Substitute Bride (Beaufort Brides Book 2) (14 page)

“She did the next day!”

“It’s not like that, sweetheart. Complicated things
sometimes happen with adults. It has nothing to do with how much she loves you,
but she’s not able to keep being your nanny.”

“Grandma says she’s a servant,” Julie chimed in.

James stiffened. “What?”

“Grandma said Rosie is just a servant.”

“When did she say that?”

“Yesterday. She was asking me if I was ready to have a new
mommy, and I said I didn’t need a mommy because I have Rosie.” Julie’s eyes
were wide and guileless. “And she said she’s just a servant and isn’t like a
mommy at all.”

James forced the tension out of his muscles so he wouldn’t
upset his daughters, but he suddenly wanted to hit something. He cleared his
throat. “There’s nothing wrong with being a servant. Servants work very hard
and do important work. But Rose was always your nanny and she was very
important because of that. But she’s not like a mommy, sweetheart.”

Julie frowned. “But I thought a mommy loved us and took care
of us and was always there when we need her.”

“That’s true,” James said, a crack in his voice.

“But that’s what Rosie did,” Julie said. “Isn’t that like a
mommy?”

The little girl had been too young to ever know her mother,
and James’s heart ached so much he could barely breathe at the thought of how
innocently she loved Rose. In a lot of ways, Rose had been like a mother to
her—the only one she’d known.

But in other ways, she wasn’t like a mother at all.

“That’s true, Julie,” he said, very gently. “But a nanny
gets paid for doing all that. A mommy doesn’t get paid. A mommy is part of the family.”

“But Rosie is part of the family,” Julie said, clearly
trying to make sense of a very complicated situation.

“Not exactly, baby.” James stroked the girl’s hair, wishing
he was smarter, wishing he was more sensitive, more articulate.

Wishing he was better at all of this.

Jill had been listening and thinking, and now she
straightened up a little, turning to look up at her father’s face. “Daddy?”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“If a nanny gets paid and a mommy doesn’t, maybe you can
just not pay Rosie anymore.”

James swallowed hard at the words. “Jill—”

Jill was getting more and more excited. “If she lives with
us, she doesn’t need money, right? You can pay for her like you pay for us.”

“Jill, honey, it doesn’t work that way. She can’t live with
us like that unless she’s part of the family.”

Jill suddenly looked like she’d had a brilliant insight.
“Then you can marry her, right? You can marry Rosie and make her part of the
family, right? That would take care of everything.”

“Yeah!” Julie cried, perking up at this idea. “Marry Rosie!”

James stared at his little girls, completely frozen. He knew
he should be wise and careful and immediately nip this idea in the bud.

But he didn’t want to. Because, hearing them say it, made it
sound like the most obvious solution in the world.

Of course, they couldn’t go on as they had been doing. Rose
had been exactly right. The lines were hopelessly crossed between nanny and
something more, and there was no going back from that.

But she’d quit now. She was no longer his nanny. She was
just a woman.

A woman he was in love with. A woman he wanted to spend the
rest of his life with. A woman both he and his daughters could never live
without.

Rose might not be in love with him now, but that didn’t mean
she never would. She obviously liked him and was attracted to him. There was no
denying the chemistry they had together. And they cared for each other and
understood each other and took care of each other.

She didn’t have to be exactly where he was emotionally for
there to be a chance. Everything didn’t always come in neat little packages,
slots with the boundaries clearly marked out.

He could work at it. He could woo her. He could show her how
much potential there was between them.

Maybe she could grow to love him, and then maybe the girls’
clear-eyed vision of a future for their family wasn’t as off the wall as it
might seem.

He could at least try.

His despair was swallowed in a wave of joy and hope, and it
spurred him to ease Jill aside slightly so he could climb off the bed.

“Where are you going, Daddy?”

“I was going to find Rose and talk to her.”

The girls’ faces burst into happiness, and they scrambled
off the bed after him.

“Let’s go find Rose,” Jill said, running over to her closet
and yanking out a pair of leggings, which she pulled on under her nightgown.

Julie ran over to find a pair of leggings too, copying her
sister. “Let’s go now!”

“Just a minute,” James said, suddenly worried that they’d
all bombard Rose with their love and excitement and pressure her into something
she might not want. “I’m not sure we should all—”

“We have to come too! We have to tell her we want her to be
our mommy!” Jill insisted, sliding on a pair of flip-flops. “We love her too!”

“We love her!” Julie echoed.

James sighed. He couldn’t leave them at home, obviously,
since there was no one here to watch them. They’d have to come. Maybe he could
arrange for them to stay in a room with Kelly while he talked to Rose.

He pictured Kelly futilely trying to hold the excited girls
back from getting to Rose.

He sighed again. It didn’t matter. He had to go find Rose
now. He had to talk to her now.

So the girls were going to have to come with him.

***

A half-hour later, he was knocking
on the thick, historic Beaufort front door, with Jill and Julie at his side, so
excited they were wriggling and holding their hands over their mouths so they
wouldn’t be too loud.

After a few minutes, Kelly opened the door, staring in shock
when she saw who it was.

“What do you want?” she asked, frowning at him.

“Sorry to turn up unexpectedly. Is Rosie here?” he asked.

“We’re here to see Rosie!” Jill confirmed.

“Rosie!” Julie echoed.

“Yes, she’s here,” Kelly said, her sober green eyes moving
from one to another. “She’s in her room.”

“Can we come in?” James asked, starting to get impatient now
that Rose was almost within reach.

“She’s pretty upset,” Kelly said, holding his gaze with an
expression that seemed a lot older than she was. “I’d rather not let you in, if
you’re just going to upset her even more.”

Irrationally, he felt a leap of excitement at the news that
Rose was really upset. Kelly had implied it was over him.

If she was that upset about leaving them, maybe she’d be
open to eventually coming back.

“I don’t want to upset her,” James said.

“We’ve come to take her home,” Jill added, hugging her belly
with her arms.

Julie was hanging from James’s arm. “We want her to be our
mommy!”

“Shh,” James said, feeling startled by his girls’ bluntness.
It might be true, but it could be rather overwhelming to someone not expecting
it. “I told you in the car. It’s too soon for that.”

“But later,” Jill said in a stage whisper to Kelly, leaning
over as if the two of them had a secret. “Later we want her to be our mommy.”

For just a moment, Kelly’s mouth twitched up, as if she had
to suppress laughter, but then her gaze softened and she stepped aside from the
doorway. “All right. In that case, I guess you can come in.”

The three of them walked in, and James couldn’t help but
think they were a motley crew. The girls were in their nightgowns and leggings,
and he wore the workout shorts he’d changed into after work and a T-shirt with
a spaghetti sauce stain down the front.

“You should have brought her flowers,” Julie said, pausing
at the gorgeous polished staircase. “A lady is supposed to get flowers.”

“We don’t have any, sweetheart, so we’ll have to do
without.” He was looking up the stairs, thinking about Rose behind one of those
doors.

“There’s some flowers in the garden,” Kelly suggested. “You
can pick some if you want.”

“Yay!” Julie cried. “I’ll pick some pretty ones for you,
Daddy.”

James managed to bite back a groan of impatience. “All
right. But be really quick.”

The girl ran off with Kelly to the backyard, and Jill stayed
with him, looking like she was about to burst.

He felt about the same way.

He glanced up the stairs and almost jumped back in
astonishment when he saw a dark, dour figure descending the stairs, looking
almost unearthly in the dim light and out of the blue.

Grandmother Beaufort.

“What are you doing here, young man?” she demanded when she
reached the bottom. She peered up and down his body with obvious disdain.

“I’m here to see Rose,” he explained. “My other daughter is
getting some flowers from the garden.”

“I see.” She sniffed and looked up and down his body again.
“And this is what you feel is appropriate attire for paying suit to a
Beaufort?”

James glanced down at himself again. “We came here in a
hurry and didn’t have time to change. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

Jill leaned up to him and whispered, “Maybe you should wear
the coat and hat you were wearing for the ball. You looked really handsome in
them.”

James managed not to choke on the idea. “I don’t think so,
honey.”

“That will be much more appropriate,” Rose’s grandmother
said, like she was speaking an oracle from the gods. “I will retrieve them for
you.”

“Please don’t,” James began, calling the words toward the
old woman’s back to no effect all. “I don’t need to—”

There was no sense in continuing since she’d left the
hallway.

Jill did a little jig at the idea of her daddy in such
dashing costume, and James prayed the woman wouldn’t be able to find them.

Things were crazy enough as they were. He didn’t need to
look like a fool when he finally got a chance to speak to Rose.

Kelly and Julie soon came in from the garden with an enormous
bunch of miscellaneous flowers, the bouquet almost half the size of Julie
herself. James felt a flicker of hope, telling himself he’d just take the
flowers and run upstairs before the jacket and top hat made an appearance.

He was too late, however. Just as he was reaching for the
flowers, Rose’s grandmother came in with the historic items.

“Ooh,” Julie gasped. “You’re going to look so handsome,
Daddy!”

James hesitated to take the hat and coat, but the old woman
narrowed her eyes at him. “You will present yourself appropriately, young man.”

“Please, Daddy!” Jill said, still tugging on his arm.
“You’ll look like a prince!”

“A prince!” Julie echoed.

Right. A very gallant prince in a top hat, tails, and
workout shorts.

“I’ll put them on upstairs,” he said, finally starting up
the stairs, vowing that nothing more would stop him from finally getting to
Rose.

The girls ran up at his heels and Kelly and Mrs. Beaufort were
right behind them.

There was only one closed door in the hall, so he went to
stand in front of that one. He shifted the ungainly bouquet into one hand and
knocked on the door with the other.

“Put on your coat and hat, Daddy!” Jill cried, grabbing the clothes
from Mrs. Beaufort and thrusting them at him.

With a sigh, he set the hat on his head and had the jacket
halfway on when Rose opened the door.

It looked like she’d been crying, and she was wearing a
baggy sweatshirt and yoga pants. She stared in shock at the people collected
outside her door.

Her eyes ended up resting on James, who must have looked
like an absolute fool.

“Surprise!” Julie screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Daddy,” Jill hissed, “Put your other arm in!”

“What—” Rose choked, staring around and suddenly looking
unsteady on her feet.

“We’ve come to take you home as our mommy!” Julie declared,
her volume just slightly less in decibel than her earlier announcement.

“Shh,” Jill said, giving her sister a nudge. “We’re not
supposed to tell her that yet.”

James was completely at a loss for words. The whole thing
had become a farce. Kelly was somewhere behind him, but he could hear her
strangling on laughter. And Rose couldn’t do more than make another squeak.

Finally, Mrs. Beaufort took control of the situation. She
cleared her throat and then took both of the girls by the hands. “We will leave
your father to declare himself now. Come, Kelly. We will be in the parlour
having lemonade.”

“Lemonade!” Julie repeated.

“We’ll be downstairs, Daddy,” Jill added. “Don’t forget to
give her the flowers.”

Then the four of them trooped down the stairs, leaving him
alone with Rose in the doorway of her room.

He thrust the bouquet of flowers at her, and she took them,
needing both hands to hold the huge collection.

Now he had to say something.

But, first, he was going to take the damned hat and jacket
off.

Rose had been hiding in her room,
crying.

When she’d been dumped before by Richard, she’d done the
same thing, but that time she’d been more humiliated than anything else. So
she’d been able to see herself, as if from a distance, and feel a little
amusement about the melodramatics.

This was different, though. She couldn’t see herself at a
distance at all. She could only acknowledge, over and over again, what had
happened.

She hadn’t been careful after all. She’d fallen in love with
her boss. Her boss who was and who would always be off-limits.

And now she’d lost both him and the two girls she adored.

She knew the next day she would have to start to pull her
life together, decide what she would do from here on out—whether she would find
another nanny job or maybe, maybe see if she could start going to college. She
could major in Education, like she always wanted. She could get student loans
and take classes part-time. There was absolutely no reason not to do it.

But today she couldn’t even think about such a possibility,
because the whole future seemed dark and bleak without James and the girls.

Surely she was allowed one day to hibernate before she had
to start being strong.

So she was annoyed when she heard some noise from
downstairs. It was after eight in the evening. Her grandmother or Kelly
wouldn’t have visitors over this late. Maybe it was just a neighbor stopping
by.

Either way, she wasn’t going to go down. She wasn’t going to
see anyone. Not today.

Tomorrow would be a different story.

When she heard the knock on the door, she got out of bed
with a surge of determination. If Kelly was expecting her to be strong tonight
and visit with some old friend, she was just going to have to tell her sister
off. It wasn’t going to happen.

Then she opened her door, and the first thing she saw was
James—looking like a half-crazed Prince Charming.

He looked awkward and embarrassed and dryly
self-deprecating, and the little girls in their pajamas were saying things that
suddenly filled Rose’s heart with hope.

After all, James was carrying flowers. Surely they were for
her. And he was here after dark just to look for her.

Maybe…maybe…
maybe
…

Neither she nor James said anything until the others made
their way downstairs. Rose clutched at the flowers James had given her. There
were way too many of them, and they were just awkwardly bunched together
instead of prettily arranged.

She didn’t care, though. One of the girls had obviously
picked them, and James had given them to her.

“Hi,” James said, after a moment of silence.

Rose dropped her eyes and then lifted them again. “Hi.”

“Are you okay?”

She cleared her throat. “I’m okay. What about you?”

It was a stupid conversation, but at least they were saying
something. James’s eyes were devouring her face, as if he were hungry for the
least detail about her appearance.

Like he thought she was his and he was hers.

“I’m not okay,” he said, shaking his head with a dry chuckle.
“I’m here in a top hat and jacket making a complete ass of myself.”

“I don’t think you’re an ass,” she said, rather foolishly,
before she could stop herself.

His face softened palpably.

“Why are you here?” she asked, needing to know, although it was
hard to think anything else at the moment. She still needed to hear the words.

So James said them. “Because I love you,” he said. “I’m
crazy in love with you. And you left me. You left us.”

Rose just about burst into tears.

As she stood there, twisting her face and breathing
unevenly, James jumped into action. “Shit, please don’t cry, baby. That’ll be
the end of me.” He put an arm around her and led her to the bed, where both of
them sat down on the edge.

She managed to pull herself together. “Sorry,” she said,
taking a few deep breaths. “I’m not crying.”

There were a few tears streaming down her cheeks, but she
figured that didn’t really count.

“I’m sorry I left,” she managed to say, sniffing a little
and turning to look at him. “I didn’t want to. I felt terrible. I just didn’t
know what else to do.”

“I know,” he said, reaching out to take her face in his
hands. “I know, Rosie. It’s all my fault. I put us in a weird limbo place, and
it wasn’t fair to you. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I was just so
afraid that taking that risk would mean I’d lose everything—for you and the
girls. But that chance is so much better than not doing anything. I don’t want
you to be the girls’ nanny anymore.”

Rose was trembling from feeling and excitement. “You don’t?”

He shook his head. “No. I want you to be…a lot more.”

She had to close her eyes and breathe again so she didn’t
start sobbing with joy.

Evidently taking her expression for hesitance, James hurried
on, “I’m so sorry about everything. I know it’s too soon to expect you to feel
what I do. What Julie said earlier, that’s what I want. That’s what all three
of us want from you. But I’m not here to put pressure on you like that. We can
just date to begin with, if you’re interested, I mean. No pressure. No expectations.
No future already mapped out for you. Just me.” His eyes were more open and
vulnerable than she’d ever seen them. “And the girls. If you want us.”

“I do want you,” she burst out, throwing her arms around his
neck. “I want you all so much I can hardly contain it.”

James groaned with what sounded like relief, and he pulled
her into a tight embrace, pressing kisses all over her face until he finally
found her lips.

They kissed deeply, fiercely, with all of themselves.
Nothing held back anymore.

Rose was too emotionally battered to get aroused, but she
felt harder and deeper than she ever had before. No sex she’d ever had—not even
with James—could compare to this feeling of absolute rightness.

She finally pulled away and kind of collapsed against his
chest. He held her close, burying his face in her hair.

“So should I start looking for another nanny?” he asked
hoarsely.

She choked on amusement and affection and pulled back to
look at his face. “Yeah. You better. But maybe…” She hesitated, her old
reservations rising up, even in this situation.

“Maybe what?” he asked, cupping her face with one hand and
stroking her cheek with his thumb.

She fought the reservations and said what she wanted. “Maybe
hire a part-time nanny, since I’m going to want to be around a lot. And
maybe—if things work out—I’ll be around even more later on.”

His face broke with what looked like joy, and she knew she’d
said the right thing. “I hope so, Rosie. The girls and I want you around all
the time.”

They talked for a few more minutes, but it was late, and
their loved ones were waiting downstairs.

When they came downstairs hand-in-hand, Kelly and Julie
insisted it was the flowers that put him over the top, while Jill declared it
was the jacket and top-hat and why wasn’t Daddy still wearing them.

Rose’s grandmother had the last word, as always, when she
said it was a good thing James hadn’t come to Rose’s door in the disgraceful
outfit he’d arrived in.

It simply wasn’t what a suitor should do.

***

“Daddy, you should wear the green
shirt instead of that blue one,” Jill said, while regarding her father with a
seriousness that was well beyond her years.

“The green shirt!” Julie agreed loudly.

James looked down at himself. He had tried to look
presentable tonight, so he was dressed in good black trousers and a blue dress
shirt, and he was just about to leave for his first real date with Rose. He
didn’t need to be second-guessing his outfit at this point. “This shirt is
fine.”

“But Rose likes green,” Jill told him. “It’s her favorite
color.”

“Wear the green shirt, Daddy!” Julie exclaimed, reaching up
to tug his shirttails out of his pants.

James groaned. He’d had an early dinner with the girls and
then gotten involved in helping Jill with her spelling homework. He hadn’t
realized it was so late until Jill reminded him, so he’d rushed through a
shower and dressed quickly.

Rose was living at her grandmother’s now, so he had to drive
over twenty minutes to get over there to pick her up.

Being late for their first date wasn’t the impression he
wanted to make for her.

But if Rose’s favorite color was really green…

“Okay,” he said, running a hand over his hair as he took the
stairs two at a time. “The green shirt, it is.”

He came back down five minutes later in the forest green
shirt, and both of the girls clapped their hands in approval.

“Okay,” he said, checking to make sure everything was
buttoned and zipped that was supposed to be. “I’ll be back late, so I’ll see
you both tomorrow. You be good for Cheryl tonight.”

Cheryl was their new nanny of only one week, and it wasn’t
always an easy transition for the girls, but James thought they were warming up
to her.

“We’ll be good,” Jill promised.

“We’ll be really, really good,” Julie said.

“You better be. If you’re not good tonight, there won’t be
dessert for you tomorrow either.”

The girls had misbehaved yesterday so they’d had no dessert
today.

“We’ll be good,” Jill repeated, as Julie whimpered softly
over such a hardship.

He leaned over to kiss them both in turn.

“Be really nice to Rosie,” Jill said.

“I’ll do my best.”

“And don’t forget the flowers!” Jill handed him the small,
delicate bouquet of forget-me-nots, tied with a satin ribbon, that the girls
had helped him pick out that afternoon.

James took the flowers and kissed them again. Then he rushed
out the door and to his car. He drove faster than normal and fortunately didn’t
get stuck at any of the long lights, so he made it to the Beaufort house just
two minutes past seven, which was when he was supposed to pick up Rose.

When he knocked on the door, his heart was racing and he was
breathing a little quickly.

Rose opened the door, looking fresh and pretty in a pale
green cotton dress.

James’s heart did a silly leap when he saw her, but his
voice was dry as he said, “I thought maybe your grandmother would answer, and I
would get a lecture on not wearing a jacket to pick you up.”

Rose chuckled and stepped outside, closing the door behind
her. “She spied on you through the window and said she was pleased to see you
looked appropriate.”

They walked down the stairs and James was suddenly
overwhelmed with a tidal wave of affection and desire. He couldn’t stop himself
from of reaching over and taking her head in his hands, pulling her into a
kiss.

It started softly, gently, but it didn’t stay that way.
Rose’s body softened, and her hands lifted to cling to his shirt, and she was
obviously just as taken over by the kiss as he was.

When he finally pulled away, he leaned his forehead against
hers, not wanting to create any distance between them.

“I don’t think she would have approved of that,” Rose said,
breathless and amused.

“I’m more concerned about what you think.”

“I definitely approve.”

“Good. Then we’ll keep doing that.” James planned to keep
doing that for the rest of his life, if he had any say in the matter.

“For a long time,” Rose said, winding her arms around his
neck. Then she added, “I hope.”

There was the slightest thread of insecurity in her voice on
the last words, and it caused him to pull back so he could look into her face.

Her brown eyes were open, sincere, vulnerable.

“I hope so too,” he murmured.

Her expression relaxed, almost imperceptibly.

“What are you worried about?” he asked, stroking her cheek
with his knuckles.

She gave a sheepish little shrug. “I don’t know. That I’m
going to throw myself into this, and then the rug is going to be pulled out
from under me. It still feels like this isn’t really happening to me. Like it
couldn’t be.”

“Why couldn’t it be?”

She smiled wryly. “Because nothing like this has ever
happened to me before.”

He understood what she was saying, and he couldn’t help but
respond to it. He pulled her into a warm hug. “It’s happened to me before, but
this is still entirely new, still entirely terrifying sometimes. It’s not
really about experience. It’s always about trust.” He cleared his throat and
decided to risk it. “And I love you, Rose Beaufort. You can trust me in that.”

Her features tightened briefly before they burst into a
smile. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

She took a raspy breath. “Well, that’s a relief. Because I
love you too.”

Then they were kissing again, and it was only after they
pulled apart that James started to hope that Kelly’s sister and grandmother
weren’t peeking out at them through the window.

“I guess that’s not the normal thing to happen on the first
date,” Rose said, giggling helplessly, like she was too happy to possibly
contain it.

James really hoped she was. “We’ve never been normal, I
guess.” Then he remembered something. “Oh, shit, I left your flowers in the
car.”

“What flowers?”

“Jill and Julie helped pick them out for me. They wanted to
make sure it was a very romantic date, one you’d never forget.”

Rose leaned up to kiss him just beside the mouth. “Well, you
can tell them it was a success.”

***

Three months later, Rose was
laughing hysterically as James and Jill tried to best each other at a board
game. The rules had been thrown out the window a long time ago, and now the two
were racing their playing pieces through the steps and obstacles on the board,
trying to get them all done before the other.

Jill was winning by a very small margin.