An Unmistakable Rogue (11 page)

Memory surfaced. Vague but frightening.

Chastity? The children? They needed protecting.

Reed wanted to weep, for he could not protect a mouse.

Satan’s mistress grinned as if reading him, and grasped his injured side, squeezing until pain seared him, until he fought blacking out. “I will not fail again,” she whispered near enough for her scent to make him gag. “Mark my words, I will not.”

This was no dream, this crone, this evil canker spouting retribution. Her grip gained strength. His side flamed luring into a numbing miasma that he fought.

That demented laugh spiraled as the archfiend hovered over Chastity, asleep in the chair, and she fingered one of Chastity’s silken curls, resting too near her breast. The hag looked Reed straight in the eye, and grinned—evil incarnate—then she was gone.

No door or window creaked, but a cool draft cut a swath through the kitchen. Could the crone be a specter after all, or a figment of his fevered nightmares?

When he opened his eyes, again, daylight flooded the room, sunshine checkering his bed like a quilt of well-being.

The memory of evil surfaced, but he pushed it away. Only children succumbed to night terrors. Reed turned toward a rustle of sound to find a serious baby face—Bekah on her stomach, beside him on the bed, her tiny hands cupping her chin, her silent as ever. Watching.

Impossible to imagine the man-eater in her present guise—brows furrowed over curious eyes, gold ringlets framing full cheeks. Milk and good food had done wonders.

“Good morning, Poppet. Are you watching over me?”

Chin in hands, she nodded.

“You’re doing a good job.”

As if reminded, she rose to a kneel, pulled the quilt over his shoulders and tucked it up to his neck. Taking a great deal of time and an inordinate amount of concentration, she walked on her knees toward the foot of the bed tucking his blanket about him as she went.

He ignored the pain her movement caused.

When she waddled back, she examined his face, much as Chastity did. After due consideration, she pushed his hair from his brow and felt it for warmth. Nodding, she stroked his cheek with the back of her little hand.

Warmed to the tips of his toes, and even in his hard rogue’s heart, Reed turned his head the littlest bit to kiss those soft baby fingers.

Incredibly surprised, shocked more like—though no more than he—Bekah scrambled off the bed and ran from the room, faster than when he’d yanked her teeth from his flesh.

Reed chuckled, but it hurt.

He closed his eyes to ride out the pain, and the next time he opened them, the sun slanted into the kitchen at a new angle. Matt, Mark, Luke, and Bekah stood staring down at him. When had children ever looked, not exactly sweet, but welcome, to him? He knew better than to chuckle, though the temptation was strong. “If you’re waiting for me to do something interesting, you’re in for a disappointment.”

Matt and Luke laughed. Mark nodded, and Bekah’s features bore the same bland expression as always, though she did not back away, not even when he tweaked her nose.

“Kitty’s milking Leonardo,” Mark said.

Reed grinned. “Think she can handle it?”

“She’s been doing it a lot lately. She lets us stay and watch you when she does. We’re to call, if you wake.”

“Or if you die,” Luke added.

“So that’s what you were doing?”

Four heads nodded.

“Do you know where my clothes are?”

Mark indicated Reed’s folded clothes on the table. “Clean and mended. You had more tears in your britches than a five-year old ... Kitty said.”

“Mark, take Luke and Rebekah out to the barn and keep Chastity busy, will you? I’m going to get dressed. Matt will come get you when I’m done. Don’t tell. Let Chastity be surprised when she finds me at the table.”

They ran, conspirators the lot of them.

When Reed stood, pain and dizziness overtook him for but a moment. Time to be well and searching for his past.

True, Matt needed to hold him up as he buttoned his trousers. Sure, the boy had to search for his socks in the bed and put them back on. And yes, he struggled to stand straight when the room dipped, but he must finish teaching Chastity ... to care for her brood ... and
nothing
more. The children seemed more dangerous now that he
liked
them. And Chastity, well, talk about danger.

Matt helped him to sit. Reed caught his breath, and waited for the room to settle. “In case I did not already say it, Matt. Thank you for saving my life the other day. I’m proud of you.”

Matt nodded. “I’ll get Kitty.” He ran as fast as Bekah had that morning.

Chastity laughed, a sound akin to music, as they led her into the kitchen, eyes closed, one child holding each hand, and two pushing from behind. “Can I open them now?”

“Not yet,” Luke said, hopping on one foot when he saw.

“One more step, Matt said. All right. Now!”

The look on Chastity’s face could only be termed exquisite, her astonishment just reward for his hard labor.

Grinning, Reed stood, and like a knight before his lady fair, he bowed, kissed her hand with a flourish ... and the floor rose up to greet him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Back in bed, Reed’s head throbbed, his side flamed, while he found himself in awe of Chastity in high dudgeon. She might be breathtaking in her righteous fury, but she spoiled the effect when she slapped a cloth against the knot on his head.

“Damnation, that hurt!”

“Which is no more than you deserve!” She unbuttoned his trousers to alleviate the pressure against his wound to such a degree that, despite his determination not to prove her anger just, Reed sighed in relief.

“Big stupid fool,” she snapped. “What in Hades did you think you were doing? Strutting like a peacock, bowing like a jester, you with a hole in your side, and only yesterday a raging fever.”

“You were supposed to be pleased.” Why was that so difficult to understand? “I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well you succeeded, make no mistake. If your fever returns, I’ll beat you.”

Reed lost track of her tirade, remembering another fever, one that could only be relieved with her hands upon him, or his upon her. “Beat me, please,” he whispered.

She ignored him.

Had he really stroked her breast? Or did he dream the erotic moment? Would she have allowed him? Likely not, since she thought tempting him was dangerous.
So true.

Reed shifted in discomfort. If he continued this line of thought, she would get a different surprise—a new display of his raging need. With an effort, Reed turned from earthy speculation. “How long have I been ill?”

“Four days.” She tugged his trousers the rest of the way down, testament to her mood, and threw the blanket over him, dropping the offending garments with such ire, he expected her to stomp on them—to show what she wanted to do to him—which bore no kinship to what he wanted to do to her.

Warm memories, with which he could not bear to part, returned. “Was I dreaming, or did I? Did you let me—”

“No!” The violet depths of Chastity’s wide eyes became dark and fathomless. “Give me your shirt.” She looked everywhere but at him, so when she tugged on his shirt, it caught on his ear.

“Damn it, Chastity, you’re giving me a worse beating than I took when the floor hit me.”

“You are no gentleman, Reed Gilbride.”

“I never said I was.”

Chastity nodded toward their wide-eyed audience. “Do you want soup?”

Reed pushed himself up in the bed. “Did I dream a certain moment?”

“What do you want, Reed?” she asked with a controlled anger she could not be charmed out of. He was treading dangerous water, he realized, unsure of how to retreat and keep his skin.

Luke and Matt giggled, the rats. Mark smirked, and Bekah went to stand by Chastity, lending support in her own silent way. Women did tend to band together, a fact of life, Reed supposed. He only wished the boys had made a similar statement. He would have a talk with them. Men needed to stick together, too.

Wait a minute. What was he doing, setting himself up as their teacher, as if they were a family? Blast it, he had to get the devil out of here. “I need to get up. Give me my shirt.”

“Fine.” Chastity tossed it, hitting him in the face with decided satisfaction. No doubt about it, the nun enjoyed a good fight. “Hungry?” she asked in all innocence.

“Hell, yes. I could eat some chicken right now.”

“How about a wing?”

Did she know? He examined her expression, but her countenance remained bland, unrevealing. He had best remember not to play piquet with her.

“You are out of luck,” she said. “The one you bagged the day you got hurt got roasted and eaten two days ago.”

She did know. He hid a smile. “Who skinned and cleaned it?”

“Matt did, but he showed me what to do. Funniest chicken
I
ever saw.”

She’d put her prejudice aside so the children could eat. He should have realized she would do anything for them—even steal his heritage, no doubt—if he gave her half a chance.

Matt sniggered. “Said she knew it was a rabbit all along ... just before she threw up.”

“Matthew!” Chastity pointed a finger toward the door. “Out. Take your brothers and sister with you.” She scooted them out and came back to slam pots.

“Such a sweet woman; such a tart temper.” Reed held his side as he chuckled.

“I hope it hurts.”

“Do you have any idea how pretty you are?”

Chastity pushed a bowl into his hand. “Eat and don’t go making up to me. If you had reopened your side, you might have bled to death. You make me so mad, I could beat you.”

He had been liking that idea. “I did not know you were such a crosspatch, but give me a few days and you can beat me all you want.” He winked. “What did the nuns think of your temper?”

“I am not a crosspatch.”

“Really? What did they say when you raved and threw things?”

“They never saw such a display.” She raised her chin a mite higher.

“Didn’t they. now?”

“This was the first time my indignation—provoked by your idiotic behavior, I might add—ever got the better of me.”

“Should I be honored then, Chastity Somers, to have caused such a
passionate
display?”

“Reed Gilbride, you’ve a rare talent for stupidity.” She made for the door. “Passion has nothing to do with it,” she said in parting and left him for the rest of the day. Fit punishment that bored him to distraction.

That night, after she tucked the children into bed, she fluffed his pillows and assured herself of his comfort, before she sat in a kitchen chair with her mending.

“I have to get out of this bed, or I’ll go mad.”

“It’s too late,” she said then cut a piece of thread with her teeth. “You’re already dotty. I knew it the moment I saw you.” She placed that mended shirt atop a neat stack.

“When you climbed out that workhouse window, the first time I saw you, the situation seemed rather reversed.”

“That was not the first time; it was too dark to see anything that night. Besides, rescuing the children was a rational, intelligent act.” She pushed a chestnut curl back into the confines of her braid.

Reed itched to untangle it all and let it fall free. “Brilliance and madness are two sides of the same coin.”

She turned her attention to a half-made pinafore.

“The first time I thought you mad,” said he, “a specter greeted me, hair blazing down her back, knife in hand.”

Chastity tilted her head. “I judged you mad when I saw you fight off a bevy of children as if they could do you harm. A big brute of a man with ten times their strength, afraid.”

“Not fear in the sense you’re implying, and I take exception to your tone, but to speak truth, they do scare the bejesus out of me, more often than not.”

He caught her smile, though she directed it toward her sewing. Chastity?” he said, and waited ‘till she looked up. “You mean that big, naked, brute of a man you saw that night they robbed me?”

That’s what they both remembered, he had no doubt.  Talk of madness forgotten, their gazes locked for as charged a moment as when he slipped his hand inside her gown.

Her in-drawn breath revealed her
physical
reaction to the memory. She looked away, then toward her lap, as if she could not identify the items in it, or why they were there. She examined the needle in her fingers as thoroughly.

“It’s a needle,” Reed said.

Nodding, she chose a tiny stocking, speared it with a vengeance, and gave a startled exclamation. As she sucked her injured finger, her color returned.

Reed chuckled, an odd contentment catching him unaware. He liked this time of day, the children in their beds, sexual awareness sparking between them—heat lightening without rain—no rhyme or reason, just a bolt from the blue. He had never experienced the like.

Sex had always been physical—for taking and enjoying. He never equated it with verbal foreplay, which happened often with Chastity and brought pleasure in the form of heightened awareness and anticipation. A danger, this side of sex; it could lead down perilous paths, toward a time when he would pull her beneath him and bury himself in her silken sheath.

He failed to stifle his groan.

Chastity looked up, a question in her expression.

He needed a diversion from this painful sparring, at least for him, with such a formidable opponent. “I will concede we have both appeared mad on occasion. But the last two days, you wavering between sweet compassion, and the stubborn end of a French dragoon, has seemed a form of madness in itself.”

“You have hardly inspired compassion. Of all the fool things, rising and hurting yourself. When I got you off the floor and saw you bleeding again, it was all I could do not to—”

“Enough!” Reed held up a hand. “I misjudged my abilities, I admit, but nothing can change that.”

“I’m sorry.” She came and sat beside him on the bed, her apology surprising him, her nearness making him ache. “You frightened me,” she said. “The thought of you hurt. Again.”

His emotions, he hated to note, tangled with his physical reaction to her. She cared that he had been hurt. Did she? Devil it, he was going mawkish—just because it mattered to her what happened to him?

Damnation, he liked it better when no one gave a bloody bedamn; he was less confused, more in control.

She didn’t care; she likely wanted him stuck in bed, so she could find and destroy the evidence of his birth. She might already have it. She’d had ample time with him unconscious.

Just because they decided to search together, did not mean she would keep their pact. She already admitted she would do anything for the children, he had best remember. “I have got to get out of this bed.”  

“How about a compromise?”

That she seemed unperturbed by his surliness aggravated and confused him as much as everything about her did. Whenever he thought he understood her, she baffled him. He would not like her so-called compromise; this he knew.

“Stay in bed one more day, to heal,” she said. “I’ll feel better and so will you.”

“Done,” he said, but he would not give her the satisfaction of leaving him for a minute. Search behind his back, would she? “But I will not stay in bed alone.”

Her eyes widened. He shook his head. “I mean, stay with me, here, in the kitchen. I do not care how you spend your time—cooking, talking to the children, sewing, whatever. Just keep me company.”

Chastity nodded, seeming at a loss for words.

They argued for half that last day. And when things calmed, Reed baited her again; he could not seem to help himself. “Why do you need to open a children’s home?” he asked. “There are orphanages and workhouses all over England.” God he wanted to take her into his arms.

“Not like mine, Reed.” Her voice was as soft as her look. “Here, the children will be loved. Finding these four was like God’s personal blessing. I knew that my dream would become a reality. I love them, already.”

“Love. Bah!” Suddenly all his frustration—emotional, physical, sexual, finding her here with the children, his accident, his parentage, his whole bloody, God-forsaken life—melded in a rush of ire. “Who do you think you are? Some kind of angel sent by God?  “Damn it, there is no such being, no such thing as
love
.”

She backed away, her horror fueling his frustration. “You’re doing it for yourself, Chastity. Face it. You’re just as selfish as the rest of us. You’re opening a home, not to
give
love to the children, but to
get
it for yourself.”

As if he slapped her, Chastity placed her hands on the counter, seeking support, as if she might crumble without something solid to cling to. Lowering her head, she took a trembling breath.

“Chastity,” Reed whispered, hating himself, hurting with her, angry he had fallen into the trap.

After a horrible silence, she raised her chin, straightened her back, and turned to face him, again. “Yes,” she said, quite clearly. “Yes, I’m doing it for the children’s love. Damn you and thank you, Reed Gilbride, for showing me. I do need them to love me. Yes. I need love desperately. Until this moment, I did not know that about myself. But, Reed, they need me to love them just as much. Perhaps more, because they are
children
. And children, for some reason, expect to be loved.”

“I, however, did not expect it,” she said. “It has been a surprise to discover they love me in return. At least, I think it was a surprise. Your words confused me, and yet you clarified a perplexing matter at the same time. “But I think they need to love me. I think, more than to receive love, children need to give it. They do it naturally and demonstrate it, often. Even Mark, though he tries not to. They are willing to love you, if you let them.”

Her words made him queasy and fidgety. She had pierced something inside him, something he believed impervious, and he almost hated her for it. “There is no such dim-witted thing as love!” he snapped, voice thundering and blade sharp. The louder he spoke, the stronger he believed, and the more relieved he became. “Love is a myth, a legend begun by mindless females in and out of convents. Even this ridiculous home of yours is a myth. Where will you be when you lose your dream? You’ll fail, if you ever get the chance to try, and I am going to stay and watch.”

He closed his eyes to purge the sight of her pain, the result of his words, as he’d purged himself from her concern, though he took no satisfaction in either. Truth to tell, despair all but choked him.

He heard her approach and looked up. She held her chin high, her shoulders back. “You will not watch,” she said, “because you will be gone from here. Get out.”

“You have no right.”

“I do. I have the authority of the executor of the St. Yves estate.”

Reed stood, allowing the covers to fall away, wanting to shock, seeking the upper hand, the strength to walk. He grabbed his clothes as she watched.

After an astonished moment, Chastity turned her back, wishing she could stare him down, no matter his state of undress. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

She ached at the thought. “I did not mean—”

“You did, and as far as the executor of this estate is concerned, we will see what he thinks about your having stolen the children from the workhouse. We’ll see which of us is forced to leave.” Reed walked, or rather limped, toward the kitchen door.