Heaven Sent (27 page)

Not only that, but it wasn’t fair to
Becky.

Giving Becky a new mother, and one,
moreover, whom she already cared for, would be doing Becky a good
turn. And about time, too. If he married Miss Prophet, he’d be
ensuring that she remained in Becky’s sphere, too.

Heaven alone knew what might happen if
Miss Prophet were left to her own devices. For all Aubrey knew,
she’d allow Mark Henderson to sweep her off her feet and carry her
away from the Lockhart abode. That would never do. Becky would be
crushed.

Rather than see his daughter suffer
another wrenching loss, Aubrey would make sacrifices. Hell’s bells,
he was even willing to sacrifice himself.

By the time Figgins sounded the gong
to announce dinner,

Aubrey had begun to feel quite
noble.

*****

Becky yawned hugely. “But I want to
write to my mama tonight, Miss Prophet, because I want to tell her
about my party.”

“
Very well, dear. We’ll
write to your mama.” Every time Becky wrote to her mother in
heaven, Callie experienced an uncomfortable sensation of compassion
mixed with guilt. She wasn’t sure which emotion was dominant.
Either one all by itself was hard to stomach. Both of them together
might have given her indigestion, except that Callie’s digestion
was superb and nothing did that.

“
I want to say what we did.
Especially the skating. Then I can send her the letter along with
the pictures.” Becky had even tell what some of them were supposed
to be.

She brought more paper and pencils to
the child-size table on which Becky wrote her letters. The little
girl was wearing her brand-new nightgown Mrs. Granger had given
her, and the frilly cap that went with it. Delilah had knitted her
some bed socks, too, so she was ready to hop under the covers as
soon as she finished her letter and said her prayers. Callie made
sure Becky said her prayers every night. Becky’s prayers did
something to ease Callie’s conscience about all the things she knew
she shouldn’t be doing.

Concentrating hard, Becky wrote
slowly. She was a bright child, and was unusually good with her
letters, but her little hands were still slightly clumsy. Callie
knew from experience with her nieces and nephews that young hands
needed lots of practice when it came to these things.

“
How do you spell ‘roller
skates’?”

Callie told her.

Several minutes later, Becky looked up
and smiled. “All done. I think Mama will like this one.” Her smile
didn’t fade, but an expression of concern entered her blue eyes. “I
hope she will: I don’t want to hurt her feelings by making her
think I’m happy without her.”

“
Hurt her feelings? I’m sure
you couldn’t do that, Becky. Your mama loves you and understands
how difficult life is for a little girl without her
mother.”

Becky nodded. “Good. That’s what I
think, too.”

So Callie listened to Becky’s prayers
and tucked her in. She left the room with Becky’s letter to her
mother, which she opened as soon as she entered her own room. As
she read it, her heart swelled, tears filled her eyes, and she
wished she could talk to one of her sisters.

Dear Mama,

Miss Prophet got roller
skates for all the children at my birthday party. It was ever so
much fun.

Mama, I love Miss Prophet
very much. You don’t mind that I love her, do you? I love you, too.
And Papa. But it’s nice with Miss Prophet here. I am not so lonsom
anymore. Thats OK isn’t it?

Love,

Becky

“
Oh, my land.” Callie
pressed a palm to her cheek and

plopped down on her bed, disturbing
Monster, who growled at her. With tears streaming down her face,
Callie turned to the cat. “Shut up, you. What do you know about
anything?”

His feelings evidently hurt, Monster
leapt from Callie’s bed and stalked across the room, but Callie
paid no more attention to him.

“
Whatever should I do?”
Callie whispered to her empty room.

She answered Becky’s letter to her
mother in heaven, hoping to God that she was saying the right
things, and begging forgiveness from the spirit of Anne
Lockhart.

Her feelings of oppressive guilt did
not abate.

Chapter
Thirteen

Aubrey’s feeling of nobility about the
prospect of remarriage didn’t last through the soup course at
supper on the night of Becky’s party. By that time, Old Bilgewater
had taken over and directed the conversation along unpleasant
lines. From nobility, in fact, Aubrey plunged headlong into sheer
rage.

“
What’s more, Aubrey, I
don’t believe children ought to be indulged so shamelessly.” Mrs.
Bridgewater sniffed as Figgins served her soup. “Birthday parties,
indeed. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Fortunately, Becky and Miss Prophet
had taken supper in the nursery this evening. Miss Prophet had
pronounced Becky too exhausted from the stimulation of the day to
be fit company at the supper table.

“
Not while Mrs. Bridgewater
is visiting,” Callie had told him in the frank, down-to-earth way
she had. “Because Mrs. B is sure to criticize, and I don’t think
Becky needs that. Not after having had such a splendid day. It
would only spoil the pleasure of her party.”

“
I think you’re right,”
Aubrey had agreed, although he hadn’t wanted to. Not because he
didn’t want to agree with Callie aloud, either, but because he
hated the mere notion of dining alone with Old
Bilgewater.

Now, however, as he eyed the woman
over his own steaming bowl of soup, he wondered if this wasn’t an
opportunity in disguise. “Oh?” he said coolly. “What do you
advocate instead? Keeping children in leg shackles and wrist
manacles?” He smiled, showing a lot of teeth.

Bilgewater looked at him and huffed
irritably. “For heaven’s sake, Aubrey! What a ridiculous
suggestion.”

“
Is it?”

“
Of course!”

He took a sip of soup. Mrs. Granger,
overworked already today, thanks to all the party preparations, had
warned him supper would be a simple meal this evening. Simplicity
to Mrs. Granger, however, meant something different from what it
meant to Aubrey. She’d made up a delicious soup, and she’d already
told him they were having a chicken casserole, using chicken and
vegetables left over from the party.

After he swallowed and smiled at
Figgins to let him know he approved of the soup course, Aubrey
again directed his attention to Becky’s great-aunt. He narrowed his
eyes. “I see. So, you think it’s ridiculous, do you?”

“
Yes, it is. Of all the
nonsensical notions I’ve ever heard expressed, that’s the most
nonsensical.”

Aubrey doubted that Bilgewater could
sound too much more emphatic. She looked as if she were taking on
air in order to launch another assault. He decided to give her a
large target to shoot at. “Oh? Then do you believe the suggestion
that Miss Prophet and I are carrying on an illicit affair, which
you proposed to that group of mothers, to be a less ridiculous
suggestion, Mrs. Bridgewater?”

Bilgewater sat up with a jerk,
precipitating a loud groan from her corset stays. “What? I beg your
pardon?”

“
I overheard what you said
to those ladies, Mrs. Bridgewater. I thought that was pretty near
the top of the nonsense pinnacle.”

“
I never!”

“
Oh, yes you did. I heard
you.” Aubrey allowed his anger to show. He hoped she’d choke on it.
“And let me tell you, I do not appreciate your insinuations,
blatant accusations, and snide comments.”

After swallowing once or twice and
huffing three or four times, Bilgewater seemed to regroup. Her
bosom swelled ominously. “Well! What do you expect people to think
when you carry on in such a blatant way?”

“
Carry on? Carry
on
!” Aubrey opened his
eyes wide, unable to believe even Great-Aunt Evelyn could spout
such bilge.

“
Yes! Living here with
that—that—”

“
Nanny,” Aubrey supplied,
breaking in with a loud bark that made Bilgewater jump. “Miss
Prophet is Becky’s nanny, Mrs. Bridgewater.”

“
Nanny, my foot.”

“
I don’t understand you. You
don’t even know the woman, yet you’re willing to blacken her name
here, where she lives. You’re not only willing, you’re
eager
. And you want to
take Becky and me with you!”

“
Nonsense! I—”

Aubrey trounced on her words as if she
hadn’t spoken. “I’ve heard of brazen talk, Mrs. Bridgewater, but
I’ve never witnessed it until today.”

“
What? Why, Aubrey Lockhart,
of all the—”

“
I think the ladies of Santa
Angelica know Miss Prophet far better than you do. What’s more, she
came to me with a sterling character. There isn’t a person in the
town who doesn’t speak highly of her.”

He didn’t bother to bring up the fact
that Callie had actually appeared in his drawing room without any
written references. Aubrey had found out soon enough what the
neighbors thought about her. They liked her; therefore, he didn’t
consider his prior statement a lie. It might be a bit of a
stretcher, perhaps, but it wasn’t an out-and-out lie.

Mrs. Bridgewater, apparently giving up
trying to break into Aubrey’s monologue, lifted her chin and glared
at him in defiance. It was, and Aubrey recognized it as such, the
last-ditch effort of a person in the wrong who would rather die
than admit it. Which gave Aubrey some pleasant ideas, but he’d
never dare act upon them.

“
I am only concerned about
Rebecca’s welfare, Aubrey Lockhart, and you know it.”

He wasn’t going to let her
get away with
that
. “I do not know it, Mrs. Bridgewater. I know nothing of the
kind. I fail to comprehend how spreading malicious gossip about
Becky’s father and the woman he hired to take care of her can
contribute in any way whatsoever to Becky’s welfare. It can only
hurt her. You know it as well as I do.”

“
That’s not so.”

“
It is so. You want to get
Becky away from me, for some reason known only to yourself, and
you’re not going to succeed. I won’t let you. Becky has a good
life. It’s neither her fault nor mine that Anne died, and you’re
not going to use Anne’s death, which was a tragedy for both of us,
to maneuver my daughter away from this house. Until I heard it
myself today, I didn’t believe even you, of whom I’ve learned to
expect almost anything, could sink to the level of spreading false
and vicious rumors to achieve your own selfish goals. I learned my
lesson, Mrs. Bridgewater. After you leave Santa Angelica tomorrow,
I don’t want you to visit Becky again. Ever. If you show up without
an invitation, you will be turned away from this house.”

The older woman’s face had turned a
startling purple during Aubrey’s last speech, and he saw that her
hands shook when she placed her napkin on the table beside her soup
plate. For approximately ten seconds, he contemplated whether or
not he should feel guilty. After all, gentlemen seldom, if ever,
took ladies to task for anything. When he recalled how this
miserable specimen of womanhood had tried to blacken his name and
Callie’s name among the matrons that afternoon, he hardened his
heart.

She rose slowly and with much creaking
of whalebone. “I have never,” she said, her voice atremble, “been
so insulted in my life.”

“
I don’t know why it’s taken
anyone so long to call you on your nefarious career as a
gossipmonger,” Aubrey told her frankly. “The way you carry on
behind people’s backs, I’m surprised you haven’t been shot out of
the water long since.”

“
Slanders. Vile
insults.”

“
Fiddlesticks. I speak only
the truth. Unlike you, who, this very afternoon, slung around
blatant lies about me among my neighbors,” Aubrey pointed
out.

“
I did not tell tales!” she
began, but Aubrey again interrupted.

“
Balderdash. There’s not a
shred of truth in anything you said today. You made up tripe,
hoping it would ruin my reputation and turn my neighbors against
me. God alone knows why, unless you think that making me into a
black sheep will cause me to relinquish Becky.”

“
Of all the—”

He waved a hand, effectively silencing
her once more.

“
You’re a witch, Mrs.
Bridgewater. It’s difficult to imagine you and Anne coming from the
same family. On consideration, I think it’s you who are the
changeling, since everyone else in the Harriott family is very
nice. You’re the only freak in a good lot.”

“
Well!”

“
It’s no use
welling
me in that
indignant voice, either. You stepped way over the line today.
Perhaps no one else whose name you’ve blackened over the years has
ever had the brass balls to point out to you the error of your
ways—probably in some misguided attempt to maintain his or her
sense of conventional decorum—but I’m not so nice.”