He told himself he didn’t care for his own sake, but he was pretty sure he was lying. He cleared his throat again. “Urn, do you think they would go for it?” Please say yes.
Callie paused and then nodded, although she didn’t look exactly positive when she did it. “I think they would. In fact, they’d probably love it.” She gave him a saucy smile. “It’s not every day the members of my family get to participate in Christmas jollifications in mansions, you know.”
“This isn’t a mansion,” Aubrey said gruffly. “Anne and I built this house on a large scale because we had hoped to have a big family.”
He didn’t appreciate the expression of sympathy that suddenly appeared on her face. If there was one thing he didn’t need, he thought sourly, it was to be considered pitiable by Miss Callida Prophet.
“Yes, of course,” Callie said. She rose. “Thank you very much, Mr. Lockhart.”
“Aubrey,” he grumbled.
Her smile nearly dazzled him. “Aubrey.”
The way she said his name, sort of caressingly and soft, had a remarkable effect on Aubrey’s already unruly masculinity. It stiffened completely. Irritated by his own lack of self-control, he tried to sound casual. “So you’ll take up the matter with your sisters and brother?”
“Yes, I will. Tomorrow, while Becky’s at school.” A troubled look crossed her face. “If she’s well enough to go to school. I suspect she won’t be. But I’m sure Mrs. Granger won’t mind watching her for an hour or so while I extend invitations.”
A little worried that his offer would be taken amiss by the proud Prophet clan, Aubrey said, “Please tell them I’d be grateful for their participation. I don’t want them to think of this as a command performance. It’s only that since Anne’s death . . .” Damnation, since Anne’s death, what? He feared he’d almost said something stupid.
“I understand,” Callie said gently. “You felt lost and alone. It’s difficult to pick up the pieces and carry on.”
Shocked that she should understand so clearly, and express his feelings in such simple, straightforward words, Aubrey nodded and murmured, “Yes. Yes, I guess so.”
She sighed. “I remember how it was when my parents died. It was awful. But at least I had siblings.” She gave him another tender smile.
Aubrey resented that one; it was as if she were pitying him, and he didn’t want her sympathy. What he wanted from her was—was— What he wanted was that she agree to marry him, is what.
Callie bade him good night and left the library, and Aubrey decided it would be better not to think about what he’d been about to admit he wanted from her.
After Callie left him, he brooded for a few minutes, then went upstairs to Becky’s bedroom. She was awake, but not feeling well, and he sat on her bed and petted her with one hand and Monster with the other. He was touched by how much his daughter appreciated the gesture of love on his part.
“Thank you for visiting me, Papa.” Her throat hurt, her voice was hoarse, and she sounded pathetic.
“You don’t look like you’re feeling very well, Becky,” he said gently.
“I don’t, Papa. I feel icky.”
He was alarmed to see her eyes fill with tears. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. You’ll feel better soon.”
“Indeed, she will,” came Callie’s voice, sounding efficient and cheerful at his back. He turned and saw her standing in the doorway, holding a glass. “I have some salicylic powders here, Becky, darling. They taste terrible, but they’ll help you feel better. Mrs. Granger squeezed some oranges and I stirred the powders into the juice, so they won’t taste quite as bad as they usually do.”
Feeling unnecessary and in the way, Aubrey rose from his daughter’s bed. “Right. When I was sick with the influenza last year, I remember how much salicylic powders helped me.”
Becky appeared doubtful. She was, however, an obedient child, so she sat up resignedly. “I hate them,” she said woefully as she wiped tears away.
Callie swooped down on her like a ministering angel. “I know you do, lovie, but they really will help you to feel better.”
Becky’s pretty mouth trembled, causing Aubrey’s heart to spasm so fiercely, he decided he’d better exit the room. It wouldn’t do Becky any good if her papa started bawling.
Bending over and depositing a kiss on her forehead, he muttered, “Get better soon, sweetheart.”
“Thank you, Papa.” She sounded utterly wretched and pathetic, and Aubrey all but ran out of the room.
He spent the rest of his day in an unsettled mood. He read newspapers, went for a walk, contemplated going for a ride, decided against it, and ate dinner alone. Callie and Becky were dining upstairs in her bedroom since Becky was feeling so rotten. That meant Becky wouldn’t be going to school tomorrow and he hoped that wouldn’t cause Callie to delay extending Christmas invitations to her family. He knew he oughtn’t to be as impatient as the notion made him.
“Dash it,” he growled as he sat in his big desk behind his big desk. “You’re an adult, man, Act like one.”
His tiny lecture made him buck up slightly. He could wait until Becky was well without restlessness eating him up from the inside. Of course, he could. He was, after all, a successful businessman. Successful businessmen didn’t get overwrought about such things as Christmas party invitations.
Feeling better, he contemplated reading a book versus looking at another newspaper or one of the periodicals that had arrived yesterday from San Francisco.
At last, he did neither. Instead, after considering it for a long time, he unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk for the first time in a year and a half, reached inside, and withdrew a bundle of letters. They were love letters Anne had written to him during the happy years of their short marriage. He’d tied the letters with a ribbon and stuffed them in his desk drawer some time after the fatality of Anne’s illness had been diagnosed and, at last, accepted. Aubrey hadn’t had the heart even to look at the bundle from that day to this. The mere thought of them had made his heart hurt.
Tonight, seeking answers to questions he wasn’t sure how to frame, he set the bundle on his desk and proceeded to look at it for fifteen minutes. Then, with aching heart and trembling hand, he reached out, tugged the ribbon loose, and picked up the first envelope.
He stared at it for another several minutes, studying Anne’s beautiful, elegant handwriting, before he lifted the flap and withdrew the letter.
My Darling Aubrey, the letter began. As soon as Aubrey read the words, something inside him gave way.
Chapter Seventeen
Callie didn’t know how long she’d been lying in bed that night, alternately thinking, brooding, and trying to pound her pillows into shape. The dratted pillows felt like boulders under her head. She wanted fluff, not boulders.
“It’s not the pillows’ fault,” she told herself sourly. “It’s you, Callie Prophet.”
Which didn’t help her get to sleep. She got up after an hour or so, wet a washcloth, climbed back into bed, and pressed the washcloth to her eyes. If she couldn’t steep, she might at least try to refresh her looks.
It had shocked her when Aubrey said he wanted to invite her family for a Christmas Eve celebration. She knew he’d done it for Becky’s sake, not hers, but the mere fact that he had done so at all had revived all of her feelings about him. And marriage to him.’
In truth, she didn’t even know if his marriage proposal was still open. For all she knew, he was busily seeking a wife elsewhere.
So vicious a stab of pain shot through her that she had to slap a hand over her heart. “Stop it this instant, Callie Prophet!”
Callie Prophet wasn’t a wilting lily. She was as sensitive as the next woman, but she prided herself on her common sense and emotional stability. She hadn’t been emotionally stable today.
When Aubrey had suggested inviting her family to a Christmas Eve party, she’d immediately and without thought envisioned herself as mistress of the Lockhart mansion. She’d seen herself, no
t as Becky’s nanny, but as Aubrey’s wife,
Yup, there she was, standing, in her mind’s eye, at the head of the staircase, clad in a dress she couldn’t afford in a million years, beaming down on her brother and his wife, and her sisters and their husbands, and everybody’s children. But Aubrey could. And he’d probably be happy to buy her any number of lovely gowns, too.
One thing she could say for Aubrey: He wasn’t a miserly fellow. In truth, he was just about perfect.
Except that he didn’t love her.
She socked her pillow again. “Damn and blast! Will you stop being such an idiot, Callie Prophet? The poor man adored the only woman he’d ever loved. It’s your stupid dumb luck that he met her before he met you.”
Not that he’d have paid any attention to her if he had met her before he’d met Anne. Callie Prophet and Anne Harriott were worlds—universes—apart, personality-wise. And Aubrey obviously desired a more sober personality in a wife than Callie possessed.
Although, he had asked her to marry him.
“For Becky, you fool. Not for him.” Callie turned over and shrieked into her lumpy pillow, knowing the sound would be muffled.
She wished Monster were here so she could hold his big, heavy body close to her bosom and comfort herself that way. But Monster was busy comforting Becky this evening, and he couldn’t be in two places at once. Besides, Becky needed him more than Callie did. Becky was genuinely sick. Callie was only an idiot.
If she kept this up, she’d be no better than Cissy Hammersmith, who was known throughout the village of Santa Angelica as “Silly Cissy,” for her romantic notions and extravagant emotional displays.
The comparison made Callie cringe. On the other hand, Callie would bet money that Cissy had never been asked to endure the trials Callie herself had faced and conquered. At least Cissy’s parents were still alive.
Would being married to Aubrey be a trial to endure? Callie told herself to stop asking stupid questions. After another half hour or so, though, she decided she was being foolish to try to fall asleep when her brain refused to cooperate. She’d be better off going downstairs and getting a book to read. Reading might help to calm her mind and make her sleepy.
With that in mind, Callie got out of bed, slipped her robe on over the flannel nightgown Florence had given her last Christmas, stuffed her feet into her old, floppy slippers, and tiptoed out of her bedroom. She carried a candle, since the Santa Angelica Electric Company shut down at midnight, and she didn’t especially want to fall downstairs and break her neck.
The door to Aubrey’s library was closed, but Callie didn’t think anything of that. He often closed the library door at night, probably because he worked in there and his desk was often messy. Mrs. Granger didn’t approve of messes, and Aubrey didn’t approve of Mrs. Granger or Delilah fussing with his papers.
She was shocked when she stepped into the room and saw Aubrey. He’d been sitting at his desk, with his head buried in his folded arms. He looked up when she entered, his face ravaged, his eyes red-rimmed and tortured.
“Aubrey! Good God, what’s the matter?”
“Callie.” He sat up, cleared his throat, and tugged at his vest. He’d discarded his jacket, which he’d hung over the back of his chair. His hair was disarranged, and he dragged his fingers through it.
She took a step toward him, propelled by a fierce longing to take him in her arms and hold him. She held back, knowing full well that it wasn’t her place to offer solace to her employer. “What’s the matter?” she asked again, hoping to help, even if she couldn’t demonstrate physically what she felt emotionally.
He waved a hand over the papers on his desk. “Nothing. I—I was just going over some things. Letters. Old letters.”
Callie’s heart swooped and throbbed. “Letters?” Good God, if he’d discovered her secret, she was doomed. She should have confessed about those blasted letters months ago; it was too late now.
His sigh ruffled the papers. “Yes.” He lifted one of them. “Letters Anne wrote me, oh, years ago. I, ah, haven’t looked at them for a long time.”
“I see.” So. He hadn’t discovered her dreadful secret. Her heart continued to ache, the knowledge that he’d sought comfort from a dead woman painful to learn.
Callie would have loved to comfort him.
He didn’t want comfort from her.
“Urn, I’m sorry if the letters, urn, brought back painful memories.”
He heaved a deep sigh. Shaking his head sorrowfully, he said, “The last two years of her life were so hard on her. She suffered so much.”
Callie clutched at the neck of her bathrobe. The blood pumped painfully in her throat, and she wanted to cry. Ruthlessly, she suppressed her own emotions. “I’m sorry. It must have been hard—on everyone. You, too. And Becky.”
He sighed again. “Yes. Becky.” He sucked in an audible breath. “Oh, God!”
Callie was stunned when he covered his face with his hands and bowed his head. She heard him inhale hard, gasping breaths, and knew he was trying to keep from breaking down.
“Oh, Aubrey.”
Forgetting that she was his employee, that she was Becky’s nanny, and that he didn’t love her, Callie gave up being strong for herself and rushed over to Aubrey. Thrusting her candle, willy-nilly, onto the desk, she fell on her knees and reached out to him. Her heart overflowed when he turned in his chair, threw his arms around her and drew her close.
“Oh, God, Callie, it hurts so much!”
“I know, I know,” she soothed, wondering what she thought she was doing. But she couldn’t push him away now. She loved him, he was in pain, and if she could offer this little bit of solace, she’d do it. She couldn’t deny herself to him. She couldn’t deny him to her. If the only thing she could do for him was hold him, she’d do it.
She hoped to heaven whatever happened now would be for the best.
What was he doing? Aubrey was only dimly aware that he held Callie in his arms. She felt so good there. So right. So . . . comforting.
Reading Anne’s letters had hurt. Recalling the love they’d shared, the dreams they’d had, the way everything had withered just when life had been about to bloom into perfection.
The ink on the pages was fading now, but his memories wouldn’t fade. He longed for the old days even as he desired a new life. With Callie.
And she’d come to him. Openly and freely. To give him comfort in his time of need. He knew it. He knew he shouldn’t take advantage of her big heart.
He also knew he needed her. Desperately. Wildly. In every way. “Please come to me tonight, Callie. Please. I need you so much.”
She swallowed audibly. Aubrey tried to hold in the ghastly sobs that wanted to wrack his body. Every nerve in him strained with waiting for her answer. If she denied him this, he didn’t know how he was going to get through the night.
After what seemed like eternity to Aubrey, she didn’t speak, but let herself relax in his arms. Then she kissed him on the mouth, softly, sweetly, invitingly, showing him her answer with her body.
“God.” He expelled the word on a breath of air that shook him from head to toe. Holding her face in his hands, he gazed into her eyes. He had a feeling his own eyes looked haunted, if not worse. Hers held only concern and something else he didn’t feel qualified to name, although he thought he recalled seeing it on Anne’s face.
Could this woman possibly love him? No. Of course she didn’t. If she loved him, she’d have jumped at his proposal of marriage, and she’d rejected him absolutely. But she wasn’t rejecting him tonight.
Cautiously, fearing she’d change her mind, but knowing he had to be sure, he whispered, “Are you sure, Callie? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Her eyes were huge in the dimness of the library. When Aubrey had finished the last of Anne’s letters, it had been nearly midnight. He’d remained in the library, unable to move long after the electric company shut down. He had no idea how late it was, but he knew he n
eeded Callie tonight.
He feared he needed her even more than that, but he didn’t dare open his heart. His poor, battered heart bad been through too much already in its thirty-five years. Aubrey didn’t think it could survive another wound like the one Anne’s death had inflicted.
“Come with me, Callie,” he said softly.
His legs felt wobbly when he stood, holding her elbow and helping her up. She staggered a little, too. Perhaps he wasn’t the only one whose feelings were being battered tonight.
“All right.” Her voice was small, but firm.
Aubrey almost dared to hope that what he was going to do wasn’t bad—almost. Not quite.
He picked up the candle, and the two of them walked side-by-side up the big staircase. He and Anne used to walk—
But no. He needed to stop remembering what he and Anne used to do. He was with Callie tonight, and he owed her his full attention. When they reached his bedroom, he opened the door and stepped aside, giving her another chance to stop things while they could still be stopped.
She walked in. Aubrey considered her poise astonishing under the circumstances. She had to be a virgin. And she was going to be giving herself to him without the bonds of matrimony. Perhaps this meant she trusted him to do the honorable thing.
Funny. As many problems as he and Callie seemed to have with each other, evidently neither of them believed the other to be anything but honorable. Encouraging, that.
Of course, he would do the honorable thing. She wouldn’t refuse him after he’d taken her maidenhood. Something akin to elation filled him. She’d marry him now. After tonight, she’d have to. And he’d never be alone again.
As soon as they were inside his room, he shut the door and turned the key in the lock. She still clutched the neck of her robe, but she turned and looked at him calmly.
“Are you sure?” he asked again, wondering at his sanity. If she backed out now, it would probably kill him.
Heaven Sent Page 25
