Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One) (17 page)

Gad, he was making himself dizzy.

But, children? Two of them? Gideon groaned inwardly. Two
more
, he should say, if he considered the babe.

No wonder Sabrina was nervous.

Had he not recently thought he might not be ready to become immediately and directly responsible for a child? One child.

Gideon felt almost ill, and needed to sit on the boulder while his stomach calmed and his head cleared.

The boys watched him with wide, uneasy eyes. Eyes so closely resembling the shape of Sabrina’s that—

Like the woman he believed was their mother, fear lived inside these two.

Gideon ruffled Rafe’s hair, and Damon stepped near for a hair-ruffle of his own

“How did you manage to catch the cat?”

“He let me pick him up, did you not, pretty boy,” Rafe crooned to his purring pet, his expression full of love and admiration.

“What color would you say his fur is?” Gideon asked, thinking that it looked like mud to him.

“It is like when we mix up our paints,” Rafe said, “and all the bright colors run together, except for that tan patch around one of his eyes.

Ugly, Gideon thought.

Damon tilted his head to study the scruffy creature in question. “I think he looks exactly the color of the stuff inside a Christmas pie.”

“Mincemeat,” Rafe said. “We can call him Mincemeat.”

Gideon barked a laugh. If a better name for that cat existed anywhere, he could not imagine what it might be. “Shall we head back across the street, before someone misses you?”

They walked side by side, Gideon in the middle, Rafe petting nightmare-cat, Damon pensive.

“Do you think Mincemeat is a quiet enough cat for your mother?” Gideon asked. “You know how she worries about noise and everything.” He asked the question with nonchalance, hoping to garner information about their mother, but neither boy spoke. Instead, their expressions had become serious.

Together they crossed Grosvenor Square and Gideon stopped by the kissing gate of number twenty-three to bend on his haunches before them. “Your Mama is often sad, is she not?”

Unsmiling, Damon nodded then he brightened. “But not so much since we came here.”

Gideon experienced a bittersweet jubilation at that. She was less sad, perhaps, but no more trusting.

“Even when she is sad, she plays games with us,” Rafe said. “When she can get away from that man.”

“Let me ask you something else,” Gideon said. “And I want you to be honest in your answer. Are you afraid of me?”

“No,” Damon said, as if his question was absurd. “We had fun together with the puppies, yesterday, and even hunting today, did we not?”

“We certainly did,” Gideon said, that odd, threatening jubilation back. “Do you not wonder why you always see me around here?”

“You take care of the kennel,” Damon said. “Miss Minchip told Mama that you are a nice man, so it is all right for us to talk to you.”

“Can you keep a secret?”

Both boys nodded, wide-eyed, eager for a scrap of surreptitious knowledge.

“First, tell me your name,” Gideon said.

Gideon was glad Rafe could laugh as easily as his twin, because laughter was how they both reacted to his question.

“You know who we are. We’re Damon and Rafferty.”

“I mean your second names.”

“Oh. Whitcomb.”

Gideon had known, of course, but still, it came as a dizzying blow.

He would not, after all, be responsible for one child, but for three. Suddenly the irresponsible life of a scapegrace rogue seemed far from reach and excessively appealing. But he shook off regret and turned his attention to the twins. Sabrina’s twins. His boys, now, too. He sighed. “You live in this house, then, do you not, and Miss Minchip takes care of you up in the nursery?”

Twin nods.

“Which one of you went into your mother’s bedchamber the other night and almost got caught?”

Rafe fingered a nasty burr in Mincemeat’s coat. “That was me,” he said, not looking up. “I was thirsty.”

“You did not see the man’s face very well, did you?”

Now he looked up. “I do not like him.”

“But he likes you.” Gideon shook his head, unclear as to how to proceed. “Come.” He took their hands. “I have an idea, but I will need your help,” he said, as they made their way toward the kennel. “First, we will get that puppy you like from the kennel, so you can take him up to the nursery with you.”

“But Mama said we cannot. That man—”

“Your new father, you mean?” Sweat broke out on Gideon’s brow just knowing he was speaking of himself.

Not that he was frightened exactly. He supposed he could raise a boy or...three as well as the next man. He just did not know if he could summon up the required...love—God help him—that such an immense responsibility required.

“We have a new father?” Damon asked.

And Gideon was affronted, which made him wonder what insanity prompted him to run from fatherhood one minute, then claim it the next. And what would make Sabrina deny her boys a father, whether she did so consciously or not? “Yes, the man you saw, Rafe, is your new father, and he would like very much for you to like him.”

“Our
other
father hated noisy boys. We tried to be good, but we got him mad at Mama all the time.” The revelation came from Rafe, but both boys lost their spark.

Gideon knew then, that as far as fatherhood was concerned, there had never been a choice for him. For good or ill, he had two boys to raise now, and soon, very soon, there would be three.

“Our new father might not like the noise we make, either,” Damon said. “Mama worries about that.”

About them, Gideon thought. Sabrina worried about them, as they worried about her.

“What if our new father hates us, too? Suppose he hates the puppy and Mincemeat?”

Damon, Gideon knew, was begging for more than a simple answer to his question.

Facing a pregnant bride seemed, in retrospect, child’s play compared to this. Gideon wiped his damp palms on his knees and allowed his breathing to catch up with his pumping heart. He knew panic and fury, but more than that, he felt the boys’ pain.

No, he more than felt it, he remembered it, vividly, from his own boyhood.

Aware of the dangers in confession, but despite them, Gideon was prepared to jump into deep water. He stopped and sat on the garden wall before them, winked at one and chucked the chin of the other. “Rafe, Damon, you should know that I am not the kennel man.” He looked from one to the other of them, and he took the jump. “I am your new father.”

Gideon allowed his words sink in as he watched their expressions.

So like their mother, these two. Why had he not noticed that before? The dusting of freckles, the hair, the eyes, their feelings in their expressions, ready to be read, plain as day. Awe, wonder, realization, fear, before hesitation settled in. Wanting it to be so, they were afraid to be disappointed.

Damon sidled a bit closer, and however slight a beginning, the action clogged Gideon’s throat and trembled the tentative hand he placed at the boy’s back.

Rafe stood unmoving, his expression more guarded. Gideon had already suspected that Rafe would be the tougher of the two.

Gideon moved his hand to Damon’s shoulder and reached over to play with Mincemeat’s paw near Rafe’s arm. “I want you to know, right off, that I like you,” he said. “Both of you. I understand that boys make noise when they play. Boys should play. Even I make noise sometimes.

“Do not mistake me, I am not saying that I will never ask you to quiet down. I am saying that when I do ask, I will give you a good reason for my request, so you will understand why I ask.”

Rafe took to breathing again. Damon leaned closer in, until his small shoulders touched Gideon’s larger ones, and Gideon felt almost as if his own shoulders broadened then, with pride and perhaps with the need to carry these amazing new responsibilities.

He led the boys to the puppies, and sure enough, the friendly pup took to squealing and jumping and drizzling and yapping with glee, unlike his six brothers who were more interested in lunch.

“Will the pup belong to both of us?” Rafe asked, petting Mincemeat.

“So your Mama will not be angry, I think the puppy should remain mine. But I want you to take care of him up in the nursery for me. It is clear how much he loves you. He is a special pup, and you two are special boys, which is exactly what he needs.” The pup was, in truth, too gentle, and too enamored of people, to make a good hunter anyway.

Gideon scratched the ecstatic canine under an ear. “Do you think you can take care of him?”

Twin, very serious, nods.

“What about Mincemeat?” Rafe asked, hugging ugly-cat protectively.

“I think Mincemeat needs you even more than the pup does. So you may keep her, er, him, too.”

“A dog
and
a cat,” Damon whispered with reverence.

“Now I need you to help me play a silly game with your Mama. Will you?”

A short while later, Mr. Chalmer told Gideon that her grace was working in her sitting room and wished to speak with him when he came in, if his grace pleased.

Gideon headed straight there. Part of him wanted to make Sabrina squirm for her mischief, but another part of him understood her motive. He almost wished he did not.

When he entered, he found her bent over her desk, in concentration. As he approached, she rose with a smile to greet him. And he wondered if her response meant that she was eager for his company, or if she was accustomed simply to pretence.

If possible, she seemed to grow more beautiful with time. Today, she positively glowed.

“You look ravishing,” he said, taking her into his arms to kiss her, lingering, nibbling at her lips for longer than he intended.

“Gideon,” she said, breathless, but not averse to his attention, if he did not miss his guess. “We need to talk.”

“Talking can wait. I brought you a surprise.”

“No, really. This is important.” She noted his torn cuff, stepped back and did a hasty scan of his countenance. “What happened to your clothes? You are positively filthy.”

Gideon looked down at his unkempt self and shrugged. “I went hunting.”

“What?” She placed her hands on her hips. “Gideon—”

“Stay here,” he said. “I shall be right back.”

He reminded her of a small boy with a fancy seashell or a shiny, colored rock to show off.

Sabrina lowered herself to the settee to await his schoolboy whim. Yet another interesting and surprising facet of her complicated new husband, and almost charming. She sighed with frustration.

She needed to tell him about the boys and put the momentous confession behind her. Ever since last night, when he had patiently rubbed her back for what seemed like hours, she understood that she might be able to tell him, without fear of reprisal.

When she awoke this morning, she knew the time had come, and once she made the decision, she had become desperate to be done with it.

“Surprise!” Gideon shouted. “Look what followed me home.” Like sacks of grain, he carried her sons, slung, one under each arm.