Heaven Sent (10 page)

My darling
Annie,

I can’t find words to
express the wonder I feel every time I see our beautiful daughter.
And when I walked into the nursery this morning to find you and
Rebecca together—well, I knew my life was complete in that instant.
Thank you, my wonderful darling, for our Rebecca. She is the
completion of our family. She is the perfect and magnificent
affirmation of our love.

Callie had long been under the
impression, in spite of her experience with her own father and
brother, that most men craved sons. It pained her to admit that
she’d always assumed her own father’s evident pleasure in his
daughters had sprung primarily from the knowledge that he already
had a son; therefore, he was free to appreciate his
daughters.

Yet Aubrey Lockhart, in his letters,
hadn’t even hinted at being less than thrilled or at all
unsatisfied with his daughter. He hadn’t once mentioned wanting a
son next time, should there be a next time.

Imagine that, Aubrey Lockhart happy.
And about the birth of a daughter, of all things. It didn’t seem
possible to Callie. Yet she’d held in her own hand solid proof that
he had, once, been a happy man.

And then the joy of his life had
withered and died, and there hadn’t been a single thing he could do
to prevent it. It was common knowledge in Santa Angelica that
Aubrey had taken Anne to innumerable doctors. He’d been to San
Francisco in search of specialists. He’d even sent to New York for
a fellow credited with miracle cures of wasting
illnesses.

Gossip had buzzed like a hive of honey
bees when a specialist came all the way from Europe see Anne. But
it had all been to no avail.

It didn’t seem fair. As little as she
liked the man Aubrey Lockhart was now, Callie did like the one
who’d written letters to the wife he’d loved. Hang it, Callie knew
as well as anyone that life was very rarely fair, but she still
couldn’t understand why Anne had been taken. So young. So
infernally young. And so well loved. And now so horribly
missed.

By the time she finally fell into a
fitful sleep, Callie had stopped straining to hold her tears back.
They ran onto her pillow even as she tried to figure out why she
was crying. Was she envious of the love Aubrey and Anne had shared?
Was she sorry she wasn’t more like Anne Lockhart? Was she merely
sad for Becky? Or for Aubrey?

And why did she feel such a strong
emotional tug toward the man who’d written those letters? Callie
didn’t even like the Aubrey Lockhart she worked for. It didn’t make
sense to her that she should harbor such tender feelings for the
Aubrey Lockhart he used to be. Her confusion hadn’t abated by the
time she fell asleep.

*****

Callie felt heavy-lidded and sleepy
the following day. Her dreams had been sappy and soupy, and she was
mortified with herself that she’d allowed her emotions to dip so
deeply into the realm of sentimentality. Sentimentality was all
very well in its place, but this wasn’t it.

As she stood behind Becky, who sat
patiently on a tall stool in front of her dressing table mirror,
Callie thought about how irrational she was being. “Pooh,” she
muttered as she wielded the hairbrush, trying to be careful so as
not to pull.

“
Pooh?” Becky giggled.
“Why’d you say that? It’s funny.”

Grinning at the little girl in the
mirror, Callie said, “I’ve been behaving foolishly, is
all.”

“
You have?” Becky looked
almost shocked. “I don’t think you’re foolish, Miss
Prophet.”

Callie stooped and deposited a quick
kiss on Becky’s golden head. “Thank you, dear, but I fear
everyone’s foolish every now and then.

“
Although,” Callie amended,
“it is difficult for me to imagine your papa being foolish.” Her
illogical brain seemed determined to dwell on Aubrey this morning,
as if it didn’t have enough to do just keeping her
awake.

Becky sighed. “Yes. He’s not
foolish.”

Callie kicked herself mentally—Becky
sounded so melancholy, and it was all her fault. Hoping to cast
Aubrey Lockhart in a better tight, Callie said, “He’s a very
dignified gentleman.” She reached for the two neatly ironed pink
ribbons she’d laid out, to tie onto the tails of Becky’s
braids.

“
He used to laugh a lot.”
The little girl sounded wistful.”

“
Maybe we can think of some
good jokes that might make him laugh,” Callie suggested.

“
Do you know any jokes, Miss
Prophet?”

“
A few. My brother, George,
likes to tell—”

Callie’s sentence was cut short by a
hideous screech, followed almost instantly by a sharply bellowed,
“Damnation!”

Becky and Callie stared at each other
in the mirror for approximately three seconds before they
whispered, in a horrified duet, “Monster!”

Callie had already opened the bedroom
door by the time Becky hopped down from her dressing stool and
rushed to join her. They held hands and ran to the staircase, from
whence the noises had issued. They skidded to a halt at the top of
the stairs, their heels folding up the lovely Chinese hall runner
like a concertina.

Aubrey Lockhart, enraged, glared up at
them. Rather, he glared at Callie. Callie could tell, if Becky
couldn’t, that his anger was directed exclusively at
her.

“
Did you bring that fiend
into this house?” he roared at Callie.

She opened her mouth to speak, but
Becky beat her to it. “That’s not a fiend, Papa. It’s
Monster.”

Aubrey sucked in about a bushel and a
half of air, Callie presumed to prevent him saying something to his
daughter that he’d later regret. Although she believed it was
cowardly of her, she was grateful Becky had come with her. She
wouldn’t want to face Aubrey Lockhart in the grip of a temper
tantrum all by herself.

Mrs. Granger and Delilah appeared at
the door leading to the kitchen. Both women were wide-eyed. They’d
evidently been startled by the noise, too. Callie didn’t dare speak
to them.

“
You may call the thing a
monster if you want to, Becky. A monster and a fiend are pretty
nearly equivalent in my mind. However, whatever one chooses to call
it doesn’t answer my original question. Miss Prophet?” And with
that, Aubrey turned and fixed such a dark stare on Callie that she
had to bite her lip to keep it from trembling. For someone who
could write such beautiful love letters, Aubrey could sound awfully
menacing when he chose to.

Callie swallowed. Then, telling
herself to buck up and that there was no reason for this
unpleasantness, she lifted her chin. “I believe you just met my
cat, Mr. Lockhart. I had thought him to be in my
bedroom.”

“
That . . .
thing
. . . was a
cat?”

“
It’s a big cat, Papa.”
Becky tried out a smile on her father, but it didn’t last long. She
tightened her grip on Callie’s hand.

Again, Aubrey took a deep breath.
Callie feared he’d done so because otherwise he would have bellowed
obscenities or something equally horrid, and he didn’t want to do
so in front of his daughter. “You brought a cat into my house, Miss
Lockhart?”

The way the measured words came out of
his mouth gave Callie the impression that he was speaking through
clenched teeth. She nodded her head. Then, considering a silent
response too spineless, she added, “Yes.” She deliberately omitted
a “sir” after her “yes,” because she didn’t want him to get the
impression she was afraid of him. Even though she was.

“
You mean to tell me that
this animal has resided within my home for three weeks
now?”

“
Yes.”

“
And did you obtain
permission before you brought it here?”

She wished he wouldn’t refer
to Monster as
it
,
but didn’t press the issue. “Urn, well . . . no.” She thought about
adding the reason she’d done so was because Becky had expressed a
desire for a pet and Callie’d been afraid Aubrey wouldn’t permit
it, but decided she’d best not do too much explaining until he was
in a better frame of mind—if that ever happened.

“
I see.” He closed his mouth
and seemed to be undergoing some kind of internal struggle. When he
opened it again, Callie feared for the worst, but was pleasantly
surprised when he merely said, “And what is this cat’s
name?”

Callie licked her lips and wished she
hadn’t. She didn’t want him to see how nervous she was. “Urn, his
name is Monster.”

“
Ah.” Aubrey glanced at his
daughter and then back at Callie. “I see. His
name
is Monster. Monster isn’t a
definition or a description.”

Becky chirped,
“
Mister
Monster,
to you, Papa. Until he gets to know you.”

“
Mister Monster?” Aubrey’s
eyes glittered. Callie took this as a bad omen.

But Becky nodded, looking remarkably
cheerful under the circumstances. She was a plucky girl, Becky.
Unless she didn’t know enough to be afraid of her father. “Yes. He
has to get to know people before he likes them, but once he likes
you, he’s a real nice cat, Papa. He likes to play, too. He’s funny
when he plays.”

The child was babbling the way Callie
had feared she’d do if she succumbed to her panic. She gave Becky’s
hand a little squeeze, hoping in that way to stop her
chattering.

“
He likes to play?” Aubrey
smiled at Callie.

Callie wished he hadn’t; it wasn’t one
of the warmest smiles she’d ever received. However, since it seemed
he desired her to explain the cat, she guessed she’d better. After
clearing her throat, she plunged into an explanation she tried to
keep as coherent and unadorned as possible. Considering the dual
facts that her heart was battering at her ribs like a congregation
of maddened woodpeckers and her knees were knocking together like
Spanish castanets, it wasn’t an easy job.

“
You see, Mr. Lockhart,
since my employment began the day after I applied for this
position, I didn’t have time to secure another home for Monster. It
is also true that cats often take some time to adjust themselves to
new surroundings. I could have left him at the home I was vacating,
which is my family home, but then my brother or one of my sisters
would have had to visit the house daily to take care of him. It was
easier to bring him with me.” She stopped talking because she’d run
out of breath.

“
I see.”

She hadn’t been counting or anything,
but Callie didn’t think he’d blinked more than once or twice since
she’d started explaining Monster. Again she cleared her throat. She
wished she could have got through this without exhibiting such
obvious signs of nervousness, but she couldn’t. After giving him a
nod, she continued. “He’s a lovely cat, Mr. Lockhart. A sweetheart
of a cat, really.”

“
He bit my foot.” Aubrey
said nothing more than that, but the words precipitated a definite
palpitation in Callie’s chest.

“
He’ll get to know you after
a while, Papa, and he won’t bite you anymore.” Becky smiled sweetly
at her father.

God bless the
child
, Callie thought dismally. Yet Becky’s
words were the truth. Therefore, she nodded her agreement. “Yes,
that’s so. He only attacks when he feels threatened.”

“
I see.” Aubrey’s eyes
narrowed dangerously. “And I, while descending my own staircase in
my own home, presented

a threat to him? Is that the
explanation?”

“
Well . . . I suppose so.
But it wasn’t really his fault,” Callie hurried to say. “After all,
one can’t expect a cat to understand the particulars of home
ownership.”

“
I see.”

Silence fell like an axed tree between
Aubrey and Callie and Becky. To Callie’s overstrained nerves, the
silence seemed to stretch on for centuries. She felt prickles of
tension in the air, and would have sworn she saw them,
too.

“
Please let Monster stay
here, Papa,” Becky implored at last. “He’s such a sweetheart, and
he loves me. I love him, too.”

As she watched Aubrey’s gaze move from
her own face— thank God—to his daughter’s, Callie saw the change in
his expression. The hard lines appeared to soften as she looked at
him. The anger went out of his eyes, his mouth relaxed, and he
unclenched his jaw. “You really like that animal,
Becky?”

“
Oh, yes, Papa. I love him
lots.”

“
And you believe he will no
longer attack me once he gets to know me?”

“
Oh,
yes
, Papa! I mean no, he won’t.
Definitely not after he gets to know you.”

Aubrey cast a scathing glance at
Callie before returning his attention to Becky. “Would you be
willing to introduce us, Becky? The cat and me, I mean.”

“
Oh, yes, Papa!” Becky
released Callie’s hand and dashed down the stairs, straight into
her father’s arms.

Callie knew she was probably evil to
resent the ease and happiness with which Becky had abandoned her
and run to her father. After all, one of Callie’s main reasons for
taking the position as Becky’s nanny was that she had wanted to get
father and daughter back on speaking terms. Yet she did resent it.
She turned to walk back to Becky’s room—she had assumed the
responsibility of tidying up after the little girl’s morning
toilette—when Aubrey’s voice stopped her cold.