Heaven Sent (14 page)

He chided himself at once. These
musings were merely the result of his selfishness surfacing again.
He hadn’t realized how large that side of him was until recently,
when Miss Callida Prophet had come into his life.

Damn her. Before she came here to stir
up the ashes, his life was miserable, but at least he understood
it. Now he didn’t understand anything.

His mood was not improved when Mark
said, “What a remarkably pretty young woman, Mr. Lockhart. Did she
come from the city?”

“
No. She was born and bred
here in Santa Angelica.”

“
My goodness. The country
produces some interesting specimens, doesn’t it? I like Santa
Angelica even better now than I did when I arrived
yesterday.”

Great-Aunt Evelyn snorted, clearly
disapproving of the frivolous, not to say unsavory, tone of the
conversation.

Mark had the grace to blush once more
and mutter something that was probably meant as an
apology.

Aubrey wanted to kick Bilgewater down
the marble front steps.

Chapter Seven

If there was one thing Callie didn’t
want to do, it was to take her evening meal with Becky’s great-aunt
Evelyn. The woman was a menace to society. Or, she amended, she was
a menace to Becky and, by default, to Cathie Prophet.

“
I don’t want to leave home
and go to live with Great- Aunt Evelyn, Miss Prophet,” Becky said
in a small voice as Callie toweled her off after her bath. She’d
even washed the child’s hair so that the old crone wouldn’t be able
to find anything else to complain about in Callie’s care of
Becky.

“
It didn’t sound to me as
though your papa wants you to leave him, Becky, so I don’t think
you need to worry about it.”

Suddenly Becky turned, buried her face
in Callie’s apron, and threw her arms around her. “If I do have to
go live in San Frisco, will you come with me?”

Fat chance. Touched by Becky’s obvious
affection for her, Callie said, “Please try not to think about it,
Becky, sweets. I’m sure your papa won’t let Mrs. Bridgewater take
you away.”

The poor little thing had begun to
cry. Callie felt awful. She sat on the dressing stool, picked Becky
up, and settled the child in her lap. “It’s all right, sweetheart.
Nobody wants you to go away. Honest.”

“
But Papa never even sees me
anymore. He wouldn’t even notice if I went away!”

If Callie had possessed one of those
Edison phonographic machine things, she would have liked to record
Becky’s assessment of her father’s behavior and play it back to
him. This was all his fault, and Callie wanted to hit him for
it.

Except that she feared she was
thinking far too much—and too affectionately—about the other
Aubrey, the one who’d written those beautiful letters to his late
wife. The two different men refused to reconcile themselves in
Callie’s mind.

Which was probably just as well. She
had no business mooning over anyone, much less the long-gone writer
of love letters to another woman. She also didn’t like herself much
for continuing to read the letters, even though they did seem to
make Becky feel better when she did. Reading a letter to her before
she pulled the blanket up and went to sleep seemed to cairn her and
help sleep come more easily.

Callie tried to tell herself that
making Becky feel better was the most important part of her job,
but she couldn’t rid herself of the certain knowledge that reading
another person’s personal and intimate correspondence was a foul
and quite probably wicked thing to do.

With a heavy sigh, she said, “Please
don’t cry, Becky love. Everything will work itself out. Don’t
forget that your unpleasant aunt will be leaving soon.”

Sniffing and wiping her eyes, Becky
withdrew her head from Callie’s dampened shoulder and gazed up at
her, nearly breaking Callie’s heart. “Do . . . do you think
Great-Aunt Evelyn is unpleasant?”

Drat her too-ready tongue. Already
Callie was regretting having spoken the truth so freely in front of
Becky, no matter how much she meant it. “Well, I didn’t care for
her upon first meeting her, although I’m sure she’s a very nice
person, really.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. The childhood taunt
flickered through Callie’s brain, and she banished it
instantly.

Becky shook her head and submitted to
having her cheeks wiped by Callie’s handkerchief. “She’s not nice.
Even Mama didn’t like her.”

“
She didn’t?” It often
surprised Callie how much Becky remembered of her mother. She’d
have expected Anne’s image to have faded more by this time since
Becky had been so young at the time of her mother’s
death.

“
No. Mama always looked
funny when Great-Aunt Evelyn was around. Sometimes she made funny
faces behind her back.”

Easy to understand. And one more
indication that Anne Lockhart had been a splendid woman—small
wonder Aubrey had worshiped her. Callie said, “I see. Well, we must
be polite to her, even if we don’t care much to be around her. Will
you be extra polite at dinner tonight, and use your company
manners, Becky?”

“
Uh-h uh asks me to eat in
the nursery, will you eat there with me?”

Her charge sounded so cheerful all at
once that Callie laughed. “I’d be happy to. I’m sure we’d have more
fun eating by ourselves in the nursery than with Great-Aunt Evelyn
in the dining room.”

Becky’s mood slid downward again. “But
if we eat in the nursery, I won’t get to see Mr. Henderson, and I
like him. He’s nice, and he tells funny stories.”

“
Ah, well, I expect your
papa will want you to dine with the company, sweetheart, so you’ll
just have to watch yourself that you don’t incur your great-aunt’s
censure.”

“
What’s that
mean?”

With another laugh, Callie explained.
“That means you’d better be especially polite, or she’ll come down
on you like a boulder.”

Becky loved it when Callie used the
expressions she’d learned from her brother and his friends. She
generally delivered them in “New Yorkese,” too, which added to
Becky’s enjoyment and made her giggle.

As she slipped a pretty evening dress
over Becky’s head and buttoned her up, Callie started singing a
song. Becky loved to sing, and soon the two of them were deep into
the chorus of “Yankee Doodle.”

As Callie brushed and braided Becky’s
hair, she reflected on how appealing the notion of taking a relaxed
dinner in the kitchen with Mrs. Granger, Figgins, and Delilah
sounded. The two of them could eat in pleasant, relaxed
surroundings and then go upstairs to the nursery where they could
start organizing their birds’ nests and feathers. Such a happy
prospect was thwarted by Aubrey himself. Callie’s evening’s doom
was sealed with a knock at Becky’s bedroom door.

Callie answered the knock and
discovered herself face to face with Aubrey. She frowned and
stepped back to allow him entry. He frowned at her in his turn. In
other words, things were normal. She said with as little inflection
as possible, “Won’t you come in, Mr. Lockhart?”

“
Thank you, Miss Prophet. I
shall.”

As ever, he sounded vaguely ironic
when speaking to her. Unless he was being downright inhumane, which
happened often enough, he sounded sarcastic. Callie made a face at
his back, then glanced quickly at Becky. She breathed a sigh of
relief when she saw that Becky had not noticed Callie’s immature
lapse.

The poor darling child craved her
father’s love and approval so much, and Callie knew she ought to be
glad when he made one of his infrequent appearances in the nursery
or Becky’s bedroom. Instead, she made faces at him. She sometimes
wondered if she was destined to live and die an old maid because
she couldn’t control her deplorable behavior.

Becky spotted her father and ran over
to him. “Papa!” She was overjoyed to see her father—which made one
of them, Callie thought nastily.

He smiled and picked his daughter.
“You’re looking as bright and shiny as a new penny, Becky. All
cleaned up, I see.”

His daughter nodded vigorously,
although Callie had to fight against making another face. Blast
him. What did he expect, anyhow? If a child were to have any kind
of life at all, she had to get dirty sometimes. Callie had
deliberately chosen an old frock for Becky’s bird-nest-gathering
adventure, blast it. It’s not as if they’d grubbed around in the
mud wearing one of her brand-new school dresses.

“
And Miss Prophet washed my
hair, too,” Becky told him cheerfully.

“
I see. You look very
pretty, Becky.”

Was it Callie’s imagination, or did a
spasm of pain flit across his face?

Oh, pooh, she was just making things
up, she decided at once. Aubrey was a tough enough nut to crack
without Callie endowing him with pangs of deathless love and all
that rot.

No matter what those letters told her
about the Aubrey that used to be.

“
Thanks, Papa.” Becky gave
him an impulsive hug, which he returned,

Callie always felt a little left out
whenever father and daughter expressed any sort of spontaneous
affection. She knew the feeling didn’t do her credit, but she
couldn’t help it.

“
Dinner will be served in a
little while, Becky, and I came in to invite you to join Mrs.
Bridgewater and Mr. Henderson.” He turned and eyed Callie. “You and
Miss Prophet.”

It was just like him, Callie thought
bitterly, to thrust her into the midst of the enemy with little
warning.

Becky didn’t seem quite as cheerful as
she had been when her father had first arrived. Nevertheless, she
was an obedient child. “All right, Papa. Can I sit next to
you?”

Callie’s heart gave a little ache that
Becky should want to sit next to him instead of next to her. It was
a very little ache, so she didn’t mentally chide herself too hard
for being a petty, spiteful, mean-spirited, selfish
weasel.

“
Your great-aunt will be
sitting to my right, sweetheart, and since Mark Henderson is our
guest, he’ll probably want to be on the left. But you and Miss
Prophet may sit next to them. We won’t have any leaves put in the
table, and it’s not going to be a formal dinner. You’ll have a lot
of opportunity to talk to everyone. I’m sure you and your
great-aunt will have much to say to each other.”

Becky looked stricken.

Callie muttered, “Oh, really?” under
her breath, and then wished she’d held her flapping
tongue.

Aubrey turned and gave her a look. She
returned the look with one of her own, although she knew she’d been
at fault. With a sigh, she decided she owed it to him to help him
out during the unfortunate conditions prevailing that evening in
the Lockhart mansion.

“
Don’t worry, Becky, I’m
sure she won’t be unkind,” Callie said, although she knew no such
thing.

Aubrey bridled, “Of course, she won’t
be unkind! She only has Becky’s welfare at heart.”

Like hell,
Callie thought savagely. She seldom even thought
profanities, and never uttered them aloud, but this was a special
case. She said, “Of course.”

Becky said with great urgency, “I
don’t want to go live in San Frisco, Papa. Honest, I don’t. I’ll
try to stay clean. Please? I didn’t mean to get dirty
today.”

Callie rolled her eyes. “Becky, it’s
all right. Nobody knew your great-aunt was going to show up today.”
She shot another look at Aubrey. “At any rate, no one told me if
she’d written to announce her intentions.”

“
She didn’t write.” Aubrey
sounded miffed with her. What a surprise.

Callie went on, “And you were wearing
an old frock that was going to be tossed into Mrs. Granger’s
rug-making bag. I’m sure your papa isn’t angry just because we’d
been collecting birds’ nests and got a bit messy.”

At least Aubrey had the decency to
agree with her. “Absolutely, Becky. Nobody’s angry because you got
your old dress dirty. Mrs. Bridgewater is just a stickler, is
all.”

Becky seemed eager to accept this,
although she did ask, “What’s a stickler?”

Aubrey laughed and gave her another
hug. “A stickler is a person who doesn’t think children should ever
behave like children.”

“
Oh.” A worried expression
visited Becky’s face. “Then I really don’t want to go live with
her, Papa.”

“
You won’t go live with her,
Becky. Please don’t worry about that. I’ll never send you away, I
promise.”

Well, thought Callie, and
she gave an audible sniff,
that
was something, anyway.

*****

Aubrey finished dressing for dinner
early and went downstairs to eye the table arrangements. If he
could help it, Bilgewater wouldn’t be able to carry tales of his
sloppy housekeeping back to San Francisco. Mrs. Granger had told
Delilah to set out the fancy Wedgewood china that Aubrey and Anne
had bought in England during their honeymoon.

With a sigh, Aubrey allowed his gilded
memories to play in his head for several seconds before shoving
them away again. He hated wasting the Wedgewood on Old Bilgewater,
but he’d agreed with Mrs. Granger that he should, since Bilgewater
expected to be served only the best, both in fodder and in
utensils. The table looked all right to him, although he was no
expert.