Heaven Sent (23 page)

Worse than that was the specter of
approximately ten matrons, all dressed to the teeth, and all
exhibiting various degrees of formidability and fascination. Aubrey
imagined they’d all come to Becky’s party in order to say they’d
visited the Lockhart mansion and seen for themselves the reclusive
owner thereof. He felt rather like the protagonist of a Gothic
romance novel.

The very least pleasing aspect of the
arrangements was that of Great-Aunt Evelyn Bridgewater, who was at
present holding court in the middle of the flock of mothers. Aubrey
had resisted inviting her, but Callie had prevailed. She always
prevailed, a fact that Aubrey didn’t understand.

But when she’d said, “Mr. Lockhart,
Mrs. Bridgewater is Becky’s great-aunt, and she’s sure to find out
about the party. If you don’t invite her, her doubts about your
fitness as a parent will be reinforced in her own mind.”

“
And can you tell me why I
should care what she thinks?” Aubrey had inquired
frigidly.

“
You should care,” Callie
had responded promptly, “because she’s your late wife’s aunt. I’m
sure you don’t wish to have the late Mrs. Lockhart’s family believe
you wish to sever communications with them, and you know full well
that Aunt Glenda can’t come because she’s involved with Amalie’s
wedding plans.”

Damn it, she was right. He’d never
admit it. “I don’t want to sever communications with them, and they
know that! For heaven’s sake, I went to that infernal engagement
party, didn’t I?” Aubrey had bridled. He’d even bristled. “It’s
only old Bilgewater I don’t want hanging about.”

With a smile she couldn’t suppress,
Callie had said, “Yes, but she seems to have been elected—or, more
likely, she appointed herself—family spokesman. You know it as well
as I do. Even the late Mrs. Lockhart knew it.”

Aubrey had stared at her, befuddled,
and she’d blushed. He’d been on the verge of asking her how she
knew Anne had acknowledged Mrs. Bridgewater’s status, but decided
it wasn’t worth the breath it would take to ask the question.
Instead, he’d agreed, without any enthusiasm whatsoever, to invite
Old Bilgewater to Becky’s birthday party.

He guessed it was a good thing he’d
done so, although he still had his doubts about how pleasurable the
day was going to be for him. He had enough trouble dealing with one
child, and that one his own daughter, whom he loved. He couldn’t
imagine getting along with a couple of dozen other children whom he
didn’t know at all, plus their mothers. Add Bilgewater into the
mix, and it sounded toxic to him.

Callie had told him not to worry about
any of the arrangements, that she’d take care of
everything.

He didn’t doubt it for a minute. She
was exceptionally adept at organizing things. Not to mention
people. After scarcely three months of tenure as Becky’s nanny, she
had the entire Lockhart household adhering to schedules and rules
of her making. What astonished Aubrey was that, while he’d noticed
her managing ways and faintly disapproved of them even as he became
more closely attracted to her physical person, no one else in his
household seemed to mind them in the least.

Whatever unique quality Miss Callida
Prophet possessed, he’d concluded several weeks earlier that it was
dangerous and not to be trifled with. He wasn’t exactly sorry he’d
agreed to host this party, however. He wasn’t yet ready to give it
his approval, either. Several days earlier, he’d adopted a
wait-and-see attitude toward the thing.

He was waiting and seeing this
particular Saturday morning, when the party was about to start. As
he stood on the front porch of his mansion, waving at incoming
carriages and wagons, steeling his nerves to join the herd of
matrons under the tent and wondering if he looked as skeptical as
he felt, he noticed himself growing grumpier and grumpier. A
birthday party. Who ever heard of such a thing?

Callie Prophet, that’s who.

“
Isn’t it wonderful, Mr.
Lockhart? The only child who didn’t accept Becky’s invitation was
Gloria Hurst, and that’s only because she had to have a tooth
pulled yesterday, and her jaw is sore and swollen today. Her
brother, Billy, is here, along with their mother.”

Callie waved a folded sheet of paper
under his nose, which only served to irritate him further. He
snatched the paper from her hand. “Yes. Thank you. I can see that
we’re going to be overrun with children and their mothers.” He
pitched his tone to sound as ungracious as he felt.

“
Oh, stop being an old
fusspot,” Callie told him. Then, when he stared at her, she
blushed. “I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have said
that.”

Aubrey could tell her apology was less
than sincere.

“
Well, never mind,” she said
into his silence. “1 think this will be a wonderful party!” And she
ran down the porch steps and into a cluster of children.

Aubrey watched her with mingled
annoyance and fascination. For some reason, the notion of
remarrying had been niggling at his conscious mind ever since
they’d all attended Amalie Harriott’s engagement party last month.
He didn’t seriously consider the prospect, because he couldn’t
imagine loving anyone but Anne.

Still, the prospect kept bothering
him. And, really, when he thought about it rationally, it might be
a good idea for him to remarry. For Becky’s sake. She deserved two
parents. A daughter, in particular, needed a mother.

Who are you trying to fool,
Lockhart
?

The truth of the matter was that
Aubrey himself wouldn’t mind a warm body in his bed every now and
then. He was still a young man, and he possessed a young man’s
needs and desires.

Remorse stabbed him as effectively as
if the god of guilt bad heaved a lance and pierced his
heart.

Dash it, remarrying would be a
betrayal of Anne and of his marriage vows to her. So what if she
was dead? Aubrey had loved her with his whole heart and soul. He
couldn’t imagine loving anyone else.

Not that marriage necessarily had to
include love. Plenty of men remarried after their wives died
because they needed mothers for their children. And, while it was
true that Aubrey Lockhart could afford to hire people to look after
his daughter, it might be better to have a wife to see to things.
More secure, and all that. After all, wives were more or less
permanent. Nannies and so forth were subject to the vagaries of
employment.

Callie and several of the young
matrons who had accompanied their children to Becky’s party started
singing a song that evidently went with a well-known children’s
game, since all of the assembled children grabbed hands and started
walking around in a circle. Aubrey watched with interest. It seemed
that there was an entire culture devoted to the rearing of children
about which he was ignorant. This game, for example, seemed to be
known by one and all. Except him.

And Old Bilgewater. Aubrey saw her
lift her lorgnette—he presumed she’d chosen lorgnette over her
spectacles today in order to appear festive—to her bulging eyes and
watch the party game. It looked to him as if she disapproved, which
was only to be expected. Bilgewater disapproved of everything. His
attention returned to the children.

He stared when Callie, laughing
merrily, picked up a little boy and whirled him around. Aubrey
supposed this was part of the game, but it wasn’t a decorous one,
Callie’s skirts flew up, revealing her plain cotton drawers.
Squinting and wishing he had a lorgnette like Bilgewater’s, he
could make out that the bottom ruffle was not lacy, and that there
seemed to be a blue satin ribbon as trim. Otherwise, they were as
plain as dirt, and a far cry from the frilly underthings Anne used
to wear.

Which brought his mind back to the
matter of wedlock, and the benefits that could accrue to a man
through the age-old institution of marriage. Damn, but Callie
Prophet had a spectacular figure. She was built on more buxom lines
than Anne, who had been tiny and ethereal.

So ethereal, in fact, that she hadn’t
been able to withstand the rigors of life on this earth. Aubrey, a
pain in his chest, imagined her in heaven. Anne would fit into
heaven without causing a ripple in the firmament.

Callie, on the other hand, wasn’t the
least bit ethereal. It was Aubrey’s opinion that she was as sturdy
as an ox. But more appealing.

“
Appealing? Get a hold on
yourself, man.”

How long had it been since he and Anne
had made love? He shook his head as he counted up the months. More
than twenty-four of them, as Anne had been so terribly ill for so
long.

When I’m gone, please don’t
grieve forever, Aubrey. Find a nice woman to be a wife to you and a
mother to Becky
.

Anne’s words, as clear as the day
she’d said them, entered Aubrey’s head like the wind, fairly
knocking him over with the recollection. He shut his eyes,
remembering.

“
Ah, Anne,” he murmured,
wondering why he’d forgotten.

The doctors had just rendered their
verdict. All the doctors. Even the ones Aubrey had imported from
Europe and back east. Anne’s illness was a cancer, it was
inoperable, and it was killing her. Aubrey and Anne had just
returned from their last fruitless trip to San Francisco. That
night, he’d sat by her bedside, holding her hand, his heart
throbbing with grief and the knowledge of impending
loss.

Anne had accepted the news with much
more fortitude than Aubrey had—probably because she’d known her
illness was fatal from the beginning. Anne had been like that.
Perceptive. Realistic. Aubrey had wanted to fight the disease, but
Anne had known that fighting would only exhaust them both, and
eventually come to naught. She’d begged him to accept her
approaching death with peace and grace.

Then she’d told him to
remarry. For his sake and Becky’s—and her own
. I’ll die happy if I know you’ll take care of yourself
Aubrey. Take care of yourself and Becky. For me. Please. I want you
to be happy
.

He’d forgotten that. During the past
couple of years, he’d managed to forget everything but how awful it
had been to watch her waste away. And suffer. She’d suffered
agonies from the pain. At the end, she’d probably been addicted to
morphine, but Aubrey didn’t care. Better morphine than frightful
torture from the cancer eating her up.

He shut his eyes for a moment, unable
to bear the pictures memory was dredging up and presenting to his
mind’s eye. Damn it, he didn’t want to remember Anne as that
fragile, fading flower. He wanted to remember Anne as she’d been in
the beginning: beautiful, lithe, graceful, full of gentle humor and
boundless love.

And she’d told him to remarry. With a
sigh, he opened his eyes and looked out on the lawn where the party
was proceeding with vigor and energy. Callie spotted him, put her
fists on her hips in a mock-serious manner, and shouted, “Come down
from your throne, Mr. Lockhart! You can help us pin the tail on the
donkey!”

“
Yes, Papa!” Becky called
out to him—and Aubrey couldn’t recall the last time he’d heard her
sound so ebullient. “I want you to play with us!”

Good God. Aubrey couldn’t imagine a
worse fate than being in the midst of—how many were there? fifteen?
twenty?—little children with whom he had no sympathy or ability to
deal. And with Bilgewater looking on and censuring him, no matter
what he did.

So why did he find himself waving
back, smiling, and calling out, “All right, sweetheart. Where’s
this donkey of yours?”

“
It’s on the
treeeee
!” Becky had
shouted with glee.

He was probably only crazy.

If he was crazy, he decided later,
insanity might not be as terrible as he’d always heard it was. He
actually, really and truly, had a good time playing with the
children and Callie. Callie was the one who tied the blindfold over
the children’s eyes, but she appointed Aubrey to spin the children
around so that each would lose his or her point of reference and
head any which way with the donkey’s homemade tail in
hand.

Once Aubrey had to scamper out of the
way or get the donkey’s tail pinned on his own backside. Becky had
squealed with delight. Instead of feeling foolish, he’d laughed as
loudly and genuinely as everyone else present. Everyone except
Bilgewater, that is.

He did, however, refuse to
have himself blindfolded and spun around and then try to find the
donkey’s hind end. He might be crazy, but he wasn’t
that
crazy.

Following pin the tail on the donkey,
roller skates were passed around. Aubrey had given Callie free
reign to purchase whatever she chose for the party, and, she’d
chosen roller skates. She’d said they could serve as party
favors.

Rather cumbersome party favors, he
thought now, although the children didn’t seem to mind. Actually,
to look at them and listen to them, the children were ecstatic.
Their mothers were interested. Bilgewater disapproved, of
course.

Aubrey, unwilling to put on roller
skates and make a total fool of himself, retired to a bench under a
tree. From this vantage point, he watched the proceedings with
fascination.