by Trisha Telep
Bridget gasped and approached it, stopping a distance away. “I’m not crying. The smell inside my Mama’s trunk itches my nose and makes my eyes … wet.” She wiped her face with her sleeve. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Harry the Handsome Hedgehog but I’m lonely. Can we talk?”
Bridget nodded, and Jace wondered if Suttie saw around corners.
“What’s your name?” Hedgehog asked.
“Bridget. My papa, but not; he calls me Cricket.”
“You have a papa, but not?”
Bridget nodded again. “Papa Gabe.”
Jacey worried about Gabriel’s reaction to the name.
“Oh, that papa. Well, Cricket, I think something’s bothering you. Maybe I can help.”
Bridget sighed, raised her arms and dropped them in defeat. “I want to keep Myjacey and I’m afraid my Papa Gabe won’t let me,” she said in a rush.
“And who is Myjacey? A kitten, a puppy?”
Bridget took Jacey’s hand and dragged her before Hedgehog. “She’s my mama’s sister and I want her to stay. Can you talk to my … to Papa Gabe for me?”
“Myjacey’s your aunt, then?”
Bridget looked up at her. “Are you?”
Jace tweaked Bridget’s nose and nodded. The lump in her throat made it impossible to speak.
“She is my aunt!” Which clearly pleased her.
Hedgehog bowed gallantly. “Hello Aunt Jacey.”
“Nooo, it’s Myjacey. Nanny Mac said so.”
“Ach, sorry. Well, do you smell that?” Hedgehog’s nose crinkled with a sniff. “I think luncheon is ready. Tattie drootle and tipsy custard, I’d say. Cricket, tell Papa Gabe how you feel about Myjacey. He cares very much about you, and Myjacey, and he wouldn’t want either of you to worry. All right?”
Bridget sighed. “All right.” She stepped into Jacey’s arms after Hedgehog left. “Do we havta go through Mama’s trunk?”
“No. Do you want to give me a tour of Kirk Farm after lunch?”
An hour later, hand in hand, Bridget explained every outbuilding from buttery to bower, dovecote to stable, as if Jace had never seen it before. When they passed her favourite climbing tree, she helped Bridget perch in the lowest, widest fork of its branches beside her. With a storybook tucked in her pocket, Jace opened to Snow White.
“I might have known,” Gabriel said a short while later, hands on hips. “Tree climbing, first day.”
Jacey gave one of his arms a playful shove with her foot. “Climb up,” Jace said. “It’s cosy.”
Bridget scrambled into her lap, which clouded his expression, but the tempest cleared when Bridget said, “Shh,” with a finger across her lips. “Pay ’tention.”
He tapped Bridget’s nose. “Quiet as a Kirk mouse.”
He kept his promise, except for the “speaking” glances directed her way, while she became alive to details: her rasping voice and dry lips, the trembling hand she hid in the folds of Bridget’s dress, her death-grip on the book, Gabe’s thigh pressed to hers, him stroking the hair on the sleepy head against her breast.
Jace read slow, so the fairytale wouldn’t end.
Eleven
That night, after she gave Bridget a bath, Jace took her down to say goodnight.
Gabriel raised a brow. “Bridget, you look lovely. Jace, you look like you lost a fight with a flapping duck.”
Bridget cocked her head.
Had she never heard him say anything playful?
The task of putting her down for the night was Gabriel’s. But after Bridget took his hand, she grabbed Jacey’s and tugged her along.
A child between her and Gabriel, as should have been, but Nick offered to be her scapegoat, so she said he was the father. Gabe didn’t lose his family parish. Her mother didn’t get to throw him out, since the Lockharts owned the parish living.
In Bridget’s room, Gabe shed his jacket and threw it over a chair. Bridget knelt on her bed to unbutton his waistcoat, undo his cuffs and roll his sleeves to his elbows.
He winked over Bridget’s head, lurching Jace’s heart. “Cricket likes buttons,” he said.
Like a child, nose to the window, Jace gazed on a family scene she aspired to join.
Bridget freed Gabe’s cleric’s collar and tucked it into his breast pocket.
“Now, Myjacey.” Bridget motioned her forward.
Jace got the bow at her bodice and her top three dress buttons undone, then she got a hug. Jacey masked her emotions and laid her cheek on Bridget’s curls. “Thank you for a splendid day, sweetheart.”
“I love you,” Bridget whispered.
Gabriel went pale as chalk for the second time that day.
“I love you too, Cricket,” Jace whispered, sad for him, elated for herself.
“Mama said you loved me,” Bridget added, surprising them both.
Gabriel and Bridget knelt by her bed to say her prayers, but when Bridget started, Gabriel touched her arm, took Jacey’s hand and pulled her down beside them. “Now you may begin, Cricket.”
“Bless Mama and Papa in heaven,” she said. “And make Papa Gabe let Myjacey stay. Amen.”
After offering Gabe her rosebud lips, Bridget settled on her side. Gabriel tucked her blankets to her chin and kissed her brow. Jacey watched, until Bridget opened one eye. “Myjacey, you’re s’posed to kiss me goodnight.”
Jacey bent to her ear. “I didn’t know I was allowed. See you for boxty and jam in the morning. Happy dreams.”
A hand at her elbow, Gabriel guided her from the room.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered the minute Bridget’s door shut.
“What for?”
“Gabriel Macgregor, I know you better than you know yourself. You’d give your right arm to have her say she loves you, but I walk in and she says it to me.”
Silent, he walked her to her bedroom door. “I fell in love with her, Jace, the first time Clara put her in my arms. You should have seen her. A wee tiny thing, even at two, with a thick crown of raven curls. She used to love it when I played with her, Clara egging us on. I’d pretend I was tired, but Bridget would laugh and beg for more.”
“You’re describing a different child.”
“I know. Clara died and Bridget stopped laughing. Stopped looking at me. True, she said she loves you, but in the attic, she called me Papa Gabe, Suttie said, and frankly that’s the best I’ve had from her in months.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I think she blames me for her mother’s death.”
“Oh Gabriel, no.” Jacey had never wanted to comfort him more, the urge so strong, and dangerous she stepped back. “She’s confused. She’ll be happy again soon.”
“If you stay, maybe. One day with you and she’s more herself.” He turned away, ran a hand through his his hair, and turned back, as if he didn’t know where to put himself. “It’s good to discuss her with you.” He sighed. “I’m thanking you; this has been a good day for me, too.”
“Gabriel Macgregor, this is the most you’ve ever said to me.”
He looked sheepish. “Wait till you hear one of my sermons. Stay, Jace. For as long as you want.”
“There’ll be talk.”
“To the devil with talk.”
“It’ll begin sooner than we think. Nick Daventry is home from America.”
Twelve
Nick Daventry. Even the cadence of the name dogged Gabriel. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never forget Jacey’s words to him on the day he’d gone to confess his paternity to her mother.
“It’s not yours, Gabriel,” Jacey said, waylaying him in the parlour. “Nick Daventry is my baby’s father.”
In that first horrific moment, her words might have been an axe blade in his back. From that day to this, Gabe wanted Nicholas “bloody” Daventry to go straight to hell.
Now he was back. He should have stayed in America, but as Jace’s distant cousin, he’d come home to inherit Lockhart Keep, after the death of his brother, who inherited in Jacey’s place, because her mother had disowned her
.
He’d always suspected the woman would have ruined him, if Jace’s babe had been his. Give him sheep for company; they were easier than his flock to deal with. He would be happy with a parish, any parish, or simply a farm, and Bridget and Jacey.
To hell with everyone else. Well, Mackenzie. He guessed he’d take her, too, the nosy old thing.
When he got home that afternoon, the best parlour looked like a family of squirrels had danced the highland fling. In the doorway, he stepped on something hard, the arm of an ugly French figurine that belonged to his grandmother.
Mackenzie, sweeping up its remains by the hearth, didn’t notice him. Neither did anyone else.
Gabriel relaxed at the sight of Jacey’s head tucked beneath the camel-back settee, her gown, one of Clara’s, had crinolines that bobbed in the air, affording him a lovely view of her sweet backside.
Never before had lust, tenderness, and the urge to chuckle overcome him at one and the same time.
“Can you see it?” Jacey called.
“I can, almost, but it’s wiggling a lot,” Cricket said, from behind that piece of furniture.
“You have it, then?”
“Ouch. Not anymore.”
“Where did it go?”
“Up. Inside.”
Jacey’s petticoats quivered, from shock or laughter, he didn’t know. Before they finished their flutter, Jace backed out and sat on her knees, hands on hips. “Bridget Macgregor, are you saying your kitten disappeared into the sofa stuffing!”
What kitten?
Cricket came tottering into sight on high heels thrice her size, trailing a god-awful green dress and red boa, wearing a straw hat his mother once favoured. From its brim, dangled a clump of berries, and a moulting bluebird.
Gabriel cleared his throat.
Bridget and Jacey looked up, both with stunned surprise. Mackenzie grumbled louder, so Gabe confiscated her broom. “See to dinner,” he said. “We’ll clean up in here.”
Gabriel 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 his lingering love. Still, there was no changing destiny.
He sat and crooked a finger to bring his comically adorable wee one over to him. And Cricket must actually have looked at him long enough to catch his summons, because she obeyed.
“Lovely dress,” he said.
Her doe eyes came alive. “It’s Mama’s. Myjacey made it smell like the water meadow again.” Bridget shoved her arm under his nose, so he sniffed it, nodded, and kissed her elbow. “Did you say, ‘Myjacey?’” He looked at her and felt a rush of love he so strong, he had to clear his throat. “Haven’t you noticed, Cricket, that everybody else calls her Jacey?”
Bridget nodded. “Mama called her that, but Nanny Mac called her Myjacey the day we met, and I like it ever so much better.”
Jacey sent him a plea with her look, and a similar rush of love for her engulfed him. For a bold minute, he let it show, but Jace sat, as if enticed by it but ruling it a danger.
He knew exactly how she felt.
“Can I call you Myjacey?” Bridget asked, standing before Jace, undoing a bodice button or three, shyly waiting for her aunt’s answer.
“Of course you can, sweetheart.” Jace smiled at his daughter’s plea, her cheeks like the rosebuds marching across the bit of chemise Cricket revealed. “Myjacey can be your special name for me, like Cricket is your papa’s pet name for you.”
Bridget gave him a nod, as if to say, “I told you”, the way Jacey the brat had tended to do. Had Bridget learned it? Or was prideful stubbornness a Lockhart trait?
“Tell me about the kitten,” Gabe said, to distract himself from Jace’s open dress.
“Suttie gave it to me.” Bridget sighed. “But it dist-appeared.”
“No, it didn’t,” he said, not quite pleased to report. Gabe joined Jace on the settee and pointed to the padded back where the outline of two wee paws pushed on the fabric from inside.
“Oh, my, God,” Jacey said. “We have to take the sofa apart.”
Gabe sighed. “I knew you’d say that.” He removed his jacket, waistcoat and collar, and rolled up his sleeves. Then he sat on the floor with his girls.
Two hours later, the sofa back flipped over the front, Bridget cuddled a wee white, blue-eyed kitten, trying to catch either bobbling hat berries or a bald bird.
Jacey massaged his back, because after sitting so long like a pretzel he couldn’t straighten. “You’re getting old,” she said, working his spine.
He liked her hands so much, he wondered how to get a back kink tomorrow. “If I’m old, you’re old.”
“You’ll always be older than me by three years.”
Mackenzie stopped in the doorway and gasped. “You were going to clean up. It’s thrice as messy.”
“Er, have I come at a bad time?”
“Nick!” Jacey shot to her feet.
Gabe saw her skirt was stained with Eccles cake, her bodice splattered with jam, and he stopped her to re-button her dress.
Jace raised a brow. He’d known for hours that Bridget didn’t button her up. “Your back got better fast.” She turned to Nick. “I’m sorry I’m a mess.”
Daventry smiled. “You never looked more beautiful.”
Gabe placed a posessive hand on Jacey’s shoulder.
“Is dinner still at eight?” Daventry asked.
“Oh, Lord,” Jacey said. “I forgot I invited you.”
Thirteen
Bridget’s first dress-up tea party monologue made dinner less awkward.
“Bridget, you’re eating too fast,” Jacey said.
“I’m hungry. Lydia said our pig should not be Lady Cowper. We should call our cow that. Do you think so, Papa … Gabe?”
Jacey caught his pleasure at being directly addressed. “I think our pig is happy with her name. Though we could call them the Ladies Cowper and Pigger.”
Cricket’s eyes widened and Jace decided he and Bridget needed to play more.
“How can you be hungry,” Mac asked. “After all those tea party sweets?”
Bridget dropped her fork.
“Bath time, lovey,” Mac said. “Then bed. Wee lady’s had a long day.”
Gabe followed them up, and Jacey took Nick into the secondbest parlour.
“Bridget’s sick,” Gabriel said from the doorway, a minute later, his look thunderous. “She’s crying for you.”
Jacey looked from one to the other, shrugged and left the room.
“I’ll show you out,” Gabriel said to Nick as she took the back stairs.
He caught up with her at the top.
“What did you do, shove him out the door?”
“I said goodbye.”
Bridget raised her arms. “Myjacey, my tummy hurts.”
“We’ve got her Nanny,” Jacey said. “Go to bed.”
“If this was a parlour needed cleaning,” Nanny grumbled, “I wouldn’t, but I expect you two can manage this one.”
Bridget wasn’t well enough to undo his buttons. Bad sign.
Gabe caught her watching him undo his cuffs. He quirked a brow, but she didn’t turn away. He settled in the way she liked him best, collar in his pocket, sleeves rolled up.
Something about him, dressed, or undressed, in that “at home” way, made Jacey want to curl up in his arms before a fire and comb her fingers through the hair at his nape.
“Myjacey!” Bridget placed her hands on either side of Jacey’s face.
“I’m sorry, sweet, what is it?”
Bridget was sick.
Jacey gave her a bath and Gabriel changed her bed.
Jacey stroked Bridget’s fevered brow. “She’s sound asleep. Go to bed. I’ll stay with her.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I’ll wash and change, and when I get back, you change. We’re, neither of us, sweet and fresh right now.” He nodded. “Go on.”
After wa
shing, Jacey left her hair loose down her back.
This time, she tied the ribbons beneath her breasts on the buttercup silk robe a bit tighter, and pinched her cheeks, before she left her room.
When she returned, approval leapt in Gabe’s eyes as he went out to change.
Jacey checked Bridget’s brow, pulled up her covers and opened the window.
She wondered where to go from here when Gabe came back in. He wore a black brocade dressing gown, and if she thought he looked good in shirtsleeves …
He gathered her in his arms and came for her mouth with the same greedy hunger he’d shown the day he came home from the seminary.
Jacey embraced the perfection of his kiss. His big hands explored, as if he didn’t have enough time to learn her, again.
Jacey’s head swam, her body ached. Her kiss was meant to drive him wild.
He sought closer contact and revealed his arousal, caressing the sides of her breasts, nearing the place she ached.
Her soul rejoiced; her body wept for more.
“Papa? Myjacey?” Bridget’s voice penetrated the sensual fog, and they jumped apart so fast, Jacey hit her head on the window.
“Cricket,” Gabriel said, clearing his throat.
“How do you feel, sweetheart?” Jacey asked.
“I’m thirsty. Hungry too.”
“I’ve heard this song before,” Gabe said.
Jacey put Bridget’s slippers on her. “Her stomach is empty. Perhaps a piece of toast to nibble on?”
“As long as I get more of what I was nibbling on.”
Fourteen
Jacey brought Bridget down for toast, but she fell asleep, half a slice in her hand.
Gabriel rose to take his daughter from her arms, his proximity sending skittering spirals of need to every nerve in her body. “Stay,” he said.
Jacey wrapped her arms around herself, chilled, bereft, glad Bridget had woken when she did. This was too fast, and between them: questions, lies, doubt, uncertainty, pain – hers, his.
“We need to talk,” Gabriel said from the bottom of the stairs, hands buried in his dressing gown pockets. He never looked so much like that fallen angel, but now she wished he’d spread his wings and take her in.
“What should we talk about?” she asked.
“Everything.”