“It’s been an age,” she said, “since their clothes saw soap; they need to soak.” She brushed the damp curls at her nape upward. “Are you ready to break your fast?”
“Here, wait,” Reed said, stepping near. Close your eyes.”
Her widening violet eyes a treat, Chastity finally did as he bid, making Reed wonder how far her obedience would go. Those lashes fluttering against her porcelain-pale cheeks, however, said that she fought obedience, while under his hands, her shoulders trembled.
Her breath fanned his face as he blew on a sudsy lash, and his lips grazed her cheek, almost by accident—a kiss, but not, light and fleet as butterfly-wings, skimming skin of smooth cool silk. His own skin warmed, as did his stone-cold heart, but he ignored the elemental warning.
‘Twas the most chaste, yet the most erotic of kisses—if it could be termed so—of his life. God’s teeth, he wanted to do it again.
Reed resisted the urge, his body strongly disagreeing with his decision.
Chastity opened her eyes, wonder in her look.
“Close them,” Reed whispered. “There’s a girl.” He blew on her lash again, ousting the suds this time, wishing there were more.
Yearning filled Chastity at the warmth of the stranger’s touch. A simple stroke, a heart close by; new and wild sensations. She had been born parched for human contact, for gentleness, succor. William had sensed and voiced it but never touched her.
Unlike William, Reed Gilbride, this seemingly cold, hard man created a purling of warmth within her, to the point that even her soul knew the wonder. She looked into his eyes, as golden bright as fire, before his mouth came again for hers, soft, swift, but steely with purpose, a startling sensation, pleasant and tingling, swelling and radiating to her breasts, her—
Chastity squeaked and stepped back. She should be frightened. She should demand that it never happen again, but she could not, because, God help her, she liked it.
So strong was her sense of loss when Reed Gilbride released her, Chastity fought an urge to cover her face to hide her disappointment.
She raised her chin and covered her thrumming heart, instead.
“Was that your first kiss?” he asked.
“Yes. Thank you.”
His look changed to ... horror? “You should not—that is, someone more worthy—I mean, I am not—”
“I know.” As mortified as on her wedding night, Chastity gazed somewhere beyond his right shoulder. Not attracted to her, of course. He would prefer someone more worthy; she should not be surprised. “Do not concern yourself. It will not happen again.” She’d displayed the kind of behavior the sisters warned her against.
Reed Gilbride became for her, a danger. Around him, she must tread wary.
He ran a trembling hand through his coal-black hair, mussing it. “Look I—”
“The incident is behind us, Mr. Gilbride, and will not be repeated, especially around the children.” She spoke for her own benefit as she rolled down her black wool sleeves. “Where were we? Oh, yes, would it not make a difference to how you felt if a child loved you? Do you not desire that kind of love?”
“One does not desire what one has never had.”
“Oh, that is not true,” she said in complete earnest. “It is not true at all.”
“Ah,” said he. “Now each of us knows something of the other, and of desire, and yearning, and the need for love, or of not regarding the lack of it. He cleared his throat. “Must be time to eat. You mentioned breakfast?”
Relieved to keep her hands and mind occupied, Chastity nodded and opened the tin-lined bin where she put their bread, but it was empty. She tried another, then another.
“Is something wrong?” the man standing too near for her peace asked.
She stepped back. “I cannot seem to find our food.”
“Where did you leave it?”
“In that bin, which is empty now.”
“Well, well, well.” Reed leaned against the sideboard, his arms crossed, his smug smile revealing the dimple in his chin. “What could have happened to it?”
“Oh.” Chastity bit her lip. The children had once again proved to be the brats he named them. “Once they know I will provide, they will stop saving against disaster.”
“They are little pilferers who will grow up to become hardened thieves, mark my words.”
Hand in hand, spanking clean, naked as the day they were born, the pilferers in question stepped into the kitchen and stood like blond-haired, blue-eyed stair-steps.
“Did any of you move the food I put away last night?” Chastity asked.
Matt shook his head, then Mark, then Luke, then Bekah.
“They’ve done this before,” Reed said near her ear, making her shiver, and want ... she knew not what.
Mark pointed an accusing finger his way. “He did it. He stole our food.”
Reed laughed, surprising even himself. “I do not usually find children amusing. I must be sickening from something. Hunger, mayhap?”
Chastity sighed. “Best make the introductions. Children this is— Shall they call you Reed?”
At his nod, she continued. “Reed, in order of size, these are the Jessops, Matthew, age about 10, Mark, 8, Luke, 6—he plays the horn.”
Reed acknowledged the musically-gifted child and vowed to banish said instrument to shepherd’s-horn heaven. “What, no John? As in Matthew, Mark, Luke and—”
“John died.” Mark’s narrowed eyes filled with hate.
Reed groaned. That would teach him not to drop his guard. He could take a lesson from Mark: Remain poised, fists clenched, protecting heart and head, stance defensive, the way he had faced life before war softened him.
Around this seductive woman and these small insidious weapons she wielded so masterfully, he must remain strong.
“You mean you had another brother?” Chastity asked.
“He died when he was small. Mum cried a lot.”
Chastity knelt to hug Matt.
Reed’s mother had never hugged him, Reed thought, though the Midwife Gilbride had not been his real mother. Then again, neither was Chastity Matt’s real mother. Could his notion of a cold-as-steel world be wrong? Could he adapt his hard-edged attitude to a softer, warmer existence without landing on the sharp edge of the blade, or finding the dull when he needed the sharp?
Chastity opened her arms to the others.
Now that he had held her, even for a minute, Reed resented the children’s place in the circle of her embrace, and he detested himself for it. Who was this woman, who gave love and comfort to the children of another? Comfort ... had she sought that from him earlier? What did she mean about wanting something one never had? Did she need succor so badly that she bore a keen sense when others needed it?
If that were so, he was in trouble, for he did not bloody well want her sensing his needs, not when he worked so hard to hide them.
Above the four small heads, she regarded him with enmity. And why the devil it troubled him, Reed could not say, because he did not care a rat’s tail what she thought. “They’re shivering, damn it. Dress them. You’re not being a very good mother, if you ask me.”
Bloody hell. She looked as if he’d slapped her. Pale as a tallow candle, she rose and looked about. “Oh my God!”
“What now?” Reed snapped, his mood foul.
“Their clothes are all wet!” She picked up a satchel to rummage inside. “I must have something that will serve.”
“Damnation!” Reed stormed off. A scourge on her and her brigands for muddying his goal. After he found out who he was—if proof existed—he would send them packing so bloody fast—
Chastity emptied her bag to sift through her clothes. Her children were naked; there were no clothes. They were hungry; there was no food. She knelt to put more logs on the fire. “I can provide for you and I will, by God!”
Luke patted her shoulder. “Course you will, Kitty. We’re better already since you took us.”
The rogue came storming ba
ck with four homespun shirts. “Put these on them, damn it. What the devil is that?”
Chastity looked behind her, gasped, and snatched her veil off Bekah’s head. Any other time, the sight of the little one wearing a wimple would be charming, but this was the worst possib—
“Let me see that.” Reed took the veil and examined it as if he expected it to change form, spew venom, and slither away. Before Chastity knew what he was about, he set it on her head, stood back, and whistled. “Holy—your accent? French? A Papist, right? Ugly black dress, vows. No, ah, men. You’re some kind of nun! Are you?”
Perhaps this was best, Chastity thought. Her old life could provide a deal of protection—from herself and him. His look of utter helplessness, when he saw her hug the children, had made her want to beguile him into accepting affection, himself—the children’s as well as hers. Dangerous thought, that.
“Well, are you?” he wanted to know.
“Am I what?”
“A damned nun.”
“Damned? I certainly hope not. I have been led to believe that nuns are usually saved.”
“A nun!” He had lusted after a nun, which would get him nowhere, except into hell. Reed looked at the nun again. He thought about her lustrous hair, now hidden from view by her ridiculous headgear, the feel of her against him, even for that moment. Seduction, again, came to mind—the seduction of Sister Chastity.
“Damnation!” This was not the road to hell, this was hell itself.
Chastity settled the odd headgear about her face and shoulders and tucked her hair inside, a sacrilege. As Reed watched in horrid fascination, he silently called down the wrath of any number of pagan spirits upon fate for placing him here with this woman and these children.
“Mr. Gilbride, I fail to understand your anger. Nothing has changed. You need a job and a place to stay. I need your help around Sunnyledge. We have a bargain.”
“A bargain, then, for good or ill.” Reed released his breath, and to turn his mind from the woman mocking him with her crow-like presence, he regarded the shirts in his hand.
A nun. Chastity was a nun.
Chastity ... of course.
Shirts. He was holding shirts. God, he could not divert his mind, or his body, from the nun’s earlier response. He looked about. Children, naked children who needed clothes. He did not know how to talk to a nun, but taunting her might keep her mad enough to keep him at a distance, which would suit them both fine. Reed handed the nun his shirts. “A good thing, is it not, Sister Chastity, that I did not let the brigands get away with my clothes last night?”
Much as Chastity wanted to throw the shirts in the rogue’s face, she could not. She imagined the first thing a mother must learn is humility. And she would learn it, by God, and anything else necessary to care for her children.
Reed’s exit to the scullery could be termed no less than an escape, which Chastity understood.
With little adjusting, Reed covered and warmed the boys, but Rebekah seemed such a lost waif in Reed’s homespun finery. Little hands disappeared in sleeves that touched the floor, little feet, beneath trailing shirt tails. Chastity rolled up the sleeves and tied her rosary sash around Bekah’s teeny middle. Then she tugged above the waist to raise the garment and fold the excess over the makeshift belt.
Bekah’s eyes widened, reflecting the smile her lips refused to form. When Reed returned, Bekah did a pirouette, like a lady in a fine silk gown seeking her gallant’s favor.
That the little girl sought the rogue’s approval did not surprise Chastity. She understood only too well. “She looks beautiful, does she not, Mr. Gilbride?”
“Beautiful,” he said, and Chastity melted again.
“Kitty, I’m hungry.”
Yon rogue crossed his arms and raised his brows. “So am I, but our food seems to be missing.”
Chastity ignored the innocent looks the children gave him. “I have money to purchase more,” she said.
“Which will not feed them, now. Besides, you will need enough for flour, sugar, salt, grain and meat.”
“I have enough.” Chastity dug into her apron pocket but came up empty. “Oh, Reed, the money is gone, too.” She grabbed his arm, surprising them both, and dragged him into the foyer. “The children,” she whispered.
“They have got to be broken of this stealing business and soon, Sister Chastity, you know that.”
“I know,” she said. “Please call me Chastity.”
He did not know if he could. “There must have been a caretaker here recently. I found oats and dried apples in the scullery, which I left on the sideboard. Cook that for now. We can look out back later. We might find some root vegetables that survived the winter. He regarded the tilting staircase. “There’s bound to be a nursery with children’s clothes.”
“We cannot take what is not ours.”
“You took the children.”
“I rescued them from a hard, cruel, and likely, short life of illness and deprivation. They are human beings.”
Reed nodded. “Exactly. And they need clothes.”
How had he used her argument against her? Chastity narrowed her eyes, vowing to be wary in future.
He failed to quell his triumph. “Look, those human beings, as you insist on dubbing them, are, to be blunt, naked. It is your task to clothe them. If there are children’s clothes upstairs, they are so outdated that no one who could afford to live here would want them.
He was right. How could she hope to provide for anyone, when all her life, her every need had been seen to? As a child and as a nun, she had been taught to care for her soul, while food, shelter, clothing, were provided—poor training for the task before her, but she would learn.
As she watched him climb the stairs, she relived those moments in his arms. Affection had ever been her need. As a child, she hugged Sister Superior once, only to be chastised. The same happened on her wedding night with William, and today, with Reed, who had been as appalled, and nearly as reproachful.
Chastity sighed. She would reserve her affection for the children, as needy in that respect as she, and it did feel so very good to be embraced. Reed Gilbride, the temptation, she must avoid. She would rather send him away, but she needed to keep him from revealing her secret, and to teach her how to care for the children. She only wished she did not want him to stay as much as she needed him to.
In due course, bowls of oatmeal and apples sat on the table tempting four very-hungry children, and when Reed returned, finally, small hands reached eagerly for spoons.
“Wait until everyone is seated,” Chastity admonished, but Bekah scooped a handful, and wailed at its burning heat.
“It did not burn you,” Chastity said. It has cooled down by now.” It needed only that for Bekah to devour the fistful, after which Chastity placed a spoon in her hand, scooped, some oatmeal, and brought it to her little bird mouth, stopping short of allowing her a taste. “That is how I want you to eat.”
Bekah wailed again, at being denied her handful.
Reed shook his head and regarded the rabbit sitting in the center of the table. “Supposed to skin and roast it first.”
Throwing a hateful look Reed’s way, Mark grabbed his pet. “His name’s Zeke, and he’s mine. Don’t touch him.”
Reed sat. “I would not dream of it.”
“That will be enough, Mark. Mr. Gilbride.”
“Animals on the table are meant to be eaten,” Reed said. “Next time I see him there, he will end up in a stewpot.”
Seeing the hate in Mark’s eyes, Chastity kicked Reed under the table. At his startled exclamation, she bowed her head. “Let us give thanks.”
The children lowered their heads as Reed began to eat. “Tasty,” he said when Chastity looked up.
“We must first thank God for the food He has provided.”
Reed continued eating. “I do not pray. Besides, I provided the food.”
Chastity pursed her lips. “Then we must thank the Lord for providing you.” She all-out laugh
ed that they should be grateful for the bully. “Sorry,” she said. “The absurdity tickled.”
“You should be grateful. Go ahead; hearing you pray will not bother me.” Reed ladled another helping into his bowl.
Mark took a bite and smacked his lips, his siblings regarding him with a blend of envy and respect.
“Mark, dear, wait please, until after we say grace. Mr. Gilbride’s heathen habits are of no concern to us.”
The boy licked his spoon with relish, eyeing each adult in turn. “Don’t like to pray neither.”
Chastity wished Mark had not picked this moment to become a child again. If his rebellion were over any other issue, she would rejoice. She glanced around the table. Matt, in particular, was wavering, so Chastity decided to cede the battle, rather than lose the war. “We shall trust that the Lord knows we are thankful.”
Reed grunted—a nod of approval, she supposed, to her good sense. Resisting a renewed urge to kick him, she pondered this absurd new need of hers to inflict pain.
Only the murmur of contented diners and the chatter of birds in the eaves outside the kitchen broke the rhythm of spoons scraping bowls.
“When did your mother leave you with Aunt Anna?” Chastity asked.
“‘Bout a hundred years ago,” Luke said.
Reed set down his spoon. “What do your parents do, Matt, which takes them away for so long?”
“Da’s a missionary, but he’s sick, and Mum went to get him.”
Chastity dropped her spoon. “Matt, you did not tell me that.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Yes, I did.”
Matt’s brows furrowed in concentration. “You asked if I knew where my mother went.” He shrugged. “I don’t.”
“What else do you know about your parents?”
“Nothing.”
Reed swallowed wrong and choked.
Chastity gave him water, and after he took a grateful sip, he attacked his gruel with new zest.
After a while, he regarded her. “You never told me the man-eater’s name. Spunky little thing, but she doesn’t say much.”
“Bekah don’t talk,” Matt said.
Unmistakable Rogue Page 4
