“Can you keep a secret?”
Both boys nodded, wide-eyed, eager for a scrap of surreptitious knowledge.
“First, tell me your name,” Gideon said.
Gideon was glad Rafe could laugh as easily as his twin, because laughter was how they both reacted to his question.
“You know who we are. We’re Damon and Rafferty.”
“I mean your second names.”
“Oh. Whitcomb.”
Gideon had known, of course, but still, it came as a dizzying blow.
He would not, after all, be responsible for one child, but for three. Suddenly the irresponsible life of a scapegrace rogue seemed far from reach and excessively appealing. But he shook off regret and turned his attention to the twins. Sabrina’s twins. His boys, now, too. He sighed. “You live in this house, then, do you not, and Miss Minchip takes care of you up in the nursery?”
Twin nods.
“Which one of you went into your mother’s bedchamber the other night and almost got caught?”
Rafe fingered a nasty burr in Mincemeat’s coat. “That was me,” he said, not looking up. “I was thirsty.”
“You did not see the man’s face very well, did you?”
Now he looked up. “I do not like him.”
“But he likes you.” Gideon shook his head, unclear as to how to proceed. “Come.” He took their hands. “I have an idea, but I will need your help,” he said, as they made their way toward the kennel. “First, we will get that puppy you like from the kennel, so you can take him up to the nursery with you.”
“But Mama said we cannot. That man—”
“Your new father, you mean?” Sweat broke out on Gideon’s brow just knowing he was speaking of himself.
Not that he was frightened exactly. He supposed he could raise a boy or...three as well as the next man. He just did not know if he could summon up the required...love—God help him—that such an immense responsibility required.
“We have a new father?” Damon asked.
And Gideon was affronted, which made him wonder what insanity prompted him to run from fatherhood one minute, then claim it the next. And what would make Sabrina deny her boys a father, whether she did so consciously or not? “Yes, the man you saw, Rafe, is your new father, and he would like very much for you to like him.”
“Our other father hated noisy boys. We tried to be good, but we got him mad at Mama all the time.” The revelation came from Rafe, but both boys lost their spark.
Gideon knew then, that as far as fatherhood was concerned, there had never been a choice for him. For good or ill, he had two boys to raise now, and soon, very soon, there would be three.
“Our new father might not like the noise we make, either,” Damon said. “Mama worries about that.”
About them, Gideon thought. Sabrina worried about them, as they worried about her.
“What if our new father hates us, too? Suppose he hates the puppy and Mincemeat?”
Damon, Gideon knew, was begging for more than a simple answer to his question.
Facing a pregnant bride seemed, in retrospect, child’s play compared to this. Gideon wiped his damp palms on his knees and allowed his breathing to catch up with his pumping heart. He knew panic and fury, but more than that, he felt the boys’ pain.
No, he more than felt it, he remembered it, vividly, from his own boyhood.
Aware of the dangers in confession, but despite them, Gideon was prepared to jump into deep water. He stopped and sat on the garden wall before them, winked at one and chucked the chin of the other. “Rafe, Damon, you should know that I am not the kennel man.” He looked from one to the other of them, and he took the jump. “I am your new father.”
Gideon allowed his words sink in as he watched their expressions.
So like their mother, these two. Why had he not noticed that before? The dusting of freckles, the hair, the eyes, their feelings in their expressions, ready to be read, plain as day. Awe, wonder, realization, fear, before hesitation settled in. Wanting it to be so, they were afraid to be disappointed.
Damon sidled a bit closer, and however slight a beginning, the action clogged Gideon’s throat and trembled the tentative hand he placed at the boy’s back.
Rafe stood unmoving, his expression more guarded. Gideon had already suspected that Rafe would be the tougher of the two.
Gideon moved his hand to Damon’s shoulder and reached over to play with Mincemeat’s paw near Rafe’s arm. “I want you to know, right off, that I like you,” he said. “Both of you. I understand that boys make noise when they play. Boys should play. Even I make noise sometimes.
“Do not mistake me, I am not saying that I will never ask you to quiet down. I am saying that when I do ask, I will give you a good reason for my request, so you will understand why I ask.”
Rafe took to breathing again. Damon leaned closer in, until his small shoulders touched Gideon’s larger ones, and Gideon felt almost as if his own shoulders broadened then, with pride and perhaps with the need to carry these amazing new responsibilities.
He led the boys to the puppies, and sure enough, the friendly pup took to squealing and jumping and drizzling and yapping with glee, unlike his six brothers who were more interested in lunch.
“Will the pup belong to both of us?” Rafe asked, petting Mincemeat.
“So your Mama will not be angry, I think the puppy should remain mine. But I want you to take care of him up in the nursery for me. It is clear how much he loves you. He is a special pup, and you two are special boys, which is exactly what he needs.” The pup was, in truth, too gentle, and too enamored of people, to make a good hunter anyway.
Gideon scratched the ecstatic canine under an ear. “Do you think you can take care of him?”
Twin, very serious, nods.
“What about Mincemeat?” Rafe asked, hugging ugly-cat protectively.
“I think Mincemeat needs you even more than the pup does. So you may keep her, er, him, too.”
“A dog and a cat,” Damon whispered with reverence.
“Now I need you to help me play a silly game with your Mama. Will you?”
A short while later, Mr. Chalmer told Gideon that her grace was working in her sitting room and wished to speak with him when he came in, if his grace pleased.
Gideon headed straight there. Part of him wanted to make Sabrina squirm for her mischief, but another part of him understood her motive. He almost wished he did not.
When he entered, he found her bent over her desk, in concentration. As he approached, she rose with a smile to greet him. And he wondered if her response meant that she was eager for his company, or if she was accustomed simply to pretence.
If possible, she seemed to grow more beautiful with time. Today, she positively glowed.
“You look ravishing,” he said, taking her into his arms to kiss her, lingering, nibbling at her lips for longer than he intended.
“Gideon,” she said, breathless, but not averse to his attention, if he did not miss his guess. “We need to talk.”
“Talking can wait. I brought you a surprise.”
“No, really. This is important.” She noted his torn cuff, stepped back and did a hasty scan of his countenance. “What happened to your clothes? You are positively filthy.”
Gideon looked down at his unkempt self and shrugged. “I went hunting.”
“What?” She placed her hands on her hips. “Gideon—”
“Stay here,” he said. “I shall be right back.”
He reminded her of a small boy with a fancy seashell or a shiny, colored rock to show off.
Sabrina lowered herself to the settee to await his schoolboy whim. Yet another interesting and surprising facet of her complicated new husband, and almost charming. She sighed with frustration.
She needed to tell him about the boys and put the momentous confession behind her. Ever since last night, when he had patiently rubbed her back for what seemed like hours, she understood that she might be able to tell hi
m, without fear of reprisal.
When she awoke this morning, she knew the time had come, and once she made the decision, she had become desperate to be done with it.
“Surprise!” Gideon shouted. “Look what followed me home.” Like sacks of grain, he carried her sons, slung, one under each arm.
Sabrina gasped and clasped a hand to her pounding heart, the other over her mouth.
Gideon raised a brow. “Can we keep them?”
Sabrina did not know if her husband’s foolish question, or his sporadic jiggling, tickled her sons’ fancies, but their fits of the giggles, was something wondrous to hear.
And while they laughed, Sabrina regarded Gideon, as he regarded her, a thousand serious questions and as many difficult answers hanging between them. But despite the grave implications in her boys’ sudden appearance, Sabrina became breathless, and the mist over her eyes had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with joy.
“We hunted us up a cat, Mama. Just like you said we could.” Rafe beamed with happiness and Sabrina realized that whatever Gideon’s reaction—and his anger would certainly be justified—he had not taken it out on the boys.
“There he is, Mama,” Rafe said. “There is our cat.”
“Good God,” Sabrina said, when she spotted the hideous creature.
Though she knew that before the day ended, she would be forced to answer for her deception, she could not help embrace her sons’ happiness in the moment.
Close behind the cat, and only half its size, waddled a beagle pup, poking and snuffling its way in her direction.
“He is cute, is he not, Mama?” Damon asked.
Hanging there suspended, the boys’ rare smiles and rarer laughter transformed their freckled faces, bringing one thought to Sabrina’s mind. They rarely, if ever, misjudged people, for they had learned early in life the danger in doing so.
Filled with rioting emotions, Sabrina tried not to cry. “Did you hunt him up, too?”
Gideon cleared his throat. “Ah, Drizzle is mine,” he said. “But I asked Rafe and Damon to take care of him, upstairs in the nursery, as a favor to me, because Drizzle needs them. If you agree to the plan, that is.” Her husband seemed again like a boy, in that moment.
Sabrina hauled the pup into her lap and allowed that he was quite cute. “Drizzle is not the same—”
“Pup who wet my boots?” Gideon, the boy, shrugged. “He will acclimate. He simply gets excited around people.”
Fast as lightening, Sabrina lifted the pup from her lap, but not fast enough.
Drizzle had piddled on her dress.
CHAPTER TWELVE
For the rest of that day, Sabrina and Gideon sorted life into new and uncharted order—disorder really, for despite their best efforts, chaos reigned, the more so for two happy little boys, no longer confined to the nursery.
Sabrina could not believe how well Gideon seemed to be adjusting. But she was so used to working to keep peace in volatile situations, she kept waiting for an explosion to take place. Not knowing what might set Gideon off was exhausting.
“We need to move to the country,” he said later, over an informal tea in the nursery. “London is no place to raise children. My house in Hertfordshire is perfect. Damon and Rafe can each have their own rooms, off a huge nursery. Plenty of grass and trees outside to romp with Mincemeat and Drizzle. The stables and kennels are larger as well.”
“Stables big enough for ponies?” Rafe asked.
“Ponies?” Damon said. “Can we have ponies?”
Sabrina blushed. “Boys, please. Your manners.”
The twins ran with the possibilities of life in the country. They talked so quickly of plans and projects, and with such overwhelming excitement, that Damon spilled his milk.
When everybody rose to move out of flood range, or to clean the spill, Mincemeat jumped on the table, lapped some milk and ate some shortbread. By the time they got the cat down, Drizzle was standing on a chair, tail wagging, eating a scone.
Sabrina saw her frightened boys move out of the way, expecting a reprimand, or worse, until they saw that Gideon was laughing, and released their breaths.
Tears sprang to Sabrina’s eyes.
“Bree, what is wrong?” Gideon asked, worried. He went to her, the boys one step behind him.
“Thank you for not being angry,” she said. “This is silly. I never cry. It is just that everything is happening so fast.”
Rafe rubbed her back, Damon her arm, and Gideon realized they were used to caring for their mother, themselves. As she was used to caring for them—without him.
He was still an outsider, likely always would be.
As a child, the knowledge had carved a raw and heavy place in his small chest. Old feelings—very old—of yearning, inferiority, and unworthiness threatened to swamp him, even in memory. Always, it had seemed that he stood to the side, insignificant, desperate for attention, never daring to hope for affection.
He moved to the window. He knew his place now and he was comfortable with it. Even with this new family, he knew where he stood, and he accepted the position. He would watch over them, from afar.
“Perhaps we should slow our pace a bit,” he said, turning to face them. “Accept our new situation, become comfortable with it, before we make any significant changes.”
Sabrina laughed, almost with hysteria, and Gideon regarded her with concern.
“You might not have noticed,” she said, attempting a smile and failing. “But we have undergone several, significant changes already, and there are more on the way.”
More changes, Gideon wondered, or more babies, plural, as in twins again? He shivered.
Sabrina regarded her belly and then him. “I am in no condition to pack up a household and move it fifty miles to the north.”
“I had not noticed,” Gideon said, sharing a smile with her, which reminded him of their nights alone in the big bed upstairs, and brought him back from the window into their tenuous family circle. In that moment, he almost felt as if anything could happen.
Could they become something of a family, however patched and disjointed?
This was not a question to be answered in a day, Gideon knew, or asked ever, or even expected. He knew better than that. But he had to try.
If he tread carefully, he might even carve his own special place among them, a place where they wanted, needed him, to be. More, a place where they welcomed him.
And twenty minutes later, as Damon and Rafferty dragged him, each by a hand, toward the stables, so they could show Sabrina the other pups, hope blossomed in Gideon’s breast.
Before the amazing day came to an end, beds needed to be fashioned for the animals and arrangements made for Doggett to oversee the boys as they handled Drizzle’s walks and Mincemeat’s outdoor jaunts.
Mr. Chalmer was pleased to find all his limbs intact, after he slipped in a suspicious puddle in the foyer.
Mrs. Chalmer agreed not to turn the cat into its name, after she found Mincemeat up on the sideboard eating her dinner ham. For a cat with only three legs, that feline could certainly get around.
Miss Minchip, however, went on strike that night, just after Gideon and Sabrina relegated the boys to the nursery for the night. “Two boys are one thing,” said she, back ramrod straight, hands trembling with indignance. “But animals? And one of them Satan’s own spawn. Well,” she huffed. “I am simply too old for such nonsense.”
Gideon apologized for his thoughtlessness and offered the sharp old bird a generous stipend to oversee the nursery, animals and all, with two days off weekly to rest and recover. He even allowed that Mr. Waredraper could assist her when sewing did not rank high on his list of priorities. Yes, of course, she would remain in charge of the nursery at all times.
Miss Minchip grew younger before his eyes.
Once she took the boys in hand, Gideon vowed silently that he would create a place for himself in this new family of his. They needed him. Whether they wanted him was another issue, but that
would be their choice. It mattered not to him, one way or the other.
As he prepared to retire, finally, he could not seem to locate his wife.
His life, he concluded as he searched, was noisier, crazier, more alive, and definitely more challenging with Sabrina and her boys in it.
Yes, she had concealed a colossal fragment of information, namely the existence of twin sons, which she should have revealed before the wedding, not days later.
Well, come to that, she had not revealed their presence at all, had she?
Nevertheless, after the boys’ revelations, Gideon understood her reasoning, all too well. What he did not understand was why she seemed now to be missing. Already he knew her for a worthier and stronger woman than to run away.
On their wedding night, when he wanted his husbandly rights, she had not really run, she had simply needed to come to terms with her new circumstances, and she decided to do so in the library. Nor did she run when he became surly yesterday morning, she had simply refused to respond to his orders, putting him in his place, which, he supposed, he deserved.
But her disappearance, tonight, seemed very much like running.
He found her, finally, at her desk, where he had located her that morning. She paled when she saw him and put her papers away, as she had done then, almost as if she were hiding something.
But no, he was being overly suspicious, after finding the boys, which, he reminded himself, he understood. When she rose to greet him, however, neither her smile nor her color returned to her face. “Gideon, I realize that you must be—”
“Shh,” he said, crossing her lips with a finger. “No apologies, no excuses, however worthy, are necessary. I know.”
Her face paled to flour paste. “What do you know?”
“That their father did not like noisy boys. You had spent years hiding them from a man you knew. Of course you would protect them from one you did not.”
When she made to speak, he shushed her, again. “I seek neither affirmation or denial, nor do I expect you to share any part of your past that you wish to keep to yourself. My intent is not to take advantage of any misplaced guilt you might feel, or to extract the details of your first less-than-good marriage—your words. I simply wish to assure you that you have not entered a similar, disagreeable union with me.”
Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One) Page 11