Heaven Sent (17 page)

As Callie played the first few chords,
Becky folded her in her lap and looked eagerly at the music. Mark
leaned against the piano, a baby grand that Aubrey had bought for
Anne on their first wedding anniversary, and gazed soulfully at
Callie. Bilgewater sat in a chair as overstuffed as she was and
watched with an expression of clear disapproval on her face.
Observing it all, Aubrey wondered if his life would ever be happy
again. He doubted it.

“ ‘
Down yonder green valley,
as streamlets meander . . .’ ”

The lovely old tune filtered through
the memories in Aubrey’s mind. Anne used to sing it, too. The ache
in his heart cranked up a notch. Miss Prophet possessed a nice
voice. Not nearly as nice as Anne’s had been, but perfection
happens so seldom in life that Aubrey didn’t fault her for it.
Besides, Anne’s voice had been a lilting soprano. Miss Prophet sang
in a lower range. In a choir, she’d be an alto, Aubrey
supposed.

For a moment, he allowed himself to
wonder how Anne and Callie would have sounded singing together.
Fine, he’d bet, and he wished he could hear their duet. But he
tried not to dwell on impossibilities, so he set that thought aside
almost as soon as it entered his head. Becky and Miss Prophet’s
voices blended together sweetly. When Mark entered the lists in a
tolerable baritone, Miss Prophet smiled up at him without missing a
note.

Dash it, how dare Mark do his wooing
here, in Aubrey’s house? Aubrey rose from his chair and marched
over to the piano. He took a place against the piano on the other
side from Mark, who had, Aubrey noted sourly, chosen to stand on
Miss Prophet’s side of the piano bench.

Becky smiled up at her papa, surprised
and gratified unless Aubrey missed his guess, and he decided it was
better this way. He, too, began to sing, in a musical bass. He and
Anne had enjoyed singing together, especially at Christmastime,
when they’d entertained family and visitors with renditions of
favorite carols. His heart still ached as he sang, although the
pain eased slightly the longer Miss Prophet played.

After
The Ash Grove
, she struck up an
introduction of
My Wild Irish
Rose
. From there, they went on to The Red
River Valley, and then Callie played the opening bars of
Lorena
.

After the last note of that
venerable old chestnut had died away, Mark spoke up. “I think we
ought to play something a little livelier now. How about
The Sidewalks of New York
?”

“
Oh, yes!” Becky gazed
big-eyed at Mark. “Miss Prophet does a splendid New York accent,
Mr. Henderson. You ought to hear her. She’s so funny!”

Laughing, Mark said, “I’d like to hear
that.”

“
It’s quite something.”
Aubrey smiled at Miss Prophet.

From the frown she offered him in
return, Aubrey guessed his smile had been a little too catlike for
her.

He glanced at Bilgewater, who glowered
at him, as disapproving as ever. No surprise there. Aubrey wondered
when she’d last approved of anything, and guessed that it was
before his own birth. To hell with the old biddy. “I think that’s a
wonderful idea, Mark.” To Callie, he said, “Strike up the band,
Miss Prophet.”

Becky laughed again. Miss Prophet’s
smile appeared rather strained. Nevertheless, she played and sang
gamely. She did manage to produce ‘a fairly credible accent, from
what Aubrey recalled of his visits back East,

“
Can we play
The Cat Came Back
now?”
Becky asked after they’d nailed
The
Sidewalks of New York
to the
wall.

Miss Prophet sighed gently. “I expect
so, Becky. And then, we ought to get you to bed.”

Although Becky looked disappointed,
she didn’t argue. Aubrey wondered how one man—he—could have been
blessed with such a combination of foul and good luck. Of course,
the foul luck, Anne’s death, had come about directly from his good
luck, which had been attaining her in the first place. And the good
luck of having such a glorious daughter as Becky was the result of
that same good luck.

Ah, Anne
, he thought suddenly,
why did you
have to leave us
?

But there never had been, and never
would be, an answer to that one, he knew.

Callie started
playing
The Cat Came
Back
. Aubrey, glancing at old Bilgewater,
saw that she was now scowling hideously.

He rolled his eyes and wondered how
one woman could be so unpleasant. She must have gathered unto
herself all the unpleasantness that had skipped the other members
of the Harriott family. None of Anne’s other relatives was a
sourpuss.

The first verse of the song passed
without incident. Becky’s clear childish soprano chimed merrily
along with Callie’s alto and Mark’s baritone. Aubrey decided to
play onlooker during this particular piece. The three singers
clearly enjoyed the chorus.

“ ‘
. . . thought he was a
goner, but the cat came back for it wouldn’t stay away,’” they all
sang, exhibiting various degrees of melodrama.

The singers were well into
the second verse before Aubrey knew anything in his household,
other than the usual, was amiss. They had just sung, “caught the
cat behind the ear,” when a shriek issued from the overstuffed
woman on the overstuffed chair. Miss Prophet, startled, brought her
hands down on the piano keys in a discordant, jarring note. Becky
shouted, “
What
!”
and Mark jumped at least a foot.

“
Oh!” bellowed Bilgewater.
“What is it? Oh, get it away from me!”

All of the singers swiveled to take in
the spectacle of the maroon matron, eye to eye with a huge black
cat, fluffed out to twice his normal size, which was immense to
begin with, and with his back arched into the classic
witch’s-familiar pose.

Callie slapped a hand to her cheek.
“Oh, no!”

Becky sat silent and stared, goggle
eyed, at Bilgewater and the cat.

Mark, agog, muttered, “What the . . .
?”

It was, therefore, left to Aubrey to
march across the drawing room carpet and reach for the cat. “It’s
only Monster, Mrs. Bridgewater.” He tried to sound
matter-of-fact,

Bilgewater’s face had gone
as purple as her gown. “A
monster
? It’s a
cat
!” she screamed.

“
Of course,” said Aubrey.
“Obviously, it’s a cat.” He turned and glowered furiously at
Callie, who jumped up from the piano bench.

“
Oh, dear. I thought he was
upstairs. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Bilge—ah Mrs. Bridgewater.” She
hurried over to Aubrey and the menace.

“
It’s only Monster,” Becky
piped up. “He’s a nice cat. Honest, he is, Great-Aunt
Evelyn.”

Bilgewater rose from her chair like
something out of a horror novel. A creature from a crypt couldn’t
have looked more dangerous, Aubrey thought. He thrust the cat into
Miss Prophet’s outstretched arms, “Here,” he said. “Take this thing
out of here.”

“
Certainly, Mr. Lockhart.”
Callie gazed in consternation at Mrs. Bridgewater, who was eyeing
her and the cat as if they were Satan and one of his minions. She
stammered, “I—I’m so sorry, Mrs. Bridgewater. Monster’s usually
shut up in my room during mealtimes. I don’t know how he managed to
get out.”

“
I have never,” Mrs.
Bridgewater said in a tone so frigid, the very air around her
seemed to freeze, “been so insulted.”

Before Aubrey could intervene with a
conciliatory—or even a commanding—word or two, Callie spoke. “I
find that very hard to believe, Mrs. Bridgewater. Especially if you
speak to everyone the way you speak to the members of this
household.” She swirled around. “Come along, Becky. It’s time for
bed.”

“
Well!”

Aubrey watched with fascination as
Bilgewater’s already huge bosom swelled until he feared she might
pop right out of her bodice. Fearing the result of such a
happenstance—if there was one female whose bosom he had no desire
to see, ever, it was Bilgewater—Aubrey finally found his
voice.

Since he wanted Becky to be
comfortable even more than he didn’t want to see Bilgewater burst
her moorings, he opted not to make her say good night to her
great-aunt. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and said,
“Good night, Becky. Sleep tight.”

He was glad he’d thought of his
daughter first when she offered him a tentative, but visibly
grateful, smile and said, “ ’Night, Papa. I will, thank
you.”

She skipped out of the room with Miss
Prophet and Monster, whose fur had settled back into its normal
overly fluffy, but not bristling, state. Aubrey heard her say, “I
don’t know why Great-Aunt Evelyn doesn’t like you, Monster. I think
you’re a fine cat.” She sounded, in short, exactly like Miss
Prophet.

Bilgewater’s voice cut into his
thoughts. “That woman ought to be dismissed, Aubrey. Immediately.”
Mrs. Bridgewater’s voice shook with rage. “She’s a terrible
influence on Rebecca. She’s impertinent and impolite and shouldn’t
have the care of such a small child. I have never been so
insulted.”

Aubrey sighed as his gaze
left the retreating young ladies and fastened once more on his
daughter’s great-aunt. He deliberately narrowed his eyes and
thought to himself exactly what Callie had so imprudently said
aloud. He said, “Oh. Do you really think so?” in a tight voice. To
himself, he added,
You must have met up
with only extremely tolerant and insufferably polite people until
now. And I’ll be damned if I’ll dismiss Miss Prophet just because
you don’t like her. Talking back to you is the first thing she’s
ever done of which I approve wholeheartedly
.

Bilgewater swelled some more. “Aubrey
Lockhart, it is not my intention to remain in this house to be
bedeviled by a hireling.”

“
Nobody’s bedeviling you,
Mrs. Bridgewater.” Aubrey frosted his own voice to match hers.
“You’re the one who came here unannounced. We’ve done nothing but
try to be polite to you, even when you threatened to remove Becky
from her home and my care.”

“
I? Threatened you?
I
?”

Now her eyes had started to bulge.
Aubrey had a momentary mental image of Great-Aunt Evelyn’s inner
self bursting out of her skin and clothes, and pieces of her flying
all over the drawing room. He shuddered and made himself stop
thinking such things.

“
Yes,” he said. “You. You
threatened to remove my child from my care. And I shall never
forget that piece of insufferable meddling, believe you me.” He
gave her a steely-eyed stare to show her that she wasn’t the only
one in the household who could be unpleasant if he chose to
be.

“
Never.
Never
have I been so insulted.
Deliberately insulted. I’m ashamed to be related to you, Aubrey
Lockhart, even by marriage.” She deflated slightly and began moving
toward the drawing-room door.

Mark, about whom Aubrey had forgotten
entirely, darted to the door and bowed civilly to her. Thank, God
for Mark, Aubrey thought, even though mere minutes earlier he’d
wanted to thrash him.

“
Good night, Mrs.
Bridgewater,” Mark said pleasantly as she passed him—not unlike a
steamer passing out of a harbor and into the open sea. Aubrey shook
his head to clear it of these images that seemed to want to take it
over. “Pleasant dreams.”

She gave Mark a superior huff and
stalked toward the stairway. Mark glanced at Aubrey and gave a
shrug of his shoulders, as if to say, “I did my best. Guess I might
have left out the ‘pleasant dreams’ part.”

“
You’re a hero, Mark.”
Aubrey walked over to stand beside his secretary.

Together they watched Bilgewater
navigate the hallway and tackle the stairs. Aubrey muttered, “I
hope she makes it all the way to the top without giving out. I
don’t think the two of us together are strong enough to carry her
to her room if she faints from indignation.”

Mark grinned. “I’m afraid you’re
right.”

But they needn’t have worried. Mrs.
Bridgewater managed to climb the entire stairway and make her way
to the bedroom Mrs. Granger had prepared for her. Aubrey and Mark
went to the foot of the stairs and listened. They both sighed with
relief when they heard the bedroom door close behind
her.

“
Saved by the cat,” Mark
said, grinning

“
Saved?” Aubrey squinted at
his secretary. “If you say so. I’m not so sure, myself.”

“
Heck, the cat got rid of
her, didn’t he? I was afraid she’d sit there and glare at us all
night long.”

Aubrey headed for the brandy decanter.
“There is that, I guess. And I don’t think she can remove Becky
from my custody.”

“
Good God.” Mark looked
stricken. “She couldn’t possibly do such a thing. Could
she?”

“
I don’t think so. I am,
after all, Becky’s father, and I believe the courts take a dim view
of great-aunts pilfering children from their parents’ homes. No
matter what Bilgewater seems to think.” He poured out a stiff one
and held out the snifter to Mark. “I think we deserve at least one
of these.”