Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) (30 page)

“I understand and appreciate whatever he can do. I would do anything to keep Briana from being taken from us.”

“We, both of us, would.” Ash rose to gaze out the night-black window. “My father was right. I hurt so many with my selfish flight to war. My mother lies helpless, Nora, forced to take such a man, cut down in her youth.”

He turned to regard Lark, innocent and caring. “I do not deserve you, nor do I feel worthy enough to bring a new child into the world.”

Lark smiled at what she likely perceived as a jest, Ash thought, though he was serious. He wasn’t good enough for her.

“You are a good father Ash. We have two children, not even our own, who would attest to it.”

“As they would to your mothering. I have applied for their guardianship, Lark, Micah’s and Briana’s. I know we should have discussed such a step beforehand, but it seemed imperative of a sudden to sign the documents. I have written to Reed Gilbride St. Yves to speed the process. He has friends in high places after his service to the crown, and if any man knows how to obtain swift and legal custody of children, he is the one.”

Lark threw herself into his arms. “I am so pleased, Ash. You will see that they have a future. A real future. Come.” She took his hand and led him from the drawing room as Grimsley made to enter with the tea tray.

“His Lordship is no longer thirsty, Grimsley,” his audacious bride announced as she led him willingly up the stairs.

Ash hauled her up short half way there. “You are a heavy-handed one this evening. May I ask what you are about?”

“I am about to fill my hands with something even heavier.” She glanced askance at the evidence of his interest. “Shall we make another attempt at a baby? The task has been deuced difficult without a potential father in attendance.”

Ash barked a laugh. “I have missed you, saucepot.”

“Come,” she said, “and show me how much.”

Ash happily complied.

In September, Lark and the children went lavender gathering, so she and cook would have the supplies to make soaps, sachets, and lavender wands, as Christmas gifts for her guests.

Another day, they went apple-picking in the orchard. After they filled several baskets of the shiny red fruit, she was tired, so she spread a blanket in the grass. For tea, they ate the bread, cheese, and the apple tarts she had brought. Then Lark bid the children lie down and rest before they picked more apples, and she did the same.

She had no sooner closed her eyes than someone was attempting to rouse her. “Aunt-eee, Aunt-eee, wake up, wake up. Briana is crying.”

“Micah!” Lark sat up with a rush of dizziness. “How long have I been asleep?” She touched her brow to stop its spinning, and then she took in her surroundings and assimilated her nephew’s … words? “Micah, did you speak to me?”

“Briana is in the tree crying.”

Lark rose then, with no more thought to the miracle that had just occurred, and every thought for Briana’s safety, and followed her nephew toward a grandfather of a horse chestnut tree.

Micah pointed upward and Lark was forced, with trepidation, to shade her eyes with a hand, against the glare of the setting sun. There she saw Briana, so far up, as to appear the size of an ant amid the chestnut’s full shirred leaves.

“How did she manage to climb so high? Never mind. Micah, run and fetch his Lordship, and hurry. Bring him back, oh and tell him to bring a ladder.”

As soon as Micah left, Lark began climbing toward Briana. “Are you all right?” she called, for the child had said nothing since she appeared.

“My foot is stuck and I am afraid to tug it and fall.”

Lark thought she must be sixty feet up, she seemed so far away. “Can you see a safe place to sit and wait for help?” Lark called.

Briana looked about her and found a stout limb on which to perch.

“That’s my girl.” Lark climbed forever, while a score of ripe, spiny chestnuts dropped around her, sometimes hitting her, until she reached the child. Not that reaching her meant either of them was safe.

It took several minutes to extract Briana’s foot from the crook of the tree, and even then, they were forced to leave her shoe behind.

“Listen, darling, I am going to help you get down one limb at a time. You will go down one, then I will get down one, and then you will have your turn again. Do you understand?”

Briana nodded and heeded Lark’s every instruction, no matter how minor, and in that way, they managed to descend the better part of the distance, until Lark slipped, teetered, clung, and fell to the ground.

“I am all right,” she called up. “‘Twas barely thrice the length of my own body I fell.” She heard men shouting, and running feet, and then Ash was lifting her into his arms, muffling his scold with kisses.

One of the tenants got Briana the rest of the way down and carried her, as Ash carried Lark, to the farm wagon she had brought to haul the apples. The tenant rode his horse to the village for the doctor while Ash drove Briana, Lark and Micah, straight to the Chase.

Mim put Briana to bed and Ash put Lark to bed, then he paced and raged around the perimeter of her bed while they awaited the doctor.

Buckston saw Briana first and pronounced her fit, Mim reported, and then the doctor came to examine Lark.

To her relief, Buckston sent Ash from the room while he examined her. “My baby?” she asked, after the door shut.

The doctor only grunted in response to the question and remained silent throughout his examination. Finally, he pronounced her and her baby fit, but for her twisted ankle.

“You had better take life easier and no more tree-climbing until this little one of yours appears, if you wish to keep him from harm,” he said.

“No more tree-climbing,” she said, “I understand, but as for taking life easier….”

“Yes?” Buckston looked incredulous as he gazed at her above his spectacles.

“I am to have a Christmas House Party,” she said. “A rather large one.”

“Nearly three months from now? You’ll be big-bellied and no mistake by then. Society don’t usually approve a woman of an interesting condition showing that much in company.”

“‘Twill not be a society gathering, close friends only, with a great many children. Micah never had Christmas. Please Doctor Buckston; I could do without it, but poor Micah and Briana.”

That seemed to soften him as nothing else had. “How many children?” he asked, almost warily, as if he must put up with the lot of them himself.

“Two of ours, ten of Reed and Chastity’s … oh my, fifteen or twenty, I’d guess, all ages. I can hardly wait.”

Buckston rolled his eyes then shook his head as if he couldn’t understand, though the charlatan could not keep his big old eyes from twinkling. “Unless something happens in the next week to say different, I can’t see any reason why you should not have your Christmas House Party, providing you rest until the very day.”

Lark grinned and covered her babe protectively, more grateful than she could say, but as she was about to warn the doctor that she had not as yet given her husband her happy news, Ash stepped into the room, his jaw set. He would not be turned away again.

“Well, how is she, Buckston? May I take her over my knee now and beat her for her foolishness?”

“Not if you want a healthy babe come February.”

Ash paled. Lark had never seen the like. He looked so pallid of a sudden, so without color, that Buckston pushed him down to sit on her bed with a mere finger to his shoulder. The grinning medical man picked up Ash’s wrist as if to test it for life. “Gonna swoon on us, old man?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Do not be ridiculous,” Ash said, but his words held no bite.

“Rogues are the most skittish of men when it comes to dealing with their increasing wives,” the doctor told Lark as she watched her husband with worry.

“Why is that?” she asked.

Buckston shrugged. “Perhaps they know they’re perpetuating trouble, or can envision the problems they’ll face raising terrors like themselves. Difficult to say.”

Lark laughed, but when she did, Ash turned on her, accusation lacing his look. He might be surprised about the babe, but she was
not
, and he knew it.

The doctor saw I, too, and packed his leather satchel with no little dispatch. “No, no need see me out. Grimsley is like to be waiting just beyond the door. He’ll set me down the stairs just fine and send me on my way with a dollop, besides.” Buckston regarded Ash pointedly. “Meet her half way.”

Ash nodded, opened the door for the medical man to depart, and shut it again.

Lark closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted.

“Won’t work,” Ash said. “You’ll have to face me sooner or later.”

Lark took in the thunderous set to her husband’s brow. “Did you honestly mean to beat me?” she asked.

“You frightened ten years from my life, not to mention Micah
telling
me Briana was in trouble and you were trying to save her. I could not think beyond the amazing sound of his voice, while the situation he conveyed scared the bejesus out of me.”

“The same happened to me,” Lark said. “Except that I had fallen asleep and thought I must be dreaming.”

Ash sat on her bed. “You’ve been sleeping so much because you’re carrying our child.”

Lark smiled tremulously, uncertain of his reaction, and her eyes filled. Angry or not, she was foolishly pleased to be sharing this moment with her husband, not that there seemed any joy in
him
.

Rat’s whiskers, she wanted this to mean more to him than the securing of an inheritance. “Fancy that,” she said. “It seems I have fulfilled my end of our bargain.”

“How long have you known?”

Presented with the question she dreaded, Lark raised her chin. “Do not fret; a delay in your knowledge makes no matter to your place in your grandfather’s will.”

“Why did you not tell me?” he asked, so in control, she might have imagined his fleeting grimace of pain at her words.

“I was waiting for the right time.”

“Last night, as I made love to you and spoke of having a babe of our own did not seem like the proper time?”

If they
had
been making love, Lark thought, ‘twould have been the perfect time. She turned on her side, facing away from him, because she did not want him to see her tears.

He slipped into bed behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “Do not, Larkin. I know increasing women tend to weep, but do not be sad. Be happy. You have made me so.”

She rolled to face him. “Of course you are happy. You are now your grandfather’s heir.”

Ash raised a chiding brow and wiped her tears with his fingertips. “I am happy because none of you were hurt, not Briana, nor you, nor our babe. You were foolish, Lark, and gave me a fright.”

“Briana needed me.”

“The termagant, she should have sat in that tree until I arrived. ‘Twould have done her good to cool her heels a bit.”

Lark did not suggest that he take a good look at the height of that particular horse chestnut at any time soon for he might become as pale as when he heard her news.

She thought he might kiss her then, but someone knocked at her door, so he rose to answer it.

Briana and Micah stood framed by the door, contrition clear on their fresh-scrubbed faces. Ash let them in, and they stepped to her bed as one, like salt and pepper twins, one raven-haired, one flaxen. “We’re sorry,” Briana said. “For leaving the blanket while you slept and for climbing the tree.”