Good God. Had he honestly just thought what he thought he’d thought? Directing his attention at Callie and her group of skate-encumbered children, he amazed himself by acknowledging that he had. And, what’s more, his thought had been not only correct, but enlightening.
He supposed—although it was far too early in the game to make any decisions about the matter—that if he did choose to remarry, he might do worse than to select Miss Callida Prophet as his bride.
Aubrey frowned. He was beginning to frighten himself.
Although, it was true, by marrying her he’d be precluding her exit from Becky’s life on the arm of another man. Mark Henderson, for example.
Such a sensible notion eased Aubrey’s misgivings considerably. Yes, indeed, Becky was the only reason—Becky, and the honest acknowledgment that he was a young man who had certain physical needs—he’d ever consider marrying Miss Callida Prophet. Absolutely.
“All right, everybody, here we go!”
Callie’s merry voice jolted Aubrey back to the here and now. He watched as a dozen or more children skated, with various degrees of agility and ability, on the paved drive that made a half circle in front of his house. A rose bed, the roses having been chosen years earlier by Anne, decorated the center of the curve. Even though it was October, some of the roses still bloomed. Seeing them reminded Aubrey of his late wife, and he started to feel guilty.
Even if he remarried, he’d never forget Anne. He swore it, to himself and to her.
He got the feeling Anne was looking down from heaven and rolling her eyes in exasperation.
“Look, Papa!”
Becky’s excited shout jerked him out of the beginnings of the mood he’d been poised to sink into. He waved at her. “You’re doing very well, Becky!”
“This is such fun, Papa! It’s super!”
“I can see it is!”
Aubrey noticed several of the ladies under the tent glancing at him and then putting their heads together. Bilgewater was in the center of the group. Damn it, he knew what that meant: They were gossiping about him. Because of his money and his personal loss, the fact that he’d hired a local young lady to serve as Becky’s nanny, not to mention the fact that Bilgewater hated him, he was undoubtedly a hot topic of conversation in Santa Angelica.
Because he didn’t like the idea of being the subject of idle chatter, he decided to put a stop to it. Deliberately, he rose from his comfortable, shady bench under the tree and walked over to the tent.
All talk among the matrons ceased, as he’d figured it would. “Good afternoon, ladies.” He even nodded politely at Mrs. Bridgewater. “Are you and your children enjoying my daughter’s party?”
A moment of absolute silence, broken only by the happy shrieks and squeals of the gaggle of children, greeted his question. Then pandemonium broke out as every single one of the mothers hastened to assure him that both they and their sons and daughters were delighted to have been invited to the Lockhart mansion for Becky’s party. Bilgewater, he noticed, maintained a stony silence.
He gave a savage internal snort of derision. She only wanted to talk about him behind his back. She’d never say anything nice, about him or his daughter’s birthday party, to his face.
“For, you know, Mr. Lockhart, that we all think Becky is such a dear child,” one woman—Aubrey thought she was Mrs. Hurst, mother of a chubby boy with a surly disposition who was a terrible skater—told him.
Several bonneted heads bobbed up and down as other women nodded agreement.
“Indeed, she’s a particular friend of my Sylvia,” another woman said.
Squinting at her, Aubrey tried to remember her name and failed. He didn’t recollect Becky talking about anyone named Sylvia. Nevertheless, he smiled at her. “Becky is enjoying school and meeting other children.”
“She’s a darling child, too. Callie’s been so good for her. Don’t you think so, Mr. Lockhart?”
Aubrey knew who that was. He smiled at Mrs. Frederick Watson, otherwise known as Alta, one of Callie’s older sisters. He’d be damned if he’d admit that Callie’d been good for Becky, even though such an admission would irk Bilgewater and might be worthwhile on that account. Also, he didn’t quite know the cause of his reluctance.
However, he honored it and said, “Becky’s enjoyed getting to know Johnny and Jane, Mrs. Watson. I believe they’ve become quite close. And I know they were helpful to her during her first few days at school.”
“Yes, I believe so. Jane is always talking about what she and Becky did in school.”
The air of serene complacency with which Callie’s sister said this annoyed Aubrey. He felt rather as if he and his daughter were being used by the matrons of Santa Angelica as some sort of prize to be flaunted. He cast a stern glance at Bilgewater, who ignored him and made a show of looking at the swarm of skating children.
“I do hope there won’t be any accidents, Aubrey,” Becky’s great-aunt said in chilly accents. “They’re awfully young to be roller-skating.”
“I’m sure Callie knows what she’s doing,” Alta said, instantly jumping to her sister’s defense.
Aubrey was curious to note that she’d evidently taken Bilgewater in dislike. He wondered if her reaction to the older woman was prompted by sincere feeling or by having been told about her by Callie. It didn’t much matter, he reckoned. Anyone who liked Mrs. Bridgewater had to be foolish beyond imagining.
“Do you?” Bilgewater asked Alta in a faux sweet voice.
“Yes. I do.”
Because he didn’t particularly want to get involved in a cat fight, Aubrey said, “I’ll wander down there and see what I can do to help Miss Prophet. There are a lot of children to keep track of.”
Mrs. Bridgewater sniffed.
Alta smiled at him.
As he strode over to the circular drive, he wondered if the entire Prophet family was made up of imps and busybodies. He didn’t appreciate the look of knowing intelligence on Alta Watson’s face.
Damn them all.
“Look, Papa!”
Becky’s happy shout captured his attention—thank God—and Aubrey turned to seek out Becky among the swarm of children. She was skating quite well, considering she’d never done so before. Her arms were flailing like the blades of a windmill, but she was rolling along nicely and without wobbling as many of the other children were doing.
“Don’t forget that if you think you’re going to fall, head for the grass!”
This sensible piece of advice had been screeched by Callie, who looked and sounded as if she was having every bit as much fun as her charges. “Good job!” Aubrey called to his daughter, even as he glanced around to find Callie.
Ah, there she was. She was going strong and looked as though she were keeping an eye on all the children at once. In spite of himself, Aubrey was impressed. Perhaps some people just had a way with children.
Anne seemed to have had a way with Becky, although, thanks to the miserable Fates, Aubrey had never seen her in any milieu larger than their very small family. He’d bet Anne would have loved to have hosted parties for Becky.
He couldn’t quite imagine her dealing with a couple of dozen small children with the ease and stamina Callie displayed. No sooner had that thought struck him than guilt struck, too.
But, honestly, the fact that Callie possessed a stronger constitution and, therefore, more vitality than Anne wasn’t something that shouldn’t be acknowledged. If he was to be brutally honest with himself, Aubrey resented Anne’s fragility like fire. If she’d had more stamina, she’d still be here and in charge of this birthday party. And Callie Prophet would still be driving her rural postal route.
He didn’t know how he felt about that, but the twinge of pain that assailed him at the notion of losing Callie bothered him a trifle. Fortunately, perhaps, he didn’t have time to dwell on it, because he was struck a great blow to his back in the very next instant.
“Good Lord! Oh, Mr. Lockhart! I’m so sorry!”
Aubrey, who
had wheeled around so as not to lose his balance and fall on the concrete drive, discovered Callie Prophet in his arms. He stared down at her, unable to speak.
She stared up at him and seemed likewise stricken. She was also gasping audibly.
“Oh!” she cried after a second of doing nothing but residing there in his arms.
She felt quite good there, too, Aubrey noticed instantly, as she had when they’d danced together. Then, naturally, he was nearly overwhelmed with guilt and frowned at her.
“Miss Prophet.” His voice was stern.
“Mr. Lockhart.”
She couldn’t seem to get her footing, perhaps because her feet were now strapped to roller skates. “I’m so sorry.”
“Think nothing of it.” Aubrey wondered if he looked as sour as he felt.
The fact was that having Callie in his arms fitted exactly into the train of thought he’d been riding all day long. And she also fitted exactly into his arms the way a woman should. At least, he thought grimly, the way a wife should.
“Dash it, stand up, will you?” he barked.
At once, her face lost its dazed expression. “I’m trying to stand up, blast you! I can’t get the stupid roller skates to stop sliding out from under me.”
“Oh, look at Miss Prophet and Papa!” came a trilling voice, full of laughter.
“Damn it, try harder,” Aubrey commanded through clenched teeth.
“I am trying!” Callie said, obviously feeling abused and mistreated. “It’s the stupid roller skates.”
“Here.” Aubrey allowed his hands to slide down her body until he gripped her waist. Although it had seemed a necessary maneuver when he did it, he regretted it. Her body was one he’d like to explore in more depth. If, of course, he were free to do so.
Because he was angry with himself and her, he gripped her waist perhaps too tightly. “Can you stand up now, dash it?”
“I can’t get my feet to stay still,” she said. Her teeth, too, were gritted together. Her cheeks had flushed a brilliant pink. Aubrey didn’t know whether they’d done so from embarrassment or anger, although he suspected a combination of the two.
After they’d stood there, locked together, for entirely too many moments, Callie said, “All right. I think you can let me go now.”
“Thank God,” Aubrey grumbled. He didn’t mean it.
“Miss Prophet! You bumped into Papa!”
Becky skated up to them, grinning broadly. She seemed to find the situation funny,
Aubrey didn’t. He did, however, have enough sense not to show his irritation to his daughter, who was a total innocent.
“I think she broke my back when she bumped into me.”
Another peal of laughter issued from his daughter. Other children had started to surround them. Aubrey felt like a sacrificial lamb.
“Well, it’s all because I was watching you, Becky,” Callie said. Her voice sounded somewhat strained, but she was obviously aiming at humor. “You’re a super skater.”
“I love to skate!” Becky threw her arms around Callie’s knees, almost sending them both over backward.
Laughing, Callie grabbed Becky and managed to keep both of them upright. “Careful, there, Becky! We don’t want to end up in the hospital.”
Becky giggled appreciatively.
Miss Prophet’s aplomb, Aubrey noted with annoyance, seemed to have returned in an unseemly short period of time. Any female with proper sensibilities ought to have been embarrassed for a much longer stretch after such an embrace.
Not, naturally, that he’d have appreciated it if she’d succumbed to a fainting spell, hysterics, or a fit of the vapors.
“Come along, Becky. I think your papa doesn’t appreciate creating a spectacle.”
“Creating a spectacle?” Startled, Aubrey glanced up from the vision of Becky holding Miss Prophet’s hand. As soon as his gaze lit upon the ladies in the tent, he groaned.
From Old Bilgewater through her lorgnette to Callie’s sister Alta, all eyes were focused on the three of them. As he watched, Aubrey saw Bilgewater’s lips move. A woman—he thought it was a Mrs. Finney—lifted a hand to her mouth as if to cover either a gasp or a giggle.
Whichever it was, Aubrey didn’t like it. Furious, he took Becky’s other hand. “Come with me, Becky. Show me how well you can skate.”
“Super, Papa!”
He felt Callie's gaze on his back as he and his daughter left her presence.
Chapter Twelve
Callie’s heart rattled like a kettledrum, her mouth had gone as dry as the Sahara, and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Her gaze flickered from Aubrey’s back, where it wanted to remain, to the group of gabbling women under the tent.
They were talking about her. Her or Aubrey. Perhaps her and Aubrey. And for no good reason. Merely because she’d practically swooned with ecstasy when she’d found herself in his arms didn’t mean anybody watching should have known about it. Even if they had known about it, they most certainly shouldn’t be talking about it now.
If they were talking about it.
Another glance at the herd of mothers and Mrs. Bridgewater confirmed her unhappy assumption that they were talking about something fascinating. Callie knew that gossip about men and women was the most fascinating kind and, since there hadn’t been any other couples to gossip about recently, she assumed she and Aubrey were the one on today’s menu. What’s more, they were being chewed and digested with great relish. Drat it.
She tried to arrange her face to show nothing but amiability, and hoped to heaven she didn’t look as though she’d just undergone a religious experience. If her face told the tale her insides were singing, it would be all over town in a day or two that she was hopelessly in love with her employer, That, while true, would be too humiliating to be borne.
In order to nip scuttlebutt in the bud, and in an effort to get her hammering heart to settle down, Callie hummed a merry tune as she skated toward the chattering matrons who were at present buzzing like a hive of honey bees being besieged by a bear.
“Oh, Mrs. Bridgewater, I’m sure there’s nothing shady going on between them.”
Callie’s eyes widened and her cheeks caught fire when she caught this comment, uttered by a woman in a yellow polka-dot morning wrapper. Callie had always mistrusted polka dots. It didn’t make her feel any better to know her mistrust had not been unmerited.
“Of course, there isn’t. Callie’s much too respectable and high-principled to do anything like that,” Alta announced staunchly.
Thank God for sisters.
“Well, I have reason to believe you’re both wrong. It’s improper for a young woman her age to be living under the same roof with a single gentleman—if he is a gentleman. I’ve always had my doubts.”
Callie stopped humming when Mrs. Bridgewater’s voice, full of quivering malice and self-righteous indignation, smote her ears. She glanced up from the driveway—she’d been keeping her eyes on the pavement because she didn’t want to take a tumble—and saw the elderly woman plying her fan with one hand and her lorgnette with the other. Her bilious green bombazine bosom had swelled to alarming proportions, and the gaze of every matron was fixed upon her face.
Bilgewater went on, “There’s something obscene going on between them, and I think it’s scandalous.” The other women were so fascinated, they didn’t notice Callie’s approach.
The horrid old cow! Callie’s heart stopped trilling instantly, and any slight remaining fear of swooning vanished like smoke. Lifting her chin, she skated swiftly the rest of the way to the tent. “What exactly do you consider scandalous, Mrs. Bridgewater?” she asked civilly, but in a defiant tone, plumping herself down on a bench and leaning over to remove her roller skates.
A silence as thick as cream spread throughout the group of mothers. Callie glanced up and swept the group with one of her most glittering smiles. She hoped it conveyed both her fury and her challenge. Alta swallowed, so Callie guessed it did pretty good job. That her so-called fri
ends should be gossiping about her hurt and infuriated her.
Bridgewater lowered her lorgnette to her lap and frowned at Callie without their help. “Were you eavesdropping, Miss Prophet?”
“Not at all. I skated over and heard you talking about something scandalous. Since this is a little girl’s birthday I couldn’t conceive of anyone talking in front of the mothers of the children present about anything unfit for all ears to hear.”
Somebody drew in a gasping breath. Mrs. Bridgewater’s frown deepened. She sat up straighter, causing her corset—which was being called upon to perform yeoman’s duty by holding in her excessive bulk—to creak ominously. “I merely said I think it’s a pity that a child has to reside in a house where so little attention is paid to propriety.”
Callie sat up, bringing her skates with her and setting them on the bench next to her so nobody could step on them and fall. “Oh? Who is this child and where is this improper house? I didn’t think Santa Angelica had any of those.”
Alta stifled something that might have been a giggle or a moan.
Up came the lorgnette. “You know very well I’m speaking about this house, Miss Prophet. It’s improper for you, a single young lady, to have charge of Rebecca. And it’s perfectly scandalous that you and Aubrey should be carrying on under her very nose.”
One the matrons uttered a stifled, “Oh, my!”
Callie was now so furious that it was difficult for her to unclench her teeth far enough to speak. “That,” she said in a tone she’d never heard herself use before, “is a vicious, unkind, and slanderous statement, Mrs. Bridgewater. These ladies”—she swung her arm in an arc, taking in all of her friends—”have known me all my life. They also know Mr. Lockhart, and they knew his late wife. How anyone—and a blood relation, to boot—can accept a gracious invitation to a little girl’s birthday party and then spend her time spreading salacious rumors about her host, is something I do not understand.”
Heaven Sent Page 17
