Heaven Sent (32 page)

She took a deep breath, which
effectively drew Aubrey’s attention to her bosom. It was a very
nice bosom. He felt a surge of lust and anticipation. Dash it,
Callie might be a difficult woman, but she was a remarkably
well-built one. Her cheeks now sported twin banners of fire. Aubrey
guessed they betokened some kind of modesty on her part, although
he wouldn’t have thought she possessed much of that
quality.

“
Thank you, Mr.
Lockhart.”

Her voice was shaking. It didn’t sound
particularly grateful, either. Aubrey sharpened his gaze. “You’re
welcome.”

“
It was very nice of you to
make such a . . . a . . . sporting offer.”

“
Sporting? A sporting offer?
What the devil do you mean by that?”

Her smile chilled him. “I mean, I
understand that you think you need a wife, Mr. Lockhart. I,
however, do not believe I’m the woman for you.”

He gaped at her.

She went on. “I must say that, until
this afternoon, no one has ever given me reason to believe I’m a
particularly compliant, woman.”

“
Compliant? Dash it, you’re
impossible most of the timer”

“
Exactly.”

There were certainly lots of teeth in
that smile of hers. It made Aubrey nervous and he glanced around
for lightweight objects near her hands that she might possibly pick
up and heave at him. He didn’t altogether trust her mood.
Nevertheless, he wanted to get at the bottom of this refusal, if it
was a refusal. “I still don’t understand. Do you mean to tell me
you’re declining my proposal?”

“
It sounded more like a
business transaction to me, sir. I exchange my body and soul for
your pleasure.”

“
Pleasure? Good God, I
didn’t mean it that way! I want Becky to have a mother. I want her
to have
you
as a
mother.” Confused and feeling increasingly misunderstood, offended,
and desperate, he bellowed, “Confound it, she’s
used
to you!”

She nodded. If her cheeks hadn’t
turned a bright crimson by this time, Aubrey might have thought she
was completely unemotional. “I see. I understand why you might not
want to—to break in another female, as it were. After all, Becky’s
suffered enough losses in her short life.”

Thank God she was beginning to
understand. He expelled a gust of breath. “Exactly. Yes. That’s it
exactly.”

“
I see. I fear I can’t
oblige you, Mr. Lockhart.” She turned around and started for the
door.

Aubrey goggled at her retreating
figure. “You what? But—but— Callie, wait!”

She whirled around, stamping
a foot in the process. “Don’t you dare follow me,” she commanded in
a measured, ferocious voice. “I have never received such
a—a—a
damnable
offer in my entire life. I can’t believe even you are so lost
to feeling that you’d think a woman would accept such a proposition
as the one you just made me.”

“
Proposition? Dash it, I
just proposed marriage to you!” This was impossible. It was
irrational. It was, in short, exactly like her. “Damnation, I want
you to marry me!”

“
No, you don’t. You want a
built-in nanny and a general housemaid you don’t have to pay
for.”

His mouth fell open. All of his words
dried up, along with his thought processes.

“
Well, let me tell you
something, Mr. Aubrey Lockhart. I wouldn’t marry you if you were
the last man on earth!” She turned abruptly and stomped off,
leaving Aubrey at a complete loss.

Then it struck him. He even slapped
his head. “Henderson,” he breathed. “She’s in love with Mark
Henderson.”

Well, dash it. After briefly
considering following her— and deciding against it as soon as the
thought crossed his mind—Aubrey turned and wandered hack to the
window behind his desk. “Henderson.” Something in his chest
scrunched up and started throbbing.

Damn.

*****

Callie walked all the way upstairs to
her bedroom, opened her door, and even shut it behind her without
slamming it. She’d turned the key in the lock and walked to the
fireplace before the floodgates opened and tears of rage overcame
her.

“
Damn him!” she whispered
harshly, startling the cat, who had been curled up on her bed, into
lifting his head and eyeing her. His eyes looked golden in the
afternoon sunlight coming through her window. Callie marched to the
fireplace, lifted a Chinese ornament from the mantel and was about
to smash it to the carpeted floor when she stopped
herself.

“
No sense breaking priceless
Chinese ornaments,” she muttered. “I’d undoubtedly have to pay for
it, and I don’t suppose a year’s wages as Becky’s nanny would cover
the cost of the blasted thing.”

She eyed the ornament with loathing.
It looked as if it had been made from some kind of ivory. It was an
intricately carved ball containing several other intricately carved
balls that got progressively smaller toward the center of the
thing. It was probably a masterpiece of artistry, but at the moment
Callie’s fingers itched to break it. And, after she’d hurled it to
the floor, she wanted to grind the pieces under her feet until they
were powder. Dust. Particles of trash.

Wheeling around, she stared at her
cat, who stared back impassively.

“
Oh, God, Monster, how could
he?”

The cat didn’t so much as blink at
her. He only gazed upon her with his enigmatic cat’s eyes gleaming.
Callie sucked in a breath that scraped a throat that was already so
tight it ached. When she let the breath out, it sounded like the
dying gasp of sick duck.

“
Oh, God.”

Unable to deny her pain any longer,
Callie threw herself face down on her bed. Monster hissed, but he
didn’t jump up and run away. Callie appreciated his consideration,
because she needed him just then. Grabbing him around his rotund
middle, she buried her head in his soft fur and wept until she
thought for sure her heart would shatter.

It was a heart already
broken. It felt as if it had been smashed like that Chinese
ornament would have been if she’d been less considerate. Damn him,
damn him,
damn
him.

“
I love him, Monster,” she
whispered several minutes later when she could gather sufficient
breath. “I love him, and he just offered me a business proposition.
As if I’m no more to him than a—a—” She couldn’t think of the right
word and pounded on the bed with her fist, thus offending Monster,
who tried to get away, but she wouldn’t let him.

“
I’m a convenience!” she
cried into his fur. “I’m here, and he wants me for Becky.
For
Becky
!”

Monster muttered a low growl, but he
didn’t bare his claws or his teeth.

“
Oh, God, I can’t stand
it.”

Callie hadn’t slept much the night
before, and the emotional energy required to react to Aubrey’s
damnable proposition succeeded in draining her entirely. After
sobbing her heart out for what seemed like hours, she eventually
subsided into gasping hiccups before she fell into an exhausted
slumber, still clinging to her cat, who immediately began smoothing
his ruffled fur when Callie’s grip lessened.

She had no idea how long she’d been
sleeping when a quiet tapping came at her door. She sat up on the
bed and rubbed her eyes. Monster, who’d given up thoughts of escape
and, catlike, accepted the inevitable and napped along with her
after licking his fur back into place, eyed her malevolently, his
expression that of a cat sorely tried.

The tapping came again. “Miss
Prophet?”

It was Becky. Callie suppressed a
groan and stood up, staggering slightly. She must have been upset
to allow herself to fall apart so absolutely. She cleared her
throat, which felt raw. “Becky?” Good heavens, she sounded like a
hoarse toad.

“
Miss Prophet? Papa said you
weren’t feeling well. Are you sick?”

Callie had made it to the ornately
carved teakwood bureau. The sight she saw in the mirror was so
appalling, she groaned aloud.

“
Miss Prophet?” The little
girl sounded worried now.

Oh, Lord, None of this was Becky’s
fault. Callie refused to take her emotional distress out on the
child. “Just a minute, Becky sweets. I’ll be right
there.”

Aubrey Lockhart was rich enough to
have installed hot-and-cold running water when he’d built his
mansion, but that didn’t help Callie at the moment, since the
bathroom was down the hall. Fortunately, Delilah always filled the
water pitchers in the bedrooms during her morning rounds. Callie
was, therefore, able to pour some water into the basin and give her
face a cold scrub.

When she glanced in the mirror again,
she saw that the water hadn’t done much good. Her eyelids were
swollen up like pumpkins and about the same color. What she needed
was a damp, cool rag and a good long nap or three.

That couldn’t be helped. Resigning
herself to lie to Becky—she’d never tell the little girl how her
father had crushed Callie’s self-respect and shattered her
composure—she walked to the door and opened it, She smiled down at
the child. “Come on in, Becky. I was, er, napping.”

Becky looked as worried as she’d
sounded. “Papa said you

weren’t feeling well. Are you sick?
You look sick.”

Wonderful, and not unexpected. “I, er,
don’t feel too well,” she temporized.

The little girl nodded. “Papa said I
wasn’t to bother you, but I didn’t think it would be a bother to
ask you if you’re sick.”

“
You’re absolutely correct,
sweetheart
.” Papa said I wasn’t to bother
you, indeed,
Callie thought
savagely.
He said you were
sick.

The brute. Callie wished
Aubrey Lockhart were here—without Becky. She’d show him sick. She’d
make
him
sick.

“
Can I come in and sit
down?”

“
Of course, you may,
sweetheart. Come right in.”

Because Callie couldn’t think of a
single thing with which to amuse Becky, her imagination having been
drained along with her emotions, she gestured to the bed. “Why
don’t you pet Monster for a bit. Maybe I can find a book to
read.”

Her head ached, and Callie felt about
as much like reading as she did climbing an Alp, but it was the
least stressful way she could think of to amuse Becky. “Um, can you
think of a book you’d like me to read to you?”

Becky plopped on the bed and started
petting the cat. “How come his coat’s wet?” she asked.

Callie felt her lips tighten. “I don’t
know, sweetie. About that book . . .”

Becky’s cherubic face took on a
worried cast. “I don’t know. Maybe we can find one in Papa’s
liberry.”

If there was anything Callie wanted to
do less than she wanted to read to Becky, it was to see Aubrey
Lockhart again this day. She said cautiously, “Um, is your papa
there, do you know?”

Becky shook her head, looking
troubled. “He said he had to go out for a while.”

Aubrey never just went out for a
while. Callie didn’t wonder that Becky was worried. “Did he say
where he was going?” She’d never known him to visit the village
saloon. She hoped he hadn’t gone out to drink.

But no. It was she who was upset by
the afternoon’s events. Aubrey had no stake in her acceptance of
his proposal—except that he’d have to find somebody else to propose
to. He most assuredly wasn’t heartbroken. Not like, for instance,
Callie herself, whose heart felt as if it were being hacked at by
several crazed woodsmen with dull axes. At the notion of his
marrying someone else, that same heart suffered such a terrible
spasm she pressed her hand over it in an attempt to soothe
herself.

Becky went on, “He said he just wanted
to ride for a while and think.”

“
I see.”

If her blasted heart would stop aching
so terribly, Callie might be able to think, too. Her heart didn’t
seem to want to oblige her, so she stopped trying to think and
said, “Let’s go downstairs and find a book, shall we?”

Nodding, Becky got off the bed. She
didn’t look very cheery, and Callie’s heart gave another spasm. “Is
something the matter, sweetheart’?”

Becky heaved a sigh that was a good
deal bigger than she was. “No. But you don’t feel good, and Papa
doesn’t feel good, and it makes me not happy.”

“
Oh, Becky.” Wounded to the
soul, Callie stooped and picked up the little girl. “Let’s see if
we can make you more happy, shall we?”

Becky snuggled her head against
Callie’s shoulder and nodded. “Thank you, Mama. I mean Miss
Prophet.”

The slip of the tongue was so
unexpected,, it made Callie gasp involuntarily. A swelling of guilt
shot through her, pausing to wrap its tendrils around her already
battered heart. Offhand, she couldn’t recall when she’d been more
miserable.

Once they got downstairs to
the library, Becky selected a copy of
Little Lord Fauntleroy
from Aubrey’s
bookshelves. Callie wondered if Aubrey would be rereading this book
any time soon.