Holy Scoundrel (19 page)

Lacey whooped and lifted Bridget into her arms. Then Gabe was embracing them both. Someone was crying. Perhaps all of them. It didn’t matter. Cricket was safe. She was safe.

Julian placed his hands on his hips. “So what do you have against your Uncle Nick, little one?”

“I just want him to be my uncle, not my papa.”

“I’ll warrant he can do that.” Julian raised a brow toward Gabe, because it was evident, given his and Nick’s pasts, that Gabe had sai
d
somethin
g
to confuse the child.

Lace knuckled the tears on Bridget’s cheeks. “Cricket, you heard us arguing, didn’t you?”

“In the buttery.” Bridget nodded and her eyes filled. “Please don’t go away.” She turned to her father. “Please don’t send MyLacey away.”

“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Gabriel said. “Except you, straight home for a warm bath and a long sleep.” He wiped the chalk dust off her face.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

Gabriel chuckled. “All right. First food, then a bath, then a good sleep.”

Gabe offered Julian his hand. Lace embraced her old friend in thanks.

Pale and shaky, Ivy wiped his brow and sat on a boulder, and Tweenie jumped into his lap to wash his face. “I hoped you were with her, you smart pup. Guess you’ve earned your socks for some long time, my girl.” Ivy scratched the pup behind her ear.

“Well, young lady,” Gabriel said stepping back. “Care to explain how you got here?”

Bridget opened her arms for him to take her from Lace, and his ire vanished on the instant. His daughter’s little face tucked into his neck was all it took to dissolve his long-held control. He shrugged as he regarded Julian. “Thank you again.”

Julian slapped Gabe on the back.

Gabe winked at Lace over Bridget’s head, her little cheek against his, and when Bridget put her arm around Lace’s neck, Lace happily joined them.

Dirt trails on her small face, Bridget grinned. “I’m glad you came,” she said pulling back to look at them. “I want yo
u
bot
h
to take care of me. Why did you keep giving me to each other, and then to Uncle Nick. Am I too naughty to keep? I can be gooder.”

Lacey caught her lip on a sob.

Gabe blustered. “If we do something that hurts your feelings, you are to tell us immediately. As we are free to tell you that if you ever run away again and scare us out of mind, you will be punished. As to what you heard, that was two foolish adults arguing about who would be the best parent. We wanted th
e
bes
t
for you.”

“So Nick was in the running?” Julian asked.

Lacey chuckled. “He was an easy jab.”

“Ah, Gabe, my man, you were practicing your sarcasm on our old friend.”

“Unfortunately.”

Bridget shifted back to Lacey’s arms. “The truth is, Bridget, that neither your Papa nor I was feeling very lovable at that moment. Not half good enough for you when we wanted the best one to take care of you.”

“Not one. I want two.”

“Excuse me?” Lacey asked.

“All my new friends have two parents. A papa and a mama. Why can’t I have yo
u
bot
h
? I won’t run away anymore. I’ll be good. You know, I heard monsters out here last night, worse after Tweenie left. I cried. I really did. I think I nee
d
tw
o
of you to protect me. The monsters might come back.”

“Wait,” Gabriel said, “If it was so easy for you to climb in there, why didn’t you come home when it started getting dark last night?”

Lacey wondered if they’d jumped to do Bridget’s bidding once again. Then she remembered how sick with worry she’d been and it was difficult to work up a case of angry.

“Me and Tweenie got in easy, and we got tired and fell asleep but when we woke up, Tweenie left. Then I got scared
because it was too dark to see where I came in, so I tried to kick my way out, but rocks fell and closed me in.”

“Dear God,” Gabe said. “Tweenie gets a steak tonight.”

Back at Rectory Cottage, MacKenzie rose from her deathbed, miraculously cured at sight of Bridget, to make the child’s favorite breakfast.

When Lacey gave her a bath, Bridget fretted for Papa. When Gabriel rocked her, she wanted MyLacey. The child didn’t relax enough to sleep, until Lace lay down beside her and Gabe sat on the edge of her bed, rubbing her back.

He could feel the fretful catches in her breathing as he did, and it drove him insane that they’d done this to her with their bickering. He wasn’t even certain what Lacey had been so angry about. She’d spoken as if he’d abandoned her when he left her with child, when that had never been the case. And the only time he’d bee
n
reall
y
stupi
d
was when he’d actually believed her chil
d
mus
t
be his.

Though that thing she’d said about him not making th
e
onl
y
mistake the day he’d gone to claim paternity, where he might have claimed her on any account. That would have been the vicarly thing to do. And they could have been together all this time, except that they wouldn’t have Bridget, because he never would have married Clara.

Or maybe they would have Bridget, anyway, because Clara, at her death, surely would have made Lacey her daughter’s legal guardian, not the town vicar.

That was the nature of their time on this earth, he supposed, choices to be made at every turn, and very often our decisions were wrong. Life does try one. No wonder he had so many parishioners to counsel.

And if he didn’t calm down and let Lacey’s remarks go, however confusing, they’d be at it again, and only Bridget would suffer. He looked up to find Lace watching him. “She needs us both,” he whispered.

Lace nodded and covered his hand on Bridget’s back. “I know.”

“We’ve got to make it work.”

She nodded. “We will.”

Was she saying she’d marry him? He couldn’t ask, not right now, not so soon. It was enough that they would b
e
togethe
r
for Bridget’s sake, even if it only meant living in the same house. He wasn’t certain why he was desperate to marry Lace; he knew only that he must.

MacKenzie came to stand by the bed. She nodded her approval when she saw that Bridget slept. “News from the Towers,” she said. “Nicholas has returned.”

A knife blade could not have slashed Gabe’s hopes more deeply.

Nicholas Daventry; it wanted only that to complicate matters. It looked to Gabe as if Lace slept as well, so he sighed and rose, squeezing MacKenzie’s shoulder as he left the room.

Lacey opened her eyes to regard Mac. “I hurt him badly, Mac. And not just five years ago.”

“I know, my love. And with Nick home, our vicar’s not likely to mend any time soon. Do you know yet what you’re going to do?”

“Live nearby, so I can help raise our Cricket.” Lace sat on the side of the bed, careful not to wake her. “I’m going for a walk. Up toward the Towers, I expect. I have a great deal to ponder. I’m thinking I’ll talk to Nick about a small plot of land on the estate nearby, where I can build a cottage.” She smiled when Bridget mumbled something in her sleep. “MacKenzie, stay with her while she sleeps, will you?”

Mac harrumphed. “Where else would I be?”

Lacey kissed her old nurse’s brow and left the room.

After a night of hell, it was quite the beautiful day for a walk, she thought, as she made for the old Abbey where she and Gabriel had once played and then shared the first blossom of love.

I
t
ha
d
been love for both of them, she believed. But between her mother’s fury and her resultant betrayal of Gabriel, too much had happened for the bright innocence of it to have survived. Much in her had died with their child. And as a result of her lie, Gabriel, too, had become hard and intractable, difficult to read. Brooding.

Yes, he loved his stepdaughter, but it was a frustrating love even so, tempered by Bridget’s consequent rejection.

Gabriel was a good man, but he didn’t love her in the wholehearted way she needed, the way necessary for her to be able to give herself in marriage. They had first been torn by lies, then over the past five years they’d grown apart.

From marriage, he wanted . .
.
he
r
simply as his lusty bed partner for a lifetime.

She wanted a marriage made of whole cloth, a life tapestry woven with everyday threads but made strong with the silver and gold of promise and fidelity
—
trus
t
most of all. She wanted a helpmate in hard times . .
.
an
d
a lusty bed partner.

If it were not for Bridget, Lace would leave Arundel and let Gabriel come after her once he sorted his priorities. However, after today, her choice had been taken away. She would do anything for Bridget, even grow old beside the man she loved but could never entirely have, because he didn’t believe she could be faithful.

She loved Gabriel Kendrick; she would until the day she died. But unless he loved her in the same way, unless he understood without question that she had not betrayed him, despite her attempt to save his parish living and his dreams, then there was no hope for them.

No hope, yet she wanted him, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Perhaps the town’s designation as sinner was appropriate for her, after all. Because if she didn’t leave Rectory Cottage soon, she would end up in the vicar’s bed more often than in her own, and that was no way to raise a child.

It was no way to live. Gabriel was a man of the cloth, for heaven’s sake; he needed the respect of his flock. He needed to guide them down a righteous path, and how could he do so if he strayed from that path himself?

She would move out, but stay close. A place nearby, but not so near that al
l
sh
e
had to do was turn a knob to climb into the vicar’s bed.

Lacey wiped her eyes and tried not to think of her hopeless love for the big, stubborn ox.

She entered the Abbey ruins and sat on a corner patch of grass in a circle of sunlight. She’d go and see Nick later. Right now, she needed time in which to firm her resolve to leave Rectory Cottage.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Gabriel entered the kitchen and slammed the door behind him. “MacKenzie, do you know where Lacey went? I can’t find her anywhere.”

MacKenzie slapped the mound of dough she was kneading and turned to face their brilliant vicar, who had no clue about the depth of love he’d been given. “Last I knew, she was heading up to the Towers to ask Nichola
s
the scam
p
Daventry for a place to live. Not a worthy notion, if you ask me, those two. I mean, after the scandal they caused a few years back.”

Mac regarded her employer from the corner of her eye and smiled inwardly. That should shake him up a bit. And she hadn’t lied a jot.

Gabe growled beneath his breath. “Where’s Bridget?”

“Taking tea with the Misses Julia and Annabelle, an
d
thre
e
dolls, I believe, upstairs in her bedroom.”

Lord, the vicar could be handsome when he smiled.

“Go and give your little one a kiss, and then fetch her MyLacey for her before she starts fretting again, will you? We’ll both be here when you get back.”

Himself nodded and ran upstairs, more alive since abducting Lacey with the gypsy wagon than he’d been for years.

He was back down and out the door before she could turn the dough.

Mac hummed as she shaped the bread into loaves and saw him out the window headed toward the Abbey Ruins, the Towers a half mile beyond.

Gabriel did not know whether Lacey had been to Ashcroft Towers or not, or if she asked Nick for a place to live or not, but he could not be upset with her when he found her asleep like this on a patch of sunlit grass in the place where they’d once made love—her more beautiful than a dream, more dear than his own life. Then and now.

He sat beside her and touched her skirt, just to make the connection.

How could he stop her from throwing herself at Nick Daventry again? He couldn’t believe she wanted to live with the man after everything. Sometimes Gabe thought she had a blind spot where that knave was concerned. You’d think she would hate Nick for abandoning her and their unborn child. Instead, she wanted to welcome him with open arms and move into his house. What hold did Nick have over her?

What would the parish think?

Not much more than they did about her living with their vicar, he supposed. Then again, she and Nick had had a child together. Never mind that the child could have been his.

It hit him then that Lacey had made certain that the village, and his parish, had never known about their dalliance. Had she meant to protect him all these years? Odd that, considering how angry she’d been at him when she left.