An Unmistakable Rogue (13 page)

This man changed her. She could spend forever with him and be happy. Could she?

As though she floated above the room and looked down at them, Chastity knew with sudden and clear certainty that she loved Reed Gilbride with all her heart.

He placed his hands at her waist and stepped near enough for her to inhale his scent, earth and man, fresh and clean. Intoxicating. Where the tips of her breasts touched his chest, hot prickles burst and traveled to the most ludicrous places. Body to body they stood, touching even at her core and she turned molten. His body fit well against her own, their contours flowing toward and away from each other, as if they were made for each other.

Did he sense it too?

Life, the wonder of it, new and fresh, filled her with a physical thrumming. Within her, yes, but without as well. She stepped the merest bit closer. “I missed you.”

Reed groaned, swooped, and opened his mouth over hers, his kiss deep and hard, almost desperate. His hands flowed upward, from her waist to the sides of her breasts.

Aching for more, she placed her arms around his neck, giving him easier access to herself. Now he almost ... almost cupped her breasts, yet his hands remained beneath them, as if not daring to move closer.

Lord if he did not touch her soon, she would perish.

Reveling in the freedom to do so, she stroked the hair at his nape. His mouth opened again, as did hers. He became her teacher, she his eager pupil.

One of them moaned as Reed grasped her bottom to pull her tight against him. She sought more with the movement of her hips.

Reed swore and stepped away, far enough to separate their bodies, but close enough to rest his brow against hers. He clasped her hands tight in his at their sides and took several long, deep breaths. Then he stepped away and urged her into her bed.

Much as she wanted to pull him down beside her, her bravado failed.

He tugged the covers to her chin and tucked the blanket around her feet, her legs, her waist, slowly, gently, against the sides of her breasts. His thumb stroked farther, but not far enough.

He bent lower, until his lips hovered just above hers, calling silently, begging. “Once more,” he said, and kissed her again. Long and slow. Wild, yet serene. Exhilarating and comforting. “I’ll get Bekah,” he said before he left.

Reed Gilbride made her yearn and he made her content. And he made her want to scream.

“Sleep well,” he whispered a while later, after he placed Bekah beside her. And she wanted to call him back, but she did not. It was going to be a long night. She could not possibly sleep after what had just happened between them.

The light of a gray English morning finally beckoned. Chastity opened her eyes and stretched languorously. She had experienced a sweet, dream-filled sleep wherein the possibility that she could give and receive love seemed real.

A sense of teetering on the brink hummed in the air and infused her with anticipation as she rose. For the first time, her life might come about as she directed it, rather than as a consequence or act of another. As someone who came into this world as the result of another’s mistake, she had dreamed for years of a new beginning, and here it sat, waiting.

She hummed as she dressed, remembering the night before. As she left her room, neither the children, themselves, nor their usual raucous greetings were to be heard. Reed must have started them on their chores outdoors or, at the least, promised dire consequences should they speak above a whisper.

As she went by his room, she could not help gazing about. His door was open, his bed neat, and the room empty.

Trepidation filled her. Had he left? For good, this time? Was last night’s kiss a good-bye? Without thought, she ran down the stairs, coming up short at the bottom.

There Reed stood, at the open front door, affixing two shiny hinges into place.

Even at this hour, light threw shadows across the foyer. Here gray, there bright, a mirror of her emotions.

“Running from another fire?” he asked. His rogue’s smile, his winking dimple, could undo her firmest resolve not to be charmed, and she found herself cross at the notion. “No,” she said. “I slept too long. I need to prepare breakfast.”

She waited with less unease than anticipation as he approached. “Chastity, we have to talk.”

“You’re not leaving, again, are you?” She hated herself for asking. Her emotions, where he was concerned, frightened her. Was love always so? But daylight brought sense. Chastity Somers and Reed Gilbride had no future. He would never want the children and she would not venture forth without them, even into a life with the man she loved.

He touched her cheek. “I will not go unless I am certain you no longer need me. I still have much to teach you.” He seemed to wince.

“And your heritage to prove.”

Relief softened his features. “And my heritage to prove. Would I be here if I were not on a quest? More to the point, how would you be doing, if I had not come along? Be grateful for small favors.”

“I’d hardly call your presence a favor,” she said, stung by his reminder of her incompetence. She had forgotten that he could be more knave than savior sometimes.

“Oddly enough, I have moments, fleeting though they be, of considering this interlude as something of a favor granted. Would that you could, also.”

Lord, and what did he mean by that? Certainly he felt no boon to be among them. “Where are the children?”

“I need to speak to you about them.”

His gravity shot fear through her. “Where are they? She turned toward the kitchen in panic. “What have you done to them?”

“Only what they deserve.” He took her arm gently. “They have got to get over this pilfering business.”

“What’s missing now?”

“Everything.”

Chastity laughed. “Reed Gilbride. Did they, or did they not, take something?”

“There is not one morsel of food in this house—no butter, nor the bread I saw cooling when I returned last evening. No meat. Nothing. In the barn, Leonardo has been milked, but I can find no milk.”

“The children have more than enough to eat, now. They cannot possibly be hungry.”

Reed acknowledged the truth of her words with a nod. “I found Matt scampering up the ladder into the shed loft with a full bucket of milk. Mark, Luke and Bekah were hard on his heels with everything else. Most of the food they pilfered has already spoiled. They have been stealing it and letting it turn, wasting supplies. Chastity, they cannot—” He regarded her, wondering if he should continue.

She nodded for him to go on.

He shrugged in resignation. “They are being punished.”

“No!” Chastity remembered the workhouse, the sound of leather striking flesh, the smell of festering sores, fever, death. “If you hurt my babies, Reed Gilbride, I will strap you myself, until—”

She was in his arms. He was shushing her, kissing her tears. “Sweetheart, shh, they’re all right. God, what have you seen to warrant—”

“In the workhouse, Reed. I saw—”

He kissed her brow, pulled back to gaze into her eyes. “You
were
saving them.”

He hugged her, again, when she nodded.

“Now, I understand.” He gave her his debilitating smile and took her hand. “Let us confront the looters. If you do not agree with their punishment, you may thrash me.

“I may anyway, for scaring me like that.”

The children sat at the kitchen table, food piled in each of their plates. Rebekah looked startled when she saw Reed, and she took a quick gulp of milk. Mark sat back, arms folded mutinously, plate full. Matt, head in hands, looking pale, a half-eaten cookie in his hand that Chastity had not baked. Luke was stuffing himself with four-day-old oatcakes.

“The bandits,” Reed said. “In my opinion, if they steal food, they should eat it. I have told them not to move from the table until they consume every bit of what they took.” He looked from one child to the next. “All of it.” He let that sink in for a minute.

“You’ll no doubt come to the conclusion that you’ve taken more than you need,” he said at Chastity’s nod to continue. “With no food in the house, Chastity and I might have gone hungry. Was it your intent to harm us?” He held up his hand when she made to interrupt, revealing that he intended his exaggeration. Please, he begged silently,
go along with me.

Chastity hesitated and sighed, letting him know she would, at least for a while.

He turned back to the children. “If so, you’ve done right in hoarding food, because if we starve, we shall no longer be able to provide for you. Sooner or later, your own food would run out, though, and without us to provide more, you too would starve.”

Bekah began to sob. It was all Chastity could do, not to stoop down and pick her up. There was not an ounce of guile in Bekah, though she was fiercely loyal to her brothers, and would commit any crime they suggested.

Luke stopped enjoying his oat-cakes. Reed had made the right impression, there. Mark lowered his arms, and for Mark that was a concession. Matt paled the more. Whether he understood the repercussions, or realized she would not rescue them this time, she could not tell.

She started to issue a protest, but Reed pulled her aside. “They said they found those cookies this morning, but I’m concerned they stole them, elsewhere.”

“Oh dear.”

“I tossed the food that spoiled, though I made them take a whiff, so they would understand that they deprived us all.

“Oh Reed.”

“If they’re ever hungry, again, they should remember what they wasted.” He raised his voice. “Come along, Chastity, so they can finish eating breakfast. If they do not make haste, they will not be done in time for lunch.”

Rebekah set up a wail. “That will not work,” Reed said ruffling her hair. Then he took Chastity by the arm and led her from the kitchen.

“They are going to be sick,” she said as soon as they were out of earshot.

“I will not let it go that far. You can rescue them in a little while. If you had not come down, I would have gone to get you for that purpose.”

They were both remembering last night, she thought, wondering what might have happened, if he had come to her room this morning.

Reed cleared his throat. “I think their punishment fit the crime. I needed to balance their fear of being hungry against a sad waste of food. And they need to learn a proper respect for our hard work in providing for them. They have to learn to trust that we will provide.”

He acted as if they, together, would keep the children. “I was prepared to argue with you on this,” she said, “though I suppose you are right, but I am worried about them.”

“They’ll be fine,” Reed promised, just before Mark’s frantic shout.

Chastity arrived in time to see Matt toss up his
just desserts
all over Reed’s trousers and boots.

Luke laughed, Bekah stopped wailing, and Mark cracked a smile.

The victim of his own
punishment fits the crime
scheme, Reed cursed his unknown antecedents and children in general.

Chastity pulled his shirt from his soiled pants while he kicked off his boots and undid the placket on his offensive trousers, which landed at his feet at the same moment a sudden throat-clearing startled them.

Reed looked up and Chastity whipped about.

“Ah, excuse me, Chastity. I, ah, seem to have arrived at an inconvenient time.”

“Mr. Sennett!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Chastity could not help note that the children, for once, had been struck silent, not unlike Mr. Sennett.

Reed pulled up his pants on the instant, all of them trying to ignore the foul stench.

Above reproach at all times—Mr. Sennett’s warning on the day he gave her Sunnyledge—on a trial basis—echoed in her head as she realized that she had been caught with a red-faced man, pants around his ankles, in front of the children.

She stepped forward. “Mr. Sennett, please do not suppose that this kind of thing happens every day ... except when Reed was ill, and—”

Reed’s look warned her to stop. Now.

Afraid her home might already be lost, Chastity raised her chin. “How pleased I am to see you, Mr. Sennett.” Keeping her smile, she cleared her throat. “Mr. Gilbride is our new caretaker. Mr. Gilbride, Mr. Sennett is the solicitor who gave me the use of Sunnyledge.” Had she sufficiently conveyed the man’s importance?

Reed reached for something to wipe his hands, barely stopped his pants from falling, again, and bowed. “Your servant, Sennett.”

Mr. Sennett grimaced, or stifled a smile, cleared his throat, and returned Reed’s greeting in kind.

Chastity thought she might cry. What must her benefactor think of her disastrous stewardship? Sick children, unclothed retainers, chaos. If she did not lose Sunnyledge after this morning’s work, she never would.

Sennett narrowed his eyes upon Reed. “We’ve met.”

Reed nodded. “I apologize for not accepting your suppositions regarding my heritage, but I felt compelled to come and find out for myself.”

Mr. Sennett nodded at Reed and turned to her. “Is he a good caretaker at least?”

Chastity cursed her blush. “He has already fixed the front door, and the stairs, purchased a cow, and planted a garden.”

Mr. Sennett nodded thoughtfully.

Chastity told Mark to open the door to air the room and sent Matt and Reed to change their clothes. Then she ushered Mr. Sennett to a small salon. She introduced him to Luke, Mark and Bekah. “I’ll let these three entertain you while I make certain Matt is all right.”

After warning them with a raised brow, Chastity was reasonably certain the children would not rob and assault Mr. Sennett in the light of day. Still, she felt compelled to accomplish her tasks with due haste.

After guiding the conversation to safe ground, namely her accomplishments since arriving, Chastity reluctantly left her charges with the man who held their fate in his hands, and prayed that all would go well.

* * *

The Vindicator cursed. Only one of the children ate her cookies, and so little as to make no difference. But worse than that, she feared that Sennett would banish her puppet.

The solicitor seemed none too pleased to find Reed Gilbride in residence. How could she pit Edward’s sons against each other, if they did not remain at Sunnyledge?

After the woman they called Kitty finished cleaning the kitchen, and left,
finally
, the vindicator slipped from the scullery dumbwaiter and made her clandestine way through the house toward the room adjacent to the salon, where she could hear them talking.

* * *

After changing his clothes, Reed came downstairs wondering if his quest for his heritage would end before his search ever began. ‘Twas clear Sennett did not appreciate his presence. How much power did the man wield?

Since his untimely arrival, Reed experienced a disquieting notion that change would soon be wrought; he only wished he knew how it would affect Chastity and the children.

He shook his head at that. Fancy
him
being more worried about them.

When Chastity stepped into the hall, tea tray in hand, a fierce need to keep her safe came over Reed, but safe from whom? Himself or Sennett? Yes, or anyone who would harm her, except, protecting Chastity was not his place. He did, however, take her arm as they approached a moment that could amount to their doom.

Childish chatter and Sennett’s laughter escalated, as they got nearer. “Leaving Sennett with the rascals might have been dangerous,” Reed said beneath his breath. “I hope he carries no food about him.”

Chastity gave him a grimace.

Reed chuckled. “Sorry, just trying to lighten—”

“He threatened to eat Zeke,” Mark said, clear as day, stopping Reed and Chastity dead.

“But he bought us a cow,” Matt added. “For milk.”

“Leonardo,” Luke added. “Reed taught Kitty how to milk it, and she screamed when she tried, and squirted herself in the face.” Luke giggled and Sennett laughed.

“Reed’s nice,” Luke added. “He gives Chastity a bath every night.”

Reed caught the tea tray as it slipped from Chastity’s fingers, scalding himself in the process. “Damnation!” he cursed in a furious whisper.

“Precisely!” Chastity made for the salon posthaste, her neat bottom—

Reed cursed one more silent time, as he entered the salon behind her and put the tray safely down. He wiped his stinging hand with his handkerchief.

Her convoluted explanation of how he filled and heated buckets of water for her evening bath seemed an unfortunate matter of the lady protesting too much. Reed wished he knew how to end her diatribe without adding to the impression.

“Afterward, he goes up to his room,” Chastity said, the silence heavy with the echo of her words.

“
Up
to his room?” Sennett said. “
Up
... where?”

The man was nothing if not single-minded, Reed thought, as he folded his arms and braced a shoulder against the acorn-carved mantle.

“To the third floor, to bed,” Chastity said, looking around, as if for escape.

“Your caretaker sleeps in the house? Where, precisely?”

“Next door to Kitty,” Luke said. “We use the doors between the rooms to go—”

“Hush Luke!”

Reed stifled a chuckle at the forceful tone his sheltering swan had finally employed on one of her cygnets.

“Rebekah and I share a room, Mr. Sennett,” she said. “The boys use the room on one side of us, and Reed, ah, Mr. Gilbride sleeps in the room on the opposite side, so the children do not disturb him,” she added in a rush.

The solicitor raised a brow. “My dear, you are aware of how impressionable young children can be?”

Reed tried to warn Chastity, with a look, to stop while she was ahead, and he could almost hear her groan as she silently begged for his help.

Sennett cleared his throat and regarded them fixedly.

Damnation, now the man had more to ponder. Did casual acquaintances, like him and Chastity, normally communicate without speaking? Either the ability they shared was a prime example, or they were in trouble.

“The two of you, sharing the house—why, it’s practically indecent,” Sennett said. “I think you must leave, young man. I meant for Chastity to hire female help.”

On Chastity’s visage, Reed saw fear and panic taking hold. “But Reed is doing so much,” she said. “Surely a woman could not repair a roof or plow and plant.”

Though she had never admitted that she needed him, Reed thought she must finally realize it, else she would not argue to keep him.

“Still,” Sennett said. “I see no way for such living conditions to continue ... unless you plan to marry?”

Chastity gasped.

Reed straightened. Was the man daft? “Mr. Sennett, you do understand that Chastity’s present situation precludes the possibility of marriage. Certainly that is reason enough for the world to see our living arrangement as harmless, and for the sole purpose of setting up her children’s home.”

Reed paced away, sighed, and returned to his position by the mantle. “I’ll move into the barn. I should have insisted at the start. My own greed for comfort allowed me to accept living conditions I knew were not quite—” He looked Sennett in the eye. “Chastity has no notion, you must see, of the pitfalls. Do not hold her accountable for that which she does not understand. You do take my meaning?”

Sennett nodded somewhat grudgingly.

Did the man question even a nun’s innocence? He must, Reed thought, for now he was shaking his head. “It simply will not do,” Sennett said. “The world takes a dim view of a man and woman living together under any circumstance.”

“But Chastity is a—”

“Bereaved widow, I know, but a woman, nonetheless. And you, Sir, are a man.” Sennett glanced from one child’s rapt expression to the next, then back to Reed. “What more can I say?”

Reed found it necessary to sit. His equilibrium seemed to have deserted him. Chastity was a widow? Not a nun? He looked to her for denial, but her expression could not be more confirming, or more awash with crimson, were she bent over a roaring fire. Yet with a disarming look, she implored him to understand.

With a glancing glare, he ignored her plea. He had been lied to by a woman who spouted verity at every turn. What had she once said? ‘Telling falsehoods would set a bad example?’ The impostor. The liar! But she did not lie, not really. He remembered the conversation. He had assumed and she had not corrected. He had demanded answers that she had skirted. There was no other explanation. She had wanted him to believe her a nun, by God. Well, to be fair, God had surely not entered into it. She did have her standards.

Reed groaned inwardly at explaining her innocence to Sennett, more fool he. Yet he could not help but consider her naive, even now, though why he should, her being a widow and all, he did not know.

By all that was holy, Chastity was a woman of experience. A wife. She had received her husband’s kisses, his touch, had taken him into herself. Reed’s groan almost escaped then. For weeks he had held back, dared not touch. He sidestepped the act of seduction at every turn, though the notion dogged him like a love-struck hound. Last night, he had left her willing and wanting.

Last night he had been
noble
.

Well, no more.

Sennett’s cough made Reed look up, surprised, to find the roomful of people, all watching him. Had he spoken his thoughts aloud? By the look of Sennett, Reed’s musings were at the very least, suspect, though Chastity seemed none the wiser.

There it was again, the contradiction—world wise and without guile, all in one package.

Well, her innocence, or her lack of it, mattered no more. For the first time in days, what mattered more to Reed were his own goals, and he was relieved. Glad. Delighted.

He made a resolution then and there. Despite Sennett’s protestations, despite Chastity’s perfidy, he would stay to find the proof of his birth. If Lady Innocence suffered from his methods, fair or foul, then so be it. If he must become betrothed to Sister Virtue-Gone-Astray, then betrothed he would become, by damn.

Reed regarded the vixen, then, from the top of her cinnamon crown to her perilously pallid complexion, her expression screaming fear—and so she should be terrified, for he would make her
pay
.

Regarding her in such a way as to shiver her in her slippers, he examined, not her religious habit, but her widow’s weeds, as she clasped and unclasped her white knuckled hands in her lap.  

Reed denied his need to console her, and he forced a slow-growing smile, to make her devilish uneasy, as he turned to the solicitor with purpose. “The fact is, Mr. Sennett, if I may be so bold, I have grown to—”

As Reed regarded Chastity, she grew paler, and he was forced, once again, to stifle his need to take her into his arms. How dare she wring gentleness from him. “Mrs. Somers would make an excellent wife and mother.” No false ring there, he was pleased to note. “So with your permission ...” Reed waited for Sennett’s sanction.

The solicitor nodded.

“I would be perfectly willing ... nay, delighted, to betroth myself to her.”

“Absolutely not!” his high-and-mighty, no-longer-cowed but suddenly-self-righteous, non-celibate lady snapped.

Reed knelt before her in the way of a gallant, Chastity shrinking against her chair, as if he were a viper come to dine ... on her. And so he would.

He took one of her cold, delicate, trembling hands in his, and massaged the palm with his thumb, gazing into her spring-violet eyes, telling her silently, privately, what he would like to do to her—after he beat her.

He conveyed so much passion, as to bring heat to her face and a swelling to his loins, and when he realized they had both been stirred, he winked.

Chastity gasped and made to pull away, but Reed would not allow it. She tried crushing his fingers but found he owned the greater strength. Her embarrassment turned quickly to anger. Fine, he was stronger, she silently admitted.

Reed loosened his hold just enough to remind her which of them held the trump hand. “Why do you refuse?” he asked, knowing her answer should not matter. This was nothing more than a business arrangement, after all, a matter of expedience, and forced at that. Though there could be
benefits
.

Chastity made to push him away as she stood.

Reed teetered on his haunches, but rose with recovered grace, never releasing her hand.

She struggled to reclaim it, to remain calm. “I cannot marry. I am in mourning for the better part of a year yet.”

“I request only that we become betrothed,” Reed said with such sweetness, he wanted to laugh. “You
do
need my help.”

“I can manage without you,” she said chin high.

“You cannot. You need more cooking lessons.”

“Chastity cooks good,” Mark said, stepping aggressively forward in his first defense of anyone.

Rebekah nodded so hard, she bounced her braid against her bottom, and warmed a place in Reed’s thawing heart.

“My cooking will do,” Chastity said, to convince herself as much as anyone, Reed thought.

“Be that as it may, your farming and gardening skills are nonexistent.”

“I can sew,” she said, chin raised, lips aquiver.

“You sew beautifully.” Reed cursed himself and ran a hand through his hair, annoyed at his weakness. “Admit it,” he said. “You needed me from the minute you climbed through that wind—

“Yes! All right! I’ll marry you!” she shouted, and then she looked from one astonished face to the other, and took a breath. “I mean that I will become betrothed to you.”