Annette Blair

by Holy Scoundrel

  She licked his lips. “I’m awake and I want you inside of me, Gabriel. No pretense, no evasion, just a life as it was supposed to be lived, for both of us.”

  Gabriel nodded. “We’ve known it from the beginning, haven’t we? Since we were kids.” Not a question but a statement.

  His echo of her thoughts firmed Lace’s resolve to make this rare moment in time a blessing, a memory for the ages. No fear of reprisal but free, she felt. Uninhibited, for the first time ever. Ready to welcome the mate ordained for her.

  “Are you certain?” she asked, and he heard the insecurity in her voice.

  Gabriel’s sex surged, almost involuntarily, against her. “Never more so of anything . . . you have proof at hand.”

  “It’s not your sturdy soldier talking, is it?” she asked with amusement. “Your other brain?”

  “Him? He’s never been more alive, whimpering, weeping in anticipation, aching to sing in full-throated glory.” Gabriel hardened the more.

  “Alive, yes,” Lacey said. “Like me, awash in energy and need. Let’s finish what we started on our bed beneath the stars.”

  “Excellent, yes!” Gabe said. “Now, while the world can’t intrude, take my hands,” he whispered on a kiss that lingered as he rose over her. He held himself apart, kept their bodies from touching, as they made a simple meal of each other’s mouths, fingers entwined on the pillow by her head, nothing else touching.

  “Come inside of me. Now,” she begged.

  “No,” Gabe said. “Let’s go to the house.”

  “What!”

  “Look behind you.” Gabe rolled off of her.

  On a shelf behind the bed sat of row of peeping tom puppets. Sergei, Hedgehog, Merry Mouse, a very stern Parson Puppet, and various others, all of them grinning, except the parson.

  “Why weren’t they here the last time?” she asked.

  “He must have been repairing them when I stole the wagon.”

  Lace sat up. “The house, yes. Quick. I’ll never be able to watch another puppet show without turning beet-red.”

  CHAPTER TWENTYTWO

  “I want to do this right, anyway. In our marriage bed,” Gabriel said. “That’s where we should conceive our next child.”

  She bit her lip for a second, for so many reasons. She wasn’t certain. She wasn’t. And one should be in these cases, shouldn’t one? “But I don’t want to get dressed. I want you now, blast it.”

  “Ach, it’s a heathen I married. She uses salty language,” Gabriel roared. “You wear my shirt. I’ll wear my breeches, and we’ll run hand-in-hand into the house and up to our bedroom.”

  She grumbled so, as she turned all the puppets to face the wall, that his laughter made it difficult for him to hop into his trousers.

  Before they ran, Gabriel kissed her with satisfaction, as possessive and wildly frantic as she.

  “I’m dying, too,” he said. “We’ll make it fast and by the time we get there, we won’t be able to bear the wait.”

  Lacey huffed. “But I didn’t want to have to stop.”

  “Do you know how greedy you were last night?”

  “No, how greedy was I?”

  “Like the last time we made love here, right before I found out aboutour baby.”

  Oh. Did impending motherhood made her randy? She grinned.

  She practically dragged him toward Rectory Cottage, knowing she was foolish for possibly getting herself in this condition without the benefit of marriage, twice. Both times in love with a man she could never have. First, the Lady Lacey Ashton and the vicar’s son. Then the town harlot and the respected vicar. The truth was that every time Gabriel touched her, she’d wanted to conceive.

  Now, thankfully, a bizarre series of events and the love they’d denied for years had conspired to bring them together as man and wife. Praise be. “I love you, my husband,” she said as they entered his room, their room, at Rectory Cottage.

  She twirled as she crossed it. “Now, I finally belong here with you.”

  He opened his arms to her and she ran into them so he could raise her up, let her slide down his body and kiss her senseless.

  It was only when he lifted her into his arms and turned toward the bed that he stopped and Lacey squeaked.

  CHAPTER TWENTYTHREE

  “On the bed, that’s Bridget’s trunk of baby clothes,” Lace said, “the one MacKenzie practically tore from my hands that day in the attic. I haven’t seen it since.”

  She stepped closer. Atop the trunk sat a key. “Oh,” Lacey said. “Oh.” She sat on the bed reaching for the small leather-trimmed trunk, but she pulled her hands quickly back, clasped them and set them in her lap. “My heart is racing,” she admitted softly and looked at Gabriel.

  He spread his hands. “I fail to see the significance of an attic cast-off. I am also embarrassingly humbled by the early failure of my wedding night seduction. Methinks I should have ignored those ruddy puppets.”

  Lacey laughed, a bubble of pure joy rising in her, an imprecise instinct illuminating the monumental nature in the moment.

  “I will expect a wedding-night-quality seduction every night,” Gabriel, “so you will have ample time to make it up to me.”

  “Me?” he asked. “Make it up to you? When you abandoned me?”

  She giggled but soon forgot him when she became distracted by the key, which she fingered, then fit into the lock.

  She turned the key to find the trunk still filled with baby clothes, the ones on the topmost layer still in disarray from Bridget’s search for the bonnet that Lace kept hidden in a drawer.

  Bittersweet memories filled her as she searched further and raised pieces to exclaim over. “So tiny.” In the pit of her belly, she replaced her bittersweet anticipation of motherhood with the joyful knowledge that in future, her child’s father would share the amazing journey through expectation, excitement, and concern. She turned to kiss his cheek.

  He turned so their mouths met. Sweet. Satisfying. She lingered over the treat, and when they stopped to draw breath, she kissed him quickly and returned to the small trunk. “There has to be a reason this is here.”

  She fingered each soft, silky piece of clothing and imagined using them on their babies to come. She touched a sweater to her cheek. “Bridget’s baby things,” she repeated.

  “Ah.” He fingered a sweater, brought it to her cheek, nuzzled her ear. “Let’s find a reason to use them,” he suggested, his voice low and suggestive.

  “Mmm.” She’d agree to anything with his breath warming her ear.

  And then she saw it: an outfit and matching bonnet that . . . reminded her . . . of—

  She took it out, heart racing. “This can’t be,” she whispered.

  “What?” Gabriel asked, pulling her closer against his chest, her back to his front.

  She turned to show him. “I’d swear this is the sacque and bonnet that my mother said she buried my baby in. Except that no baby was buried where the stone is.”

  She fingered the sacque and matching bonnet with embroidered yellow rosebuds. So familiar the stitching. The fabric. The little ruffle on the bonnet. Too familiar. She examined it in detail, her heart beating at a pace that frightened her as much as it filled her with a desperate kind of hope. “Gabriel? How could Clara in Scotland, and I here in Arundel, make the same baby outfit in the same fabric and trim? Same colors? Get me some scissors.”

  Gabe fetched a pair of scissors from his dresser.

  When she opened the sacque at the front, a note fell out.

  “Lace,” was written on the front in Clara’s hand.

  She picked up the note, traced her name, caught a scent very much her own in the parchment, faded but indisputable. “Gabriel, had Clara had taken to wearing lavender oil?”

  “Absolutely, since the day she returned to Arundel.”

  “Hmm. She used to like rosewater best.”

  Gabriel, watching her intently, ran a hand down her cheek, a shiver of love, silky and reassuring. “Are you al
l right?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. Yes. Maybe.”

  He sat beside her and slipped an arm around her waist. “This is important to you, whatever it is?”

  “I think so. This note is from Clara, you see. I recognize her handwriting.”

  “I see. Well, since Clara did not leave it in my care, she must have left it with MacKenzie.”

  “Do you mind if I read it?”

  “Of course not. It might explain your confusion. Perhaps your mother told her what you were making in a letter, described it in such detail, Clara wanted your babies to match.”

  Lacey set the precious baby outfit in her lap and began to open Clara’s note.

  Gabriel lifted her in his arms, outfit, note, and all, and set her against the pillows at the head of the bed. Then he picked up a blanket and covered her with it. He sat against the footboard, showing her that he was there for her.

  “Thank you,” she said, “for letting me have this bit of our wedding night. I can’t explain yet why I’m so jittery anxious. I almost feel like Clara is with us,” Lace said.

  Gabriel groaned. “My wife who hated my passion and my wife who loves it, together in the same room, on my wedding night? I’m getting kind of jumpy myself.”

  That made her laugh.

  “The letter is yellowed by time and stained by tears.” Lace traced a shadowed droplet with a finger. A deep shuddering breath, she took, before she could peel away the sealing wax.

  Lacey looked up at Gabe and waited for his nod of approval to actually open it, the parchment shaking in her hands. This felt like the last step in a very long journey.

  With trepidation and a racing heart, she began to read in silence.

  Dearest Lace,

  Please forgive Gabriel; he never thought he was good enough for you, so believing that Nick was your baby’s father came naturally. He admitted as much once, in a roundabout way, when we were married.

  Only you can help him believe in his own worth.

  And do not be angry with God. I imagine now, in my final days, that when I go to heaven I will give the Deity a piece of my mind for putting you through the loss of your babe.

  Lacey lowered the letter to her lap and burst into tears.

  Gabe rushed to her side and rocked her in his arms. “Ah, sweetheart, I wish I could take your pain as my own,” he whispered against her brow.

  She accepted his handkerchief. “Stupid me, I thought, I don’t know what I thought.”

  “Read,” Gabe said. “I will hold you while I give you the privacy to do so.”

  I also imagined God’s answer: He needed you at Peacehaven. He needed Gabriel to focus on his flock. He needed me to care for Bridget . . . for a time.

  That you are reading this must mean that we have all fulfilled the goals God set for us. You and Gabriel must finally be husband and wife. Congratulations to you both and to Bridget, too.

  Your mother was not mean; she was simply determined that a grandchild of hers would not be labeled as illegitimate. During the course of your pregnancy, she mourned the loss of that child.

  “During my pregnancy?” Lace said aloud, looking at Gabe, who was as confused as she. “My mother couldn’t have known that our baby would—”

  Your Mother was going to give your child to rich strangers, but I talked her into sending her to me, in Scotland, instead. I thought I’d find a way to let you know, but you disappeared, and Mother wouldn’t say where you’d gone.

  I had suspected Gabe was your child’s father but I was certain the moment I saw her face, Lace, and held her in my arms.

  When I realized before she was two that I was dying, I brought her to him and I was right to do so. He loved her on the spot. I did not tell him that I was sick at first, just that Bridget and I needed him. And I made certain that we did not live as man and wife in the true sense, though we shared a child—yours and his—and lived in the same house.

  “Oh, oh my God.”

  The day that NannyMac brought Bridget to me, Lace, I began to wear your special scent, so she would know you when you found her. I told her for years that my cousin, her cousin, would some day come for her and that you loved her already. She is a smart one, our Cricket, I’m certain she will have remembered.

  Do not be angry with Mac, either. I swore her to secrecy because of how Bridget would suffer in society if the truth were known. And Gabe’s guilt over your banishment, were it caused by him, would have broken him.

  I told NannyMac to give you this letter the day you and Gabriel married..

  If you are reading it, this must be that day.

  Congratulations, dear Lace. You have a daughter. Not stillborn, never that. So full of life she was. It breaks my heart that you could not know for so long.

  You also have a man who loves you, if you can get Gabriel to admit it.

  Goodbye, my darling. Have a happy life. Give Cricket a kiss for me. Gabriel, too.

  Do not hate me for my part in deceiving you. Please.

  All my love,

  Clara

  Lacey’s tears knew no bounds; she had no idea that happy tears could cause such a flood. She let them fall unchecked, let Gabriel hold and shush her, kiss her, and give into all the emotions she’d had cause to hide for four long years.

  Gabriel kissed her brow. “Are you going a wee bit daft there, pet?” he asked as he pulled her onto his lap.

  Lacey settled deep against him, well aware of how seductive her position had become.

  She showed him the little yellow sacque with embroidered ladybugs on it. “I made this for my baby during my confinement. My mother said she buried my stillborn daughter in it, but in truth, Mackenzie took her to Clara wearing it.”

  Lace opened her mouth over his, an offer he accepted with alacrity, and as she put all her love into the kiss, he put his love into it as well.

  And when they broke the kiss, she parted the seam she’d clipped and revealed the embroidered proof. When she rolled it open, she showed Gabriel the name there. “Baby Ashton Kendrick, I embroidered inside. I wanted it stated somewhere, anywhere, even if it was hidden, which it had to be, of course.”

  Her joy begot laughter that grew to the point that she bordered on hysteria.

  Gabriel calmed her. “But these are Bridget’s baby clothes,” he said.

  “Yes! Yes, they are.” She cupped his face in her hands. “Gabriel, Bridget is our daughter. My mother sent her to Clara with Mac, and Clara brought her home to you when she knew she was ill.”

  Gabriel read the embroidery and read it again. He looked more confused afterward. He ran a finger over the embroidery. “Kendrick,” he said.

  “Bridget Ashton Kendrick,” Lace said. “Our baby didn’t die. Mother sent her to Clara so she wouldn’t bear the stigma of being a bastard.We gave Bridget life, Gabriel. I knew I heard a baby cry that morning.”

  “Aye, you did.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I sat beneath your window the whole time, and I heard the cry as well. When I did, I wept.” He ran a hand through his hair, though with his other hand, he held her quite a bit tighter. “Why didn’t you say Bridget was mine? You about killed me with your lie.”

  “I never wanted to hurt you. That’s why I did it . . . with love, because I didn’t want you defrocked when you had just taken holy orders. You finally had your father’s living, your family name was set for you to mend, to exalt, that’s how good a vicar I knew you’d be. How could I destroy all that? They were your dreams, Gabriel.”

  “I wanted desperately for your babe to be mine,” he said. “You, Lacey, and our child, were more my dream than anything. Didn’t you know?”

  Their kiss lasted longer this time because they’d thrown honesty and forgiveness into the mix. “I love you, Gabriel Kendrick.”

  “I would have left here in a minute with you and never looked back. I love you . . . and our daughter.Bridget is our daughter!”

  He chuckled. “Lace,” he said more softly, comb
ing both hands through her hair to cup her face. “You’ve married me and now you can sleep in my bed every night.”

  “You know we’ll never sleep.”

  “But we will be happy.”

  Lacey combed her fingers through the waves in his hair. “Since I like your passion so much, we’re bound to have six more.”

  “Hopefully,” he said, “in a new home and parish, where we can be a family, you, me, and Bridget. We’ll tell her after we move, shall we?”

  Lacey touched his arm. “We’ll tell her when she’s an old married woman and then we’ll give her the sacque and bonnet, the one she went to Clara in. Right now, she’s just a child and it will come out. She’ll learn about the excitement of secrets, or some child will say she doesn’t belong to us, and she’ll defend herself. It’s the nature of children.”

  “You’re right,” Gabriel said. “Look at me. I’m acting like a child who wants the secret to come out and I’m—”

  “Older than me. If it comes out,” Lace said, “she’ll be labeled. No man will want her. No respectability for our Cricket, if we tell. And she tells.”

  With a sigh, Gabriel laid his head against the headboard, taking her with him.

  “I like your shoulder better than a pillow,” she said.

  He smiled. “I want to shout it to the world that she’s ours,” he muttered.

  “Marcus is a fine man of affairs. He can help us find our way through the legal system to adopt Bridget. They adopted Emily, you know.”

  Gabriel raised his head, eyes brightening. “Did they? Legally? And no one questions that she is totally theirs?”

  “No one.”

  “As soon as we move then, we’ll make her ours forever.”

  They rejoiced over their living daughter, Bridget, the child of their love.

  CHAPTER TWENTYFOUR

  Eventually, after a bit of sleep, Gabriel freed Lace from his open shirt. “Let’s make it last this time, with both of us participating.”

  “Both of us. Yes.” She’d waited a long time to belong in Gabriel’s bed. Shame on her if she couldn’t beat him at his dratted “let’s make it last” game.