Heaven Sent (33 page)

She told herself to stop thinking
about Aubrey and concentrate on her reading. In this endeavor she
was successful for seconds at a time, but her mind, like a bee
seeking its hive, headed back to Aubrey. Fortunately for her, Becky
was content to be read to for the remainder of the afternoon. The
two of them had a simple supper in the nursery, and Becky didn’t
object when bedtime came.

It almost killed Callie to read to the
little girl from one of Aubrey’s letters to Anne that
night.

*****

Callie expected herself to toss and
turn for hours, and she did. The overwrought emotions of the day
had exhausted her, but her buzzing brain didn’t allow her body the
comfort of sleep.

She wondered if she should have
accepted Aubrey’s proposal after all. Wouldn’t it be better for her
to be married to the man she loved, even if he couldn’t love her
back, than to pine away and die an old maid? A spinster?

Spinsters were often held up as
laughingstocks. They were considered odd and unworthy. Spinsters
were women who’d never captured the love of a man.

Telling herself to be honest, Callie
admitted that there were exceptions. Miss Beadle, for instance, had
been engaged to a man who’d died during the last days of the War
Between the States. Tragic, that, and obviously not Miss Beadle’s
fault. Miss Beadle had captured the love of a man, but the love had
been blighted,

Callie hadn’t so far in her life
captured the love of a man, unless one counted a couple of puppyish
bouts of adoration, one from Michael Perry and the other from
Sidney Hammersmith, through which she’d suffered several years ago.
Michael and Sidney had been adolescents at the time, and Callie a
bright, pretty young girl who never thought she’d one day be
languishing, unloved, and on the brink of becoming an old
maid.

Oh, very well. She supposed Mark
Henderson might have paid her particular attention recently, but he
was a child.

Callie didn’t want to marry a child.
She wanted to attract the love of a man. She wanted to be
cherished, as Aubrey Lockhart had cherished Anne
Harriott.

Fat chance of that ever
happening,

On the other hand, even if he couldn’t
cherish her, Callie had no doubt that he would treat her with
respect. And perhaps they could be friends. Friendship was a good
thing. Friendship, from all Callie had read and observed, was a
generally more solid foundation for a lasting relationship than
mad, passionate love. That sort of love had a tendency to burn out
rather quickly, according to all the sensible people she’d ever
met.

The poets, of course, never said so,
but poets were notorious for being an eccentric and unstable group,
and for exalting the emotions and leaving common sense to languish,
scorned. As she contemplated everything, Callie decided there was a
lot to be said for common sense.

And then there was the fact that
Aubrey had told her he wanted more children. Callie remembered him
saying so. He’d even blushed as he did so, so she was certain she
wasn’t mistaken about that aspect of the afternoon’s dreadful
confrontation. It would be splendid to have her own children to
shower her love on. And Becky. If Callie married Aubrey, she’d
always be close to Becky. The mere notion of Aubrey marrying
someone else and taking Becky away from her made Callie want to cry
with anguish.

When she thought about it, since
Aubrey didn’t want her love, it might be comforting to be able to
shower it on innocent children. Children’s hearts were pure and
open; they didn’t know Callie wasn’t worth loving.

*****

Aubrey rode for hours after Callie
refused his proposal of marriage. He was furious with her and with
himself. But, dash it, when he considered his proposal, he couldn’t
put a finger on any part of it that had been disrespectful or
unkind. He’d even complemented the woman, for God’s
sake.

And yet she’d rejected him. There had
to be a reason for her to have done so. The only one that made
sense to Aubrey was that she’d formed an attachment elsewhere. And,
since he’d never seen Callie in the company of a man other than
Mark Henderson, and since he’d never heard her name spoken of in
connection with another man, Aubrey presumed the man she loved was
Henderson.

His hands tightened on the reins, and
he told himself to calm down. Just because Callie loved another man
didn’t excuse Aubrey’s hurting his horse’s mouth.

“
Damn and blast,” he
muttered as he rode through the woods. He came out onto the dirt
road leading to Santa Angelica, and he decided he might as well
ride through the picturesque little village. Perhaps he’d see
someone there who didn’t hate him, as Callie seemed to.

Memories of Callie and of how she’d
expressed her low opinion of him, as a father and as a man, flooded
his mind as he rode. His mood alternated between fury and black
despair.

“
Damnation, why should the
woman be so blasted attracted to Mark Henderson and not to me? What
does he have that I don’t have?”

His horse, the only one present to
whom he might have been speaking, since there was no one else
around, gave him no answer. Aubrey brooded on Mark Henderson versus
himself as a possible husband for Callie Prophet, and he couldn’t
figure it out. Aubrey was Mark’s employer, for God’s sake. Aubrey
was richer than Mark and just as good-looking.

He felt silly when the last notion
crossed his mind. Aubrey had never dwelt on his looks, even though
Anne had told him over and over that she considered him the most
handsome man in the world. But Anne had loved him. Love colored
one’s perspective of life in all of his variations. Aubrey knew it,
because he’d loved Anne with the same fervor.

“
Damnation, man, stop
dwelling on love. That part of your life is dead and gone.” He
braced himself for the pain that always followed thoughts of Anne
and was surprised when it didn’t come.

It was when he thought about Callie
Prophet that the pain stabbed him. He didn’t understand it. He did,
however, greet the outskirts of Santa Angelica with relief. How
pleasant, he thought bitterly, to be among people who didn’t loathe
him.

In fact, as Aubrey rode through the
village, he was the recipient of several cheerful waves from those
of his neighbors who recognized him. He smiled and waved back, and
was sorry their overt approval didn’t make him feel significantly
better.

“
Ah, Anne,” he whispered
when he cleared the village limits and was once again alone with
his horse and his thoughts. “I don’t seem to do anything right, now
that you’re gone.”

He brooded about all the things he was
no good at as he rode back home. He’d have liked to stay out
longer, but it didn’t seem fair to torment his horse just because
he himself was making a hash of his life.

Mrs. Granger jumped with alarm when
Aubrey came through the kitchen door. He glowered at her. Dash it,
did the whole world hate him? He’d thought it was only Callie who
did. “It’s only I, Mrs. Granger,” he said coldly.

“
Oh, Mr. Lockhart.” Mrs.
Granger pressed a hand to her heart as if trying to pat back a fit
of apoplexy. “I didn’t expect you to come through the back door,
sir.”

She smiled at him, and Aubrey wondered
if he’d been the least little bit irrational in assuming she’d
jumped because she hated him. He decided to give her the benefit of
the doubt. “Sorry, Mrs. Granger. My boots are all muddy, and I
didn’t want to track it through the front hall.” He gestured over
his shoulder. “I left ‘em next to the back door.”

“
Good, good,” Mrs. Granger
said, sounding complacent.

Aubrey took heart. Perhaps he’d
overreacted. Perhaps it was truly only Callie who hated him. “Sorry
I missed supper. Is there a chance of getting a sandwich or
something?” He smiled, trying for one of the smiles he used to
offer people with no trouble at all. His smiles used to be second
nature to him, in the days when life was good. It occurred to him
that he had to stretch to reach for them these days.

“
Don’t be silly, Mr.
Lockhart.” Mrs. Granger laughed. It sounded like a genuine,
honest-to-goodness laugh, but Aubrey didn’t feel competent to
accept anything at face value today. “I have a plate of cold supper
for you. There’s a couple of sandwiches. If you don’t want both of
them, I’ll just put one away in the icebox for tomorrow. And I
fixed a fine salad and pickles, too.”

“
Thank you.” Aubrey felt
humbled in the presence of such goodness. “I didn’t expect such
bounty after I missed the supper hour.”

She looked at him as if he’d lost his
mind. “But you told me you were going out, Mr. Lockhart. It wasn’t
a surprise when you weren’t here for supper.”

“
Oh.” He’d forgotten that
part of his. afternoon. He’d been too busy fretting about Callie,
he guessed.

Rather than dining on his sandwich,
salad, and pickles in solitary state in his big dining room, Aubrey
made himself comfortable at the kitchen table, after making sure he
wouldn’t be in Mrs. Granger’s way.

She gave him another odd look. “Good
heavens, Mr. Lockhart, you’re never in my way.”

Really? Glancing at her closely,
Aubrey detected nothing but honesty on her kindly face. “Thank
you,”

Maybe, he thought, he was allowing his
problems with Callie to color the way he viewed the rest of the
world, Maybe it was Callie’s fault, and not his, that she’d
rejected him.

As he munched his sandwiches, he
contemplated Callie, life, marriage, Becky, and remarriage. He’d
come to no conclusion about anything by the time he’d finished his
meal, thanked Mrs. Granger once more, and wandered to his
office.

Chapter Sixteen

Thank the good Lord the following day
was a Monday,

and Callie could resume her household
chores—sewing for Becky, mending, tidying up the nursery, and
planning educational opportunities for her charge—and try to forget
about not becoming Aubrey’s wife. And of having been asked to many
him in such an unromantic way.

“
Convenience,” she muttered
as she brushed Becky’s hair out in preparation for braiding it.
“Bah.”

“
What’s convenient?” Becky
wanted to know.

What, indeed? Callie knew good and
well she wasn’t, no matter what Aubrey Lockhart chose to think.
“Oh, nothing,” she said airily. “I was just . . . talking to
myself.”

“
But I’m here,” Becky
pointed out. “You don’t have to talk to yourself. You can talk to
me.”

Callie laughed and leaned over to give
her favorite child a quick kiss on her golden head. “You’re right,
sweetie. So, what do you think Miss Oakes has in store for you
today?”

Becky took a deep, anticipatory breath
and grinned. She adored school. A good deal of her enjoyment,
Callie suspected, lay in her having been deprived of social
contacts with children her own age for so long. Which was all
Aubrey’s fault, drat the man to perdition,

But no. She must stop thinking things
like that. Aubrey had been laid flat by Anne’s illness and death.
If he hadn’t been a perfect father during that agonizing period of
time, he had at least eventually recognized his shortcomings in
regard to his daughter’s welfare and sought to correct them. Why
else would Callie be here, brushing Becky’s hair?

“
I think we’re going to
start mem’rizing poems today.”

“
Aha. Miss Oakes and I used
to loved memorizing poems when we were in school. Do you know which
poem you’re going to memorize?”

“
Not yet. She’s going to
read us some, and then ‘she’ll probably have us go to the liberry
or home and memorize one we choose for ourselves.”

Callie didn’t, fail to notice that
Becky had picked up on the proper pronunciation of the word
“memorize.” It made her heart ping every time she saw another
indication of Becky’s eagerness to please the adults in her life.
Some children would have resorted to disruptive behavior in order
to secure recognition if they’d endured Becky’s losses, It was
probably only pure luck that had given Aubrey so compliant and
pleasant a child.

Luck or human nature. With parents
like Anne and Aubrey, how could they fail to produce a practically
perfect child? Callie reminded herself that cynicism was unbecoming
in a young woman, and she told herself to stop being cynical
instantly.

Convenient, my
foot
.

“
I’ll help you choose and
listen to you recite, if you’d like, sweetie pie.”

“
Thank you!” Becky all but
jumped up and down on her chair, so eager was she to get to
school.

Breakfast was a less uncomfortable
meal than it might have been, primarily because Aubrey had eaten
before Callie and Becky came downstairs, and then taken himself
off.

“
Business matters,” Mrs.
Granger informed the two of them. “He’s gone off to San Francisco
for a couple of days.”

“
Oh.” Becky sounded
disappointed. “I wish he’d said good-bye.”

The rat. The selfish, cowardly,
daughter-deserting rat. Callie mentally gave herself a good whap
upside the head and told herself she was in no position to judge
another human being. That was God’s job, and He was assuredly
better equipped to handle it than she was. “Perhaps he . . . had to
catch an early coach,” she said, straining to find something nice
to say about a father who could run out on his child merely because
something rather embarrassing had occurred the day
before.