he would spread his wings and take her in.
“What should we talk about?” she asked, turning to open the cupboard, knowing full well they should discuss everything she’d been worrying about, and more.
“Everything.”
Ah. There it was. “You’re right.” She placed a chunk of cheese and a knife beside the bread on th
e table and put a pot of water on for tea. “Where do you want to begin?”
“Your choice.” He sat, sliced a chunk of cheese and broke it in half.
She sat and accepted the half he handed her. As she took it from his hand, she realized, in a moment of brilliant clarity, that wherever life took her, she would never be more at home or more complete than at this moment with Gabriel. “Let’s begin with the church you’re going to build,” she suggested.
Gabriel put his food down and sat back, exhaustion etching his features. “My bishop insists we need a new church for St. Swithin’s.”
Not quite what she meant, but all right for a start. “Why? The old church is beautiful.”
“Except that we share it with—”
“The Catholics, I know.”
“Years ago,” Gabriel said, “when your family took the remaining section of the old St. Swithin’s priory attached to our church and turned it into a Catholic chapel, it appears our Anglican leaders swore they’d build a separate church.”
“Not on Ashcroft land, they won’t.”
He gave her a half nod, saying without words that she sounded like Lady Lace, the Papist who’d ordered him around. “I don’t think my bishop has figured that out yet. I’m afraid he sees himself as somewhat of . . . a redeemer.” Gabriel winced when he said it.
Good, they could be equally embarrassed. “No one will ‘catch’ the wrong religion. There’s a wall three-feet thick between the two churches,” she said.And between the two of us.
“Besides, I think two faiths sharing a building for worship is somehow fitting.” Gabe sat forward, renewed energy in his demeanor. “We don’t need a church. The crofters’ children need a school, Lace. They’re meeting wherever they can, outside some days. I want to build them a school more than . . . more than almost anything. As a matter of fact, I pretty much bargained you here by promising I would.” He gave her his old hand-in-the-cookie-jar grin.
It threw her, that grin, sent shivers down her spine. Made her want. “Bargained me here?”
“I promised Him.” Gabriel pointed up. “That I would build a school if Bridget could be happy again. It was killing me, her sadness and silence.”
And now his daughter was happy, and he was willing to give Lace credit. That was nearly enough to stay her course, but she couldn’t let disdain and worry over a bargain with the devil fester. “What about the bargain you made with Lady Prout? A church is a pretty big price to pay for a son-in-law. Or, should I say that marriage is a pretty big price to pay for a church?”
Ruddy color filled Gabriel’s cheeks as his anger flared. “There is no bargain,” he snapped. “Nothing was ever stated as clearly as it was yesterday. I hoped I could tactfully solicit the contribution without selling myself.”
“Sounds rather spurious to me.”
That shot him from his chair. “Look who’s talking about deceit, the woman who slept with Nick Daventry days after—”
Lacey stood as well, her face afire. “Nicholas Daventry has nothing to do with this.”
Gabriel stepped near and away so fast, Lacey’s pulse pounded still, even when he stood on the opposite side of the room, his hands fisted at his sides, his face a stormy mask. “You broke me, Lace. Shattered me from the inside out. Left me in a million pieces. And, begad, if I don’t think some of those pieces don’t fit right yet.”
Lacey watched him go up the stairs, looking as tired and beaten as he’d appeared the day she told him Nick was her child’s father.
Yes, she had broken him. She knew it, even then.
Yet what would have happened otherwise?
Her mother would have broken him in a different way. Generations of Kendricks had served this village, this parish. Gabe had dreamed his entire life of continuing that tradition. He’d dreamed of being thegood Vicar Kendrick, better at management and business than his poor father who gave away or misplaced money faster than he could blink. Better at directing the spiritual lives of his flock than his drunken grandsire. She knew how good he would be. How could she have taken away the dignity and self-respect he’d wanted, needed, his whole life, the respect he had already earned?
Perhaps she’d been wrong to decide his future with that lie, but it was her future she’d been determining as well. It had been hell for her, too, knowing she’d lose him to save him. A horrible choice in any circumstance. She’d expected at least to have her child to raise, albeit alone. And a frightening prospect that had been. Then, having a stillborn daughter, losing their child as well as the man she loved . . . well, she’d been broken, too.
Lacey paced the kitchen for at least an hour before she went up to her room. After she did, the connecting door between their rooms seemed almost aglow with the reminder of its presence. She had but to turn its knob.
The notion of telling Gabriel the truth played in her mind for a while, but what good would it do except to reveal her as a liar rather than a strumpet. He would do exactly as he’d intended five years before. He’d confess his transgression, lose this parish, the respect of his flock, and lose the chance at any other parish as well. He’d waste his life as a clockwork clerk or man of affairs, a farmer or manual laborer. If she confessed, he would never know the joy of his true calling again. He would, however, know, at least, thathewas the only man she ever took to her bed.If he believed her at this late date.
No, nothing about five years ago mattered now. But Lacey knew something that would matter a great deal to him now. Bridget was not so much broken as she was, keeping him where she wanted him. After having no choice in the loss of her mother, she was attempting to govern her father.
Lacey stepped to that connecting door and placed the flat of her hand against it. She had heard Gabriel pacing for some time, but all seemed quiet now.
Expecting to find it locked, she closed her hand around the knob but it turned.
A lamp beside his bed bathed the room in a soft glow. Ivy’s little red pup sat up and yipped from the center of the bed before it jumped down and escaped through the slightly open hall door.
Gabriel sat up as well, the sheet dropping to his waist, baring a solid wall of flesh and muscle, a vision unlike anything Lacey could have imagined. They’d never been in a bed together. Never been naked together.
Yes, she had once run her fingers through the fine mat of dark silk, there, beneath his shirt, so she had not seen him.
When she gazed up at his face, he looked so anguished, she turned to go.
“Lace,” he said, the word such a loud plea, she hesitated. Then she found herself in his arms, in his bed, his lips ravishing hers.
She was his. Gabriel’s.
Her clothes fell away beneath his seeking hands.
Too soon. Not soon enough . . . not yet, a tiny vestige of her rational mind warned, not with so much unsaid between them. But her body wept with a demand of its own, and Lacey could neither speak nor think; she could only feel.
The hair on his chest abraded and caressed as did his day’s growth of beard against her face and her breasts, inciting new layers of heat to build on the rest.
He kissed and suckled her, ravenous, greedy, and ready, fulfilling five years of lonely dreams.
This big brute of a man could be so tender, so sweet, so giving. He could lift her up so she touched the stars and hold her while she floated to safety in his arms.
All this sexual energy had him fighting the pull. Imagine if he did not.
Gabe tried to remember the lesson this very woman taught him. His strength lay in denying passion, but the scent of her filled his nostrils, the taste of her teased his tongue.
She arched against him, whimpered his name. A name that meant nothing in any other voice. But on Lacey’s lips, it readied him to soar. Lacey, softer than silk, warmer than sunshine, his home and hearth, his heart and soul, satin and silk, and all his, as she was ordained to be.
He cupped her bottom, poised at her entrance, and gazed into her passion-bright eyes. She was his, only his . . . and
Nicholas Daventry’s.
Like river water in winter, the knowledge sluiced over him.
Gabriel fell back against his pillows.
Lacey whimpered, bereft, and he pulled her tight against him to console them both. If he didn’t get hold of himself, he’d weep with her.
“It’s the passion, Lace,” he said, his voice rusty. “It almost killed me the last time.” He held her away from him to see her, to put a safe distance between them. “After you left—once I wanted to live again—I knew I had to control my passion. I blamed myself for your trouble at first, but I was willing to pay for my sin. By thunder, getting you and a child of our union felt like being rewarded for my sin. Who cared if I lost my living? I would haveyou.”
Lacey felt the heat warm her face. Had she made the wrong decision? Had she destroyed him to save him when he didn’t want saving? If he knew the truth, could he forgive her?
“When you told me your child was not mine—” His voice broke and he cleared his throat with impatience. “The price of sin, I discovered, was high, and painful. I had lost you and my soul as well.”
“Gabriel, no.”
“Don’t worry, I discovered later that my soul had been there all along, but surrounded by a stone heart, it had not been evident.
“Learning to control my baser needs was a hard lesson. Until today, I thought I succeeded. This dark passion of mine—the wild, unpredictable tumult I just experienced—is not good. It can be frightening and fatal, something to eschew at all costs, yet where you are concerned, passion has more power over me than anything.”
“No, Gabriel; you’re wrong. You act as if what happened between us is all your fault. There were two of us in Ashcroft Abbey that first day, and I saw nothing dark in our loving. It was bright and beautiful. As it might have been tonight.”
He laughed, sounding bitter. “You might not frighten easily, Lace, but you turned to Nick Daventry quickly enough after that bright and beautiful experience of ours. And I frightened my wife, let me tell you. That’s when I knew.”
Annette Blair Page 7