Cat's Cradle

by Shannon Donelly

  “Is that why he left the army?” she asked. “Because he...well, because he disliked India?”

  “Oh, no, missus. Got a saber in his leg, he did. After that, what could we do but take up the cards again. The luck don’t always run our way, but we done well enough.”

  He glanced around the room, his round face pulling down into a frown. “ ‘Course, this was supposed to be our windfall. Supposed to retire on this. Don’t suppose that’ll happen now.”

  Emaline rose and picked up her basket. She tried to remember that whatever Sir Ashten had been in the past—that lost boy, and that too-young solider—he had turned into a hardened gamester. She really should not feel sorry for him.

  “Yes, well, I am certain Sir Ashten will find someone who wants to buy the estate.”

  A deep voice answered from the doorway, “I believe I already have.”

  Emaline turned to see Sir Ashten, his hair windblown and color stung into his sun-warmed face. He smiled as he came forward, but a challenging glint in his eyes left her wondering how much he had overheard. She itched to ask whom he had found to buy the estate, but she burned with guilt already for the impertinence of having been caught gossiping about him.

  After a wink to Emaline, Knowles ambled from the room, saying, “Appears I’m wanted elsewhere, missus.”

  Ash turned to his guest, inwardly cursing Knowles’s prattling ways. He disliked having his past trotted out like some novelty meant to amuse. But he noted the worry clouding his pretty housebreaker’s eyes and his mood softened.

  Over the past few days he had glimpsed Bea carrying her kittens to the manor, hauling them along by the scruff of the neck. Each time Emaline had strode up the drive, coming for them like an avenging angel to save a damned soul.

  After their last encounter, he had thought it best to keep his distance and had left Knowles to deal with her. But now that he had her before him, he changed his mind.

  He had missed her. He had missed teasing the temper into those sherry-brown eyes. He had missed her sharp edges and smooth curves. He was in need of diversion. And he wanted it from her.

  He glanced down at the basket and the kittens struggling to climb out, their pointed faces poking out from under the covering of a blue and white checked cloth. She kept pulling loose their claws from the wicker and setting them back under the covering.

  “You know, this really must stop,” he said, trying not to smile at the kittens’ persistent escape attempts.

  She frowned. “I am trying to keep Bea with me, and if I can...”

  “I don’t mean that she must stop bringing them here. I mean you must stop taking them away. The weather’s about to turn. My leg always lets me know about that. Do you fancy giving those little mites a soaking? And what if Bea tries to venture out at night? I certainly don’t want to go walking and find some fox has made a snack of a kitten.”

  She glanced down at the basket, her forehead bunched tight, and he saw that he had breached her defenses at last.

  With one hand, he scooped up the black kitten as it tried to climb out of the basket. He held it to his chest, feeling its purr rumble through his coat and shirt. “Mrs. Pearson, let us strike a deal.”

  “I do not—”

  “No, do not interrupt. And you may stop looking daggers at me. I mean an honest bargain, not a wager. Let us allow Bea her way, and her kittens the cupboard. And while they are here I vow to keep it respectable enough that you may visit without a qualm. There shall be no gaming, no vice... not even so much as a dancing girl,” he said, unable to resist adding the last.

  She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes, wary, but calculating and he wished suddenly that she did play cards. He would wager she would play cautious but well, weighing her moves and shrewd with her actions.

  “What if you sell the house?” she asked. “You cannot promise the next owners will be so generous with their rooms.”

  “Then I promise not to sell until the kittens are grown. What does it take? Six weeks?”

  “Twelve. Bea has to teach them to hunt, you know. But you said that you already had a buyer.”

  “I have had an offer, but one so low that it has convinced me I must do something to at least put a pretty face on this place if I am ever to be rid of it for even half its true value. So let us say eight weeks, then, from the day they were born.”

  “Eleven from a week ago,” Emaline said, and wished she had the courage to ask him who had made the offer and how much it had been. But that went beyond what was polite to ask.

  With the black kitten climbing his coat to his shoulder, he held out his right hand. “Agreed.”

  Emaline stared at the tapering, elegant hand. Those long fingers were capable of manipulating cards, shifting them to do his will. Was he also manipulating her? Well, it did not matter. A ten-week reprieve was still a reprieve from an uncertain future.

  She looked up at his face again. The black kitten had curled up on his shoulder, happy as if it had found a new home, its face pressed into the strong column of his neck. If a kitten could find it in him to trust Sir Ashten, perhaps she could as well. Just a little.

  Slowly, she put her hand into his. His face relaxed into a smile as his fingers closed around hers, his touch warm, his grip gentle but strong. His thumb brushed across the back of her hand, drying her mouth to dust.

  She pulled away with the excuse of kittens to deal with, too aware of him, of his strength, of his person. Bea was making little noises at the back of her throat, calling to her kittens and it gave Emaline an excuse to move away.

  “I had best put them back, I suppose,” she said, bustling to do so, wondering if he had this affect on all women, or if too many years of widowhood had left her particularly susceptible.

  “There’s still one more matter to settle,” he said.

  She had knelt beside the cupboard, and now she glanced up at him. “What matter?”

  He came over to her, kneeling next to her, so close she could smell the damp of a light rain on his wool coat and see the fine stubble that shadowed his cheek.

  Plucking the black kitten off his shoulder, he placed it with its litter mates, his hand brushing hers as he did so, leaving her thoughts scattered and the room suddenly warm.

  And he asked with a smile, “Must we really give these kittens of ours biblical names?”

  * * *

  They started through names the next night. Sir Ashten insisted that Emaline and her boys come for dinner to seal their bargain and christen the kittens. He promised there would be a table to eat upon—it had been too large to remove—and said they had hired some temporary help from the village.

  Temporary.

  The word carried a good reminder of Sir Ashten’s habits. He drifted like the leaves on the wind, blowing away with the seasons. It also carried the ominous warning of her uncertain future. But it occurred to her to wonder if she could possibly convince Sir Ashten to sign a lease that would be binding upon the next owner as well?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Her chest tightened at the idea of having to ask Sir Ashten for anything. After all, why should he deal kindly with her? She certainly had not done so with him. She had judged him by the low standard of her gamester cousin, giving him no chance to prove himself.

  Of course, he was not a complete gentleman. How could he be with his past? But all she knew of him to date spoke of at least an honorable man. A man who made his living from cards, but who did so honestly. And while he might tease her, he had shown kindness to Bea and her kittens. That spoke well of him.

  Only he had no reason to sign any sort of binding lease with her. She had not even the knowledge if such a lease could be made legal. Oh, John, why could you not have been a more worldly man so that you left me and the boys better able to deal with this world?

  With a sigh, she set aside thoughts of her late husband. He had indeed been a good man. But not a practical one. It seemed instead that she must always be practical.

  Which meant she
would have to do what she could to mend her relationship with Sir Ashten so she might ask about a more binding lease of the gate house.

  With that in mind, she dressed for dinner in her best evening gown, a white muslin with silver and blue silk embroidery that she had not worn in three years. It still fit, though its train dated the style terribly, and the bodice pinched in and pushed up her breasts in a rather shocking fashion. She tugged up the dress as much as she could, and donned her mother’s necklace of blue enamel and gold. She dressed Thomas and Will in their good, dark-blue suits, though Will wiggled dreadfully when she tried to brush his hair into charming curls. Settling for his having a clean face, and for Thomas looking remarkably like his father, they set out for Adair Manor in the pony cart.

  The Findleys’ eldest son, Rob, met them at the house to take the cart around to the back. Emaline’s stomach fluttered as much as it had when she was a girl going to her first ball. But she took a breath to steady herself and herded the boys up the steps and into the manor.

  It seemed transformed.

  The hall glowed with polished floors and candlelight. A table she had not seen since her girlhood stood in the center of the square room, and a floral tapestry—moth-eaten on one corner—hung opposite the fireplace.

  She glanced around her, startled by the change and oddly pleased to see the house look so welcoming again.

  “Knowles and I have been busy today, so you’ll have to excuse me if I fall asleep by nine before the fire,” Sir Ashten said as he came down the stairs.

  She turned to greet him, and the polite words she had ready caught on her heart and wrapped tightly around it. She had thought him handsome with his shaggy, sun-drenched hair and his beautiful clothes so carelessly worn. She had not known the half of it.

  His forest-green coat brought out the green in his eyes. His close-fitting clothes set off the width of his shoulders and emphasized his narrow hips. Bushed and golden, his hair lay smooth from his face and the fire and candlelight drew glints from the warm depths.

  She had time to study him as he bent to answer a question from Will and turned to bid good evening to Thomas, and it struck her that for a gamester he had an uncommonly strong jaw. A lovely jaw that ended in a square, stubborn chin.

  He glanced up at her, that sensual mouth of his quirking, and mischief sparking in his eyes, and she knew she had been caught in her study of him.

  He said nothing. No teasing comment. No tormenting suggestions about the intent behind her close observation. He merely acted like the gentleman he looked, saw to Knowles taking their wraps, and bowed them into the dining room.

  Dinner passed easily.

  Ash strove to be a courteous host, and bit the inside of his cheek a dozen times to keep back the seductive phrases he wanted to lavish on his pretty housebreaker, and which would have her frowning at him instead of smiling. She ought to be flirted with, however. That low-cut gown set his imagination working feverishly as to what she would look like without it, and challenged his self-control not to find out.

  Thank heavens for the boys. They chatted on about their lives—about fox dens, lessons, neighbors, fishing, and hunting—so conversation never lagged.

  Knowles had outdone himself in the kitchen, producing oxtail soup, fish pie, jugged hare, celery with cream, stewed peas, and baked apples with custard. The boys tucked into the last as if they had not eaten heartily of the other dishes.

  As they quit the dining room for the comfort of the library and the kitten naming, Ash held back with Mrs. Pearson and asked, “Do they always eat like such good trenchermen?”

  “Yes, and I am afraid they are rather like the river carp— the more I feed them, the larger they become.”

  “You shall have giants on your hands.”

  She looked up at him, a smile dancing in her eyes and her lips curving, and something gave an odd twist in his chest.

  But her boys called to her to come see Bea and she moved away, breaking the moment.

  He stared after her, frowning, not quite certain what had just happened. He knew well enough what it was to fall in—and out—of love. He had done so a dozen times or more. And she was certainly attractive enough to stir more than lust in any man. But this...this sudden protective desire was a new thing. In that instant, he had not wanted her in his bed as badly as he had wanted with a fierce passion to keep her safe from anything that would rob her of that rare smile of hers.

  The problem was that a gamester such as himself was one of the things most likely to steal that smile away.

  What a damnable tangle.

  “Sir Ashten,” Will said, interrupting Ash’s thoughts. “Do you like Rue or Peleg better?”

  “Peleg,” Thomas said at once, dancing a string before the gray kitten that lay with its littermates on the carpet before the fire, its eyes dominating its pointed face.

  Ash came over to them and the naming began in earnest.

  Half an hour later not one kitten had been christened. However, Ash had a far better idea of Mrs. Emaline Pearson’s personality and her situation.

  She and her Bea were both fondly protective of their offspring. Ash found it amusing that both kept an indulgent but watchful eye on the events, occasionally reaching in to smooth a tousled curl, or in Bea’s case, to lick a spot left sticky by one of the boys after cakes had been brought in by Knowles.

  From the comments dropped, Ash gathered that his pretty housebreaker lived on scant funds, taking in sewing to supplement her income, and that the boys hunted the estate as a much-needed source of food. It troubled Ash to think they might lose such rights when he sold the place, so he turned his thoughts away from such unpleasant things.

  The boys were also getting to an age where they needed male guidance. He noticed the resentful looks Thomas shot his mother when she treated him as if he were as young as Will. He was a good lad, but Ash saw the burning desire in Thomas to be given more responsibility and to be recognized more as an adult.

  Ah, but that was not his problem either.

  As the arguments over names ranged—with Thomas insisting they must use the begats, and Ash arguing against it mostly for the sake of arguing, and Will torn between—she sat and listened to them. And Ash watched her watching them.

  Finally, in a moment of quiet, she said, “Well, why do we not give them two names?”

  Ash grinned. “Ah, the wisdom of Solomon and the beauty of the Queen of Sheba. What do you say, lads? Shall we honor the lady’s request?”

  Emaline gave him a warning look, but she did not rebuke him for his compliment.

  Will scooped up the black kitten that had been chasing the gray kitten’s tail. “I want to name him Sir Lancelot, and we’ll call him Sir.”

  “We said his name was Eber,” Thomas said, scowling.

  “You said it. I didn’t.”

  “And I said his name was Trouble, which is just what he’s proving to be. What, oh, wise lady, is your just decision on this matter?”

  Emaline realized that three sets of eyes now turned expectantly in her direction. She opened her mouth, shut it, and said the first thing that popped into her brain, “Call him Sir Eber Troublealot du Lac.”

  Eyes dancing, Sir Ashten regarded her. “The name is bigger than the kitten, but perhaps he’ll grow into it. Do we all agree on this one?”

  Sir Eber was now batting at Will’s cravat and untying it, but Will looked pleased to have a knightly kitten. Thomas, still frowning, looked ready to argue, but he glanced at his mother and relented with a nod.

  From there, the naming went quickly, but by the end of it, the suggestions had become so absurd as to leave Will giggling and even Thomas gave up a few reluctant smiles. The marmalade kitten became Lady Sheba Salah, and the striped kitten, Sir Nahor Galahad. Lady Peleg du Mist was settled on for the gray, and in the end all they could come up with for the tortoiseshell kitten was a simple biblical Reu, which pleased Thomas.

  Within a week use had shortened the names to Sheba, Sir Eber, Lady Mist
, Galahad and Reu. And Ash found that he was becoming dependent upon the company of his pretty housebreaker and her offspring.

  That was born in upon him one rainy day when the drenching weather kept Emaline and her boys away. Ash prowled the manor, restless as a caged bear and almost as cross.

  Trying to contain costs, he had not undertaken any major work but had settled for painting rooms, re-plastering ceilings, replacing missing stones from the exterior, and putting new lead on the roof. But what he saw still displeased him.

  The house was coming back to life, and it made the bleak, tangled gardens look worse. Everywhere seemed to be scaffolding, cloth coverings, and more disorder than order. What had he gotten himself into?

  His mood dark, he drifted into the library and threw himself into the leather chair that sat before the dying fire. How was he to ever sell this place for a decent price? Lord Rustard had made a ridiculous offer of two thousand pounds, a sum not even a quarter of what the property should fetch. Had he been wrong to turn the man down? Was he only wasting his capital by making these repairs?

  He certainly didn’t mind risk, but he disliked not even knowing the odds of this game. He wondered if the few hundred he had sunk into the house would turn into a few thousand, and for what? For getting his own money back?

  Or for the smiles that transformed Emaline Pearson’s face when she saw the rooms renewed and the house repaired?

  What the devil was he doing?

  A curious black face poked out of the cupboard, followed by a pointed gray face. The pair of kittens tumbled out, pushed forward by their littermates. Ash had to smile as the bits of fluff stared around themselves, sniffing the air before they ventured to his side.

  “Questing already?” he said, scooping up the gray. She lifted her chin for a scratch and set to a rumbling purr. Sir Eber would not be caught, however, and darted off to lurk under the sofa, with only an occasional black paw lashing out at dust motes.