Authors: Annette Blair
She should leave. Already, she feared she loved him still, that her body would open to his, even if her mind knew the danger. If she had been uncertain before about her ability to withstand the temptation of him, she was the more so since he’d touched her.
She should find a house elsewhere in the village, now, not next week or next month. But the opportunity to remain at Rectory Cottage, if only for a while, became an unexpected gift. Here, she and Bridget could get to know each other in an easy, familiar setting.
No, she could not give up the opportunity, but she must be strong where Gabriel was concerned. She must deny her body’s needs and her soul’s cry. Soon enough, Gabe would remember that he despised her. Better it should happen when she expected it than when she did not.
She almost wished that he expected the blow she feared she might inevitably deal him. He honestly seemed to care for his stepdaughter. Yet how easy would it be for her to take Bridget and leave here forever, if he did not?
He’d said, himself, that the child was unhappy—who wouldn’t be with a brooding man like him for a stepfather?
Any child would be better off with kin who could bring joy to her life than with a man who could not. Lacey hoped that she read him right as he stood by Bridget’s bed, and that she and Gabriel had love in common where Clara’s child was concerned. If they did, he might come to see that Bridget would fare better with her. That Gabe might not understand how good she could be for Bridget troubled Lacey in the same way he seemed troubled by her interest in Clara’s daughter. Unfortunately, more adversity awaited them both, of that Lacey was certain, since some of it would occur at her instigation.
Gabriel had begged help for his child and she had come to help, even if it inevitably meant taking that child to a happier place. As guardedly sympathetic as she felt for Gabriel at this moment, she would stay, and if her earlier instincts proved correct, she might be best to take Bridget, when the time was right, wounded stepfather or not, and leave.
If her instincts proved wrong and Gabriel made Bridget happy in time, she would perhaps get a cottage nearby so Bridget could visit . . . if the locals allowed her to walk the streets without throwing stones.
Lacey’s heart and mind, one strong with regret, the other with conviction, did battle until dawn when she finally slept.
Gabriel had not slept at all.
He’d paced. He’d brooded. He’d lusted for the woman just the other side of the wall in a way he had not lusted since—
“You’re up early,” MacKenzie said as she entered the kitchen, stopping him mid-pace, her grizzled mop of hair standing at odd angles as always of a morning. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Gabriel shook his head. He was neither refusing to answer nor confirming her supposition. The old meddler could interpret his response however she chose; she would anyway.
“Difficult sermon to write?”
God, he hated it when she pried. He sighed. “I was up half the night delivering twin lambs to Lady Hamilton.”
“That ewe’s too old.”
“Tel
l
he
r
that.”
“Humph, ’tis indecent, a ewe her age breeding,” his wizened housekeeper muttered.
Gabe felt a smile forming, until he recalled the real reason he’d paced the night away. “Oh, and we have company, if you must know.”
“Well, of course, I must. I’ll have to make more Boxty and Scotch eggs now, won’t I? Drop scones, too, I’d warrant. How many and who?”
“Two. Ivy St. Cyr. And Lacey.”
The cast iron griddle she’d just pulled from the cupboard hit the floor with a resounding clatter. Mac covered her mouth with her hand, a myriad of emotions marching across her fretful features—fear, acceptance, then, oddly enough, relief. “’Bout time you two—”
Gabe smacked the table with a hand. “No, by God!”
He startled the old bird into a screech.
“MacKenzie, I’m sorry.” He rose, took her arm, and led her to a chair. “Forgive me. That was . . . I’m better now. Are you?” He fetched her a cup of water.
Her stubborn-Scot scowl grew fierce. “Good thing your little one’s still asleep, or it’d take you another month to get her to look at you, after an outburst like that.”
Another blow, this in a different corner of his agate heart.
Why it mattered so desperately, Gabe couldn’t precisely say, but for the life of him, he was determined to get through to that little bundle of bones with big eyes. “You’re right.”
“I’m always right,” MacKenzie was pleased to pronounce, then she removed her apron and climbed the backstairs.
Gabe sat at the kitchen table and scrubbed his face with his palms, the lamb butting his thigh. He leaned down to scratch its head while he listened for sound at the top of the stairs.
Lacey, dressing upstairs.
Lacey, in the hall in her night-rail, smoothing the hair from his brow.
Lacey with ruffles at her neck, like the first time he saw her in the front pew of his father’s church.
“A four-year-old with black ringlets.” Lace said. “Does she remind you of anyone?”
Ivy coughed.
Mac squeaked.
Praise be, Gabe thought, that his little one did not resemble her mother’s oblivious cousin, Lacey, in temperament.
Lacey had liked to work the vicar’s scruffy son in the same way Ivy worked his puppets. But Gabe had adored her anyway and followed her everywhere. He would have kissed the hem of her gown if she’d let him. He was surprised now she’d never commanded it. Lord, she’d been a tyrant.
Then everything changed. He’d been away studying at seminary forever, it seemed. On rare visits home, he saw that time had wrought change in her. A woman grown, her raven hair formed a striking contrast to alabaster skin kissed by roses. Gull-winged brows hovered over bright, verdant eyes and high, perfect cheekbones. Her smile could make poets weep.
Sweet, snatched conversations between them had told him the woman who’d displaced the brat had become as beautiful inside as out.
The day he’d returned for good, the new parson, a boy no more, dressed well, respectable, he’d found her at their favorite haunt.
God’s perfection in a siren’s body, lush, ripe, Lace ran to him, a smile illuminating her joyful features, arms open to embrace him. And he was lost.
Drugged by her welcome, the opium of her skin, the taste and texture of it, he’d kissed her with a passion that frightened him as much as it pleased her.
Dark. Untamed. Forbidden.
The birds chattered, the heavens blessed them with sunshine, and in the ruins of Ashcroft Abbey, he gave his body, heart, and soul to the woman he’d loved with his entire being for as far back as he could remember.
Before three months had passed, that same woman had hardened his heart, torn into his soul with sharpened claws, and left them bleeding. His body wasn’t in any better shape for some good time after that as he hadn’t cared to look after it.
And now she was back.
Gabe stopped pacing. He didn’t even remember standing. Lacey hadn’t been back an entire day and she was tying him in knots.
“Never again,” he growled.
He’d let passion rule him once and all but died of it.
He would not let it rule again.
Lacey would have to go.
CHAPTER THREE
Hearing a scratch at her door, Lacey put down her hairpins, went to open it, and gasped. Dear Nanny Mac, her beloved old nurse enveloped her in strong, welcoming arms, and they wept amidst the joy of an unexpected reunion.
“I didn’t know it was you,” Lacey said. “MacKenzie, he called you. I should have known. How? How did you end up keeping house for the somber parson? You must want to trounce him out of his grouches ten times a day.”
Mac chuckled even as she dragged her handkerchief from her apron pocket to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. “I went to your cousin right off and stayed to help with the bairn. Two years later, we came back from Scotland and Clara married himself. When she was ailing, I made her a promise, and I told his stodginess I’d not be leaving his little one. So here I am, nurse to his angel, housekeeper to him.”
“How is Bridget, Mac? Will it be all right, do you think, to tell her who I am?”
Mac reared back, brows arched, eyes wide.
“
I
shouldn’
t
tell her I’m her mother’s cousin?” Lacey stepped back and hugged herself, rubbed her arms against a sudden chill. “You’re right, of course. It’s too soon after losing her mother. She likely isn’t ready. It’s only been a few months, after all. I’ll say I’m a friend, then, or—”
Mac captured one of her expressive hands, held it still, and squeezed it. “You tell her you’re her mama’s cousin. She’ll be fine with that.”
“But—”
“Ach, don’t know what I was thinking. She needs a . . . younger woman, like a mama, you know? Me, I’m too old. Granny stuff, fine enough, but she needs somebody to teach her to climb trees and run between the raindrops.”
Lacey grinned. “You scolded me for those things. Besides, Gabriel won’t like—”
“Himself? Likes nothing these days, that one. But if anyone can snap him out of his dark moods, it’s you, if only to try his patience so much he hasn’t the time to brood. Quite a change you’ll make.” Mac grinned. “Here, let’s do up your hair and you come down to sit and talk while I cook breakfast.”
Feeling especially attractive this morning, with Mac’s determined help, Lacey embraced relief, once down in the kitchen, when after a terse good-morning, Gabriel did not speak with her. She found herself happier, more comfortable, to chat with Mac. They had years to catch up on. Mac had all but raised her, Clara—and Nick Daventry and his brother, Vincent, too, for that matter, her mother’s heir and spare—all cousins from different levels of the family tree. Difficult to believe tha
t
he
r
mother had been the best of them, unless her mother’s title and wealth ha
d
wo
n
her the honor.
Lacey faltered in her conversation several times because she hesitated to mention Clara around Gabriel. Less than two years married, and he’d lost her.
No need to dredge up painful memories. He must have loved her terribly, if his mood was any indication. She, herself, had likely reminded him of Clara last night, and that’s why he’d shown her such unexpected tenderness, despite the bad blood between them.
It shouldn’t hurt to realize. It was only natural.
Startled from her thoughts, Lacey caught him observing her, his rich chocolate gaze fixed on her above his two-handed grasp on the coffee cup at his lips. He’d always preferred coffee over tea. In the last five years, she’d never smelled coffee but that she hadn’t thought of him.
Suddenly, the sound of tiny feet on the kitchen stairs trebled her pulse as every step brought her closer to—
Lacey’s heart nearly stopped.
Ivy dropped his fork.
The poppet on the stairs took no note of the agitation her appearance wrought. Concentrating on her next step, Bridget’s dark eyes were too big for her small, ethereal face, and her thick, black waving hair paled her opalescent skin to milk.
Her cousin was not so much beautiful as striking. She needed color in her cheeks. Bows in her hair. Sunshine. Laughter. She needed a female relative.
The
y
neede
d
each other.
Eyes glistening, Mac grasped Bridget’s tiny shoulders from behind and walked her forward. “Look, lovey, here is my . . . Lacey, your . . . mama’s cousin . . . come to stay.” Mac nodded above the child’s head
as if to say she’d done the deed, made the familial connection, taken the burden upon her own shoulders. No wonder her tears.
When Bridget finally looked up and their eyes met for the first time, Lacey’s heart clenched, her soul mourned, and . . . memory stirred. Shaken, but trying not to show it, Lacey smiled and cupped Bridget’s little cheek. She looked like . . . Clara, she supposed, though darker than both her parents. Actually her own father’s coloring came to mind, but then Clara’s father and hers had been brothers.
Bridget’s chocolate eyes assessed her curiously. “You look . . . sad . . . like me,” she said.
Jolted out of mind, Gabriel spilled his coffee and nearly upended Mac’s teapot into a tottering twirl with one shocked move. “Good morning, Cricket,” he said since he’d caught her attention with his clumsiness, and the soft smile he gave her made him look younger. But Bridget turned her face into Mac’s apron.
Gabriel’s smile faded to a parody. Lacey reached out to console him, but he whipped her
hand away, his look hostile—nothing new there. He would accept no comfort from her.
Bridget tugged on Lacey’s sleeve, claiming her attention.
“What can I do for you, sweetheart?”
“Your dress is old.”
Despite the embarrassment warming her face, Lacey’s rush of love was so intense and unexpected, it almost hurt. She resettled one of Bridget’s wayward curls. “I know.”