Father's Day (The King's Rogues Book 2)
Page 8
Adam got close and hoisted himself up between a section of cross struts. He raised his legs, bracing his feet against the brick of the clock tower.
“What the hell are you doing?” yelled Kit.
“What the hell does it look like?” Adam yelled back. “Stop arguing and just drop the bloody boys down!”
He felt the strain on his shoulders as he fought the sway. Every ounce of concentration and strength went into keeping the crumbling structure steady.
Adam heard Kit reassure the last boy. He squeezed his eyes tight and recalled what his son had told him of the corsairs, of the women and children he and his men rescued. He imagined that Kit would use the same reassuring tone of voice, one that conveyed empathy and compassion as well as trust.
He fought undeserved paternal pride. He had done nothing to shape the man Kit Hardacre had become, but he couldn’t wish for a better one to call his son.
“Watch out!” yelled someone from below.
Adam opened his eyes in time to see a length of planking falling toward him. A second later he felt the impact. His feet slipped off the stone wall and he managed to fall onto what was left of the platform with Kit.
“Get yourselves down here now!” shouted Ridgeway. “She’s falling apart!”
Adam struggled for purchase. He could no longer feel his hands, numbed by the freezing, driving rain.
“Easy, old man,” said Kit. Adam couldn’t see him but heard the younger man panting and out of breath.
“Less of the old,” Adam snarled.
Kit’s voice was full of humor as he replied. “Chastise me when we get down from here in one piece, Father. Now let go of the beam and let me take your weight.”
“Too heavy for you.”
“Don’t argue, just do it.”
Adam put his trust in his son and let go of the cross struts. Every joint ached. He heard Kit scramble for purchase, trying to hold him over the edge as he had done with the children, but there was nothing for him to brace against and Adam was a full grown man, not a child.
“Let me go,” he said.
“No!” Kit replied.
“You have to.”
“It’ll be a bad landing.”
“It will be worse if I take you down with me.”
Adam ignored the pain in his head and raised it to look at Kit.
“There’s no choice… Son.”
The agony was writ large on Kit’s face. He turned his head away and screamed, “God damn it, Ridgeway! Get some men under here! Break his fall!”
Then Kit let him go.
Chapter Fourteen
Merry yellow and orange flames gave light and warmth to the drawing room. But it couldn’t compare with lively conversation and laughter of loved ones together.
Adam nursed a glass of rum – a legacy of his days at sea and a familiar way to ease the aches and pains of cuts and bruises.
He needed nothing more than this – a warm hearth and his family safe and well.
Julia and Charlotte were not harmed by their ordeal – their few bruises a better reminder of their folly than any chastisement he could dish out. He could hear them in the adjoining music room along with Philippe rehearsing an entertainment they had made up this morning.
Beside his glass was an invitation in Julia’s perfect handwriting to the premiere performance of a thrilling new play to be performed tomorrow afternoon following their return from the Christmas service.
Olivia sat with Lady Abigail and Marie playing three-handed whist. Adam kept his eyes closed but listened to them as the cards were played. How was it that Lady Abigail was always so extraordinarily lucky at these things?
Sir Daniel and his son-in-law, George, were due back soon. They had been out all morning examining what damage had been done during the worst of the storm.
Kit and Sophia had yet to join them downstairs.
What a difference a month had made. The son he thought dead was not only alive, but he was larger than life. Too large to be kept here in humble Cornwall, and he loved his son enough to let him go.
Although they had opened their gifts this morning, there was one more beside him, wrapped in brown paper. It was nothing elaborate or fancy, but Adam hoped Kit would recognize its true worth.
Adam nodded off, only to be started awake by his son bursting through the drawing room door with Sophia in tow.
“I want you to be the first to know,” said Kit, excitement shining in his eyes. “I’m going to be a father!”
Adam struggled to his feet and kissed his daughter-in-law on the cheek. He received a swift embrace before she was drawn away by the rest of the women who offered their congratulations.
Kit sank into the leather chair beside Adam’s. The young man was still clearly in awe.
“Those few words change a man, don’t they?”
“Yes,” Kit breathed. “They do.”
Adam sat back down and indicated the brown wrapped package on the small table between their chairs. “Here, I have a gift for you.”
Kit picked it up and untied the string that held the paper. It fell away to reveal a mahogany box.
Plain though it was on the outside, the lid was inlaid with marquetry in the shape of a star made up of little scraps of wood – pine, poplar, maple, pear wood.
“It was my carpenter’s apprentice piece,” said Adam. He watched Kit examine the work.
With the lid raised, the front face folded down to form a small, green leather topped writing surface. A chiseled groove provided a pen rest.
Inside the box itself, foliage marquetry flourishes in beech decorated a narrow pen drawer at the base.
Above it were two square drawers with small, hand-turned knobs. Inside were round inserts containing bottles of ink – one blue, the other red.
The top drawer was decorated by two intertwined roses, the stem and thorns shaped to form a heart beneath the flower heads.
“Take out the drawers,” said Adam. “There’s something you need to see inside.”
Inlaid in the mahogany, stained black to mimic ebony, was an imposing castle and beneath, in pale wood, intertwined initials: C and A – Constance and Adam. There was a date: 1783.
“I made this for your mother. It’s only right it should go to our son.”
*
Kit squeezed his fists to fight the tremors. He braced himself against the emotion that threatened to spill over. He’d spent most of his life believing he was unloved; afraid to his core he was unable to love but now – thanks first to Sophia and now Adam – he knew the truth.
“Thank you.”
He opened his eyes, knowing tears filled them, and allowed his father to see them anyway. He had no idea what the future would bring, but he was certain of one thing – Kit Hardacre had a family here in England and a place to call home in Sicily.
“I wish I had a gift to give you,” he said. “I don’t like being empty-handed.”
Adam shook his head, emotion nearly getting the better of him, too.
“You’ve given me the best gift a man could have – the chance to be the father of a man to be proud of, and the honor of calling him son.”
Kit fought the lump in his throat and knew if many more words were said, there would be more emotion than either of them could deal with, but he said them anyway.
“I’m proud to be your son, Adam. And from now on, this day is not Christmas Eve – it’s Father’s Day.”
The End