Heaven Sent (20 page)

Aubrey stared at her and opened his
mouth. Since he could find no words to fill it, he shut it
again.

Callie, her cheeks burning pink,
muttered, “That’s all. I just wanted to apologize if I’ve been
impolite to you, is all.”

Before he could string two coherent
words together, she fled, and he was left staring at the wall and
the doorway out of which she’d just exited his presence.

“
Good Lord.”

Treasure Island
lay forgotten on Aubrey’s lap as he considered
Miss Callida Prophet and her unusual personality. He’d never met
anyone quite like her. She was a true original.

For the life of him, he couldn’t drum
up a single ounce of disapproval. And he tried.

*****

Callie told Becky about her birthday
party the very next morning. Becky approved wholeheartedly, and was
eager to begin planning party games and addressing
invitations.

Since Callie’s duties
weren’t as strenuous as they had been, now that school had started,
she spent that day looking through
The
American Girl’s Handy Book
in search of
party games. She chatted with Mrs. Granger about an appropriate
luncheon meal to serve a horde of seven- and
eight-year-olds.

“
I’ll bake a cake, of
course,” said Mrs. Granger in a complacent voice. “Becky’s favorite
is a white cake with white icing sprinkled with
coconut.”

“
Sounds delicious,” said
Callie, who didn’t care much for coconut but was willing to eat
anything if it would make Becky happy.

“
And perhaps we should have
an ice-cream dessert to go along with the cake.”

“
My goodness. Do you think
that’s going overboard?”

“
I do not.” Mrs. Granger
looked stern. “That poor child deserves all the good things we can
give to her, Callie, and you know it. I sincerely doubt we’ll spoil
her by feeding her friends cake and ice cream one day out of the
year.”

After the two women had
wrestled with Becky’s birthday meal and throttled it to a
standstill, she wandered off to peruse
The
American Girl’s Handy Book
some
more.

In truth, she was using the book as an
excuse. The conversation she’d had with Aubrey last night wouldn’t
leave her alone.

So, he didn’t think she knew any of
the family’s secrets, eh? Little did he know. Guilt enveloped her
like one of San Francisco’s famous fogs.

No matter how guilty she felt about
reading Aubrey’s letters to Anne, however, she couldn’t make
herself stop reading them. Every night, she read to Becky from at
least one of the letters. That was bad enough, and she excused that
part of her prying by telling herself it was good for Becky to know
that her parents had deeply and genuinely loved each other and
their little girl.

The part that made her feel really
guilty was that, every night after she’d kissed Becky good night,
she took the letters to bed with her and reread them. She
occasionally wondered if she had some kind of emotional insanity
that propelled her to read another woman’s private and personal
correspondence and to dream that the letters had been written to
her instead of to Anne.

Not that Aubrey Lockhart or any other
man would ever adore Callie Prophet the way Aubrey had adored his
Anne. Callie was not like Anne in the least.

“
Bother. The letters made
Becky feel better. That’s the important part.”

She knew she was only trying to
assuage her guilty conscience.

And she still read the letters. She
even prayed about the matter, hoping to gain some guidance from
God, since she was too ashamed of herself to ask anyone else what
she should do.

Anyhow, she knew what she should do.
She should confess to Aubrey that Becky had found the letters.
She’d never be able to tell him that she herself had been reading
them; that would be too humiliating. Even if she never made a full
confession of her guilt, she should return the letters to
Aubrey.

But she didn’t. That night, as every
night since Becky had first showed her the letters Aubrey had
written to Anne, Callie read a couple of them.

The really awful, not to mention
stupid, part of the whole pickle was that Callie was wildly jealous
of Anne, a dead woman. She’d feared she might also have fallen
completely in love with Aubrey through those same letters, which
was not merely awful and stupid, but impossibly idiotic.

She also began to understand that, all
by itself, life was plenty complicated enough. When a person did
things she knew she shouldn’t do, such as reading another person’s
private letters, she only made it more so.

And she couldn’t stop for love nor
money.

Chapter Ten

To all outward appearances, life at
the Lockhart mansion proceeded much as usual during the month
following the beginning of Becky’s first school year. Becky
continued to blossom under Callie’s care, the gardens at the
mansion took on an autumnal cast, Figgins started talking about
instructing the gardeners to lay in firewood for the winter and
having the storm windows put up, Mrs. Granger and a minion hired
for the purpose finished the yearly potting, pickling, and
preserving, and Aubrey’s business interests flourished.

Mark Henderson made his weekly visits
to Aubrey’s house on schedule. Mrs. Granger, when she wasn’t
preserving foodstuffs, continued to prepare delicious meals, she
and Delilah kept the house tidy and dusted, and Callie continued to
answer Becky’s letters to her mother in heaven.

And then there was Mrs.
Bridgewater.

“
The damned woman’s driving
me mad,” Aubrey told Mark one day as the two men sat in Aubrey’s
library office, sipping a pre-prandial sherry after slaying the
day’s commercial dragons. The mail had been delivered earlier in
the day, and now Aubrey’s insides tightened when he picked up the
letter Figgins had just brought to him, He eyed the envelope with
misgiving, recognizing the fiercely upright penmanship inscribed on
it. He steeled himself to open the envelope and disgorge its
contents.

“
Is she still trying to get
you to send Becky to live with her?”

“
Yes. The infernal,
interfering busybody.” He shook the envelope at Mark. “I swear, I
get a letter from her every other day.”

Mark grinned. “She’s a regular Tartar,
all right.”

“
She keeps proposing new
reasons Becky ought to move to San Francisco and live with her.
She’s driving me crazy With her constant meddling.”

“
Why is she so intent on
having your daughter move in with her? I have to say that she
doesn’t seem the motherly type to me.”

“
Motherly! Maybe to a pack
of hyenas she’d be an appropriate mother.”

Mark’s grin widened. “Besides, I
should think she’d be glad Becky’s got a papa who cares about
her.”

Aubrey scowled as he picked up the
Chinese letter opener from his massive teakwood desk. He stabbed it
under the gummed flap of the envelope. “She’s not happy unless she
has all the members of her family directly under her thumb. She’s
driven most of her relations out of San Francisco already, except
those who can’t escape because of their business
dealings.”

“
Dictator in training, is
she?”

“
In training, hell. She
graduated from the dictator college a long time ago. She could give
the Kaiser a run for his money.” Lifting the folded paper out of
the envelope, he flapped it open and eyed it with distaste. “Dash
it.”

“
What’s wrong?”

“
She’s holding out lures,”
Aubrey said glumly.

“
Lures?” Mark seemed to be
having trouble containing his amusement. “What sorts of
lures?”

Aubrey didn’t think it was funny. He
waved the letter in the air. “Old Bilgewater’s sister, Anne’s nice
aunt, Glenda, is holding a party in honor of her daughter’s—Anne’s
younger sister’s—engagement. Bilgewater wrote to ask us to
attend.”

“
Well, that doesn’t sound
too horrible,” Mark mused consolingly. “When’s the
party?”

“
In a couple of
weeks.”

“
Can you claim Becky’s
school duties prevent your attendance?” Mark looked thoughtful.
“After all, you can’t take a child out of school every time a
relative has a party, can you? And you’ll have to spend at least
one night away from home if you attend a formal party in San
Francisco, since it’s a four-hour trip each way.”

Aubrey, who had already noticed a
diabolical trend in Bilgewater’s efforts to wrest Becky from him,
shook his head grimly. “She thought of that one already. The
party’s set for a Saturday night.” Holding the letter in one hand,
he smacked it with the other. “Damn her, she said she talked Glenda
into holding the party on a Saturday instead of a Thursday just so
that Becky and I can attend.”

Mark didn’t do a very good job of
concealing his enjoyment of this situation. “Thinks of everything,
doesn’t she? Are you going to go?”

A feeling of savage frustration chewed
at Aubrey’s insides. Dash it, it seemed that every time he turned
around, his sanity was being tried by one officious female or
another. First Miss Callie Prophet thundered into his home and took
it over, and now Old Bilgewater was trying to direct the rest of
his life from San Francisco. “I suppose I have to.”

“
Why?” Mark sounded
genuinely interested.

Slapping the letter down on the desk
at his side, Aubrey growled, “Anne would want me to. Amalie was her
favorite sister, and Glenda was her favorite aunt. Besides, Becky
ought to become better acquainted with her San Francisco relatives.
Most of them are quite nice. Bilgewater’s the only clinker in the
works.”

“
Look on the bright side,”
Mark suggested. “She can’t live forever.”

Aubrey shot him a quick grin. “True.
And she’s really more of an annoyance than a threat. She can’t do
anything to take Becky away from me.”

With a shrug, Mark said, “There you
go.”

“
Bah.”

It was all so frustrating, though, no
matter how little real power Bilgewater had. Until a couple of
years ago, Aubrey Lockhart had believed himself to be in absolute
control of his life. It seemed to him now that Anne’s illness had
been the start of a whole series of events some evil presence had
sent to prove to him that life was outside his command. He hated
feeling out of control.

Happy sounds of a child and a nanny at
play—Aubrey thought he heard the fierce yowlings of a particularly
devilish black cat a couple of times, too—wafted through the
library window. Although the early autumn mornings and evenings had
begun to nip at the edges of the remains of the good old
summertime, the afternoons had so far remained warm enough that
Becky and Callie played outdoors after school. Aubrey sometimes
wondered what the devil they found to do out there for so many
hours at a stretch, although he hadn’t asked, for fear he might
disapprove and thus instigate a squabble with the nanny. He was
glad to know Becky was no longer lonely, in any event.

He rose from his chair and meandered
over to the window, his hands clasped behind his back, and peered
out. His daughter and her nanny seemed to be involved in some sort
of craft activity involving tree bark, grass, and a variety of
leaves, acorns, and other bits of flora. He squinted, but couldn’t
make out what they were doing with it all.

Monster, reminding Aubrey of an
Eastern potentate in his silent, superior pose, watched the
activity, his yellow eyes glinting in the fading sunlight. His tail
switched back and forth occasionally, as if to remind anyone who
might be watching that he was aware of the goings-on around him and
was ready to take action if necessary.

Aubrey had been staring gloomily out
on the scene for a few minutes when Mark joined him at the window.
Glancing at his secretary, Aubrey was neither pleased nor surprised
to see that Mark’s gaze was directed not at Becky but at Miss
Prophet. His infatuation with the woman remained untrammeled,
apparently.

“
I suppose I’ll have to take
Becky to the dashed party. Don’t see any polite way out of
it.”

With a shrug, Mark said, “It probably
won’t be so bad, Mr. Lockhart.” He cleared his throat. “Ah, will
you be taking Miss Prophet along? To look after Becky?”

Aubrey gave his secretary a searching
lock. “I suppose so. I don’t think I’m up to traveling alone with
Becky. Not exactly in my line, if you see what I mean, taking care
of children.”

“
Understandable.” Mark
nodded. He cleared his throat again. “Er, I might be able to lend
my assistance, if you’d like me to. You know, to carry things and
so forth. Becky and I get along very well. I might be able to help
keep her amused on the journey.”

Aubrey had to fight an urge to thump
Mark on the jaw with his fist—which he unclenched as soon as he
realized he’d clenched it. “Thank you.” His jaw seemed to have
frozen into a tight knot. He relaxed it, too, and told himself to
be calm. Mark’s offer was kindly meant. He was sure Mark didn’t
intend to seduce Becky’s nanny. And, even if he did, what business
was it of Aubrey’s?