by Jenny Lykins
"I see you've noticed my widow's weeds." She plucked at the ebony bombazine skirt with a thumb and forefinger. "I remarried after David died. My husband, William, passed away three months ago."
Hunter allowed no look of sympathy to cross his features. “Bad luck with husbands, Delia? Perhaps you did me a favor.” He lowered himself to the matching settee and waited for her to get to the point of her visit. He'd be damned if he'd make things easy for her. If she was back to pick up where she'd left off he was not going to play the fool again.
The silence lasted only seconds before she dropped her hands to her lap and met his gaze.
"I do not have time to mince words, Hunter. I came here because I am sick. Actually, I am dying. The doctors give me only a few weeks." She paused and waited for him to speak, but he could find no words. He was sorry, as he would be for any dying person, but he could not see what it had to do with him.
"I have tuberculosis." She hesitated and picked at her skirts again, her head bowed.
The tuberculosis would explain her pallor and the delicate coughs she'd been stifling. He still could not see how any of this concerned him.
"The last time we were together, Hunter - "
"You are referring to the second time you gagged at the sight of my body?"
A tide of red swept over her features, all the more noticeable because of her ashen color.
"Yes. I see you remember," she said in a quiet voice.
"Vividly."
"Then you should also remember that during the night we had been...intimate."
"Yes. How fortunate for me we failed to light the lamp until it was over. I would imagine it would be somewhat off-putting to attempt to make love to a retching woman."
She jumped to her feet and turned her back to him.
"Please, Hunter, let me say what I have come here to say."
She held her peace for a moment, and Hunter kept silent. At his acquiescence she spun around to face him. She gripped the back of the settee until her fingers threatened to puncture the fabric.
"We have a daughter from that night. I want you to take her and raise her."
CHAPTER SIX
Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared him for the words she'd just spoken. His first reaction felt as if he'd been kicked in the gut. The next was total disbelief.
Women had proved to be fickle creatures since his earliest memory of his mother. Now Delia was telling him that he had procreated one? Preposterous!
"Delia, you have had two husbands, yet you tell me that this child is mine? Let me remind you that the scars I bear are on my body, not on my brain."
Delia circumvented the couch to grab one of Hunter's hands and sink to the Aubusson carpet in front of him.
"It's true, Hunter. Katie is yours." Katie, is it? he thought. "Anyone can see that with just one look. William knew she wasn't his, and his family knows. They refuse to take her in once I... If you refuse she'll end up in an orphanage. Could you sentence your own daughter to grow up in an orphanage?"
He stared at her, horrified and confused. She returned his stare, and though her illness-ravaged face was drawn, it held no indication that she told anything less than the truth.
Dear Lord, he couldn't have a daughter. What would he do with another female in the house? He was over-run with them as it was.
The stifled cough that escaped Delia's lips became deeper until she could no longer control it. The cough became so violent she reached into her sleeve and pulled out a rumpled linen hanky. She could barely catch her breath between coughs when Hunter helped her to her feet and backed her onto the settee. When she fell back onto the dark peach brocade Hunter caught a glimpse of crimson staining the snowy white fabric pressed against her mouth.
He crossed to the crystal decanters sitting on a rosewood table and sloshed a generous amount of brandy into a snifter. When the liqueur spilled onto his hand, he angrily slung the amber droplets from his fingers.
Once Delia managed to catch her breath, Hunter offered her a sip of the pungent liquid. She sipped, muffled a cough, then sipped again. A bit of color returned to her pallid skin, and her coughing seemed to be under control. She crumpled the blood-stained hanky into her fist and patted her hair with a weary hand.
"I assume you now believe me about my illness. That Katie is your daughter is no less the truth. Will you allow me to die secure that my child is with her father?"
Hunter felt sweat dampen the collar of his shirt. Dear God. A father. Everything inside him rebelled at the thought.
"Delia..." His mind was unable to produce rational thought. He huffed a frustrated breath and paced the length of the room. "I am not the person to be raising this child."
"You are her father."
"Even if what you say is true, I am still not fit. A quarter of an hour ago I was a childless bachelor. Now I am a father? And to a girl child? I know nothing of children. This house is no place to raise a child. I know. I am a product of its environment."
Hunter stopped his pacing, about to point out that his mother was reason enough to keep a child away.
A sharp rap sounded on the opposite side of the doors.
His hackles rose at the thought of his mother eavesdropping. No doubt she now had an opinion she wanted voiced. Well, he had an opinion or two for her.
"Come!" he roared, his voice nearly rattling the windows.
The doors rolled back to reveal Ambrose, not Lucille, on the other side. Ambrose's long-suffering face betrayed nothing when he spoke; he didn't even look down at the lacy growth attached to his leg.
"You has a visitor, suh."
Just then a strange, portly black woman appeared and tried to detach the child who clung like a leech to Ambrose.
"Chile, you let go of the man. He gots work to do."
The woman tugged at a mass of blue and white ruffled eyelet while Ambrose studied the crown moulding along the ceiling. The child's face was buried in the back of the butler's scrawny thigh, her arms wrapped around his knee.
"I's sorry, Miss Delia, but this chile done got it in her head to come in and she was out the carriage and in the house afore I could catch her." All the while she spoke, the woman tugged at the little girl.
"It is all right, Lucretia. I was just about to send for you." Delia turned her attention to the bundle of fluff still attached to Ambrose's leg. "Katie, come here to me, darling."
Hunter watched this scene unfold with a disbelieving stare. This was the child he was supposed to raise?
At the sound of Delia's voice Katie stopped struggling and peeked at them from between Ambrose's lanky thighs. Hunter's first impression was of a huge pair of sky blue eyes, round with curiosity and fringed in black lashes. The eyes were framed by shiny dark brown curls so wispy they had to be baby fine. Her tiny nose and little pink lips made her look more fragile than a china doll.
She peered from between the safety of the legs, then her face disappeared. The wide eyes emerged again on the left side of the butler's stance. She inched her way around the towering, scrawny leg, then finally let go when Lucretia took her hand and walked her forward. Her wide eyes never left Hunter's.
She was dressed in a blue ruffled dress with a white ruffled pinafore. On her tiny feet were white button shoes, and she wore a big, blue bow on top of hair that fell in bouncing ringlets to her shoulders. Hunter had never seen anything so delicate in his life.
This was the child he was supposed to raise?
He watched her take slow, wary, little-girl steps in her journey across the room.
"This is your new papa, darling," Delia said in a weak voice. "The one I told you about after - "
"Delia!" Hunter barked the name and spun to face her. "I have not - "
Before he could finish, a blue and white blur sped across the room. He looked behind him in time to see a little face smash into the back of his right thigh the same moment her arms went around his knees in a death grip.
He stared at this new appendage with horro
r. How did one go about removing a child from one's leg? His right foot remained rooted to the floor while his left foot inched around in a circle. He felt like a dog chasing its tail.
"Here now, child. Release my leg. No, no. Don't squeeze there! Damn it, Delia! Have you no control?"
Delia's light laughter sounded like her old self, and there was a familiar twinkle in her eyes when he looked at her.
"Please watch you language, Hunter. She has an abominable habit of repeating the less desirable words she hears uttered. And as for her clinging to you, she has been that way since she was old enough to walk. Whenever she senses she is in trouble, she goes directly to the person she has provoked. It is an effective tactic, is it not?"
The child refused to look at him or lessen her grip on his leg. With an indignant huff, he took several steps, expecting to dislodge the unwelcome visitor, but all he accomplished was to lift her bodily and move her with him.
"Pick her up, Hunter. She is your daughter."
Hunter leaned sideways and scooped the clinging child under the backs of her arms, then transferred his grip once she was at eye level. She dangled at arm's length in front of him like a wiggling sack of snakes. She was all soft and pudgy, yet he could feel her ribs beneath her clothing. As fragile as a bird, he thought, then gentled his grip even more for fear he held her too tightly. He turned to Delia.
"I wish you would not refer to her as my daughter in the child's presence, Delia. We have come to no..."
His speech trailed off, forgotten, as the little girl peeped up at him through lowered lashes, then raised her head minutely. Sky blue eyes peered back at sky blue eyes. The exact shade of his own dark brown hair framed her cherubic face. Hunter felt the sweat pop out along his neck again. It became a steady trickle between his shoulder blades when the tiniest hint of a smile produced a perfectly round baby dimple in her left cheek.
He was looking at his own face. Any denial of his paternity to this child melted like a snowflake in the sun. A person would have to be blind not to see the resemblance. He glanced at Delia, who smiled up at him with a weak, smug smile.
"One would think I had no part in her creation, so much does she favor her father."
Katie picked that moment, before Hunter had a chance to reply, to propel herself toward his chest and lock her arms around his neck. Her face immediately disappeared into his shirt collar. She snuggled up closer when he drew her near and perched her on his arm.
What an amazing, foreign feeling. All of his senses came alive. Her silky hair brushed him under his chin when she burrowed her face deeper into his neck. She was a healthy, plump little thing, yet she was light as a feather, and her tiny bones could be felt beneath all those ruffles. She smelled of soap and starch and fresh air.
He tucked in his chin and looked down at her, but her face was still hidden. A shiny curl tickled his jaw, and he nuzzled his chin against the ringlets.
An unfamiliar emotion, so fierce it took his breath away, seized his heart and squeezed with a vengeance. He waited for it to subside, but it only mellowed into a steady warmth.
"My daughter." The two words were uttered with wonder; part statement, part question.
Katie raised her head and turned wide blue eyes on him. Her warm, little hands rested on his cheeks; the weight of them felt like butterflies. She studied his face a moment with childish coyness, then spoke the one word he thought never to hear himself called.
"Papa?"
His heart thudded in his chest. A desire to protect this little being rose in him, along with panic over whether or not he could learn to be a father.
"Papa, indeed." The hateful voice came from the open doorway.
Hunter didn't have to turn to see his mother's sneer; her prunish face was reflected in the mantel mirror. Her voice quivered with disapproval while his resentment raged inside him. He was not allowed even a few moments of this wondrous feeling of fatherhood.
"Well, well. Delia Cabot. So you have returned to Memphis after all these years." Lucille walked into the room as if queen of the manor.
"Yes, Mrs. Pierce. For a brief stay. I will be leaving in two days."
"Oh, I see. You are just staying long enough to shove your bastard child off on my son."
Delia's gasp took longer than the time it took Hunter to deposit Katie in her mother's arms and tower, inches away, over his mother. His voice was not much louder than the rustle of silk skirts, but the words were delivered with all the feeling of a thunderclap.
"You will never refer to this child in such a manner again. If you do, you will be out of this house and on the street before the last syllable is uttered. You will not poison my daughter's childhood with your vitriol as you poisoned mine."
"You cannot seriously contemplate allowing - "
"I am contemplating nothing. Katie will live here." It was surprising how easily the decision came to him. As soon as the words were spoken he knew there was no other choice he would have made.
A movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye. He looked up to see Delia staring into the entry hall, her pale skin even more colorless. Marin stood with uncertainty just beyond the doorway. In her arms were the freshly laundered table linens from the night before. Delia misunderstood the domestic picture.
"I did not realize you had married, Hunter. Your wife should be included in this decision. After all, it will affect her life as well."
Marin's eyes darted to Hunter, then back to Delia.
"Me? You think I'm married to...Oh, no! Hunter and I aren't married! I'm his social secretary!" She stepped into the room and thrust the linens out, as if making a point. "I was just putting these away for Mamie when I saw everyone in here. I'm sorry I interrupted." She was about to turn and leave when Hunter stopped her.
"Marin. This will concern you in a roundabout way." He looked at Delia, aware that the uses of their first names were the cause of Delia's upraised brows. He did not like that knowing look. Her presumptions were wrong. "Allow me to introduce my social secretary, Miss Marin Alexander. Marin, this is...an old friend, Delia Cabot."
Delia nodded to Marin and smiled. "Actually, I am Delia Branson now."
"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Branson." Marin turned to Katie. "And who is this charming little lady?"
Lucille picked that moment to remind everyone of her presence. "This little lady, it appears, is Delia and Hunter's ba...daughter."
Marin's wide eyes raised in question before a noncommittal veil dropped over her features. For reasons he could not begin to fathom, Hunter hoped fervently that she would not think the worst of him.
Marin didn't bother to rationalize why her heart dropped to her stomach at Lucille's words. She had never been one to lie to herself. Try as she might, she hadn't been able to overcome the attraction she felt toward Hunter. It had been this way with Ryan. She'd fought and fought against loving someone, but in the end Ryan's mischievous pursuit and magnetic personality had won out over all her convictions. The difference now was that Hunter wasn't pursuing. And he most definitely wasn't mischievous. But, God help her, he was devastatingly magnetic!
Now, however, there was another woman, and a child, involved. It would be a mistake to assume she was a long lost wife, considering Lucille's thin-lipped frown of distaste. Marin didn't think a legitimate union and child would generate that much pulsating disapproval, even from the lemon-sucker.
Uncertain exactly of the protocol called for in this situation - in any century - she decided to simply change the subject.
"Well! I'll just put these linens away and then check your appointment book."
"If you do not mind, Miss Alexander, before you leave I would like to assure the household that I have kept myself isolated from Katie. We even came in separate carriages, so you should have no fear of exposure to my illness."
A gasp of shock erupted from Lucille's vicinity. Marin ignored it and crossed the room to sit beside Delia. She lay her warm hand on the frail alabaster one. The coolness of the s
kin belied the calm facade on Delia's face.
"What kind of illness do you have? Is it serious?"
Delia stifled a cough with a wadded handkerchief. "I have tuberculosis."
Lucille let out an offended squeak and fled the room at a healthy trot. Delia squeezed the hanky into a tighter ball while a pink tinge suffused her chalky features. "I have brought Katie here to live with Hunter."
It didn't take a genius to read between those lines. This beautiful, golden-haired woman was going to die, and soon. She was also embarrassed by the fact that her daughter was not her husband's child. Marin was never good at words in these types of situations, but she could at least make the poor woman comfortable. She turned an accusing eye on the man who had gotten this girl pregnant and hadn't bothered to marry her.
"Would it be asking too much for some tea or coffee for your guest? Lowly employee that I am, I know enough to offer refreshments."
Hunter looked as though he'd been slapped. It was hard to keep the spark of satisfaction from her face at knowing she'd hit a target.
She turned back to Delia, who was gripped in a violent fit of coughing. She fluffed a heavily fringed throw pillow and placed it behind Delia's back, then handed her the abandoned glass of brandy which sat on the table next to her.
"Here now, drink this and we'll have some tea for you in a minute." She leaned close to the sick woman's ear and whispered, "The lemon-sucker is gone. That alone should make you feel better."
Delia's giggle only aggravated her coughing. By the time Mamie arrived with a pot of tea, her face was as scarlet as the splotches on her handkerchief.
"See if you can sip some of this. It should help your cough." Marin held a cup of tea generously laced with honey and lemon to the poor woman's bluish lips.
Hunter had remained uncharacteristically quiet throughout this entire scenario. She darted a dagger-filled glance his way and saw that he sat across from them, staring at her as though she'd sprouted another head. She was formulating a scathing remark when a tiny, warm hand came to rest on her knee.
