The Belligerent Miss Boynton AND The Lurid Lady Lockport (Two Companion Full-Length Regency Novels) (68 page)

She told them about the fine Rawlings jewels that she, little Gilly, would wear as she presided at gala balls and dinner parties once The Hall was restored to its former glory, as it could be now that all the money was at last available.

After a time though, her voice lost most of its cheery lilt and her head drooped more and more towards her chest. At last she could hold back no longer. She pressed her cheek against her mother's headstone and began to cry.

"Oh, Mama, I'm so unhappy," she sobbed brokenly. "At first, when I heard the news about us, I could only be angry. All I could think about was how unfair it was for Sylvester to have treated us the way he did."

She sniffed and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand, clumsily, like a small child. "Then I realized that Sylvester must have been unhinged. Bedlam-bait, Harry would say, and wasn't really responsible for what he did. I guess it nearly killed him when his first son died and when Tommy died too, leaving him nothing but a puny girl who couldn't inherit. He must have just slipped round the bend entirely. I'll never forget how he wronged you, Mama, but I can learn to live with my memories."

She took a deep, steadying breath. "No, there's something else that's wrong, and I just don't know what to do about it. Oh, Mama," her voice broke a bit, “never in my whole life have I missed you more. If only you could talk to me, maybe you'd have an answer for me."

For a long time there was nothing but the sound of the breeze rustling the leaves of the nearby trees and some bird song off in the distance. Then Gilly, gathering her courage, spoke again. "It's Kevin, Mama. Our marriage wasn't his idea. You know that. Come to think of it," she added with a bit more force, "it wasn't my idea either. Anyway, there are times, even whole days, when I think that our marriage was the only good turn Sylvester ever did me.

"But there are other times," she said, sighing, "a discouragingly vast number of times, when we seem to get on like cats in a sack—fighting and clawing at each other, and for such silly reasons, over such silly things.

"Kevin has always objected to what he calls my inconsiderate mad starts, but I don't set out to upset him. Truly, Mama, I don't. It's just that I'm so unused to having to account for my whereabouts or actions. I must be more thoughtful, I know. Why I even put poor Bunny through hoops fretting over me, and I certainly have no reason to cause
her
pain."

Gilly plucked a long blade of grass and began to twirl it between her fingers. "Ever since you died I've been on my own except for Hattie and the rest and, to be honest, that's the way I liked it. If I didn't let anyone too close then they couldn't hurt me when they—well, when they went away.

"Now it seems like I'm up to my rump in—I mean, now it seems as if I'm surrounded by people who say they like me and want me to like them in return. Anne, Bo, Amanda, Jared, Bunny, even Rice. They all say they care about me. It's nice, Mama, but it certainly is a responsibility. I have to account for my comings and goings or they worry I've been hurt or kidnapped or worse. And, much as I like them all, I'm afraid to let them begin to mean too much to me because then I'll have to worry about
them
, and if they are all right, or if they'll stop liking me and leave me alone again."

Gilly sat silently again for a while, building up her courage to tell her mother the worst of her news. There was a slight sound from somewhere behind her, like a twig snapping underfoot, but she was too lost in a brown study to hear it.

She stirred restlessly, reached for the daisies she had filched from a nearby grave to give to her mother, and began making a daisy chain to occupy her fidgeting fingers.

"I think I was finally beginning to trust Amanda and the rest when Kevin showed me I had been right not to trust anyone too much. You see, Mama, Kevin never said he cared for me. I mean
really
cared for me. But there were times when I was sure he did. I came so close, so very close, to letting myself love him. I really believed I had finally found someone I could care for, someone who wouldn't leave me or turn his back on me because of what I am. You remember me telling you about that, don't you, Mama? You remember how most of the villagers stopped wanting me around them when I started to grow up and they remembered I was a bastard.

"But yesterday changed all that. Oh, I know I was more than a little upset when I first found out what Sylvester had done. I just knew his so-called fortune was better off left alone—and I know I was a little unfair ranting at Kevin the way I did."

She stopped for a moment and then continued, "Actually, Mama, I was a lot worse than unfair. I was a bloody shrew, screaming at him like it was all his fault. But before I could apologize, he came to me and—calm as you please I'll have you know—offered me a divorce if I wanted one. A
divorce!
Oh, Mama, can you see now how I'd been right not to trust him? Now that he has what he wanted he can't wait to be shed of me."

Gilly crushed her daisy chain in her hands. "Why couldn't he have left me alone, Mama? Why did he come here and show me what it's like to care about someone and hope they care about you?"

Her flame-topped head buried in her hands, she sobbed brokenly, "I was all right before he came here. I didn't need him to pretend he cared about me—to make me want to care about someone else, to make me remember how much it hurts when the one you care about goes away. I could have lived all my life without ever knowing Kevin Rawlings existed. I was happy in my ignorance. But now, now that I've had a taste of what might have been, I'm at a loss to see how I'll ever be able to live the rest of my life without him."

Gilly lifted her head, looking up at the sunny sky. "Oh, Mama, I love him. I must love him. Why else do I feel like I'm dying inside? I don't want the fortune or the jewels. I just want Kevin. Why can't he love me too? Please, Mama, why can't he love me?" she asked desperately, knowing she would hear no answer.

The nattily dressed man standing quietly behind the weeping girl was for the moment too overcome with emotion to trust his voice. But her sobs were breaking his heart—she, for whom he would gladly lay down his life to spare her the slightest pain.

Taking a deep steadying breath, he leaned down behind Gilly and clasped her shoulders in his hands. Raising her to her feet, he turned her unresisting form towards him and lifted her chin with the bent knuckle of one finger.

Willing himself to refrain from giving in to the impulse to crush her to him and kiss her until she became faint from lack of breath, he looked searchingly at her upturned tear-wet face, arched one eloquent eyebrow, and smiled his most ingratiating smile.

"Idiot," Kevin Rawlings, Earl of Lockport, man, husband, lover, then drawled caressingly. "My dearest, sweetest, most adorable idiot. Whoever said I didn't love you?"

Storm Haven was a perfect reflection of its owners, Amanda and Jared Delaney; warm, inviting, and pulsing with life. The grounds, on this warm late June day, were a picture-book setting for the domestic group now gathered on the velvety green east lawns.

Two sturdy dark-haired toddlers were happily frolicking with several deliriously delighted fat tan puppies of questionable pedigree, while their indulgent Nanny looked on from overtop her knitting.

A table sat nearby, beneath the shelter of a large oak tree. Gathered around this table playing a game of Brag were Amanda Delaney, mother of the twins; Anne Chevington, her serene beauty even more apparent since the birth of her son four months previously; and the redoubtable Aunt Agatha, a tiny, wiry lady who had been happily cheating and (even more happily) coming up the winner of nearly every hand dealt.

Bo Chevington was stretched out on his side on a carriage blanket, amusing a chubby red-haired baby who was delighted by the toy rabbit that, once his papa had squeezed its fuzzy tail, sat still for a few moments and then suddenly hopped into the air.

Jared Delaney, on his way to join them, stood some distance away from the group, pausing to smile over the warm feelings the scene stirred in him. Then he walked over to his wife and dropped a kiss on her nape in greeting.

"I've a letter here from Kevin," he told her, laughing as she squealed and grabbed it out of his hand.

"This simply
must
be the one we've been waiting for," she said. "Gather round and I'll read it aloud:

Our dear friends--
I hope this missive finds you all well and safely past the danger of Bo bending your collective ears about his son the Nonpareil. Surely he cannot maintain such eloquence, even in such a worthy cause.

"Naughty jackanapes," Aunt Agatha commented aloud while silently breathing a fervent Amen to Kevin's concern for her battered ears (and nerves! Honestly, anyone would be justified in thinking Bo performed some miracle producing little Edward—even if he was a most engaging child).

My regards to Aggie, of course. I'd give a great deal to see her face now that I've confounded all her grim prophecies and settled down here at The Hall.

"Faugh! And is it any wonder?" Aunt Agatha was goaded into saying, interrupting Amanda a second time. "How could I place any confidence in a fool I first encountered in my drawing room in London, practicing spitting tobacco juice into my best Sévres vase and trying out curse words in an attempt to ape some low-bred mail-coach driver?"

"We were young then, Aggie. Boys do grow up, you know." Jared said in defense of the misadventures of his youth.

"You came about nicely once you met Amanda. Well, perhaps not that soon. At first you behaved most reprehensibly, Nephew. Why, I remember Honoria writing me from London about your exploits, and let me tell you, young man—"

Jared held up his hands in protest. "Spare my blushes, please, Aggie, I beg you. Not in front of the children."

Amanda interrupted this friendly squabbling with a shriek of pleasure. While her husband and his aunt had been bantering back and forth, she had read ahead silently and at last discovered what she was looking for.

"Oh, that trickster!" she exclaimed. "How like him to gammon me by writing as if this was just any old letter. Listen to this!"

By the by, friends, you may offer us your congratulations. I have been so diverted else I would have written sooner, but by the time this letter reaches you (considering the sad state of the King's highways) it shall have been some five or more weeks since Gilly, my most splendid, brave Gillyflower, presented her adoring husband with the most beautiful perfect baby girl in Creation. We've named her, Alicia, after Gilly's beloved mother, and you'll be unsurprised to learn that there's not a single Sylvia in the string of second names my dear wife has also chosen, although there is an Anne in there somewhere, and an Amanda. And, oh yes, the little creature has been fortunate enough to favor Gilly, although my diplomatic wife vows Alicia has my ears.

"Aunt Agatha," Amanda protested, "that's a singularly infelicitous remark. Kevin is an exceedingly well-favored specimen. Just don't ever let Gilly hear you talk like that. She fair dotes on Kevin, you know."

"Pshaw!" the old lady scoffed, flicking a stray flower petal from her lacy shawl. "And you told me she was an intelligent little thing. Sounds a bit queer in the attic to me."

"Oh, Lady Chezwick," Anne giggled nervously. "You're such a wicked tease."

The elderly lady leaned over and patted Anne's hand. "Don't fly up into the boughs, my dear. I only tease people I'm fond of, you know. If I truly disliked Kevin Rawlings I would treat him with extreme civility and never utter an unkind word about him."

"In that case, Aunt," suggested her chuckling nephew, "you must adore our Kevin, judging from the way you're always roasting him. But that's no surprise. I've always thought you favored the fellow."

"May I get on with this?" Amanda demanded, waving the letter in front of her. She started in reading once more.

As I told you before, Aunt Sylvia is responded wondrously well to Gilly ever since it was brought home to her that she is her niece. Indeed, Gilly too had to become accustomed to the idea that she had suddenly acquired an aunt after thinking herself entirely without family—on the right side of the blanket, that is.

Already Aunt Sylvia is haunting the nursery, as she and Elsie were our first official visitors since the birth, and Gilly has had the happy notion the old girl will be very good with Alicia now that my dear wife has been spending so much time with her, drawing her slowly back from the dream world she'd sought out to get away from Sylvester's meanness. Gilly says to send you all her love and promises to write soon, herself, telling 'all' about the baby. That should prove to be a weighty tome, I fear.

But never fear, Jared. I promise to go bail for the postage. Happily, my sponging days seem behind me now. Until we hear from you, hopefully with the news you and Amanda and Bo and Anne (who I am sure are still visiting at Storm Haven), will agree to stand godparents to Alicia, I remain, yr. obedient etc., Kevin.

Amanda laid the letter in her lap, her golden eyes bright with happy tears, and beamed at the company. "Isn't that the sweetest letter?"

"Already more than a month old, huh?" Jared mused. "That's our Kevin all over—late again."

"Well," Aunt Agatha added with no little satisfaction. "So that's that. I hate to admit it, but I'm proud of that boy. He seems to have really matured in this last year. Yes," she nodded happily, "Kevin Rawlings has at last become a sober, responsible citizen."

Aunt Agatha might not have been so complacent if she could have been privy to the conversation just then taking place elsewhere between Kevin and Gilly as they watched over their slumbering child.

"Look at her, Gilly, darling," Kevin was saying. "Just look at her. Isn't she just the most absolutely splendid child ever born?"