“No. She was born and bred here in Santa Angelica.”
“My goodness. The country produces some interesting specimens, doesn’t it? I like Santa Angelica even better now than I did when I arrived yesterday.”
Great-Aunt Evelyn snorted, clearly disapproving of the frivolous, not to say unsavory, tone of the conversation.
Mark had the grace to blush once more and mutter something that was probably meant as an apology.
Aubrey wanted to kick Bilgewater down the marble front steps.
Chapter Seven
If there was one thing Callie didn’t want to do, it was to take her evening meal with Becky’s great-aunt Evelyn. The woman was a menace to society. Or, she amended, she was a menace to Becky and, by default, to Cathie Prophet.
“I don’t want to leave home and go to live with Great- Aunt Evelyn, Miss Prophet,” Becky said in a small voice as Callie toweled her off after her bath. She’d even washed the child’s hair so that the old crone wouldn’t be able to find anything else to complain about in Callie’s care of Becky.
“It didn’t sound to me as though your papa wants you to leave him, Becky, so I don’t think you need to worry about it.”
Suddenly Becky turned, buried her face in Callie’s apron, and threw her arms around her. “If I do have to go live in San Frisco, will you come with me?”
Fat chance. Touched by Becky’s obvious affection for her, Callie said, “Please try not to think about it, Becky, sweets. I’m sure your papa won’t let Mrs. Bridgewater take you away.”
The poor little thing had begun to cry. Callie felt awful. She sat on the dressing stool, picked Becky up, and settled the child in her lap. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Nobody wants you to go away. Honest.”
“But Papa never even sees me anymore. He wouldn’t even notice if I went away!”
If Callie had possessed one of those Edison phonographic machine things, she would have liked to record Becky’s assessment of her father’s behavior and play it back to him. This was all his fault, and Callie wanted to hit him for it.
Except that she feared she was thinking far too much—and too affectionately—about the other Aubrey, the one who’d written those beautiful letters to his late wife. The two different men refused to reconcile themselves in Callie’s mind.
Which was probably just as well. She had no business mooning over anyone, much less the long-gone writer of love letters to another woman. She also didn’t like herself much for continuing to read the letters, even though they did seem to make Becky feel better when she did. Reading a letter to her before she pulled the blanket up and went to sleep seemed to cairn her and help sleep come more easily.
Callie tried to tell herself that making Becky feel better was the most important part of her job, but she couldn’t rid herself of the certain knowledge that reading another person’s personal and intimate correspondence was a foul and quite probably wicked thing to do.
With a heavy sigh, she said, “Please don’t cry, Becky love. Everything will work itself out. Don’t forget that your unpleasant aunt will be leaving soon.”
Sniffing and wiping her eyes, Becky withdrew her head from Callie’s dampened shoulder and gazed up at her, nearly breaking Callie’s heart. “Do . . . do you think Great-Aunt Evelyn is unpleasant?”
Drat her too-ready tongue. Already Callie was regretting having spoken the truth so freely in front of Becky, no matter how much she meant it. “Well, I didn’t care for her upon first meeting her, although I’m sure she’s a very nice person, really.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. The childhood taunt flickered through Callie’s brain, and she banished it instantly.
Becky shook her head and submitted to having her cheeks wiped by Callie’s handkerchief. “She’s not nice. Even Mama didn’t like her.”
“She didn’t?” It often surprised Callie how much Becky remembered of her mother. She’d have expected Anne’s image to have faded more by this time since Becky had been so young at the time of her mother’s death.
“No. Mama always looked funny when Great-Aunt Evelyn was around. Sometimes she made funny faces behind her back.”
Easy to understand. And one more indication that Anne Lockhart had been a splendid woman—small wonder Aubrey had worshiped her. Callie said, “I see. Well, we must be polite to her, even if we don’t care much to be around her. Will you be extra polite at dinner tonight, and use your company manners, Becky?”
“Uh-h uh asks me to eat in the nursery, will you eat there with me?”
Her charge sounded so cheerful all at once that Callie laughed. “I’d be happy to. I’m sure we’d have more fun eating by ourselves in the nursery than with Great-Aunt Evelyn in the dining room.”
Becky’s mood slid downward again. “But if we eat in the nursery, I won’t get to see Mr. Henderson, and I like him. He’s nice, and he tells funny stories.”
“Ah, well, I expect your papa will want you to dine with the company, sweetheart, so you’ll just have to watch yourself that you don’t incur your great-aunt’s censure.”
“What’s that mean?”
With another laugh, Callie explained. “That means you’d better be especially polite, or she’ll come down on you like a boulder.”
Becky loved it when Callie used the expressions she’d learned from her brother and his friends. She generally delivered them in “New Yorkese,” too, which added to Becky’s enjoyment and made her giggle.
As she slipped a pretty evening dress over Becky’s head and buttoned her up, Callie started singing a song. Becky loved to sing, and soon the two of them were deep into the chorus of “Yankee Doodle.”
As Callie brushed and braided Becky’s hair, she reflected on how appealing the notion of taking a relaxed dinner in the kitchen with Mrs. Granger, Figgins, and Delilah sounded. The two of them could eat in pleasant, relaxed surroundings and then go upstairs to the nursery where they could start organizing their birds’ nests and feathers. Such a happy prospect was thwarted by Aubrey himself. Callie’s evening’s doom was sealed with a knock at Becky’s bedroom door.
Callie answered the knock and discovered herself face to face with Aubrey. She frowned and stepped back to allow him entry. He frowned at her in his turn. In other words, things were normal. She said with as little inflection as possible, “Won’t you come in, Mr. Lockhart?”
“Thank you, Miss Prophet. I shall.”
As ever, he sounded vaguely ironic when speaking to her. Unless he was being downright inhumane, which happened often enough, he sounded sarcastic. Callie made a face at his back, then glanced quickly at Becky. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Becky had not noticed Callie’s immature lapse.
The poor darling child craved her father’s love and approval so much, and Callie knew she ought to be glad when he made one of his infrequent appearances in the nursery or Becky’s bedroom. Instead, she made faces at him. She sometimes wondered if she was destined to live and die an old maid because she couldn’t control her deplorable behavior.
Becky spotted her father and ran over to him. “Papa!” She was overjoyed to see her father—which made one of them, Callie thought nastily.
He smiled and picked his daughter. “You’re looking as bright and shiny as a new penny, Becky. All cleaned up, I see.”
His daughter nodded vigorously, although Callie had to fight against making another face. Blast him. What did he expect, anyhow? If a child were to have any kind of life at all, she had to get dirty sometimes. Callie had deliberately chosen an old frock for Becky’s bird-nest-gathering adventure, blast it. It’s not as if they’d grubbed around in the mud wearing one of her brand-new school dresses.
“And Miss Prophet washed my hair, too,” Becky told him cheerfully.
“I see. You look very pretty, Becky.”
Was it Callie’s imagination, or did a spasm of pain flit across his face?
Oh, pooh, she was just making things up, she decided at once. Aubrey was a tough enough nut to crack without Callie endowing
him with pangs of deathless love and all that rot.
No matter what those letters told her about the Aubrey that used to be.
“Thanks, Papa.” Becky gave him an impulsive hug, which he returned,
Callie always felt a little left out whenever father and daughter expressed any sort of spontaneous affection. She knew the feeling didn’t do her credit, but she couldn’t help it.
“Dinner will be served in a little while, Becky, and I came in to invite you to join Mrs. Bridgewater and Mr. Henderson.” He turned and eyed Callie. “You and Miss Prophet.”
It was just like him, Callie thought bitterly, to thrust her into the midst of the enemy with little warning.
Becky didn’t seem quite as cheerful as she had been when her father had first arrived. Nevertheless, she was an obedient child. “All right, Papa. Can I sit next to you?”
Callie’s heart gave a little ache that Becky should want to sit next to him instead of next to her. It was a very little ache, so she didn’t mentally chide herself too hard for being a petty, spiteful, mean-spirited, selfish weasel.
“Your great-aunt will be sitting to my right, sweetheart, and since Mark Henderson is our guest, he’ll probably want to be on the left. But you and Miss Prophet may sit next to them. We won’t have any leaves put in the table, and it’s not going to be a formal dinner. You’ll have a lot of opportunity to talk to everyone. I’m sure you and your great-aunt will have much to say to each other.”
Becky looked stricken.
Callie muttered, “Oh, really?” under her breath, and then wished she’d held her flapping tongue.
Aubrey turned and gave her a look. She returned the look with one of her own, although she knew she’d been at fault. With a sigh, she decided she owed it to him to help him out during the unfortunate conditions prevailing that evening in the Lockhart mansion.
“Don’t worry, Becky, I’m sure she won’t be unkind,” Callie said, although she knew no such thing.
Aubrey bridled, “Of course, she won’t be unkind! She only has Becky’s welfare at heart.”
Like hell, Callie thought savagely. She seldom even thought profanities, and never uttered them aloud, but this was a special case. She said, “Of course.”
Becky said with great urgency, “I don’t want to go live in San Frisco, Papa. Honest, I don’t. I’ll try to stay clean. Please? I didn’t mean to get dirty today.”
Callie rolled her eyes. “Becky, it’s all right. Nobody knew your great-aunt was going to show up today.” She shot another look at Aubrey. “At any rate, no one told me if she’d written to announce her intentions.”
“She didn’t write.” Aubrey sounded miffed with her. What a surprise.
Callie went on, “And you were wearing an old frock that was going to be tossed into Mrs. Granger’s rug-making bag. I’m sure your papa isn’t angry just because we’d been collecting birds’ nests and got a bit messy.”
At least Aubrey had the decency to agree with her. “Absolutely, Becky. Nobody’s angry because you got your old dress dirty. Mrs. Bridgewater is just a stickler, is all.”
Becky seemed eager to accept this, although she did ask, “What’s a stickler?”
Aubrey laughed and gave her another hug. “A stickler is a person who doesn’t think children should ever behave like children.”
“Oh.” A worried expression visited Becky’s face. “Then I really don’t want to go live with her, Papa.”
“You won’t go live with her, Becky. Please don’t worry about that. I’ll never send you away, I promise.”
Well, thought Callie, and she gave an audible sniff, that was something, anyway.
*****
Aubrey finished dressing for dinner early and went downstairs to eye the table arrangements. If he could help it, Bilgewater wouldn’t be able to carry tales of his sloppy housekeeping back to San Francisco. Mrs. Granger had told Delilah to set out the fancy Wedgewood china that Aubrey and Anne had bought in England during their honeymoon.
With a sigh, Aubrey allowed his gilded memories to play in his head for several seconds before shoving them away again. He hated wasting the Wedgewood on Old Bilgewater, but he’d agreed with Mrs. Granger that he should, since Bilgewater expected to be served only the best, both in fodder and in utensils. The table looked all right to him, although he was no expert.
Anne had been the expert on such things. He sighed heavily as his heart gave a predictable tug. It always tugged when he thought about Anne and how much he missed her. She’d been the perfect hostess.
Perfect hostess. Perfect mother. Perfect wife. Damn the Fates for taking her away from him.
As he gazed at the head of the table and pictured the seating arrangements in his mind, he wondered if Anne would have approved of them. He’d heard her say often that tables should be set so that a man sat next to a woman and the woman next to yet another man. Therefore, he supposed, he ought to seat a female to his left, rather than Mark, no matter how much business he and Mark had left to discuss.
Not that this was a formal occasion. Far from it. It wasn’t Aubrey’s fault that Bilgewater had got a bee in her bonnet and hared out to Santa Angelica with the intention of depriving him of his daughter. Nevertheless, Aubrey didn’t fancy listening to any more criticism from her, and particularly not about table arrangements.
Frowning, he guessed he’d better seat Becky next to himself. Or Miss Prophet. His frown deepened as he thought about Callie. Dash it, but she was a disturbing female. Aubrey wondered if she was one of those Siren-like women who cast out invisible lures to draw men into their webs. Mark certainly seemed to be smitten with her, damn him.
Pressing a hand to his head, Aubrey told himself not to be irrational. The fact of the matter was that Callida Prophet was an attractive young woman with a quick mind, a good education, and a very good figure. She was in a perfect position to be married, in other words, and Mark would be a good catch for her. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, she’d be a good catch for Mark, too, with her education and her ability to deal with children.
He also hated admitting that Becky had bloomed since Miss Prophet had taken on the job as her nanny. And Aubrey was glad that Becky seemed so much happier now than she had before Miss Prophet had inflicted herself upon the Lockhart household.
Even the servants liked her. Figgins, who never said anything, good or bad, about anyone, had told Aubrey that Miss Prophet was a “fine young woman,” for heaven’s sake. Figgins! Aubrey had gaped in shock at his butler. He still felt rather like gaping, but didn’t.
Aubrey was saved from further musings as Mrs. Granger, in her apron and with perspiration beading her forehead, hurried into the dining room. She seemed startled to find Aubrey there.
“Oh, Mr. Lockhart! I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Just came in to inspect the table, Mrs. Granger. It looks splendid. I knew you wouldn’t fail me in my hour of need.” He gave her a conspiratorial smile, which Aubrey could tell she appreciated.
She returned his smile. “The late Mrs. Lockhart used to worry up a storm whenever Mrs. Bridgewater came to visit. That’s why I came out of the kitchen to make sure Delilah hadn’t forgotten anything on the table. I know Mrs. Bridgewater is quite the perfectionist, Mr. Lockhart.”
“You mean she’s a cantankerous old fusspot,” Aubrey said with a chuckle. “I’m no expert, but the table looks all right to me. What do you think?”
The older woman straightened a napkin that hadn’t looked like it needed it to Aubrey. “I do believe she didn’t forget a single thing.”
“Good. I suppose Figgins has taken care of the wine situation.”
“Oh, yes, sir. The Burgundy’s breathing right now.”
As Aubrey had never understood the intricacies of table settings, still less did he understand the language of wine. He was glad Figgins did, or Aubrey would probably be written off as a bumpkin by Anne’s relations. He rubbed his hands together and tried to appear the hearty host. “Splendid. I g
uess we’re all set.”
“Yes, sir. The roast beef’s almost ready to take up. It has to sit for a few minutes before Figgins carves it.”
“Ah.” Although Aubrey’s parents had been quite well off, they hadn’t put on airs, and there were lots of things about high living that Aubrey didn’t completely understand. Fortunately, he could afford to hire servants who did. “That’s good.”
With a nod, Mrs. Granger went on to say, “Figgins will sound the gong at a quarter to eight.”
“Wonderful.”
Mrs. Granger dipped a quick curtsy and left the dining room with a parting assurance that all would be well with the meal. As Aubrey watched her go, he wondered whether Miss Prophet knew about things like letting Burgundy breathe or a roast settle before it was cut. He guessed he should ask Miss Prophet if he really wanted to know the answer to that one. The thought of how she would respond—most likely she’d fix him with that cold stare that she had used when he’d yelled at her and Becky—both depressed and angered him. Which, in turn, upset him more because he didn’t understand why he was thinking about Miss Prophet in the first place, let alone wondering whether or not she knew how to cook a roast.
“For the love of God, quit thinking about that wretched woman,” he snarled at himself as he exited the dining room and entered the small reception room leading from the drawing room.
“Which wretched woman?”
Damnation. What was she doing here? Aubrey frowned at Callie Prophet, who sat on the sofa with Becky. They looked as if they’d been glancing through the large volume of birds as illustrated by John James Audubon and reprinted on colored plates. Callie stared back at him, her color high, and Aubrey had the unpleasant sensation that she knew perfectly well about whom he’d been lecturing himself.
“Look at this, Papa,” Becky said, pointing at a colored plate in the book. “Here’s a yellow-bellied sapsucker.” She giggled merrily.
Aubrey’s mouth twitched. “That’s a pretty funny name for a bird,” he admitted, choosing to ignore Callie’s question.
Heaven Sent Page 10