From the hall, they could see Bridget in the second-best parlor, on the Chippendale divan on her stomach, chin in hands, facing Hedgehog, peeking over the far arm.
“Mama married him after myreal papa died,” Bridget said.
Hedgehog petted her hair with his finger-sized arm. “Tell me what you remember most about your mama.”
Bridget wiggled around to rest her legs up against the back of the sofa, hands beneath her head, her gaze trained on the ceiling. “Mama used to sing, though not as often as MyLacey does. Once when she did, I remember that papa looked really sad. Mama told him that she knew he missed MyLacey most when she sang, but he would be able to see MyLacey soon.”
She looked at Hedgehog. “This makes me sad to remember.”
“You’ll feel better, if you tell me what’s bothering you.”
Bridget sighed and sat up. “Mama said she wouldn’t rest easy in heaven if Papa didn’t go and get MyLacey after . . . after Mama was gone. Papa pulled her close and he cried and he kept saying he was sorry. And Mama cried, too. And I cried, too.” Bridget swallowed convulsively. “They didn’t know I was there.”
She swiped her eyes with the backs of both hands. “I know Papa likes me because he calls me Cricket, but I wish he would have liked Mama enough to keep her here and not send her home to God.”
Gabriel sucked in a breath and paled to the point that Lacey took his arm, half in support, half in comfort. It was a measure of his shock that he let her.
Neither of them could have moved from that spot, skirting Bridget’s range of vision, for anything.
“Now today Papa has taken MyLacey, and they haven’t come home, and I’m afraid he sent her to God, too.”
Gabe sucked in a breath and crushed Lace’s hand in his.
“Bridget, listen to me,” Hedgehog said, more in Ivy’s voice than Lacey had ever heard. “Your papa had no choice. Your mama was very sick.”
“He could have kept her; Mama said so.”
“What exactly did your Mama say to make you think your Papa had any control over her passing?”
“She said Papa was God’s special helper, one of His chosen ones, one of His favorites. I think if Papaasked, God would have let him keep Mama; I know it. God listens to Papa, Mama told me. That’s why Papa talks a long time on Sundays and everybody comes and they hardly ever fall asleep. Why did Papa let God have Mama, Hedgehog? Why didn’t he like Mama enough to ask God if we could keep her?”
“Shh, love,” Hector said. “Your mama was hurting bad when she was here, and the only way to stop her hurting was for God to take her home with Him.”
“But MyLacey’s not sick and she’s gone. When Mama was gone for lots of hours, Papa came back and told me God had taken her to heaven. And now MyLacey’s been gone forever and I’m afraid Papa’s gonna’ come back and say she’s with God, too, and I’ll never forgive him, Hedgehog. Never!”
“Cricket,” Lacey said, sitting beside her.
Bridget launched herself into Lacey’s arms and began to sob as she clung like a monkey.
Gabriel watched, rooted in horror. He would never be his daughter’s hero. He’d failed at the single most important task of his life. He’d failed to rescue her mother from the clutches of death.
“You’re wrong, sweetheart,” Lacey said. “Papa couldn’t have kept your mama here, and he wanted to. He prayed very hard to God so he could keep her. Mama wrote to me and told me so.”
Like Gabriel, Bridget looked up. Unlike her father, Bridget’s lashes were spiked with tears. “He did?”
Lacey nodded. “That’s why he cried in your mama’s arms, because he knew God had said no. It’s why he was sorry.”
“Did you?” Bridget asked Gabe as she caught sight of him.
He nodded and tried to take her into his arms, his emotions dangerously close to the surface.
Bridget refused to go to him, and despite the hand Lacey extended and he accepted, and his battle to remain strong, tears tipped his lashes as well.
CHAPTER NINE
Gabe waited outside his daughter’s room while Lacey tucked her in for the night. Lace was angry when he didn’t follow them inside. He knew it. So be it. She’d been annoyed with him half their life, anyway. He certainly wouldn’t admit to Lace that it would bloody well break him if Bridget turned from him a second time in one day. So he’d stay out here and not give his daughter the chance.
He walked the length of the upper hall half a dozen times before Lace came out, then he stopped dead when he saw her face. Disappointment, rather than anger, he read there, and frustration seethed in him. “I do not want to discuss it!” He had about reached the end of his ability to withstand rejection for one lifetime, by thunder.
“You’ve had a shock,” she said stepping forward and hugging him.
With a force of sheer will, he kept his arms at his sides. “I do not need you. I do not need anyone.”
“I know you don’t,” she said, holding him tighter and laying her head on his chest. “I know you don’t.”
“Oh, God,” he said, crushing her against him. “I wouldn’t blame you if you took her away from me after this.” The echo of his statement was sobering. He stepped away from Lace to gather the strength for the blow he would instigate. “It might be best if you did. She’ll never forgive me for her mother’s death. You were right. I don’t know her at all.”
“You told me you felt as if she blamed you in some way for Clara’s death. You know her better than we both thought.”
Gabe released and oath. “Who does she think I am that I can stop death?”
“God’s best friend.”
Three simple words and Lace had managed to pierce and deflate his anger. On a ragged sigh, he allowed her to lead him to his room and shut them in. As promising as that might be, sexual intimacy at this moment seemed . . . wrong. Dear Lord, he’d never been in more trouble in his life.
He about smiled when Lace silently mimicked Bridget’s nightly routine, undoing the same few buttons.
“I like you this way,” she said, rolling up the second sleeve. “Relaxed and easy.” She led him to his settee and sat beside him, bringing his arm over her shoulder. “Ever since my first night back from Peacehaven,” Lace said, “seeing you like this has made me want to curl up with you before the fire.”
He shook his head as the tightness in his chest eased and he pulled her close. “When the weather cools, we’ll make it a nightly ritual . . . if you’re still here. I’ll never take anything for granted again.” His heart skipped at the implication in his words. “I think you have something else on your mind. Out with it.”
“I’m wondering what you’re planning to do about Cricket’s misconception?”
“Do? What can I do? For the first time ever, I think I understand why people turn from God or the church. My daughter hates me, Lace, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“On the plus side, she equates you with God.”
“Which makes my human failings all the worse to her.”
“True, but, Gabriel, she doesn’thate you.”
“Yes, well, I’m no more convinced than she is.”
“I’ve been wondering if that scene might have been part and parcel of her trying to make life go her way.”
“I sure as Hades noticed it wasn’t going my way.” Gabe winced. “Sorry, that was selfish.”
Lacey squeezed his hand. “I don’t think she’s aware, mind you, that she’s trying to make you conform to her wishes. I didn’t realize it about myself, until I saw a certain little girl at Peacehaven wrap two usually sane adults into knots.”
Gabe latched on to her words like a line from the mire. “You never told me about Peacehaven, Lace. Was it terrible?”
“At first, anywhere not here seemed terrible. Then I accepted the changes in my life . . . well, some of them, and I grew to love it. There are a few people back at Peacehaven who mean a great deal to me. I cried more the day I left there than when I left here. But I’
m so very glad I came back. Which reminds me.” She removed the pins from her hair and shook it out. “I’ve decided what I’m going to do, first, with my newfound wealth.”
Gabe’s spine went straight and he tried to remove his arm from around her. “Take Bridget away?”
She held his arm in place. “I’m going to purchase new clothes for the first time in five years, so Cricket won’t be ashamed of me.”
Gabriel released the breath he’d been holding and toyed with a lock of her hair. “She’s not ashamed of you; she simply thinks your dresses are ugly.” He chuckled. “But judging by that god-awful green dress she loves, her taste may be difficult to satisfy on a daily basis.”
“Gabe, you need to spend more time with her.”
“So she can twist the dagger in my heart?”
“She doesn’t know you, Gabriel, any better than you know her.”
“God, Lace, I’d do anything for her and you know it, but she doesn’t want to spend time with me.”
“Remember how excited she was the day she dressed up for tea? She talked to you then. And in the tree, when you joined us?”
“Because you were there. She was happy with you beside her.”
“I think when we’re together, we make her feel safe enough to forget her childish conclusions. Take us to a draper in the village tomorrow. It’s market day and there’ll be any number of attractions. Perhaps we can go for a picnic on the River Arun after, or take tea at the Thistle.”
Gabe brought her close and kissed her. Their relationship had changed subtly. They’d started as friends, became lovers, and now they were partners of a sort, trying to do their best for Bridget while taking care of each other in the process. Her concern, both for him and Bridget, rather than pure sexual desire, had prompted his kiss. The concept felt comfortable and right. “You’re bound and determined to repair the breach, are you not, even though I believe that deep down you came first and foremost to take her away from me?”
“I told you we’d both do what was best for her in the end.”
“You’re best for her,” Gabe said.
“And you,” she added, “and if we’re not careful, talk like this will make her think that neither of us wants her.”
“You know what this all means,” he said, thinking this was a bad time to offer marriage, except that it seemed a perfect time. “If you married me, she could be ours forever.”
“She already is ours. Nothing will ever change that.” Lace rose, seeming somewhat at a loss despite her show of calm.
A good sign, Gabe thought. She hadn’t said no though she hadn’t said yes either. He stood as well. “Thank you for caring about what happens to both of us.” He felt lost. He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted to carry her to his bed, and yet, something nearly as good as sex, amazingly, had just passed between them. He couldn’t quite define it, but he experienced a renewed hope for the future because of it. He escorted her to the connecting door, kissed her gently and held her for a long minute, stroking the silk of her ear. “’Night, Lace.”
“’Night, Gabriel.”
After he undressed and climbed into bed, like clockwork, a little red dog pushed open the door he’d left ajar, jumped up on his bed, and settled right down beside him, her nose in his neck. “No offense, sweetheart,” he said as he stroked Tweenie’s sleek red back. “But I have hopes of replacing you in this bed very soon.”
“Like with whom?” Lace stood in his doorway, appearing interested but uncertain.
Gabe rose on an elbow. He hadn’t heard his door open. Tweenie whined but vacated the spot that Gabriel meant for the insecure beauty at his bedroom door. He peeled back his covers. “I’ve been saving this spot for you . . . for years.”
She flew into his arms and knocked the air from his chest by nearly landing atop him, though he would have her nowhere else.
“Sleeping in our dress, are we?” he asked between kisses, his hands seeking buttons and closures, finding some, undoing as many as he could, and before he had a chance to wonder why she wasn’t trying to help remove her clothes, his nightshirt was being lifted over his head.
“Unfair,” he said. “I only have the one layer.”
“Lucky me,” she giggled. “I have a dozen.”
“Two dozen, at least,” he said as his hands crept beneath until he found her, the silk of her thigh, her sigh near his ear, warm and welcoming, just like her, her legs falling open to a stroke up the inside of that thigh, closer and closer to his goal and her plea. “This is not prudent,” he mumbled through his sexual trance.
“Nor wise,” said she on a shivery gasp.
“Nor patient,” he added as she rose to meet his seeking hand.
“It’s no virtue I can think of,” she gasped between those little satisfied mewling sounds she made. “It’s splendid.”
He smiled, his shaft dancing for her attention “Ordained,” he added.
She shuddered at the small and growing cataclysm within her. “You should know. “It’s hopeful,” she added. “Hope is a virtue.”
“Mmm.”As is love.But no more words were necessary as he made her rise toward climax, pulling pleasure from her deepest recesses, making her repeat his name in supplication and need—for him.
After making her shudder three more times, he let her rest, while he removed her dress as if from a limp doll. One layer gone.
And though he thought she might fall asleep, she awoke instead, rolled to her side to face him, found his needy self, and took him into her hand, moving her petticoats so his shaft rested at her entrance, at that sweet wet place where she pulsed to pull him in.
He tugged her petticoats over her head, and anything else that got in their way—as they lay face to face. And before he decided how serious to let this get, she screamed in frustration, stole his decision, arched her hips, and forced him to impale her.
He let her eager muscles take him deep.
Gabriel bucked, he shouted, his good sense lost in her intoxicating power, her hands in his hair one minute, cupping his bollocks the next, so that every sensation became new and blazing hot, till he caught fire and reveled in the burn. But she would not lead him to completion and cautioned him not to move too fast. “Slow. I want it slow.”
As if she worked a magic he had not quite realized she possessed, she concentrated her inner muscles and practically woman-handled him, squeezing his erection in small bursts while pulling him deep within her tight sheath. Gabe ground his teeth and tried to last as long as she wished while she floated him to heaven.
Her breathing became erratic, her thrusts harder, more fevered. He growled in thanksgiving and matched her for speed, exulting in their wild abandon, both of them headed for a sensual cataclysm, and together they shouted and flew off the edge of the world.
In the float to awareness, they held, clung, her tears blessing his neck, him trying so very hard not to let his emotions show.
She had come home. Lacey had come home to him.
They slept, woke, and made love again and again.
Toward dawn, they lay wakeful, holding tight, and he wondered if she feared, as much as he, what daylight would bring in the way of reality. “Your skills are new, more powerful. I hadn’t noticed in Ivy’s wagon. You never used them when we were young. Are there books to teach such things?”
She chuckled. “At Peacehaven, we were all women, most without their men, well, mostafraidof their men, but sometimes, when the children were asleep in the dead of night, we talked of forbidden things. Marcus had shown his gentle side, proved he had a heart by caring for Jade and little Emmy. Jade had announced that ‘not all men were created equal; that some of them are good.’ So we hoped, which inspired sensual memories that begged explaining, which bred dreams. They hoped for men worth pleasing, and in whispers, they shared secret bedroom skills a woman might employ for thatone good man, meant for each of them, who would remove them from a life of drunken beatings. I listened, Gabriel, and in my mind and body, I practiced the wiles
I would work on you, if ever the opportunity arose.”
That humbled him no end. He leaned on an elbow. “Me?Not Nick?”
She gasped, planted him a facer, and left his bed so fast, the muzzy dizziness had not stopped circling before he knew she was gone.
Mac raised a brow when she saw his black eye in the morning, and while he drank his coffee, she slapped a steak on it none too gently.
Cricket laughed when she saw him and tilted her head. “PapaGabe, did you run into a doorknob?”
“The biggest one you can imagine.”
“Smart doorknob.” Mac chuckled.
He and Lacey did not converse until the day of their shopping expedition at the end of that week, and it seemed, by mutual consent, he believed, that they would leave his fall from grace—the mention of Nick, he supposed—to the annals of unspoken history.
Lacey believed that Gabriel was right about Cricket’s taste in dresses. He laughed aloud when she chose lime silk ruching for one of Lacey’s strawberry muslin morning gowns.
Despite the diplomacy required of the situation, Lacey left Watts and Acott, Drapers, on Tarrant Street, with six new dresses on order, and wearing an unclaimed treasure, a walking dress of rich jasper silk with agate buttons. Her mantilla and white chip bonnet, both specially trimmed with jasper ribbons, were everything she could want.
Bridget happily wore a pair of new lime-green silk ribbons in her hair, despite her lavender dress.
They stopped at the Swan, one of the oldest inns in Arundel, for a delicious tea to be packed as a picnic, and afterwards, though Tom Buller hired pleasure boats for the river, they chose a quiet safe spot beneath a tree to watch the activity on the water.
“With more than forty ships registered in Arundel, the River Arun is no peaceful port,” Gabriel said as he ruffled Cricket’s hair and bumped shoulders with Lace. “It connects to the sea by a directed canal.”
He bid them watch the tiny harbor tug, theJumna, pull theEbenezer, a one-hundred-and-fifty ton merchant ship toward the open sea. “A ship like that carries coal, lumber, and salt,” Gabriel said as he took Cricket on his lap. “Watch that bridge over there.” The railroad bridge rolled back to allow the huge ship to pass.
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