Kissingate Magic #4
“What’s this, lovey, making a mess for me, are you?” Mac bustled in and repacked the baby clothes. “I thought you were looking for Clara’s trunk,” she said with a piercing look.
Mac carried the small trunk downstairs, claiming something without definition that Jacey wanted without reason.
Ten
Disappointed for no reason, Bridget’s bonnet fell off her lap. Half expecting Nanny to grab it, Jace slipped it in her pocket.
Bridget stared into Clara’s open trunk as if it held a nest of vipers. Jacey pulled her close and kissed her head. “Show me your favourite of Mama’s dresses.”
Bridget shook her head, swallowed and sniffed.
“Oh, Cricket, don’t cry.”
“What’s this?” came a familiar voice. “Is somebody crying?” A puppet peeked around the doorjamb.
Bridget gasped and approached it, stopping a distance away. “I’m not crying. The smell inside my Mama’s trunk itches my nose and makes my eyes … wet.” She wiped her face with her sleeve. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Harry the Handsome Hedgehog but I’m lonely. Can we talk?”
Bridget nodded, and Jace wondered if Suttie saw around corners.
“What’s your name?” Hedgehog asked.
“Bridget. My papa, but not; he calls me Cricket.”
“You have a papa, but not?”
Bridget nodded again. “Papa Gabe.”
Jacey worried about Gabriel’s reaction to the name.
“Oh, that papa. Well, Cricket, I think something’s bothering you. Maybe I can help.”
Bridget sighed, raised her arms and dropped them in defeat. “I want to keep Myjacey and I’m afraid my Papa Gabe won’t let me,” she said in a rush.
“And who is Myjacey? A kitten, a puppy?”
Bridget took Jacey’s hand and dragged her before Hedgehog. “She’s my mama’s sister and I want her to stay. Can you talk to my … to Papa Gabe for me?”
“Myjacey’s your aunt, then?”
Bridget looked up at her. “Are you?”
Jace tweaked Bridget’s nose and nodded. The lump in her throat made it impossible to speak.
“She is my aunt!” Which clearly pleased her.
Hedgehog bowed gallantly. “Hello Aunt Jacey.”
“Nooo, it’s Myjacey. Nanny Mac said so.”
“Ach, sorry. Well, do you smell that?” Hedgehog’s nose crinkled with a sniff.
“I think luncheon is ready. Tattie drootle and tipsy custard, I’d say.
Cricket, tell Papa Gabe how you feel about Myjacey.
He cares very much about you, and Myjacey, and he wouldn’t want either of you to worry. All right?”
Bridget sighed. “All right.” She stepped into Jacey’s arms after Hedgehog left. “Do we havta go through Mama’s trunk?”
“No. Do you want to give me a tour of Kirk Farm after lunch?”
An hour later, hand in hand, Bridget explained every outbuilding from buttery to bower, dovecote to stable, as if Jace had never seen it before.
When they passed her favourite climbing tree, she helped Bridget perch in the lowest, widest fork of its branches beside her.
With a storybook tucked in her pocket, Jace opened to Snow White.
“I might have known,” Gabriel said a short while later, hands on hips. “Tree climbing, first day.”
Jacey gave one of his arms a playful shove with her foot. “Climb up,” Jace said. “It’s cosy.”
Bridget scrambled into her lap, which clouded his expression, but the tempest cleared when Bridget said, “Shh,” with a finger across her lips. “Pay ’tention.”
He tapped Bridget’s nose. “Quiet as a Kirk mouse.”
He kept his promise, except for the “speaking” glances directed her way, while she became alive to details: her rasping voice and dry lips, the trembling hand she hid in the folds of Bridget’s dress, her death-grip on the book, Gabe’s thigh pressed to hers, him stroking the hair on the sleepy head against her breast.
Jace read slow, so the fairytale wouldn’t end.
Eleven
That night, after she gave Bridget a bath, Jace took her down to say goodnight.
Gabriel raised a brow. “Bridget, you look lovely. Jace, you look like you lost a fight with a flapping duck.”
Bridget cocked her head.
Had she never heard him say anything playful?
The task of putting her down for the night was Gabriel’s. But after Bridget took his hand, she grabbed Jacey’s and tugged her along.
A child between her and Gabriel, as should have been, but Nick offered to be her scapegoat, so she said he was the father. Gabe didn’t lose his family parish. Her mother didn’t get to throw him out, since the Lockharts owned the parish living.
In Bridget’s room, Gabe shed his jacket and threw it over a chair. Bridget knelt on her bed to unbutton his waistcoat, undo his cuffs and roll his sleeves to his elbows.
He winked over Bridget’s head, lurching Jace’s heart. “Cricket likes buttons,” he said.
Like a child, nose to the window, Jace gazed on a family scene she aspired to join.
Bridget freed Gabe’s cleric’s collar and tucked it into his breast pocket.
“Now, Myjacey.” Bridget motioned her forward.
Jace got the bow at her bodice and her top three dress buttons undone, then she got a hug. Jacey masked her emotions and laid her cheek on Bridget’s curls. “Thank you for a splendid day, sweetheart.”
“I love you,” Bridget whispered.
Gabriel went pale as chalk for the second time that day.
“I love you too, Cricket,” Jace whispered, sad for him, elated for herself.
“Mama said you loved me,” Bridget added, surprising them both.
Gabriel and Bridget knelt by her bed to say her prayers, but when Bridget started, Gabriel touched her arm, took Jacey’s hand and pulled her down beside them. “Now you may begin, Cricket.”
“Bless Mama and Papa in heaven,” she said. “And make Papa Gabe let Myjacey stay. Amen.”
After offering Gabe her rosebud lips, Bridget settled on her side. Gabriel tucked her blankets to her chin and kissed her brow. Jacey watched, until Bridget opened one eye. “Myjacey, you’re s’posed to kiss me goodnight.”
Jacey bent to her ear. “I didn’t know I was allowed. See you for boxty and jam in the morning. Happy dreams.”
A hand at her elbow, Gabriel guided her from the room.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered the minute Bridget’s door shut.
“What for?”
“Gabriel Macgregor, I know you better than you know yourself. You’d give your right arm to have her say she loves you, but I walk in and she says it to me.”
Silent, he walked her to her bedroom door.
“I fell in love with her, Jace, the first time Clara put her in my arms. You should have seen her. A wee tiny thing, even at two, with a thick crown of raven curls. She used to love it when I played with her, Clara egging us on. I’d pretend I was tired, but Bridget would laugh and beg for more. ”
“You’re describing a different child.”
“I know. Clara died and Bridget stopped laughing. Stopped looking at me. True, she said she loves you, but in the attic, she called me Papa Gabe, Suttie said, and frankly that’s the best I’ve had from her in months.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I think she blames me for her mother’s death.”
“Oh Gabriel, no.” Jacey had never wanted to comfort him more, the urge so strong, and dangerous she stepped back. “She’s confused. She’ll be happy again soon.”
“If you stay, maybe. One day with you and she’s more herself.” He turned away, ran a hand through his his hair, and turned back, as if he didn’t know where to put himself. “It’s good to discuss her with you.” He sighed. “I’m thanking you; this has been a good day for me, too.”
“Gabriel Macgregor, this is the most you’ve ever said to me.”
He looked sheepish. “Wait till you hear one of my sermons. Stay, Jace. For as long as you want.”
“There’ll be talk.”
“To the devil with talk.”
“It’ll begin sooner than we think. Nick Daventry is home from America.”
Twelve
Nick Daventry. Even the cadence of the name dogged Gabriel. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never forget Jacey’s words to him on the day he’d gone to confess his paternity to her mother.
“It’s not yours, Gabriel,” Jacey said, waylaying him in the parlour. “Nick Daventry is my baby’s father.”
In that first horrific moment, her words might have been an axe blade in his back. From that day to this, Gabe wanted Nicholas “bloody” Daventry to go straight to hell.
Now he was back. He should have stayed in America, but as Jace’s distant cousin, he’d come home to inherit Lockhart Keep, after the death of his brother, who inherited in Jacey’s place, because her mother had disowned her.
He’d always suspected the woman would have ruined him, if Jace’s babe had been his. Give him sheep for company; they were easier than his flock to deal with. He would be happy with a parish, any parish, or simply a farm, and Bridget and Jacey.
To hell with everyone else. Well, Mackenzie. He guessed he’d take her, too, the nosy old thing.
When he got home that afternoon, the best parlour looked like a family of squirrels had danced the highland fling. In the doorway, he stepped on something hard, the arm of an ugly French figurine that belonged to his grandmother.
Mackenzie, sweeping up its remains by the hearth, didn’t notice him. Neither did anyone else.
Gabriel relaxed at the sight of Jacey’s head tucked beneath the camel-back settee, her gown, one of Clara’s, had crinolines that bobbed in the air, affording him a lovely view of her sweet backside.
Never before had lust, tenderness, and the urge to chuckle overcome him at one and the same time.
“Can you see it?” Jacey called.
“I can, almost, but it’s wiggling a lot,” Cricket said, from behind that piece of furniture.
“You have it, then?”
“Ouch. Not anymore.”
“Where did it go?”
“Up. Inside.”
Jacey’s petticoats quivered, from shock or laughter, he didn’t know. Before they finished their flutter, Jace backed out and sat on her knees, hands on hips. “Bridget Macgregor, are you saying your kitten disappeared into the sofa stuffing!”
What kitten?
Cricket came tottering into sight on high heels thrice her size, trailing a god-awful green dress and red boa, wearing a straw hat his mother once favoured. From its brim, dangled a clump of berries, and a moulting bluebird.
Gabriel cleared his throat.