To Tempt An Angel (Book 1 Douglas series) (33 page)

Needing no second invitation, Daisy ran around behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “What now?” she asked.

“Don’t let go.”

“I won’t.”

“When I stand up,” Robert said, “wrap your legs around my waist.”

Robert stood slowly, and Daisy did as she was told. Making neighing sounds, he began galloping around and around the lawns while his daughter giggled and encouraged him onward.

“Good morning,” called a voice.

Robert stopped his prancing and turned toward the mansion. “Madam, I believe morning has aged almost to afternoon.”

“Lady Angelica, look at me riding my pretend pony,” Daisy called.

“I see you.”

“Oh, no, let me down,” the little girl cried.

Robert lowered her to the ground and watched her run a short distance away. She stared at the lawn and then burst into tears.

Crossing to her side, Robert saw a dead sparrow.

He reached for it, saying, “I’ll throw it away.”

“No, Daddy, we need to bury it,” Daisy whined.

“Wait one minute,” Angelica called. She disappeared inside and then reappeared a few minutes later. Throwing him a small box and a cloth, she ordered, “Wrap the bird in the cloth and place it in the casket. Then come inside the house while I fetch the other mourners.”

The casket? Robert thought, amused. The other mourners? Were they now hosting a funeral for a sparrow?

 “Daddy, wrap the bird in the cloth,” Daisy said. “The mourners are waiting.”

 Robert covered the sparrow with the piece of linen and lifted it off the grass. Then he set it inside the jewelry box-casket and closed the lid.

“Where is his grave?” Daisy asked.

Robert paused. That was a good question. The family crypt was definitely out of the question.

“Do you see the lawns beyond the maze?” Robert asked.

“Yes.”

“On one side of the lawn near the woodland lies a garden of wildflowers, because flower fairies love to play in wildflowers,” Robert told her. “On the other side of the lawns lies my butterfly garden. Which place do you think the deceased would like?”

“Daddy, what is
deceased?
”

“Dead.”

Daisy’s bottom lips quivered at the word
dead.
“I think the butterflies would be better.”

“Let’s go inside,” Robert said, offering her his hand. “The mourners are waiting.”

Daisy gave him a sad smile. “Thank you, Daddy.”

Robert and Daisy returned to the mansion. Angelica had managed to assemble a small group of mourners consisting of Jasper, Mrs. Sweeting, and Webster who carried a spade.

“Hello,” Jasper called when the little girl appeared.

“I’m sorry your cousin is deceased,” Daisy told the macaw.

“Great grunting shit,” the macaw shrieked, making the adults smile.

“Everyone is here,” Angelica announced.

“Where is the final resting place?”

Robert struggled against a smile and managed to keep a somber look on his face. “Daisy decided that—” He looked at his daughter and whispered, “What’s his name?”

“Chirp.”

“Daisy has decided that Chirp will spend eternity in my butterfly garden,” Robert told them.

“A wise choice,” Webster said, earning a nod of agreement from Sweeting and Angelica.

“Would you like to carry Chirp?” Robert asked his daughter.

“No, Daddy. I want you to carry him.”

“I am truly honored.”

“Everyone take your handkerchiefs out,” Angelica instructed, playing the funeral director.

The mourners held handkerchiefs in front of their faces and formed a line behind Robert. Daisy, Jasper, Angelica and Sweeting walked in that order. Webster followed behind. Slowly, their group marched outside. They crossed the lawns, skirted the maze, and made their way to the butterfly garden. Robert turned to face them, and they formed a semicircle in front of him. Setting the box down on the ground, Robert began, “We are gathered here today—”

“Wrong ceremony,” Angelica called.

Robert nodded. “We have come here to bid farewell to Chirp. Though we didn’t know him very well, we listened each morning for his song and enjoyed the pleasant sight of him flying by. Each one of us will miss him.” He turned to his daughter and asked, “Would you like the last word?”

Daisy nodded and announced, “Chirp was a very good bird.”

“Amen,” Webster said.

“Amen,” echoed Angelica and Sweeting.

“Great grunting . . . hello,” Jasper called, making everyone but the little girl smile.

“Come, Daisy, we’ll prepare lunch while your father buries Chirp,” Angelica said, taking the little girl’s hand in hers. “Then the three of us will picnic. Won’t that be fun?”

“What about Chirp’s grave?” Daisy whined. “How will I find it?

“I’ll find something to mark the grave,” Webster said.

“Thank you, Webster,” Daisy said, and blew him a kiss. Then she walked away with Angelica.

Robert had buried Chirp by the time Angelica and Daisy returned to the butterfly garden. Marking the grave were two small statutes of praying angels crafted of resin. Serene and regal, the graceful angels knelt silently in prayer.

Daisy gazed at the makeshift monument and said, “Chirp would be pleased.”

“Bookends,” Robert whispered to Angelica. “Where is Jasper?”

“I left him inside,” she answered. “Where shall we picnic?”

“The pool?” Robert asked.

Angelica nodded in agreement. Yesterday, he’d been reluctant to go there, and today he was suggesting the pool as a picnic spot. She hoped his emotional scars would fade in time, until the thought of Louisa’s death would be a bad memory.

“I’ll carry Daisy,” Robert was saying. “You carry the lunch, the blanket, and your harp.” He turned to his daughter, adding, “I’m taking you to a secret place.”

 “I love secret places,” Daisy said, clapping her hands.

Robert lifted the little girl into his arms and led the way to the woodland path. Angelica was glad she’d left the macaw behind; the bird would only have slowed them down.

“I smell the flower fairies, Daddy” Daisy said.

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Lady Angelica?” she called over her father’s shoulder.

“I smell them, too,” Angelica answered.

Reaching the path that led down the side of the waterfall, Daisy cried, “
Sacred sevens
, what is that?”

“That is a waterfall,” Robert told her. “It’s very pretty but
very
dangerous. Never stand near the edge.”

Angelica felt insistent tugging on her heartstrings. She prayed that one day her husband would recover from his first wife’s untimely death.

With Daisy’s help, Angelica spread out the blanket on the grass. Then she put down the basket and her harp.

Robert sat down and removed his boots and hose. Then he rolled up his trouser legs, saying, “Daisy, take your shoes and stockings off. We’ll dunk our toes in the water while Lady Angelica unpacks the food.”

Daisy plopped down on the blanket and did as she’d been told. Hiking up her gown, she ran to the water’s edge, calling, “The grass tickles my feet.”

Angelica watched her husband and his daughter wading ankle-deep in the pool. She smiled then she heard the little girl cry, “Look, Daddy. That is a fish.”

“Do you want to fish with me some morning?” Robert asked. “Fishing is fun.”

“I don’t know how,” she told him.

“You stick the worm on the hook and then toss it in the water,” Robert explained. “Then along comes a fish, who tries to eat the worm but gets caught on the hook.”

Daisy stared at him in obvious surprise. In a disgusted tone of voice, she said “I bet the worm and the fish don’t have fun.”

Robert looked over his shoulder at Angelica and shrugged, saying, “I suppose I’ll need to wait for a son.”

“Daddy, how does the fish live under water?” Daisy asked, tugging on his sleeve to get his attention.

“Those little moving flaps are its gills,” Robert explained. “The fish breathes through them.”

“Oh.”

“Do you understand?”

“No . . . Why don’t people have gills?”

“People don’t live underwater so we don’t need them,” Robert told her.

“But Daddy—”

“Let’s eat lunch,” Angelica called, saving her husband from another question.

Hand in hand, Robert and Daisy walked back to the blanket They had cucumber sandwiches, sugar cookies, and lemon-barley water.

“I wish you were my mother,” Daisy told Angelica.

 “I am your mother,” she answered with a smile.

Daisy looked confused. “What about Lucille?”

“Sweetheart, you have two mothers,” Angelica told her. “When I married your father, I became your stepmother.”

“What’s a stepmother?”

“A stepmother is like a fairy godmother.”

Daisy threw her arms around Angelica and said, “You’re my fairy godmother.”

“Lie down on the blanket with your father and watch the cloud pictures while I play my harp,” Angelica said.

Robert lay down on the blanket and put his arms behind his head. Daisy imitated her father. Angelica plucked the strings of her harp, conjuring a soothing, atmospheric sound, transporting them to a mystical world. Her notes imitated a river winding its way through a serene valley in springtime, filled with wildflowers, hummingbirds, and nightingales. Soon her tune became a duet with the waterfall.

Glancing at her new family, Angelica smiled to think that for once she had righted a wrong. Both father and daughter were asleep. Her husband needed his daughter as much as the child needed him, and she needed both of them.

Her own life had taken a road she’d never imagined existed. The only thing left was to get her revenge and see that her parents were buried on their own land.

Angelica watched her sleeping husband and recalled her father telling her as a child that she couldn’t be a princess. She would need to content herself with a duke’s son. Oh, she was more than content; she was happy. And when her sisters married and had children, there would be an enormous extended family, with many cousins for Daisy and her unborn babe. If only her parents had lived to see this day . . .

*    *    *

Much later, Robert carried Daisy piggyback, down the shaded woodland path to the mansion. Walking behind them, Angelica smiled at their conversation.

“I still smell the flower fairies,” Daisy said.

“I’m going to give you culture when we get home,” Angelica called.

“What’s culture?”

“Culture is stories about people and places and all sorts of things,” Angelica answered.

“I like stories,” the little girl said.

“So do I,” Robert called. “Will you give me culture, too?”

“There is nothing I would rather give you than culture, my lord,” Angelica answered.

“Nothing?”

“Well, almost nothing,” she amended herself.

At Daisy’s insistence, they stopped at Chirp’s grave and said a prayer. Then the little girl turned to Angelica, saying, “I’m ready for my culture.”

“I’m ready too,” Robert said.

Angelica led them across the lawn, around the maze, through the garden, and into the mansion. They walked down the corridor to the grand foyer.

Pointing to the statuary, Angelica told them, “Those are the three Fates, who rule the past, the present, and the future. All three ladies were weavers. Clotho is the spinner of life, Lachesis is the measurer, and Atropos is the cutter of life’s thread.”

“That means you die,” Robert told his daughter.

“I don’t like culture,” Daisy said, looking frightened.

“The three Fates are everyone’s fairy godmothers.” Angelica said. “Come out to the front drive.”

Angelica led them outside to the water terraces. She pointed to the smallest of the terraces, saying, “That is a mermaid, a virgin of the sea. She has the tail of a fish. Mermaids receive the souls of men who drown.” She gestured to the middle terrace. “King Neptune is the god of the sea.” Finally, she pointed at the largest of the three terraces, saying, “Aphrodite is the goddess of love and the queen of the sea, where she was born.”

“Aphro was born in the sea?”

“That is correct, sweetheart.”

“She got no gills,” Daisy said.

Robert and Angelica looked at each other and burst out laughing. “I think we’ve had enough culture for one day,” Robert announced.

“My lord, I think you are correct “ Angelica said, turning toward the mansion.

“Great grunting shit!” Daisy cried, pointing toward the distance. “Look at the parade.”

Chapter 19

“
Bull’s pizzle
,” Angelica cursed, realizing what the parade of carriages meant.

“Daddy what’s a bull’s pizzle?” Daisy asked.

“Never mind,” Robert answered. He whispered to Angelica, “Guard your tongue around her.”

Ignoring him, Angelica stared in dismay at the parade of coaches and carts wending its way up the red brick drive toward the mansion.
Sacred sevens
, she wanted more time alone with her husband and daughter.

“I thought your father was going to give us a week,” Angelica said, glancing at her husband.

Robert looked unhappy. “He did say that.”

“They are five days early,” Angelica complained. “I suppose we won’t be swimming at the pool for a while.”

Robert winked at her, saying, “I’ll do my best to hurry them along to Scotland.”

“I recognize your father’s coaches in front,” Angelica said, “but whose are those behind them?”

“Apparently, the Emersons accompanied them,” Robert answered.

“If we take care of the Emersons now,” she replied, “we won’t need to think about them again.”

“Wouldn’t that be pleasant?” Robert said noncommittally.

“Lady Angelica, what’s an Emerson?” Daisy asked.

“A monster,” Angelica said dryly.

Daisy looked frightened. “The monsters are coming?”

“Don’t tell her that,” Robert said.

“How else would you explain it?” Angelica countered.

Robert smiled. “A point well taken, my love.”

“Don’t worry about the monsters,” Angelica said, putting her arm around the little girl. “Daddy will protect us.”