Heaven Sent (36 page)

“
Dash it,” he growled as he
sat in his big desk behind his big desk. “You’re an adult, man, Act
like one.”

His tiny lecture made him buck up
slightly. He could wait until Becky was well without restlessness
eating him up from the inside. Of course, he could. He was, after
all, a successful businessman. Successful businessmen didn’t get
overwrought about such things as Christmas party
invitations.

Feeling better, he contemplated
reading a book versus looking at another newspaper or one of the
periodicals that had arrived yesterday from San
Francisco.

At last, he did neither. Instead,
after considering it for a long time, he unlocked the bottom drawer
of his desk for the first time in a year and a half, reached
inside, and withdrew a bundle of letters. They were love letters
Anne had written to him during the happy years of their short
marriage. He’d tied the letters with a ribbon and stuffed them in
his desk drawer some time after the fatality of Anne’s illness had
been diagnosed and, at last, accepted. Aubrey hadn’t had the heart
even to look at the bundle from that day to this. The mere thought
of them had made his heart hurt.

Tonight, seeking answers to questions
he wasn’t sure how to frame, he set the bundle on his desk and
proceeded to look at it for fifteen minutes. Then, with aching
heart and trembling hand, he reached out, tugged the ribbon loose,
and picked up the first envelope.

He stared at it for another several
minutes, studying Anne’s beautiful, elegant handwriting, before he
lifted the flap and withdrew the letter.

My Darling
Aubrey
, the letter began. As soon as Aubrey
read the words, something inside him gave way.

Chapter
Seventeen

Callie didn’t know how long she’d been
lying in bed that night, alternately thinking, brooding, and trying
to pound her pillows into shape. The dratted pillows felt like
boulders under her head. She wanted fluff, not boulders.

“
It’s not the pillows’
fault,” she told herself sourly. “It’s you, Callie
Prophet.”

Which didn’t help her get to sleep.
She got up after an hour or so, wet a washcloth, climbed back into
bed, and pressed the washcloth to her eyes. If she couldn’t steep,
she might at least try to refresh her looks.

It had shocked her when Aubrey said he
wanted to invite her family for a Christmas Eve celebration. She
knew he’d done it for Becky’s sake, not hers, but the mere fact
that he had done so at all had revived all of her feelings about
him. And marriage to him.’

In truth, she didn’t even know if his
marriage proposal was still open. For all she knew, he was busily
seeking a wife elsewhere.

So vicious a stab of pain shot through
her that she had to slap a hand over her heart. “Stop it this
instant, Callie Prophet!”

Callie Prophet wasn’t a wilting lily.
She was as sensitive as the next woman, but she prided herself on
her common sense and emotional stability. She hadn’t been
emotionally stable today.

When Aubrey had suggested inviting her
family to a Christmas Eve party, she’d immediately and without
thought envisioned herself as mistress of the Lockhart mansion.
She’d seen herself, not as Becky’s nanny, but as Aubrey’s
wife,

Yup, there she was, standing, in her
mind’s eye, at the head of the staircase, clad in a dress she
couldn’t afford in a million years, beaming down on her brother and
his wife, and her sisters and their husbands, and everybody’s
children. But Aubrey could. And he’d probably be happy to buy her
any number of lovely gowns, too.

One thing she could say for Aubrey: He
wasn’t a miserly fellow. In truth, he was just about
perfect.

Except that he didn’t love
her.

She socked her pillow again. “Damn and
blast! Will you stop being such an idiot, Callie Prophet? The poor
man adored the only woman he’d ever loved. It’s your stupid dumb
luck that he met her before he met you.”

Not that he’d have paid any attention
to her if he had met her before he’d met Anne. Callie Prophet and
Anne Harriott were worlds—universes—apart, personality-wise. And
Aubrey obviously desired a more sober personality in a wife than
Callie possessed.

Although, he
had
asked her to marry
him.

“
For Becky, you fool. Not
for him.” Callie turned over and shrieked into her lumpy pillow,
knowing the sound would be muffled.

She wished Monster were here so she
could hold his big, heavy body close to her bosom and comfort
herself that way. But Monster was busy comforting Becky this
evening, and he couldn’t be in two places at once. Besides, Becky
needed him more than Callie did. Becky was genuinely sick. Callie
was only an idiot.

If she kept this up, she’d be no
better than Cissy Hammersmith, who was known throughout the village
of Santa Angelica as “Silly Cissy,” for her romantic notions and
extravagant emotional displays.

The comparison made Callie cringe. On
the other hand, Callie would bet money that Cissy had never been
asked to endure the trials Callie herself had faced and conquered.
At least Cissy’s parents were still alive.

Would being married to Aubrey be a
trial to endure? Callie told herself to stop asking stupid
questions. After another half hour or so, though, she decided she
was being foolish to try to fall asleep when her brain refused to
cooperate. She’d be better off going downstairs and getting a book
to read. Reading might help to calm her mind and make her
sleepy.

With that in mind, Callie got out of
bed, slipped her robe on over the flannel nightgown Florence had
given her last Christmas, stuffed her feet into her old, floppy
slippers, and tiptoed out of her bedroom. She carried a candle,
since the Santa Angelica Electric Company shut down at midnight,
and she didn’t especially want to fall downstairs and break her
neck.

The door to Aubrey’s library was
closed, but Callie didn’t think anything of that. He often closed
the library door at night, probably because he worked in there and
his desk was often messy. Mrs. Granger didn’t approve of messes,
and Aubrey didn’t approve of Mrs. Granger or Delilah fussing with
his papers.

She was shocked when she stepped into
the room and saw Aubrey. He’d been sitting at his desk, with his
head buried in his folded arms. He looked up when she entered, his
face ravaged, his eyes red-rimmed and tortured.

“
Aubrey! Good God, what’s
the matter?”

“
Callie.” He sat up, cleared
his throat, and tugged at his vest. He’d discarded his jacket,
which he’d hung over the back of his chair. His hair was
disarranged, and he dragged his fingers through it.

She took a step toward him, propelled
by a fierce longing to take him in her arms and hold him. She held
back, knowing full well that it wasn’t her place to offer solace to
her employer. “What’s the matter?” she asked again, hoping to help,
even if she couldn’t demonstrate physically what she felt
emotionally.

He waved a hand over the papers on his
desk. “Nothing. I—I was just going over some things. Letters. Old
letters.”

Callie’s heart swooped and throbbed.
“Letters?” Good God, if he’d discovered her secret, she was doomed.
She should have confessed about those blasted letters months ago;
it was too late now.

His sigh ruffled the papers. “Yes.” He
lifted one of them. “Letters Anne wrote me, oh, years ago. I, ah,
haven’t looked at them for a long time.”

“
I see.” So. He hadn’t
discovered her dreadful secret. Her heart continued to ache, the
knowledge that he’d sought comfort from a dead woman painful to
learn.

Callie would have loved to comfort
him.

He didn’t want comfort from
her.

“
Urn, I’m sorry if the
letters, urn, brought back painful memories.”

He heaved a deep sigh. Shaking his
head sorrowfully, he said, “The last two years of her life were so
hard on her. She suffered so much.”

Callie clutched at the neck of her
bathrobe. The blood pumped painfully in her throat, and she wanted
to cry. Ruthlessly, she suppressed her own emotions. “I’m sorry. It
must have been hard—on everyone. You, too. And Becky.”

He sighed again. “Yes. Becky.” He
sucked in an audible breath. “Oh, God!”

Callie was stunned when he covered his
face with his hands and bowed his head. She heard him inhale hard,
gasping breaths, and knew he was trying to keep from breaking
down.

“
Oh, Aubrey.”

Forgetting that she was his employee,
that she was Becky’s nanny, and that he didn’t love her, Callie
gave up being strong for herself and rushed over to Aubrey.
Thrusting her candle, willy-nilly, onto the desk, she fell on her
knees and reached out to him. Her heart overflowed when he turned
in his chair, threw his arms around her and drew her
close.

“
Oh, God, Callie, it hurts
so much!”

“
I know, I know,” she
soothed, wondering what she thought she was doing. But she couldn’t
push him away now. She loved him, he was in pain, and if she could
offer this little bit of solace, she’d do it. She couldn’t deny
herself to him. She couldn’t deny him to her. If the only thing she
could do for him was hold him, she’d do it.

She hoped to heaven whatever happened
now would be for the best.

What was he doing? Aubrey was only
dimly aware that he held Callie in his arms. She felt so good
there. So right. So . . . comforting.

Reading Anne’s letters had hurt.
Recalling the love they’d shared, the dreams they’d had, the way
everything had withered just when life had been about to bloom into
perfection.

The ink on the pages was fading now,
but his memories wouldn’t fade. He longed for the old days even as
he desired a new life. With Callie.

And she’d come to him. Openly and
freely. To give him comfort in his time of need. He knew it. He
knew he shouldn’t take advantage of her big heart.

He also knew he needed her.
Desperately. Wildly. In every way. “Please come to me tonight,
Callie. Please. I need you so much.”

She swallowed audibly. Aubrey tried to
hold in the ghastly sobs that wanted to wrack his body. Every nerve
in him strained with waiting for her answer. If she denied him
this, he didn’t know how he was going to get through the
night.

After what seemed like eternity to
Aubrey, she didn’t speak, but let herself relax in his arms. Then
she kissed him on the mouth, softly, sweetly, invitingly, showing
him her answer with her body.

“
God.” He expelled the word
on a breath of air that shook him from head to toe. Holding her
face in his hands, he gazed into her eyes. He had a feeling his own
eyes looked haunted, if not worse. Hers held only concern and
something else he didn’t feel qualified to name, although he
thought he recalled seeing it on Anne’s face.

Could this woman possibly love him?
No. Of course she didn’t. If she loved him, she’d have jumped at
his proposal of marriage, and she’d rejected him absolutely. But
she wasn’t rejecting him tonight.

Cautiously, fearing she’d change her
mind, but knowing he had to be sure, he whispered, “Are you sure,
Callie? Are you sure?”

“
I’m sure.”

Her eyes were huge in the dimness of
the library. When Aubrey had finished the last of Anne’s letters,
it had been nearly midnight. He’d remained in the library, unable
to move long after the electric company shut down. He had no idea
how late it was, but he knew he needed Callie tonight.

He feared he needed her even more than
that, but he didn’t dare open his heart. His poor, battered heart
bad been through too much already in its thirty-five years. Aubrey
didn’t think it could survive another wound like the one Anne’s
death had inflicted.

“
Come with me, Callie,” he
said softly.

His legs felt wobbly when he stood,
holding her elbow and helping her up. She staggered a little, too.
Perhaps he wasn’t the only one whose feelings were being battered
tonight.

“
All right.” Her voice was
small, but firm.

Aubrey almost dared to hope that what
he was going to do wasn’t bad—almost. Not quite.

He picked up the candle, and the two
of them walked side-by-side up the big staircase. He and Anne used
to walk—

But no. He needed to stop remembering
what he and Anne used to do. He was with Callie tonight, and he
owed her his full attention. When they reached his bedroom, he
opened the door and stepped aside, giving her another chance to
stop things while they could still be stopped.

She walked in. Aubrey considered her
poise astonishing under the circumstances. She had to be a virgin.
And she was going to be giving herself to him without the bonds of
matrimony. Perhaps this meant she trusted him to do the honorable
thing.

Funny. As many problems as he and
Callie seemed to have with each other, evidently neither of them
believed the other to be anything but honorable. Encouraging,
that.