Lark curled her hands into fists.
Hunter eyed the mound of their child. “Looks like you finally managed to “insert yourself” into your grandfather’s will.”
Lark shot out and bloodied his nose.
Her guests gasped.
Blood dripped from between Hunter’s cupping fingers as Chastity brought a handkerchief to stem the flow.
A heavy silence followed. Now everyone knew who she really was, Lark thought. Wilting, she turned to face them. “So much for making a good impression,” she said, but rather than censure, she saw mirth in every expression.
Alex and Sabrina rose to applaud, Chastity grinned, and Myles stepped behind Hunter’s coattails. “That you, Arky?”
“Well done,” Hawk said, and Gideon winked.
“You really did shoot Ash in the backside on your wedding night, didn’t you?” Reed said.
Lark raised her chin, feeling a rush of freedom. “Yes,” she said “I did, and I beat the daylights out of him before the wedding as well.”
“Perhaps that’s why we’re such good friends,” Ash said, taking her into his arms, and claiming her before all and sundry, making Lark feel cherished, and happy, and turning Myles Quartermaine and Hunter Elijah Wylder into a pair of rueful, red-faced rogues.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
After a successful hunting party the next morning, as everyone sat down to a hearty breakfast, Hunter and Myles made public and formal apologies to Lark, and were as publicly forgiven and welcomed to their Christmas celebration.
Later, Ash concurred with the other rogues that for the sake of safety, only the children five-years and older should be allowed to accompany them into the woods for the gathering of the Christmas greenery.
Ash also insisted that several carriages be made available for the ladies; to deliver them to the spinney, and return them to the Chase, as needs be, for tending to babes and such.
He and his fellow rogues, and whichever offspring were allowed to accompany them, set off half an hour earlier than the women to make the brisk, invigorating trudge over hillock, and through orchard and field, to the spinney.
Ash managed to meet the first carriage when it arrived so as to offer Lark his arm. “I do not know why you persist in accompanying us this morning. You could slip and endanger the babe.” He placed his arm firmly about her waist as they walked.
“I will not miss my first expedition for Christmas greenery, nor am I like to slip with you holding me so tight. No, do not let go. I take pleasure in your solicitous attention.”
After that flirting remark, Ash could do nothing but kiss her for some few minutes, before she could be allowed to follow the rest of the ladies deep into the spinney, where three competent military men stood beside the coveted Christmas plants, awaiting wifely direction.
The small wood boasted enough holly bushes to satisfy even Sabrina’s salacious greed for the crimson-berried stalks with spiny, variegated leaves. Immediately they arrived, she put the children to work gathering sheaves, piling and tying them to the sleds they had dragged along.
Above and around them, birds and other forest creatures squawked, scurried, and chattered at the brazen human invasion.
Ash and Lark watched as Sabrina tugged on Myles coat to snap him from his boredom and direct his gaze upward. “Mistletoe,” she said, in the way she might have said, “fetch.”
Myles sighed. “Gathering mistletoe is a tedious boot-beating business,” he said, as he looked despairingly high into the tree from which the parasitic clusters of pearl berries and pale green leaves hung. “Do we really need mistletoe?”
“Get into the spirit, Man,” Hunter said, slapping Myles on the back. “Ladies have always been encouraged to kiss beneath mistletoe.”
Myles regarded Pegeen as if with speculation. “I’m for mistletoe,” he said, and began to climb, shaking the hemlock to which the mistletoe clung, dislodging snow on all their heads.
A collective groan rose, though no one seemed actually to mind.
“Mistletoe is also known to increase fertility,” Gideon said, tongue in cheek.
Reed chuckled and indicated the frolicking children. “Does this look like we need help with fertility?”
Hawk shook his head. “Not you two. You keep producing doubles.”
Gideon and Reed regarded each other with wide grins.
“What else do we need in addition to the Holly and Mistletoe?” Ash asked, supporting Lark.
“Laurel, ivy and rosemary should do,” Sabrina said. “Oh and children, fill a sack with the horse chestnuts you see scattered on the ground, preferably the ones that have shed their spiked pods. Your younger brothers and sisters may paint them gold later, and we can hang them on the tree.”
“What a brilliant notion,” Chastity said.
Alex shook her head. “Bree will always have brilliant notions, though some of them get her into more trouble than others.”
Hunter took Sunny’s arm. “Shall we go deeper into the wood to forage for laurel, ivy and rosemary?”
Myles chuckled from above. “He’ll find mistletoe, mark my words. Come to think of it, I could use some help up here. Pegeen?”
To Ash’s surprise, Pegeen began to climb.
“Wait a minute,” Reed said, following his sister’s upward progress with his gaze.
“We’re in a tree, Reed,” she said. “What can happen in a tree?”
Ash and Lark regarded each other, remembered the possibilities, and slipped away.
“Come down, Peg,” they heard Reed say.
“Mind your own business, Reed,” his sister responded.
Slinking off like naughty children, Ash urged Lark to move as far away from the group as he could get her, still directing her toward the carriage he believed she should take home, while keeping to the concealing thicket, so as to steal an intimate minute alone with her.
Last night, they had teased and played each other in bed, like tuning instruments for the grand performance, until she had fallen suddenly asleep. He knew that her condition exhausted her, that she had expended a great deal of energy with her guests, but Lord, she’d left him aching.
“I want you,” he said, now backing her against a tree.
“What? Here? There are people everywhere.”
“They are far too distant to come upon us,” he assured her.
“Not far enough.”
Ash slid a hand over her belly, and beneath it, until she closed her eyes and sighed, and he tugged up her gown, bit by bit, found her warm and ready, and brought his babe-ripe bride pleasure, there with the snow falling all about them.
Though he’d been left rod hard and randy, ‘twas still a most memorable sexual experience.
Lark slept in his arms all the way home in the carriage. When they arrived, he carried her up to her bed, where she continued her much needed rest.
When Lark awoke, she found that her guests had returned from greenery gathering and that her house had been transformed into Christmas. Alex, Chastity and Sabrina had directed the children’s changing into dry clothes and the doling out of hot chocolate and iced gingerbread.
Employing varying amounts of the greenery they collected, Sabrina made the kissing boughs, Chastity the wreaths, and Alex the garlands. They had also added holly to the baskets and vases of dried lavender about the Chase, which made everything more festive.
“You do not mind that we took it upon ourselves to decorate for you?” Alex asked Lark later, as they admired the drawing room’s garland-festooned mantel.
“What? Sorry that I missed all the hard work? Of course not, I am delighted with the results, and grateful. I do not have my old energy. This is beautiful and good, and the sight fills my heart to overflowing. Thank you.”
“You missed nuncheon and tea, and I feared you would miss dinner as well,” Alex said.
“Which explains why I am ravenous. Oh, did anyone decorate Grandmama’s room?”
“We did not even think of it.”
&nb
sp; “Let us do so now, all hands to the task,” Lark said, aware she could not, for the life of her manage it alone, and she was grateful when they rose to her aid.
Every man woman and child worked to decorate Ash’s mother’s room for Christmas, her gaze following it all.
“Do not tell me she does not realize it is Christmas, Ash. Look at the sparkle in her eyes,” Lark said.
Ash regarded his mother and moved toward her bed. When he arrived, he bent to kiss her brow, which he had not done in an age, and thought he caught a hitch in her breath.
“Lark wanted you to have Christmas,” he said. “She is a good lady, my wife.”
Did his mother attempt to agree by offering so slight an eye movement as to make it seem unlikely. “Mama?” Ash said, comprehending Lark’s avowal that his mother might be aware of more than he thought. He gave in to all her urging then and took his mother’s hand. “Mama, squeeze my hand if you understand me.”
When she did, Ash was forced to sit on her bed so as not to fall to his jellied knees—the rogues and their ladies talking and laughing about them as if a miracle had not just occurred.
Christmas surged to breathless life, sped Ash’s heart, opened it to every foolish possibility.
He leaned nearer. “Mama,” he all but whispered. “I am sorry I ran off to war rather than remain and face my responsibilities to you and the estate. I did not mean to hurt you with my departure.”
His mother squeezed his hand twice then, frantic and … hopeful? Ash looked deep into her eyes and he knew, of a sudden, the meaning of Christmas Peace.
Was her gift to him forgiveness or simply the knowledge that his father’s judgment had been incorrect? Either way, Ash felt released from the weight he’d borne for so long. He felt … absolved, and for the first time in his life he understood the need, the power in forgiving.
Lark came up behind him and placed her hands upon his shoulders. “I never knew Christmas could be so wonderful,” she said.
He took her hands, kissed each in turn, and smiled with his mother. “Neither did I.”
The following morning, while Stan Redman brought the huge cedar into the picture gallery where it would be set up and decorated, Chastity held a private rehearsal for the children’s Christmas theatrical in another room of the house. “It is a secret,” she said, forbidding anyone to enter. “I will have no spoiled expectations, but simple enjoyment, however our cherubs perform.”
Olive Redman had accompanied her husband and brought several splendid hand made gifts. A Christmas Stable with the carved figures of the holy family. A toy farm wagon for Micah and a lady puppet and stage for Ashley Briana.
For the new babe, they brought a white cradle, built by Stan and painted with the Blackburne family crest by Olive. She had also made the baby blankets, bonnets, and the littlest sleeping gowns Lark had ever seen.
Lark invited the couple to come for Christmas Eve supper but they declined in favor of dinner Christmas Day.
The snow had continued falling steadily for days and so the children begged to put the sleds to better use than hauling greens.
Sabrina looked to the ladies and held up a cautioning hand. “This is the tradition I brought and I know how to go about it.”
She regarded Damon who begged the loudest for a sledding party. “I do not wish to go outdoors and become cold and wet,” she said. “Go and ask your father.”
“You may do the same,” Chastity told Mark and Luke.
Lark shrugged and sent Micah and Briana to ask Ash.
After the men gave in to their children’s pleas, as Sabrina predicted they would, the rogues came looking for their wives to set the event in motion.
“Lark,” Ash said. “The children are to go sledding.”
“I am glad to hear it. I wish you will have a wonderful time.”
Reed reared back and furrowed his brow at Chastity.
Gideon turned on Sabrina. “I see your hand in this.”
Hawk chuckled. “You are right.” He looked to his own wife for confirmation.
“Do not look at me,” Alex said, striding past. “I have a babe to feed.”
“No!” Myles said when he realized the men had been outfoxed and were to take nearly twenty children out to play in the snow, but it mattered not, because that was the plan.
The women remained inside and made decorations for the tree—ribbon rosettes, parchment snowflakes. Lark filled lace circles with lavender buds, and tied them with bows to hang on the tree.
They worked beside the huge bay window in the portrait gallery so as to keep watch over the sledding party.
Lark noted the camaraderie between the rogues, the way they must have worked together to defeat the common enemy. With the children, they laughed, shouted, made snow caves, snow men, snow angels. They hauled little ones on their shoulders uphill, took them on fast rides down, wiped noses, carried laggards, doled out cocoa, hugs, kisses, and more often than not, replaced mittens, hats, and scarves.
“Do you see that some of our older children have paired off?” Chastity said. “Matthew and Beatrix for instance, and Micah and Rebekah.”
Alex admired a rosette then looked up. “Harry and Briana as well,” she added, “for I heard them discover that they had both survived the London streets.”
Lark was not surprised to hear as much about Harry for there was an edge to him that could only be earned one way. She was lucky Briana had not acquired quite so brittle an edge.
“Reed seems to be counting heads more often than the others,” Lark said.
“Old habits,” Chastity said. “He is a good father.”
“Gideon is more like to get down and play with the children, rather than organize them,” Sabrina said, shaking her head. “As if I have six, not five. Ah, there he goes. See, he and Micah are about to … tip.” Sabrina rose as did Lark while the two flew through the air, Gideon’s arms firm about Micah, Gideon landing them so Micah never touched ground.
Lark sighed in relief.
Sabrina smiled. “He does make for a fine pillow.”
“The children are enjoying his antics,” Alex said. “Hawk is less like to play and more like to teach them to build or repair something, like the snow cave he is overseeing. What about Ash, Lark?” Alex asked. “What is he like to do with the children?”
“Ash reminds me of a lost soul,” Lark said. “As if he does not yet know where or to whom he belongs, but he gives instinctively to each of our children what they need most, whether it be responsibility, or a hair ribbon.”
“He is a good man,” Alex said, “and you do love him after all.”
Lark’s eyes filled. “How should I know if I do?”
Chastity looked up from her work. “It sounds as though you are two lost souls, or two halves of one,” she said. “Perhaps you will be whole only when you both know the answer to that question.”
Lark turned to look out the window oblivious to the happy scene before and about her. “How can we be two halves of a whole if a lie stands between us?” she asked, but no one answered.
A stranger came to the Chase that afternoon, a man who introduced himself as Drummond Amesbridge and asked to be brought before the Earl of Blackburne.
Lark had Grimsley show the man into a small receiving room off the main foyer then she sent the retainer for Ash. She did not enter on her own but waited for her husband.
She met Ash in the hall and they clasped hands. “Where is Briana?” she asked.
“Well protected,” Ash said. “One of us will have to go for her, or our friends will keep her hidden. I half expected this. Ready?”
She kissed him. “For luck.”
He nodded for Grim to open the door and they went inside.
Ames’ “uncle,” Drummond Amesbridge, a worm of a man, slimy and underhand, lacked the ability to meet any eye. With dispatch, he claimed legal custody of Briana and insisted on getting her “home” for Christmas.
When asked to prove his claim, he handed Ash a sheaf o
f signed and sealed documents. “You have no choice,” the worm said, “but to hand the girl over.”
“The papers look real enough,” Ash said. “But I must confer with Hunter for a minute then have Reed come and peruse them. Reed has experience in such matters.”
“Bring the girl,” the man said.
“You will be all right?” Ash asked Lark before he left, and she nodded.
As soon as Ash quit the room, Lark swooned into the arms of the worm, however distasteful the experience.
When Ash returned, he introduced Reed as the Earl of Barrington, to impress Ames’ shoddy fake of an uncle, and handed Reed the documents.
“The problem is,” Reed said, after reading them, “they are all based upon a letter and record of birth, conspicuous by their absence.”
Lark rose and handed Reed the paper she had picked from the man’s pocket when she swooned. “This might help,” she said. “Read the name if you please.”
“Briana Fairhaven,” Reed said, lost as to its significance, though Ash and Lark grinned.
“And do you know where Briana Fairhaven was born, Mr. Amesbridge?” Lark asked, not expecting an answer. “France,” she supplied. “So why do you suppose her proof of birth is written in English?”
The man blustered. “I have no notion.”
“Ash,” Lark said, “can you get Briana?”
“She is here,” Reed said opening the door and ushering her in.
Briana went to Lark and Ash, and they claimed her, Ash with a hand to her shoulder, Lark by tidying her hair.
“Briana,” Lark said. “Do you know this man?”
Briana regarded her, not the worm. “He was a friend to Amesbridge. My Mama was afraid of them. They wanted her money.”
The worm snorted and denied as much, while everyone ignored him.
“Of course,” Ash said. “Why did I not think of Nora’s fortune?”
Briana regarded Ash with trust. “I did not know when I should tell you, but my Maman said I would be a woman of property after she died, and when she did, the servants were to send me to you, so I would be safe.”
“And so you will be.” Ash squeezed his daughter’s shoulder and narrowed his eyes upon the worm as if he might rip him apart. “I have jurisdiction in this village, and friends in high places. The girl remains here. You had best return to Seven Dials, or better yet, sail for the colonies, for you are under investigation as we speak and the stink of your reputation is foul.”
Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) Page 22
