An Unmistakable Rogue (25 page)

“Letters? Where did you find them?”

“‘Member the papers with the books? When we were cleaning Thea’s mess?”

“Your mess, you mean.”

He nodded. “I tried to tell you, this one’s from that Abbey you told us about, where you grew up. I thought it might make you happy again.”

Chastity knelt down. “Ah, Sweetheart. You make me happy, you and your brothers and sister.” She put the letters in her pocket, until she sat with them in the library, that night. The one already open was from Mr. Sennett. It contained a draft for her allowance and announced that he was arriving the day he found Reed with his pants down.

Chastity thrust sorrow aside for after the children were asleep. She wondered why Thea had stolen her correspondence. Did she want Mr. Sennett to catch them unaware and demand they have a chaperone? How long had she been watching and manipulating them?

Mother Superior’s letter made Chastity think someone might have died, so she opened it with trepidation.

My dear Chastity. I write in response to your disquieting letter. There is so much to address, I hardly know where to begin.

Chastity relaxed. Everyone was fine. Though it hardly mattered now, she read on.

Please accept my condolences on William’s passing. He has surely gained everlasting reward. But, my dear, I find it disturbing that so little time has passed since his death. Too little for you to have found an all-consuming love. Yet if, as you say, you loved William only as a friend, then I must understand, for William was, as you know, my own friend.

Does love acquit abandon? you ask. Since this is a question I thought never to have put to me, I found it necessary to consider my answer thoughtfully.

It is good and right for a woman to love one man, heart and body, when he is the man intended as her mate, within the sanctity of marriage.

Chastity’s face warmed for the love she and Reed had shared without the benefit of marriage. Yet it was all they would ever have, and she would not change it for anything.

William, we both knew, was a man and a doctor of integrity. He further proved this with his determination to travel to England to right a wrong, which he intended to explain to you during your journey. He carried with him, he said, papers that must be given to the St. Yves solicitor, without delay.

Chastity rubbed a sweaty palm on her skirt. William had wanted to talk to her about something important. He tried several times, but she was afraid it had to do with his turning from her, so she kept him from speaking. Now she could barely hold the letter steady to read it.

The injustice William wanted to correct was committed by his mother. In order to receive money under false pretenses, the woman passed William off as a child who’d been given into her keeping, but died days before William’s birth. In his medical bag you should find—

Chastity dropped the letter and ran for William’s bag.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Every soul in the Green Dragon Inn seemed to be sound asleep. “Uh, Kitty, this is scary, like the workhouse that night, ‘cept we’re breaking in, instead of out.”

“Hush, Luke.”

“This is stupid,” Mark said, hugging Zeke, regarding the tree branch on which his older brother precariously perched. “What are we doing here, anyway? It’s the middle of the night.”

“That’s why I said it reminds me of—”

“Hush, Luke. It’s a surprise, Mark.”

Mark snorted. “Some surprise.”

“Can you get the window open, Matt?”

“Not yet, Kitty, but, that’s Reed, sleepin’ in there. I’m sure of it.”

“Does he sound kind’a’like a hungry bull?” Luke asked.

Matt chuckled. “That’s how I know it’s him.”

Chastity’s heart sped and fluttered. Reed Gilbride St. Yves, the Earl of Barrington, was her destiny, even if he did snore like a ravening bull.

The children loved him as much as she did, and they might all be together soon—if he wanted them and they didn’t get pinched first—if Matt ever got the window open. “Perhaps we should wake the innkeeper, after all,” she said.

“Got it!” The window opened with a squealing screech.

“Mark, is that Zeke? How did you manage to bring her without my knowledge? Where are her babies?”

“Sleepin’ in the back of the wagon.”

“Honestly,” Chastity said. “Go on up. Watch that branch. Now climb in and stay quiet. Your turn, Luke. Got your horn? Good. Bekah, are you sure you can climb— That was fast.”

Chastity hauled herself up the tree as well. Her grin so wide, she could hardly contain it, as she slipped into the room where Reed slept.

She examined the figure in the bed with longing, and barely kept from throwing herself at him.

The children muffled their giggles at his snoring.

“All right, my loves,” she whispered. “Go to it.”

Matt bound Reed’s ankles and wrists, and Mark made to pull down his blankets.”

“Wait!” Chastity caught his arm. “Best not.”

Matt chuckled. “Definitely best.”

Bekah stood watching him sleep, with so much love in her expression, Chastity might have wept, if she wasn’t so happy. “All set?” she whispered, wondering who among them was more excited, her or the children. “Ready, attack.”

Bekah climbed on Reed’s chest and plucked at his chest-hair, Matt tickled his feet, and Luke’s tickle-bug got hold of an ear. Chastity couldn’t keep herself from touching his hand. Then Mark made a snort of disgust, and Luke blew his horn.
WARRONNNK.

Before Reed opened his eyes, a sense of having lived this moment before, hit him. Confusion disarmed him. He tried to shake the cobwebs from his brain. “Damnation!” he said as he tried to rise from the bed, but fell to the floor.

WARRONNNK.

He sat up stunned, silent, until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. “Oh, no. Oh, God. Either this is a nightmare or the best of dreams. “My ankles,” he said on a laugh. “The brigands have bound me, wrists and ankles,” but they were untying him and hugging him even as he spoke.

Then he saw Chastity, the light of dawn behind her. “The best dream, ever.”

“We came,” Chastity said. “To rescue you.”

His laugh was pained as she knelt on the floor beside him. “We want you to marry us.”

“No!” Mark shouted.

“I’ll marry you,” said a man rising from an easy chair. Had he been there all along? “I need a wife. Yesterday, if not sooner.”

Reed chuckled. “Not this one. Chastity, this is Ashford Blackburne, Earl of Blackburne, Ash to his friends, a fellow rogue and former member of the Guards. We fought together at Waterloo.”

“And drank half the night away,” Ash said.

Reed nodded. “He just arrived last night. We commiserated over a few drinks, and he fell asleep in the chair.”

“Nice to meet you,” Chastity said, wondering if all the rogues were as handsome as these two.

“I’ll play you for her,” Ash said.  Winner gets ... Chastity did you say?”

“You’d play your granny for her last farthing. No,” Reed said. “No dice.”

“I have dice.”

“Forget it, Ash. I mean it. If I cannot have her, neither can you.”

“Hey, Reed’s wearing britches,” Luke said.

“Because I spent the better part of the night wide awake, telling myself that I could live without you all.”

“And telling me that he could not,” Ash said. “He’s been miserable. It’s true. He’s a morose drunk.”

Reed ignored Ash and concentrated on Chastity. “When I left you, I thought I’d go mad. For the love of God, what are we to do?” He helped her from the floor and took her into his arms. “If we had not vowed to obey the law— “ He spotted the open window. “Did you break in?”

Chastity laughed. “We break in, we break out. We’re the brigands of Sunnyledge.”

The boys began to sing the words, until a rap at the door hushed them.

Ash opened it to Mr. Sennett, in cap and nightshirt. “Noise fit to wake the— Kitty? Children?”

“Mr. Sennett? What are you doing here?” Chastity asked. “‘Twas your maid told me where to find Reed, but she did not say you were together.”

“Reed insisted we look into that foolish law,” Sennett said, “to see if we could break—”

Chastity laughed and waltzed the rotund solicitor, cap tassel bobbing, around the room. “I haven’t lost my wits,” she said, noting the bemused looks on all three men. “But I have the answer.” She produced William’s documents with a flourish and presented them to Mr. Sennett, along with the Superior’s letter. “Here.”

While Mr. Sennett perused William’s birth record, and Reed’s twin’s death certificate, Chastity stepped into Reed’s arms. “I am
not
your sister-in-law,” she said, and kissed him. “Now you have to marry us.”

“Devil take it,” Ash said. “I suppose I’ll have to find my own bride, now.”

“I’ll be dashed,” Sennett said.

“Are we free to marry?” Reed asked.

“You are, my boy.”

Reed regarded the children. “I’d like your permission to marry Chastity and make you my children, to care for and reprimand and tickle and love.”

“Yes!” came Luke’s response, echoed by Bekah and Matt.

“I don’t need you,” Mark shouted. “I don’t need anybody. I mean it. I’m going.” When no one made a move to stop him, Mark raced out the door.

“I know exactly how the lad feels,” Ash said.

Reed chased Mark out and to the back of the inn, where he found the boy sitting against a woodpile, Zeke in a stranglehold, his face against her fur.

Reed felt his chest constrict at the memory of himself in such a state and at so young an age. If he did not help Mark now, the boy would become so mired in apathy, he’d deny love for the rest of his life. Not everyone is lucky enough to find a woman who can wring love from an iced-over heart.

Reed sat on the ground beside Mark and dredged up some of his most painful childhood memories to illustrate the way he had kept from being hurt.

After a while, Mark raised his head.

“If you do not accept love,” Reed said. “There’s no pain when it’s taken away, which you know will happen.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Your father left. That was a pretty awful thing to do, leave his family like that.”

“My father was a good man.”

“Yes, I think he was, which you need to remember, so you can stop being angry at him for dying. His life is gone, not his love.”

Mark shrugged but with less of an edge to the movement. “Da went to bring God to the heathens. We should be proud. He wasn’t s’posed to go forever.”

“He left you with your mother, but then she left you.”

“She said Da would die if she didn’t. She didn’t want to leave; I could tell. She cried.” Mark turned away and wiped his face with an angry fist. “She cried like when baby John died.”

“Then Aunt Anna left you.”

“Matt took good care of us, we don’t need anybody else.”

“Matt did a wonderful job of caring for you all, but Chastity did a better job.”

Mark thought about it. “I didn’t think she would come for us at the workhouse.”

“But she did.”

“It was her fault we were there! She could’a taken us right off, but she marched us to that hairy old Beadle.”

Reed coughed. “Chastity loves you.”

“Yeah, so what?”

“I love you.”

“Shut up! Shut up, you bastard.” Mark jumped up, sending Zeke scurrying. “You hate us. You hate all children. You wrote that letter to get rid of us. You wanted to send us away, so you would have Chastity to yourself. You hurt her and I’ll kill you. I will.”

Reed should have expected the blow, but he did not, and he got his jaw cracked. He protected his face after that, and certain parts to which Mark’s boots came perilously close. But for the most part he allowed the boy to beat the devil out of him.

“I hate you!” Mark shouted.

For every avowal of hate, Reed offered one of love. “I love you. Chastity loves you.” He named Matt and Luke, and Rebekah. Reed even told him that Mr. Sennett loved him, but Mark was persistent in lashing out.

“I want to be your father.”

The boy stopped, fists poised, breath coming hard.

“I know exactly how you feel,” Reed said. “‘I don’t need anyone’ were the words I lived by, until Chastity fell off a shed roof and landed on her bottom at my feet.”

Mark nearly smiled.

“I love you all,” Reed said. “You’re right about love hurting, but it can be better than great, if you let it. And, if you’re lucky and work at it, the hurt part is small compared to the joy. I’d venture to guess that with Chastity caring for us, we’ll be very lucky. I haven’t always known it, mind. I learned it recently. Chastity taught me, in the way she taught you. Admit it.”

Mark said nothing.

“Everybody needs love, Mark. I need it so much, I want Chastity to marry me. I want to adopt your brothers and sister. And you, especially you, because you’re so much like me, I have this need inside to teach you there’s good in the world while you’re young enough to have a childhood. I want you as my son, Mark. Chastity does too.”

Mark remained quiet, his tears hovering.

“You can hate me until you’re a man grown,” Reed said, “but I’ll never stop loving you.”

Mark threw himself against Reed’s legs, almost knocking him over, his sobs soul-deep and wrenching. Reed knelt to embrace the boy, and they stayed that way for a time, silent and holding on.

“You’re going to think I’m out of my mind,” Reed said after a while. “But not only do I want a woman who can’t cook a bean, and a flock of raggle-taggle street brats who’d steal a man’s pants right out from under his, ah, nose, I want more children.”

Mark pulled away in surprise.

“I know,” Reed said, shaking his head. “I must be sick or something. But I want children with Chastity, and any others she brings home that need keeping till they’re grown. I even want to keep Zeke—we have got to find that rabbit another name—and her babies. Where are her babies?”

“In the wagon.”

“Ah. Will you have me as your father?”

“You had better find him a mother first.” Chastity stood at the corner of the shed by the wood pile, Luke and Matt beside her, Bekah in Mr. Sennett’s arms.

“I do not suppose you’re applying for the position?”

“I do not suppose you’re proposing?”

Reed reached her and snatched her against him, bending her over his arm in a mockery of a romantic embrace. “I do not suppose you’re accepting?”

“What was the question?”

He let her up, took her hands, and kissed them. “Will sweet Chastity Somers marry Reed Gilbride St. Yves, and become parents to Matt, Mark, Luke, and Rebekah ... and any others who come along ... one way or another?”

WARRONNNK!

“Perfect timing, Luke.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” said sweet Chastity Somers.