Unmistakable Rogue

by Annette Blair

  He chuckled. Zeke looked up. “Zeke, huh? Playing leapfrog, huh? Luke never said which of you was leaping. I had the mistaken notion that you were on top old boy—I mean old girl.”

  He wanted to show Chastity, too. Not that he was looking for an excuse to go to her or anything. Yes, he was, but he really did want to show her Zeke’s babies.

  He suspected, from her footsteps in the hall a few minutes ago, that she waited to be sure he left the children before she said good-night to them. She was kissing everyone, except him.

  He heard her return and wanted to go after her. It took an act of will to stay, but that had always been a weak thing. “I want my kiss, damn it!” He abandoned his chair. “And I’m bloody well going to get it. Take the bed for tonight,” he threw over his shoulder as he left.

  Reed stormed the portal. Well, he pushed her door ever-so-gently open, at any rate. She looked tiny and hurt curled up in the bed. The big bed. Big enough for—“Zeke’s got my bed,” he said, but Chastity remained unmoving. He guessed it was not the right time to tell her about the new additions to their household. He pushed her door further open, hesitated, and went as far as her bed. “Chastity?”

  She gave him a look that spoke more of apathy than hate, which clearly hid a great deal of pain, which he had caused, and he was sorry, but she knew that. Nevertheless, she rolled to her side, facing away, and curled into a tighter ball. “Get out.”

  He placed his hand on her shoulder.

  She sighed, put her hand over his, left it for a second, a blessed moment when he thought she might forgive him, and then she lifted it away. “Please leave.”

  “Not even, ‘please leave, Reed.’ Just, ‘please leave.’ I’d probably do anything you asked right now, except that.” He knelt beside the bed. “Chastity, Sweetheart. I did what I thought was best for the children.”

  “You did what you thought was best for Reed Gilbride. You dislike children, you said so, and you wanted to be rid of them. Congratulations, you succeeded. Did you write the note the first morning? When did you send it? The day you came back with Leonardo? And I thought you a caring man.”

  “That I disliked children is true, though ours—”

  “Mine.”

  “Your children are special. And my motives might once have been true. But the truth is that the brigands—pardon—the darlings, have nudged their rowdy way into my heart. Don’t look so surprised. No one is more so than I.”

  “You have no heart.”

  “As you wish. Are you all right? Can I get you anything?”

  She looked as if he had sprouted horns and a tail. “You can get my babies back.”

  “They are not gone, and they are not yours, damn it.”

  She moved to look at him. “I love them.”

  Reed shoved a hand through his hair in frustration over his inability to erase the pain he caused. “As they love you.” He sat on the edge of the bed and tried to take her hand, but she would not allow it. “Chastity, you’re a wonderful mother. I had no idea such love existed, until I saw you with them. Children without parents will benefit from your home, but not ones with parents.”

  “If I have a children’s home.”

  “You will. You are one determined woman and you deserve your dream. Sennett is clay in your hands; he’s not going to stop you. I’m trying to say you’ll have children.”

  Chastity shoved him off the bed and rose. “Damn you to hell, Reed Gilbride. We are not speaking of replacing the curtains. They are people. Abandoned, helpless.”

  “Never helpless.”

  She almost smiled. “Their names are Matt, Mark, Luke and Rebekah, and they need me. I would have loved them until the moment I turned them over to their parents.” She bit a trembling lip. “Reed, I’m so frightened they’ll end up in that horrid workhouse.”

  If his heart was breaking, hers must be shattered. “I promise you, I’ll make those men see that the children need to stay with you, until their parents are found.”

  She turned away from him once more. “Thank you.”

  He placed his hands on her shoulders, ignored her attempt to shrug him away and turned her to face him. He kissed her forehead, inhaled roses and rain, and knew he loved her more than life. “I am so bloody sorry,” he whispered before he left.

  After two days, Chastity wondered where Reed had been sleeping, but suspected he was with the boys. Though she was beginning to feel as if she might be allowed to keep the children, she wasn’t of a mind as yet to forgive him.

  Mr. Sennett was on his way. He promised in a note that it would be no problem to draw up papers so she could keep the children until their parents were found.

  Chastity harvested a handful of beans while Rebekah and Luke played nearby. Mark was giving the poor missionaries a tour of the garden, expounding on the importance of manure, a perfect recitation of Reed’s gardening lesson.

  The Reverends were kind souls who simply could not abide children, but would deny it till doomsday, while Reed had spelled it right out. You always knew where you stood with Reed—one of the reasons she loved him, despite everything.

  Matt helped her in the garden. He would be a good and gentle man someday. She hoped she would be somewhere nearby to see it. Perhaps his parents would allow her to visit on occasion.

  “Chastity.” Reed stopped beside her “The Digger sent me a note. He says he has information about my birth that he cannot keep secret any longer. I’m going to meet him at the Sunnyledge chapel.”

  “Be careful. You know what happened the last time.”

  He turned back. “I’ll take that to mean you care.”

  She plucked a handful of weeds and threw them at him. “Go on, get attacked by an angel. See if I care.”

  He threw the weeds back. “Promise to nurse me back to health, and give in to your inclinations along the way, and I’ll throw myself beneath the first angel I find.”

  Matt watched Reed go. “I think he loves you.”

  “Careful, Matt, or I’ll make you eat mouse’s tails and hedgehog toes. And, no, I do not know how to cook them.”

  “That’s all right. Reed will teach you.”

  “Rude child.”

  “I love you, Kitty.”

  “Oh.” Her heart swelled and she made a sound that was part hiccup, part sob, as he hugged her. “I love you too, Matt.”

  “Look,” he said. “Reed tossed his note with the weeds.”

  “I don’t suppose he needs it, anyway.” Chastity frowned at the scrawl. “Matt. This handwriting, it’s—” She rose and ran toward the house.

  It occurred suddenly to Reed that he owned the bloody chapel. A house of worship, a haven for prayer and peace—an accursed tomb that gave him the shuddering fidgets. He was glad he was giving it to Chastity, not that he would, if he really thought it was dangerous. If he were keeping it, though, he would put in more windows, separate his dead ancestors—gruesome thought—from the area for the living.

  He stopped to regard the gothic structure. If not for its history and architecture, he’d raze the thing.

  A covey of doves flew from the belfry as he watched.

  “Duncan,” Reed called going in, but no one answered. He stepped inside and allowed his eyes to adjust to the light, or rather the lack thereof. “Are you here, old man?”

  Not Duncan, but an old woman, veiled in black and weeping, knelt at the foot of his father’s tomb.

  Reed wished he had brought a weapon, then wondered if he was daft, looking to protect himself from an old woman. He tried for sanity, but that was unlikely; her very scent turned his stomach. What the devil?

  She wiped her tears with the corner of her veil as Reed moved closer. She was speaking to his father, calling him Edward, using the words of a lover, reserved for dark of night. Embarrassed, apprehensive, Reed turned to leave.

  “Do not go, son.”

  Son? Reed could barely discern her features, obscured by her veil as they were, but her face seemed ashen. “I was speaking to yo
ur father,” she said. “I remember the night you were conceived. He made such beautiful love to me that night, then we awaited your birth together.”

  The hair rose on Reed’s arms and the back of his neck.

  “I waited for you to return, you and your twin. Then I heard you say your brother was dead. I’ve been mourning his loss for days. How could fate be so cruel?”

  Reed shuddered. He and Chastity had just made love in the library when they discussed William’s death—the death of his only brother.

  “You’re as lusty as your father, do you know that?”

  Reed closed his eyes, bile rising in his throat. He had not felt this ill and degraded since— This was the crone who stood over him in his nightmares, no figment of a fevered imagination, but flesh and blood, and pure evil.

  “Your father should have married me,” she shouted, “but he lied to me and married your mother, instead.”

  Reed released his breath. She was not his mother. Thank God.

  “I was good enough to be his mistress, but never his wife. You should have been mine!” She slapped his father’s tomb to emphasize each word.

  But he was not, praise be.

  “I brought you back so you and your twin could follow your father and the bitch he married to hell. I expected you to fight to the death for your father’s title and wealth, but dreams die hard.” Her sigh turned to a hiss. “You’re weak like her. She did not even have the pluck to survive your birth.” Her voice rose with agitation. “Damn her to hell for eternity. And you too, Reed St. Yves.”

  Her knife came from nowhere.

  Surprise kept Reed rooted.

  He dove behind a pew as she raised her arm to strike, but the knife glanced off his shoulder and fell beside him. The warmth of blood spread with his pain.

  All was silent. He heard not a breath. When he glanced over, the crone had turned back to his father’s tomb. She spoke of bringing their family together, again.

  Chastity stepped from behind the pulpit.

  Reed’s heart near-stopped as she approached the crone.

  “No!” he shouted as he stood.

  Chastity shook her head. “Trust me,” her look said.

  What choice did he have? But he now had her knife, which he would use, if he must, to protect Chastity.

  “Thea, dear,” Chastity said, her voice gentle. “The children want you to come and play with them.”

  Thea? It could not be.

  The crone slid her veil off, straightened her spine and the years seemed to drop away from her. Yes, Thea. She opened her arms to embrace Chastity, and Reed shuddered to see Chastity wrapped in evil.

  “Where are my pets?” Thea asked.

  This evil had lived with them. It seemed more than possible that she caused his accidents as well.

  The Reverends Hill and Perkins came up behind Chastity. “Guess you didn’t need us, after all,” one said.

  Thea rushed them. “Papa! Clive!” She kissed them, growing younger still. “You’ve come back.” She took the shorter one by the hand and led him over. “I did it Clive, I righted your wrong. I brought Edward’s son back.”

  Reed felt light-headed—probably the loss of blood. He had no choice but to sit.

  Thea thought the missionaries were her father and brother. It made sense, in a way. They were dressed like men of the cloth ... God’s men. St. Yves took God’s man’s sister ... Thea....

  “Sit, dear,” Reverend Hill said. “And tell everyone what you did. I want them to know about your sacrifice. And please introduce me, for I do not know everyone.”

  With the manners of an aristocrat, Thea introduced Reed and Chastity to her Dear Papa and her brother Clive, both Vicars.

  “Thank you, dear,” Reverend Hill said. “Now tell us everything, please. From the beginning.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Reed could not have moved for the world as she revealed the details of his beginning. How many people re-lived the first horrific moments of their lives? How many can see so clearly into the souls of men writhing in hell?

  But Thea did not end her tale with his birth and rescue. “I heard a babe cry that night,” she said, “and thought it an omen. If I bore Edward a living son, he would marry me.” She laughed until she wept, and they waited until she recovered. “I bore him four stillborn sons, before I knew he would never marry me. Then I began lacing his wine with Oleander. If the St. Yves line did not continue through me, I would see its end.”

  Thea looked up, as if surprised to see them, especially Reverend Hill. She examined the chapel and shook her head. “You’re not dead, Clive? Was it just a dream?”

  Reed wanted to roar with fury, to gather Chastity and the children and hold them close. Her Vicar-brother’s interference was horrendous, outrageous. He had his revenge on Barrington, but he scarred and destroyed many other lives in the process, including his own sister’s.

  Reed’s life was altered, too, but he might never have met Chastity and the children, otherwise. Put in that light, perhaps the Vicar’s act had been predestined.

  Thea’s look centered on him, again. “You there.” She pointed at him. “Your twin did not live for our reunion. Soon you will join him.”

  The missionaries increased their hold on her. “I still have arrows left,” she said on a demented laugh.

  Chastity’s gasp caught her attention, and the madwoman wailed. “She nursed him back to health! It wasn’t my fault, Clive. I’m sorry I disappointed you, Papa. I try so hard to be what you expect.”

  As the clerics gave Thea their forgiveness, Chastity took Reed’s hand, but Thea focused on him again, and he shuddered at the evil that had visited him in the night.

  “I tried to end the line before you were born, but your mother would eat nothing from my hand. I thought she was starving, until I found her milking a cow in the middle of the night. She told me she would protect her child, until she breathed her last.”

  Thea laughed. “That’s when I had Edward put her in the tower. She was too weak to take all those stairs. But the bitch bore you, anyway. She even bested me from the grave, protecting you in her tomb, the way she protected you in her womb when I sent the angel for you.”

  Thea looked about and began to weep. “Poor, sweet angel broke her wing.”

  Reed felt the salty warmth of his own tears. The mother he had hated, gave her life for his. He looked over at her final resting place and opened himself to a mother’s love for the first time.

  The children came timidly in, silent, worried.

  Thea screeched and struggled in the Reverend’s hold. “Those brats stole the poisoned food and let it rot!”

  Poisoned? Food he had nearly made them eat.

  Reed heard a roaring in his head. When he opened his eyes, Chastity was leaning over him, squeezing his hand, and the Reverend Hill was applying pressure to the wound on his shoulder. “Lost a lot of blood,” he said.

  Reed allowed them to help him sit, the children hovering. He urged them over. “I am so sorry,” he said. “So bloody sorry about the food. You do not have to forgive me, because I will never forgive myself.”

  “We forgive you,” Matt said. “You taught us good that day.” Matt tried to laugh but his gaze was pinned on Reed’s wound. “Chastity that blood’s kind of making me sick.”

  “Me too,” Reed said, ruffling Matt’s hair.

  Thea was escorted from the chapel by Reverend Perkins. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Your work here is finished, daughter. You’ve made your Papa proud.”

  Thea looked around. “You too Clive? Are you proud?”

  “Very,” Hill said, his voice cracking. “You’ve been a good sister and now you deserve to rest.”

  “Edward was not nice to me, Papa.”

  Reed almost wished he had never gotten Thea’s letter. He might think this the worst experience of his life, but for the joy of his life weeping into his shirt. She and her brigands were the best gift ever, even if he must give them up
. “Shh, love, everything is all right now,” he told her.

  “Is Kitty all right?” Luke asked.

  “She’s fine. She’s just worried because I’m hurt.”

  “No,” she wailed, “that’s not it.”

  “You’re not worried about me?”

  “I am, but— You do not understand. The Vicar played God. He rescued you and ruined you.”

  “But I’m fine now.”

  “Do you not see?” she said. “His actions were the same as mine.”

  “What?”

  “As my rescue of the children.”

  When they got back to the house, Mr. Sennett was waiting, wide-eyed and silent as they filed in, two clerics with a weeping woman between them, Chastity holding a blood-soaked cloth to Reed’s shoulder. The children’s grisly, disjointed, and sometimes erroneous, explanation turned the solicitor white.

  Thea was made comfortable and locked in her room. The missionaries would take turns sitting with her. Only they could calm her. Tomorrow, she would be brought to the magistrate.

  Everyone else adjourned to the library.

  While Chastity cleaned and bandaged his shoulder, Reed recounted for Sennett Thea’s bizarre chronicle of his birth, including her Vicar brother’s deathbed confession, telling him that Thea had written the notes that brought Reed and Chastity to Sunnyledge.

  “Did you realize, Reed?” Chastity said. “That you tossed me Duncan’s note with the weeds?”

  “That’s how Kitty knew you were in danger,” Matt said. “The handwriting. She compared it to Thea’s notes and a dead thing—”

  “Your mother’s death certificate,” Chastity explained. “The word alleluia is written across it in the same hand.”

  “Kitty said, then, that your accidents were not accidents, after all.”

  “I knew you were in danger, and the Reverends agreed to help, thank God.” Chastity cast a jaundiced eye on the children. “Our brigands, however, disobeyed my orders to wait in the house.”

  Reverend Perkins cleared his throat, and placed his hands behind his back. “The woman’s machinations, though for the worst reasons, seem to have been providential.” He nodded at Reed and Chastity. “You’d never have found each other and the children, otherwise. You’ve obviously become close, else you’d not have worked so hard to make Hill and I dread the thought of taking your brigands.”