
CAT'S CRADLE
Shannon Donnelly
"Bea, you shameless hussy, where have you gotten to?"
Emaline Adair Pearson held the lantern higher to stare into the gloom, and her hand trembled slightly from nerves strung too tight. She should not be here. The dark, empty rooms seemed to mock her errand and rebuke her presence.
She had no place here any longer. No claim.
But she had to fetch Bea home.
Oh, drat Bea. And drat this gloomy September day. And drat Newell, too.
The lantern's light reached a timid glow around her, slipping over a huge scarred, oak table. The yellow pool of light reached up the nearest wall to expose half-emptied shelves and dusty, rat-nibbled, leather-bound books too ponderous to interest anyone.
Newell had certainly stripped the house of anything he could carry or have carried out, she thought, glancing at the single enormous mahogany, high-backed wing chair, covered in green hide and left beside the empty hearth. That, and the table, were the last occupants of what had once been a well-furnished library.
Well, it served Newell right that he had lost the manor, for he had taken such bad care of the estate. But, oh, she wished she could kick him for endangering her home in the bargain.
Her cheeks warmed at such uncharitable thoughts. John, if he looked down on her and the boys from Heaven, would not be pleased.
A slamming of wood---no doubt a loose shutter buffeted in the autumn winds---startled her, making her jump.
Clutching her woolen cloak closer with her free hand, she gave a nervous glance around the deserted library---a room she had once loved. She should not have thought of ghosts, of John, gone now these five years. Such thoughts in an empty house on a dying autumn day did not make for good company.
Turning back to her errand, she peered into the darkness again. "Bea," she called, trying to hold rein on a temper made short by her desire to be gone.
Emaline had slipped in through a broken casement window that led to the shooting room---probably the same path that Bea had used to enter. A pane had been missing from the window for three years, but it had been longer still since Newell had inherited the house. He had promptly left for London and the restless life he had always wanted. It had never been what she wanted.
She moved forward slowly. The floorboards creaked, but did not break, and no sign of damp streaked the ceiling or stained the wood. However, she could not but feel as if she were walking through a graveyard.
A cemetery of memories.
She could recall a time when a fire danced warm in the large, dark hole of a hearth, when books in Morocco red with gold lettering lined the shelves, all tidy and orderly. Aunt Mary would sit before the fire, next to Emaline's own mother, both stitching, while Uncle Walter would read to them. Usually something improving, such as Milton.
Emaline had loved the deep rumble of her uncle's voice, but she had not been fond of the grim John Milton.
Newell had positively hated the poet's work.
But all that had been in a different time. A time before influenza had carried off her mother and her aunt. A time before age had closed her uncle's eyes for the last time. A time before she had married, and before she and the boys had moved to take up tenancy at the gate house.
A time before that wretched Newell had lost Adair Manor.
Oh, drat you, Cousin Newell. How could you lose the house!
Regrets, however, were not a luxury she cared to indulge, and so she put back her shoulders to stand a little taller. She really must find Bea and get home before the shortened day turned to night.
"Bea?" she called again, trying to make her voice coaxing. "Bea?"
From behind her, an amused masculine voice nearly made her heart stop.
" 'To be or not to be?' Is that your question?"
She whirled, her cloak flying out around her and the lantern bobbling in her grip.
A dark figured leaned against the doorframe, ominously large and daunting. For an instant, she feared she honestly had summoned a spirit. But as the lantern wobbled in her unsteady hand, the shadow strode forward, sweeping the metal handle from her grip. The light danced over her specter, giving him life.
He wore no hat, and his sun-warmed, brown hair spilled loose and curled over the collar of his coat. He was tall. So tall she had to lean back to stare up at him. An arrogant nose dominated a life-worn face, and she decided as she studied his face that he had to be one of Newell's friends. He had that look of dissipation about him and far too sensual a mouth for any woman's peace of mind.
He put down the lantern on the oak table and said, humor still in his voice, "I would appreciate if you would not set fire to my house before I've had a chance to inspect it."
She had been frozen by his sudden appearance and the mortification of being caught where she should not be, but now she straightened, outrage coursing through her.
"Your house?" Heat flamed up her neck and into her cheeks. So it was him. The gamester. She knew all about him from Newell's letter, which had informed her he'd lost the house, the grounds---the gate house included. She narrowed her eyes and did not bother to hide her disdain. "Of course. You must be Sir Ashten Ravenhill."
Sir Ashten's eyes widened. They were the color of an autumn forest, a mix of browns and greens in shifting patterns. Amusement danced in those colors just now, and it irked her that he found something in her words at which he might smile. She wasn't used to bandying words with harden gamesters, and she did not want to become accustomed to such a habit.
Oh, she could throttle Newell for forcing her into this position.
With a warm smile, Sir Ashten said, "I didn't know there was an 'of course' to my identity."
"My cousin wrote me of you," she told him. "And how you gained Adair Manor from him. And I will have you know that he wrote me after I had sent him my six pound and five for next quarter's rent, so you may apply to him if you wish the cost of my lease of the gate house to be in your pocket."
His smile lifted into a grin, and she wished now that temper had not led her into those hot words. How stupid. The man had just won a house---and no doubt all of whatever money Newell had had left to him. Six and five would hardly matter to him.
"I shall keep that in mind," he said, and perched on the edge of the oak table, one leg swinging free and easy. He wore riding clothes and a gray greatcoat with three tiers of rain-spattered capes.
She glanced at his clothes, and envy crawled lose inside her. Oh, but they were lovely, made from fine cloth, cut to display his lean muscles and show off his male form. Self-conscious, she clutched her woolen cloak even closer over her twice-mended blue dress, which had the sheen of age upon it.
Still smiling, he said, "Before we get into the issue of rents, there's another matter I'd like to settle. You know of me, but who are you---besides Newell's cousin? And why are you housebreaking?"
Her gaze snapped back to his face. "I am not housebreaking."
"Someone invited you in, then?"
"No. That is....well...I used to live here."
The colors danced in his eyes again, lightening them to almost pure green. He folded his arms. "So you invited yourself back inside?"
"I did not think anyone would be here," she said, faltering over her poor excuse.
"Well, I can see how that would make it necessary, then, for you to break in."
She fought the urge to stamp her worn boot on the dusty floor over how aggravating he was being. "I did nothing. The window was already broken."
"And that makes all the difference. Well, you are quite the prettiest housebreaker I've met, but do not blush, sweets, for I've not met all that many housebreakers. You're my first, in fact."
He grinned again, and she clenched her hands to keep from giving him an unladylike box on his ears. Temper simmering, she glared at him. "I am not blushing. And I am not a housebreaker. And I---"
A piteous mewing interrupted and she swung around, the provoking Sir Ashten forgotten at the sound of her cat in distress. "Bea," she said, hurrying toward the far wall.
Another mew led her to a giant oak press cupboard, ornately carved with flowers and vines, and large enough to take up twelve feet of the wall opposite the windows. Kneeling, she swung open the half-ajar bottom door, calling out, "Bea?"
Yet another mew answered the name.
From his perch on the table, Ash watched with interest as his pretty housebreaker poked into some monstrosity of a cupboard. He had not quite decided if he was dealing with the village lunatic or with that even more dangerous creature, a noisy and well-intentioned woman. In either case, he wished that damn cloak did not hide her other assets. Had she a stick figure under that rough, gray wool, or did she have curves to match that sweetly round face? She had fire enough in those tawny eyes of hers---at least she did when he poked at her---and she rather intrigued him.
Her hair, pulled back from her face into a knot of loose curls, was the same color as her eyes. The tawny color of a good Spanish sherry, in fact.
He'd always been partial to Spanish sherry.
"Bea, there you are. Oh, why must you always kitten here, you wretched animal." The words came out with such affectionate cooing that he had to smile. Sweet scolding indeed.
His housebreaker turned away from the cupboard and demanded, her tone as prickling as a thistle patch, "Could you please bring the lantern closer? Bea is kittening."
He had been sitting there, swinging one booted leg, but now he stopped and stared at her. Who the devil did she think she was to be ordering him about in his own house?
Taking off that awful cloak, she leaned forward to stuff it into the cupboard for her cat, and he forgot his affronted pride.
Thin, blue fabric draped as shapely a rump as he'd seen on a female. Those curves made his hands ache and his mouth dry and his pulse skip to a happy gallop. He stared at her for a moment before he rose, took off his greatcoat, and brought the lantern closer for her.
She knelt on the floor, stuffing her cloak around a mewing, striped cat and what seemed to be a mess of something sticky that looked rather like rats. He realized he was looking at four new-born kittens, their eyes closed, their pink feet wiggling, and their ears not even standing yet. A fifth seemed to be on its way.
The mother cat---gray striped with white patches---mewed piteously, and turned large, yellow eyes up to its mistress' face. The animal's distress could not have shown more apparent if the creature could talk the king's English.
"Good Lord," he said, rather appalled at the situation.
Newell's cousin turned up a pale face to him. He couldn't blame her for that. New kittens and messy afterbirth did not seem a sight fit for any lady.
"Do you have any old handkerchiefs?" she asked, her voice anxious. "Bea's made something of a nest in the papers here, but she's having trouble with this one kitten, and she may need our help."
Our.
It took a moment for the word to settle in. He realized she must have no idea who he really was or she would not have used such a harebrained word.
May need our help.
He was not a man who helped anyone---other than himself, thank you very much. And he had a hard enough time doing just that.
With regret, he glanced down at her sweetly curving rump, at her sherry-tawny curls knotted up over the white nape of her neck. He put down the lantern, turned, and started for the door. "I'll send Knowles to you at once."
Hearing his words, Emaline glanced at Sir Ashten's retreating back, his wide shoulders so admirably set off by his coat, and his black soul so plainly shown by his callous disinterest in poor Bea.
If left to his own, the man would probably drowned Bea and her kittens. But what else should she have expected from a hardened gamester, a man who, if Newell were to be believed---and he generally was not---had cheated at cards to win Adair Manor.
Well, she would not brand him a cheat---she had no knowledge of such a thing---but she certainly could judge his action in leaving so quickly and call him cold-hearted...and sinful.
Which was fine with her, she told herself. Better to know the worst of him at once, so one could guard against the charm of his smiles. And she did not find him all that charming, she told herself as she turned back to helping poor Bea, or that handsome.
And she was such a bad liar, even to herself.
"There, there, sweet Bea. You've had three litters of kittens before this," she said, smoothing Bea's soft head and wishing she knew what else to do.
But the fear lay in her heart that perhaps Bea was getting too old to kitten, and that perhaps this would be the first kitten her sweet Bea would lose.
\*
Half an hour later Knowles came back into the kitchen, wiping his bloody hands on a rag, his mouth downturned and his black eyes tired. Short and round, he wore his black hair shorn to nearly nothing, and he'd been with Ashten for so long that Ash could not clearly recall how he had gotten on before Knowles came to tie his luck to that of the Ravenhills.
"Well? Is she gone, and her cats with her?" Ash asked, looking up from the fire he had coaxed to life in the neglected hearth. He'd had to poke a broom handle up the chimney to clear the flue enough so that it would draw, and he had damn near ruined his coat in the process. However, he'd rather face a chimney than that woman. Chimneys never gave you accusing stares after you had disappointed them.
Unable to keep the words back, he added, "Did the kitten die?"
Knowles gave a sudden grin, one gold tooth glinting in the fire and candlelight. "Wiff me there, sir? 'Course not. It may be touch-an'-go for a day or two, but the mite's a fighter. And it's Mrs. Pearson, sir. Mrs. Emaline Adair Pearson. She married the parson hereabouts, but he died five years ago, and she and her boys live at the gate house. She came here wiff her mother after her father died fighting some foreign war. Grew up in the big house here, it seems. And now, sir, we need a bit of milk for Bea, we do, sir. She's mortal tired, she is, and won't be up to rattin' for a bit. But Mrs. Pearson says her Bea's a fine mouser, and it'll be a good thing if she'll teach her little ones that for us here."
Ash stared at his manservant, a storm of emotions sweeping through him. Irritation at first to think his housebreaker married; relief and interest to think her a widow---possibilities danced in his mind---and back to annoyance that Knowles had found her so chatty and friendly.
His voice dry, he said, "That's a new record for you. A life of information in less than an hour."
Knowles shrugged his thick shoulder. "She's lonely, sir. And that worried about her cat. Had her Bea forever, she has, and greatly attached to her. Well, you know what females are."
Ash snorted and brushed the soot from his hands. "Don't I just. Well, where the devil will you find her that milk?"
"She said as I could ride to the Wiberforce's next door and ask the squire for a pint of cow's own. We could use some for tea tomorrow in any case."
"I'd like to be fed myself," Ash said, frowning. "That is if it's not too much trouble for you to remember you're my manservant, not that damn cat's."
"Aye, sir. But you ain't just had five kittens, and a hard time of the fifth. Don't fret none. May as be I can cage us a few eggs for an omelet tonight." He gave a nod, and before Ash could get out any more words of protest, Knowles slipped out the back.
"An omelet won't save you this time," Ash shouted out. But Knowles was gone already.
Muttering under his breath, Ash picked up a lit candle and made his way back to the library.
Knowles had lit a fire---the devil and Knowles himself only knew what he'd found to burn, or how he'd coaxed the chimney not to smoke. His pretty housebreaker still sat on the floor before the cupboard, her tawny hair tumbling down around her face, and talking soft nonsense to her cat as if it were a child.
She heard his step or sensed him, for she turned and smiled at him, her face lit from within with a radiant glow.
His senses reeled under the impact of that smile as if one of the immense timber beams overhead had swung down and clobbered him. It took him a moment to register that she had asked him something.
"The kittens? Do you want to see them?" she repeated, her smile faltering.
He scowled. He didn't want to see a litter of kittens. Instead, he gave a quick glance to the neglected, empty house. He had thought that at last he'd finally gotten ahead in the game, but he had only ended with a ruin and a litter of cats in his library.
He glanced back at his housebreaker, whose smile had faded into uncertainty. With a sigh, and all too aware he should not to act just to please her, he came forward to look at those damn kittens.
Emaline could not say why it was important for him to see the kittens. Perhaps it was only that she wished to assure herself that he would not harm them. Or perhaps she thought it would allow her to better judge just what sort of man now had control over Adair Manor and her lease of the gate house.
Or perhaps it was as simple as wanting to share the sight of five tiny kittens, now cleaned by their mother's raspy tongue and nestled against Bea, their eyes closed slits, their fur fine as cut velvet, their little faces as innocent as Eden.
She opened the cupboard door a little wider and lifted the lantern.
Bea's eyes opened, glittering like yellow diamonds. She opened her mouth as well, but was too tired to even utter a mewing protest. Beside her, five bodies wiggled, their noses poking Bea's belly, each seeking its own nipple to suckle. Tiny paws stretched. Thumbnails of tails curled. One black kitten with a white ring around his neck. One striped gray and white kitten, like Bea. One tortoiseshell kitten. One orange marmalade kitten with white paws. One kitten gray as a morning fog.
Emaline glanced up to watch Sir Ashten's face as he looked into the cupboard.
There. In his eyes. She saw the faintest softening. A wistful look that brought out the green. The lines around his mouth eased, and the smile which curved that sensual mouth of his did not look so cynical.
A second later, all traces of that other man vanished. His smile turned down, his eyes hardened, and he said, his tone sarcastic, "I shall have to make them a tour highlight when I show potential sellers about, and I will tell them, 'And here is the library, stocked with a goodly supply of cats.' "
Her hand tightened on the cupboard door and she blinked up at him. "Buyers? You cannot be thinking of selling the estate?"
He glanced at her, his eyebrows raised and a challenge in his eyes. "I know it's a wreck of a house. But with luck---and if there are any blind men in the district---I shall sell Adair Manor for a tidy sum." He glanced around him. "Not, I daresay, for what it's worth---and certainly not for the twenty thousand your cousin stood it against---but perhaps with some paint, it might clean up well enough."
Panic pounded in her veins, she scrambled to her feet.
Ever since she had had Newell's letter, she had feared this. Oh, Lord, what would become of her and the boys if they lost the lease of the gate house? Newell had also allowed the boys hunting rights on the estate. How would they get by without the game the boys snared in the winter? And the fish they had from the river. A gamester was not the most desirable of neighbors, but she so had hoped he would at least be like Newell in being an absent landlord.
Instead, he wanted to sell. He was upsetting everything, both her life and any hope of saving enough to one day send the boys to university.
Oh, drat him. And drat Newell!
Picking up her bedraggled cloak, she smoothed the worn cloth and said, her voice sharp, "Well, sir, I grant that the house is in disrepair, but that is easily remedied. And while most of the land is untenanted at the moment, it used to bring in a comfortable income of nearly nine hundred a year."
He gave a laugh, and stood there, grinning at her. "My dear housebreaker, I'm more accustomed to bringing in nine hundred a night at the tables."
Her blush deepened, and Ash watched with the color rise on her cheeks with appreciation. He did not add that there were nights when he lost more than nine hundred, nor did he mention how the dice and cards could be fickle business partners. That, he judged, would give her too much cause for righteous argument.
Relenting on his teasing of her, he shook his head and said, "If you are worried about your cats, I shall make them a condition of sale. Or, you could buy the house yourself?"
Those tawny eyes clouded with trouble and a touch of hurt. What the devil had he said to seemingly wound her?
"Please, do not put yourself out over Bea and her kittens. I shall have them home with me in a few days. And now I bid you good evening, sir." With that, she swept out, taking her cloak with her and leaving him with a purring cat and five kittens.
He turned to them, pulling open the cupboard door to glance inside. Bea regarded him in turn with a steady glare that almost seemed to him to be accusing.
"I did not mean to upset her. And why should she not purchase the house?" He glared back at Bea and her kittens, and it occurred to him that his housebreaker's gown had been more than a touch out of fashion, and her ancient cloak had seen better years. He had thought she had worn old clothes to go poking about a dusty ruin, but perhaps she had other reasons to wear such aged garments.
Bea let out a plaintive meow.
Ash's scowl deepened. "You may yowl all you like, but I am not here to help you or her, or anyone but myself. So you may stay or go, but you had better not interfere with any sale of this house, do you hear?" He stopped himself and glanced back to the empty doorway that Mrs. Emaline Pearson had strode out.
"Damn, but she's already got me talking to cats!"
\*
"Mother! Mother!" The twin cries of greeting warmed Emaline's heart. Two boys tumbled into her arms and she bent down to hug them close. She pulled back to ruffle Will's reddish-blond hair. A stout seven, Will had his father's pale blue eyes and a strong imagination. It was Will who made up the stories, but it was Thomas who led the two of them into trouble.
Just now, Thomas, a year older than his brother and a foot taller, had dead leaves in his tousled dark brown hair and far too much innocence in his blue eyes.
She looked him in the eyes. "And what have you been doing?"
Thomas gave back a bland stare. "Nothing, Mother."
"We met a man," Will blurted out.
Thomas gave his brother a scowl. "We did not meet him. Least, not proper. He was only going through the woods."
Ignoring his brother, Will shifted to stand on one foot and bent his knee so he could grasp his other boot and hold it. "He said Bea's had her kittens, and he was going to get her milk, and he and a knight had moved into the big house. A knight named Sir Ravenhill," Will added, awe in his voice.
"It is proper to call him Sir Ashten," Emaline corrected. "And that must have been Knowles you met. He is Sir Ashten's servant. But you are not to go bothering our new neighbor. I do not want to hear that you have been to the manor."
Thomas' face tightened. "Can we not take Bea the kittening basket we made for her?"
"No, for I shall bring her home in a day or two."
"But why can we not go see her at the manor?" Will said, letting go his foot, his chin jutting forward with stubborn rebellion.
She opened her mouth to tell them she did not want the influence of a hardened gambler to touch them, but she realized such words might sound all too exotic and tempting for two adventurous boys. Instead, her voice kept flat enough to make the whole issue sound boring, she said, "Sir Ashten means to sell the estate and no doubt will be busy putting it to rights, so you should not bother him."
"Can we buy it?" Will asked, his eyes brightening.
If only we could, she thought, a fist of yearning clenching low in her stomach. If only she had more than eight hundred pounds to her name. If only they did not have to live upon the interest that capital generated. She could not afford a house---even if it was run down---whose price far exceeded her funds, and which would demand even more for its repairs.
Rising, she changed the subject, for she could not trust herself to give an answer to Will that did not betray her own longing for life to be other than what it was. "The question is, young sir, just what were the two of you doing in the woods today? Were you not supposed to be taking your Latin with Mr. Timothy?"
A scholar, Geoffrey Timothy had been a student of her late husband, and in his memory had offered to tutor the boys two days a week. She was deeply grateful to him, for while she still hoped to persuade her starchy Cousin Susan to pay for Harrow---or perhaps Winchester---for the boys, so far all she had from Cousin Susan were vague promises. But the boys would need the connections made in a decent school to ensure their futures.
The boys glanced at each other. Will chewed on his lower lip, and Thomas admitted, "He let us out early, so we went to see the fox den."
"The kits are almost grown," Will said, now hopping from one foot to the other.
She tried to frown at them instead of giving into the smile she wanted to offer. She had to be both father and mother, and she feared her own impulses to spoil and coddle them. So, her tone fierce, she told them, "Well, next time you are let out early, you are to come home first."
Thomas scowled at this restriction, but Will nodded, his eyes wide and his expression solemn.
But she could bear such harshness no longer, and allowed a smile to soften her face. "And now, are those not fresh scones I smell baking?"
Both boys brightened and set off for the kitchen, jostling with each other. Thomas' longer legs gained him a faster start and he pushed ahead of his brother.
Pulling off her cloak, Emaline folded it and laid it across the back of a chair. She looked around, seeing her home with the eyes of someone who knew it was hers to lose, and with fear cold in her veins.
The cozy main parlor, the kitchen with its antiquated fittings, their infrequently used dining room, and the study she had turned into a room for the boys to play in during bad weather. She thought of them all. How would they ever find such a good house again? Such an affordable house. Three bedroom upstairs, plus the luxury of an indoor water closet, and space enough for Mrs. Cranley, who served as maid, cook, and housekeeper, to have her own rooms.
That might be another knot to untangle. Mrs. Cranley had lived her entire life in the neighborhood. Her family lived here---not her husband, for "Mrs." was a title of respect. But she had two nieces with new babies and an aging mother whom she looked after. If they must move from the gate house, would Mrs. Cranley come with them? And if they lost Mrs. Cranley, how would they ever replace her?
"Stop borrowing tomorrow's troubles," she told herself. But every instinct warned that more than the seasons were changing around her. And it was all due to that horrible Sir Ashten and his gambling ways.
\*
Ash trod wearily up the stairs from the cellar, unbuttoning his waistcoat with one hand, a dusty bottle of something unlabeled in his other hand. He hoped it was brandy.
He had spent most of the day going over the house, attic to cellar. Thank the fates, it lacked a dungeon. It had, however, all the signs of a rat infestation and years of neglect to undo. What little else he had found had damn near made him want to pack up and turn his back on the whole place.
In half the rooms, what had once been silk wall coverings hung in tatters and would need to be stripped away. Most of the furniture had already been carted off, leaving hollow, empty rooms that gave Ash an uneasy chill in his soul. He had decided Knowles must go into the nearest town to obtain the necessities---bedding, food, and something to sit upon which did not look left over from William the Conqueror. He was not going to live in an empty cave of a house. Not even one he intended to sell.
And he could afford the furniture, thank heavens.
Stretching, Ash heard the kinks in his back pop. He was getting too old---or too soft---for cold nights on hard floors. There had been a time in his youth when he'd lived with worse than this. But the years of late had been flush. He had become accustomed to the luxury of feather beds, clean linen, and cheery fires.
Well, at least he had a big chair he could set before the library fire. And a bottle to sample. And some lively company to keep him amused.
He had poked into the library several times today, each time hoping to surprise his pretty housebreaker again. He had thought he had heard the door open earlier, and her light step upon the floor. But either she had been quicker than he, or it had been his own wishes he'd heard.
Instead, he'd found only Bea and her squirming kittens, their eyes still closed and their intent focused upon milk and naps. However, when he'd glanced into the cabinet, Bea had offered up a plaintive meow. It had stirred him enough to make him stoop down and scratch her head. Under his fingers, the mother cat's rumbling purr was oddly soothing, and he began to find a certain novel charm to having his own batch of kittens.
He had never had any pets before. Had never lived anywhere long enough to make it practical. And if the cat honestly was a good mouser, perhaps he should keep her and her offspring close by until she rid the house of its other unwanted guests.
He was thinking about that as he opened the door to the library and found himself no longer along. Standing in the threshold, he wondered who would be next to invade this damn house.
Two boys, close in age, sat cross-legged beside the kitten cupboard.
"I think Eber for the black," the older boy said.
The younger boy sat back, his nose wrinkling. Ash could not tell if it was with distaste or thought. He did not wait to find out, but interrupted and asked, "Just what sort of name is that for a cat?"
From their spots on the floor, the boys twisted around, twin expressions of alarm blanking their faces. Even in the fading afternoon's light, Ash recognized at once the tawny coloring of the smaller boy's hair, and he caught a familiar leonine slant to the older boy's eyes.
"You must be Pearsons," Ash said, strolling into the room. "You have the look of your mother as well as her habit for unconventional entrances."
The boys scrambled to their feet, the older one clutching a cumbersome, black leather-bound book and the younger one staring hard at Ash's boots until Ash glanced down himself to see why his riding boots so fascinated the lad.
"Mother said we weren't to bother you," the older boy stammered out in a nervous rush. "But we had to name Bea's kittens."
The younger one suddenly looked up at Ash, his face scrunched up with disappointment. "You don't have gold spurs."
His brother elbowed him, but the younger one merely glared at him and turned back to Ash, his stare accusing.
Half-amused and quite certain he ought to chuck these two imps out by their collars, Ash knew they had caught him by his one weakness. His curiosity had been stirred.
"Spurs?" he asked.
"Real knights, like Arthur's, have them," the boy said.
For an instant, Ash stared back at him. Arthur? He caught the reference at last and almost let out a laugh. So the lad thought him a knight of the Round Table. Had anyone ever been so mistaken? However, the boy's intent expression stopped him from making sport of the lad.
He bent down beside the youngster. "Yes, well, I can only wear them when I am summoned by the King to a state occasion, you know. Now, introductions are in order, I believe. I am Sir Ashten Ravenhill, Knight Commander of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath."
Straightening, he gave the boys an elegant bow, and saw the flourish of his not very impressive title had made even the older boy's eyes widen. He'd never felt such an utter fraud before.
Recovering himself, the older boy gave a hasty bob of his head. "Thomas Pearson, sir. And this is my brother, William."
"Will," the younger boy said, frowning at his brother.
With a smile, Ash set a hand on Will's shoulder and turned with him to the cupboard. "Now that's done, tell me more about these names you are picking for our feline friends. I do feel as if I ought to have some say in the matter since they were born in my house. And I rather fancy Misty as a name for the gray one."
Will drew back, shock on his face. "Oh, no, Sir. That's not one of the begats!"
"Begats?" Ash asked.
Plopping down on the floor, Will reached into the cupboard to stroke a tiny, furry head.
Thomas also sat down again, and Ash joined them, copying their style to sit cross-legged on the floor and wondering if his bad knee would allow him to get up again.
Opening the book he held, Thomas showed Ash the Bible. "See. We're already up to the third set of begats."
"Chapter eleven, Genesis," Ash read, eyeing the text with the uncertainty of one with too many sins on his soul to feel comfortable with the Good Book. "Well, Methuselah hardly seems a fit name for a cat."
"Oh, that was one of the better ones," Thomas said.
"Not like Ara-axed," Will added.
"He means Arphaxad, sir."
"Yes, but why such mouthfuls?" Ash asked. A thought struck him, sending an unhappy shiver along his skin. "Surely your mother's not all that pious? Is she a Methodist?"
"Oh, no, sir. It's because of Bea. You see her name is really Begat," Thomas said.
Will squirmed and wiggled until he half-lay on the floor. "Mother says that Bea came to the manor years ago. And had nine kittens in the library the night she came."
"'Course that was before Will or I were born," Thomas said. "But Mother says that Great-uncle Walter joked that the cat was going to beget a house of cats. So Mother stared calling her Begat for all the kittens she begot."
Looking from one of his narrators to the other, Ash's mouth twitched. So his prim housebreaker had a sense of humor. And was not so pious, after all. Thank the Lord for that. He did not have a history that would appeal to pious ladies.
Glancing into the cupboard, Ash saw that Bea was busy washing her offspring. She hardly seemed to notice them, and the kittens were too intent on their next meal to mind. "Well, if tradition must be carried on..."
"Oh, it must, sir," Thomas insisted.
Will turned upside down to lay with his back on the floor and his heels resting up on the wall beside the cupboard door. "It must, Sir Ashten."
"It's Sir Ash to you, Sir Will. And, now, where are we with these names?"
Emaline stood on the steps to Adair Manor, caught between duty and propriety. She had been brought up to think of those twin masters of society before anything else. But which ruled in such a tangle as this?
She had knocked twice on the heavy oak door, hearing her thuds echo in the nearly empty house. No one had yet answered. Should she leave? But how could she not look in on Bea and her kittens? And how could she enter this house again without giving truth to Sir Asten's accusations of her being a housebreaker?
Oh, drat the man for ever showing his face.
She shifted from one foot to the other.
The day had been a rare one for autumn---or would have been without this bother. A golden light still hovered in the afternoon sky as dusky purple gathered overhead. The air was as crisp and tangy as one of the apples from the Rustards' orchards, and a light breeze danced the dark red leaves from the branches of the beech trees. It was a late afternoon that called for a lazy moment to watch the setting sun. Or to use the twilight to steal an apple.
Instead, here she was, trapped on a doorstep, unwilling to go away and unable to go inside.
Not a sign of life showed from within the house---no smoke from any chimney, no light in any window. Had Sir Ashten gone away again? At that thought the faintest disappointment touched her heart. She pushed down the treacherous stirring. She ought to wish the man and his devil's temptation of his smile gone. She had sons to raise, and kittens which needed her care.
That would be just what she would do.
With a deep breath, and a muttered prayer, she put her hand on the doorknob and let herself into the house.
Making for the library, she keep her steps light. Her heart pounded in her ears like thundering hoof beats, and she winced at every creaking floorboard. Well, if anyone appeared to ask what she was doing here she would say she had knocked and had thought them gone and could not allow her cat and kittens to be neglected.
However, instead of an accusing voice she heard laughter and familiar voices coming from the half-open library door. She strode toward the sound. Shock stopped her on the threshold of the room as if someone had dumped a bucket of snow over her.
Sir Ashten Ravenhill, the notorious gamester, sat cross-legged on the floor, looking more like a schoolboy himself than a dangerous sinner. Next to him sprawled her boys.
An instant's fear flickered for her boys, but it faded with the realization that all seemed innocent. She huffed out a breath, but irritation flushed her skin and prickled in her chest that Will should look up at this man with such admiration glowing and that Thomas, usually so shy with strangers, should be chattering away about kitten names as if he had known Sir Ashten forever.
She swept away her irritation at once with a proper determination to end this unseemly gathering. Will and Thomas had done wrong in coming here uninvited, and she could not allow that to go unremarked. Only she felt the worst sort of hypocrite to blame them for doing what she had done herself.
And Sir Ashten...well, the man obviously had not an ounce of propriety or decorum in his body to be sitting on the floor with her boys in this fashion.
Clearing her throat, she strode into the room. Three pairs of eyes swung around to stare at her. Will and Thomas scrambled to their feet, their expressions suitably hangdogged. However, the smile that lit Sir Ashten's fall-leaf eyes was anything but guilty.
That smile began as a deep and enticing glimmer in his eyes. It spread, lifting the corners of his wide, sinful mouth and relaxing the lids of his eyes. Emaline could only think he should not look at her so in front of her children.
"Thomas, Will, come here at once," she said, her voice sharper than she had intended, but Sir Ashten had flustered her; she hated that she might show him that he had done so.
The boys came, their steps heavy, and with Thomas complaining. "We did not bother him, Mother."
"We shall discuss that later," she said. She glanced back to Sir Ashten.
His smile had faded, and he stared at her, his eyes narrowed as if trying to puzzle her out.
That focused attention of his unnerved her even more.
She turned to the boys, tugging straight their collars, smoothing the wrinkles from their jackets, brushing at invisible lint. "You will please return home at once and wait for me in your rooms. Now, off with you. And it is to be straight home, mind. No side trips to any fox dens today, if you please."
She shooed them out the library door, but she did not look at them as they left, for she could not bear to see Will's drooping shoulders and Thomas' dejected scowl.
"They really were not bothering me, you know."
She swung around toward that beguiling voice. Oh, how she wished she could blame him for this. But it was her own fault. She should have known the boys would not be able to stay away from Bea's kittens any more than she could.
"Sir, I beg your pardon for these intrusions. Please be assured that I shall remove my cat and her kittens as soon as possible."
Still sitting on the floor, he propped his chin on his hand and his elbow on his leg. And she thought with irritation, Has the man no manners that he cannot rise when a lady enters?
"Mrs. Pearson, if that is an apology then you are sadly out of practice. You've just begged my pardon with enough frost to put a permanent chill in the room."
She stiffened and glared at him. "Oh, I see. I am to show decent manners, while you lounge there like...like some decadent Eastern potentate!"
"Is that what's got your back up?" He started to rise, levering himself up by using the heavy chair for support. He got up on one knee and seemed to freeze as if caught by an invisible hand, and a soft mutter carried to her, "Oh, damn."
She had seen enough of her Uncle Walter's battles with gout to recognize a man in pain. And while she could not think that gout afflicted Sir Ashten, he had clearly stayed seated due to a physical difficulty.
She came to him at once, instinctively reaching for his arm. His hand clasped hers, and her own knees nearly buckled from taking his weight as he came to his feet. His strong arms now steadied her, coming around her, grasping her, and they swayed in an awkward embrace.
For a moment, she allowed herself to stand within the circle of his arms. Like a starving woman offered food, she could not help but reach for a taste of him---his touch, his scent, his presence. He seemed so blessedly sheltering. A haven of strength.
How long has it been since anyone's held me? she thought.
But she should not want this. She began to pull away, tried to make herself not want this by telling herself that it was all illusion anyway. He could not be a gamester and be strong. Only weak men succumbed to such vice and sin. Men such as Cousin Newell. Her uncle had taught her that lesson well.
Stepping away from Sir Ashten's grasp, she smoothed her already smooth hair and said to him, her voice stern, "You have too much pride, sir. You obviously have a bad leg and ought to ask for help."
He grinned. "Lord, what a scold you are. You know, if you keep using that tone with your boys, you're going to turn them into the scourge of the neighborhood.""I am not a scold," she said. Biting her lower lip, she took hold of the ties to her cloak, tugged on them, and finally asked, "Do I really sound like one?"
"That tone would inspire any man to do his worst to live up to its condemnation. Why are you so harsh with everyone---yourself included? Haven't you had any happiness in your life?"
She glared at him, affronted. "Of course, I have. I have the joy of two wonderful sons. And I was married to a man who loved me."
"But did you love him?" he asked, his voice soft.
Her mouth fell open. She struggled for an answer, found her mind empty, and decided this conversation had gone beyond what two relative strangers ought to be saying to one another. Shutting her mouth, she turned away so she could look into the cupboard.
From inside, Bea stared back, her eyes half-slits, as if she really could not be bothered by all this human chattering. A good attitude to take, Emaline decided.
"That is not to the point," she said. "I came merely to see that Bea was doing well."
He let out a laugh and she straightened and glanced at him. He leaned against the chair, his eyes alight with mischief and so knowing, so sure of himself, so teasing that her palm itched with the urge to strike the smile from his face.
"And I thought you came here for your boys. Why, you're no better than they are, stealing in for a glimpse of the kittens."
"I...I..."
"Come, you'll feel better for admitting the truth."
"Fine words from a...a gamester. And a...a cheat!"
The laughter died in his eyes. He strode toward her and she fell back until the bare shelves of the bookcase dug into her shoulders blades and she could move no more. He filled her view. The heat from his body washed over her as if she had just opened a door to Hades. His eyes hardened to green agates, and his jaw firmed into a daunting set. All she could think as her heart pounded was an inadequate Oh my!
His voice lashed at her as cold and sharp as the bite of an autumn wind. "Madam, I have few things in this world to call my own. I have the signet ring my father gave me when he wished me well on my sixteenth birthday and then set off with my mother for fresh horizons in the New World. I have the skin I was born in. I have my honor. So would you care to explain why you wish to strip the most precious of those possessions from me by naming me a cheat?"
Glancing down at her hands, she twisted her fingers together and stammered, "I...I should not have said that. I do not really believe it. I am so very sorry."
He gripped her chin and forced her stare up to meet his. "But why did you say it?"
She tried not to cringe, but memories flashed into her mind of Uncle Walter's temper. She had never received its full weight, but poor Newell had. And even having been in the same room with that red-faced rage had left its mark upon her.
Now Sir Ashten's anger undid the last threads of her courage. She did not want to carry tales, but she could not stop the words that slipped out in a fast rush. "It was Newell's excuse as to why he lost the house, for he wrote to me that you had cheated him out of it in a game of faro, but I do not think he told that to anyone, it is just that he so hates for me to think badly of him."
Emaline bit her lower lip to stop her rambling words before she said anything more. Her heart pounded in her chest, as hard as the pulse beat in his tightened jaw.
For an instant, she could only stand still, watching him.
His mouth tightened, and Ash held himself back, anger a blazing heat, a round soft chin in his grip and wide, tawny eyes staring up at him. He gazed into those eyes, and forgot what it was he was supposed to be so angry about. The burn in his veins remained, churning along with some other emotion too long neglected to be recognizable.
She was staring up at him, eyes frightened, but some other spark kindled in the sherry depths. He knew hunger when he saw it in a woman's eyes. An answering flicker of desire flared.
Lord, if she thought him a scoundrel now, what would she think if he kissed her soundly? He might as well find out. He started to lower his lips to hers, but a demanding yowl followed by sudden piteous mewing distracted him.
Glanced down, he saw Bea climbing out of her cupboard, leaving her kittens behind.
"What the---"
Mrs. Pearson slipped away from his touch, bending down to pick up her cat. "Oh, poor dear. She must need to go out. And you have fed her today, have you not? I shall just take her outside for a moment. Do mind the kittens and comfort them for just a moment."
She strode from the room, and Ash turned to the five crying, forlorn kittens. He gave a frustrated sigh, and muttered to them, "Yes, and I know just how you feel to be so deprived."
\*
He was gone when she brought Bea back. She heard male voices coming from the back of the house---Sir Ashten and Knowles, no doubt. She did not stay to take her leave, but saw Bea settled happily with her kittens and fled.
The boys were waiting dutifully in their rooms for her and their punishment for disobedience. But she had not the heart for it. Not after Sir Ashten's accurate assessment that she was as bad as they for sneaking over, and certainly not after his condemnation that she was a scold.
Oh, dear, is that what she had become?
As they sat down to dinner, she decided to try a new approach of reasoning with the boys about how they must not make any more visits to the manor. But Thomas insisted that Sir Ashten had said they were welcome on his property any time, and when Will asked if there was some reason why they should not know Sir Ashten, Emaline did not feel up to giving an answer.
What could she say, after all? That he was a man who valued his honor? That hardly qualified as a reason for the boys not to know him.
However, she could not like his gambling for a living; she had no wish for either Will or Thomas to begin to view that as a possible path open to them. But she also had no real reason to offer up as to why she should forbid the boys all access to the manor, and they had every reason to wish to see the kittens. Fortunately for her peace of mind, the weather turned to rain and for three days she had every excuse to remain indoors, and to keep the boys with her. And then the weather turned again.
The morning dawned warm and kind, another glorious autumn day, offering a memory of summer in its sunshine. A nip of cold lay in the air, enough for Emaline to bundle the boys into wool coats before she sent them off with fishing poles and her blessing. Sir Ashten, after all, had said they were welcome on his land---she would take that as permission for the boys to continue catching fish in the river that flowed across the Adair estate. After taking down her largest basket, and pulling on her cloak, she set off on her errand.
The kittens' eyes would be opening soon. They should be strong enough to come home. She longed to see the tiny, furry creatures take their first glimpses of the world. She wanted the boys to share that with her and with Bea. With the kittens home, there would be no reason for the boys to visit Sir Ashten. And she would hope that he sold the house very soon.
On the walk up the drive to the manor, Emaline thought over all the possibilities of who might buy the estate.
She would not mind if Sir Ashten sold to Squire Wiberforce. He was a gentleman, and would no doubt allow her to keep her lease of the gate house. However, the Wilberforces had no need of additional property to enhance their standing. And what if Sir Ashten sold to Lord Rustard? He was only a baron, but Lady Rustard took her role as "first lady" of the neighborhood all too seriously. Emaline could easily picture them wanting a proper gatekeeper at the gate house, instead of a widow and her children. The whole situation seemed be a choice between lesser of evils rather than any goods.
With that lowering thought, she mounted the steps to the manor.
As with her last visit, she pounded on the door at least five times, but this time her patience was rewarded. Knowles opened the door for her.
"G'day, Mrs. Pearson," he said, bowing her in. "Come to see your Begats?" She sent him a questioning glance and he added, "The boys told Sir Ash about the name.""Yes, well, you shall not have to be bothered any longer with them. I have come to take them home."
Knowles frowned. "To be quite blunt, Mrs. Pearson, I'd just as soon we could raise the mites. We could do wiff a bit of mousing. Prime hunting territory for the little ones, if you know what I mean."
"Yes, well, they are weeks away from being of age to hunt. But I shall see if the next owners perhaps would like to keep a kitten. Now pray, do not allow me to keep you from your work."
Knowles grinned, his wide face shinning. "I was only chasing a spider out of the teapot spout. Would you care to take a spot of tea with Sir Ash? It's no bother to tell him you've come for your cats."
"Oh, please don't. I mean, please do not bother. I shall be gone before you know it. And thank you so much for looking after them."
"No trouble, missus. Though I don't think he'll like you having taken them."
She frowned. "Sir Ash? I mean Sir Ashten? He cannot be all that attached to them."
Knowles gave a shrug. "Please yourself, missus." He left her in the all, setting off toward the back of the house and the kitchen.
Emaline frowned at him for a moment---what an odd servant. She hurried to the library, determined to take her cats home.
Bea complained loudly as Emaline began to lift the tiny furry bodies from their mother's side. "I am only taking you home," Emaline told her. She rubbed Bea's soft head, and picked up another kitten. This one, the multicolor tortoiseshell, had its eyes open, and wide blue orbs stared out of the tiny black and orange face. It gave a faint mew. Emaline cuddled its downy cheek to her own. "You shall be quite safe, my darling. I promise. And you shall have a lovely bed in a basket near the kitchen fire."
With all five kittens in her basket, Emaline covered it with a loose cloth. Bea wound around the basket, nosing it, meowing anxiously to her kittens. And a voice, low and teasing, said from the doorway, "First it was housebreaking, now stealing kittens. I fear, Mrs. Pearson, there is no end to your sinful ways."
Ash sauntered into the room, a little surprised at himself.
He had thought to be glad to see the end of these pesky kittens. Oh, they were amusing enough. With their eyes open, they were starting to poke about---at least the black one had already tumbled out of the cupboard twice and had had to be rescued and returned to its mother. Ash had already mentally christened him Trouble, despite the Pearson tradition for biblical names. Although he might yet allow Thomas and Will their way with Salah for the marmalade kitten.
But, yesterday, Ash had watched with disgust as Knowles constructed an earth closet of clay in one of the other empty library cupboards for the cats to answer nature's call. That alone, he'd thought, was incentive enough to see them transferred to the stables as soon as possible. Or anywhere else outside of the house.
However, when Knowles had come into the kitchen and said that Mrs. Pearson was here to claim her kittens, a possessive streak of ownership flashed through Ash like a branding fire.
He did not want to give up his kittens. He certainly did not want to give up the only reason his pretty housebreaker had to visit him. The one maxim of his father's that he actually followed was that no reasonable man should deny himself a reasonable amount of pleasure. It was pure pleasure to taunt and tease his pretty housebreaker. She was being unreasonable to attempt to deny him that amusement.
Strolling toward her, a smile in place for her, he said, his tone light, "I suppose I shall just have to have you up before the magistrate."
She rose and held away her basket of mewing kittens, as if he were some sort of monster ready to devour them. The image pricked him like a sword tip. Why did she think so little of him? What reason had she to be so self-righteous?
"Please, by all means do summons Squire Wilberforce," she said. "I should be delighted to have his assistance taking my kittens home."
He frowned. She sounded as if she held all the high cards in this deck. "Come, Mrs. Pearson. You have no reason to remove your kittens. They are being cared for, as you can see yourself by how they've grown."
She had the grace to color a little. Her cat wound around her ankles, calling up to its kittens with discontented yowls. Ash smiled. He thought he knew the ace to play. "Even your Bea objects to these relocation plans."
Emaline's chin came up at that, and she fixed a hard look on him. "Bea is voicing a mother's natural concern for her offspring. Perhaps, Sir Ashten, since you do not have children, you do not understand a parent's anxiety. I have double that norm, for I must be both mother and father to my boys. It is a difficult thing, I assure you, but even you must understand my wish to guard them as much as I can from...from less than exemplary influences."
"You mean you do not think me fit company for them?" he said, unreasonably hurt by her condemnation. It was no more than he'd had from others in the past, but still it rankled.
Her tone and expression softened and she put up a hand to push at the tawny curls that had fallen loose around her face. "It is not you, Sir Ashten. It is your profession. I grew up watching my cousin go from wild to worse. But to my sons, he always arrived at odd moments with armloads of presents and treats and high tales. And now I fear, with your knighthood and...and charm, you will cement their notion that the life of the gaming tables is a viable future for them. Can you honestly say you would wish such a career onto a son of yours?"
He scowled at her, at those sherry eyes which pleaded for understanding, and he could only think she had said she thought he had charm. He tried to get past the thought---one the pleasure it gave him---and to fix on some reason not to let her take her kittens away.
But he knew when he had lost a hand.
She had raised the stakes too high. For he would not wish his own life on any man---let alone on two boys who had indeed looked up at him with something near reverence in their eyes.
Damn it, but he envied her boys. They had a home---and a mother who'd fight for them like a lioness.
All he could do was step aside, and watch a grateful smile tremble on her lips before she dipped a curtsey and left, her kittens in a basket and her cat trotting alongside her swaying hem.
\*
"Perhaps I should keep the estate and become a respectable gentleman?"
A rude snort answered Ash's musings. He turned away from the window and his view of a tangled, dying garden.
Knowles had discovered a bedroom at the back of the house that had been left locked, and which had obviously been used for storage. Every damaged item---from chairs that wobbled to couches with torn upholstery to sticks of furniture suitable only for burning---had been dumped here. Ash dubbed it the "abandoned" room, and they were now sorting through what could be put back into service and what ought to be saved for the upcoming Guy Fawkes bonfire. Most of it, Knowles was convinced he could repair. Ash believed him.
Just now, however, he turned to his servant, his arms folded and one eyebrow lifted in disdain. "Is it really so fantastic that I should wish to settle someplace at last?"
Knowles looked up from the side table to which he had been reattaching a leg. "How long have we lived any one place? Even during the five-years King's service that gave you that respectable knighthood of yours?"
It was an irreverent answer, but Ash expected no less. They had been together long enough to be closer than most blood kin. "We spent an entire year in Venice," he said. "When I owned that gaming house."
Bitter, Knowles growled, "And what did you do but go and lose it? Had a nice house there, we did."
"I did not intend to lose it."
Knowles snorted again and turned back to his work. "How often does a bloody gaming house lose? Not unless it's bloody tired of being the house, now does it?"
"Oh, you're simply still upset that we left Italy."
"Warm, sunny place, now wasn't it? Only you wanted to come home, didn't you? That is, if England's a home to the likes of us. Only spent five years here, we did. And during most of that, you was too young to recollect much."
Smiling, Ash turned back to the view from the window. "Oh, I remember it."
He did remember. Faint, distant memories of a green lush world and a time before he had known what it was to be a roving gamester.
Adair Manor, even in disrepair, seemed the epitome of all he could recall of England.
The gardens near the house tangled wild, green and dying vines, but they would riot with color come the spring. Beyond that, gorse hedges and stone walls cut fields and vistas, carefully mapping the surrounding property. He could see down the beech-lined avenue to the gate house, where a prim kitchen garden lay brown and fallow for winter. No doubt his thrifty housebreaker would plant potatoes and turnips for her winter crop.
In truth, he had played reckless than night in Venice two years ago. And relief had flicked in him when he'd lost the throw of the dice on which he had risked his entire fortune. Of course, without funds, it had taken them some time---and more games than he could remember---to make their way back to England. But a yearning had driven him to make the trip.
A deep, restless urge---but for what had he come?
For vague memories? For a lost past? For an illusion that he could be something he was not?
Already the familiar discontent had started to rise like shadows in his soul. He wanted something, but he could not put a name to his desire. That longing, however, had kept him up half the night in the library, practicing his card skills. And he had not even a kitten to converse with, or to watch as cards flickered past its wide, amazed blue eyes.
He started to turn away from the window. A flash of white caught his eye. Leaning forward, he stared out the window. What the...? Was that a cat stalking its way to the house?
With a wry smile, Ash started for the door. "I'll be in the library," he called out. But Knowles, engrossed in his work, only grunted back an answer.
\*
Emaline came into the kitchen, her cloak folded over her arm. "Whatever you are cooking, Mrs. Cranley, smells divine."
Mrs. Cranley straightened from the pot she had been stirring. She cooked over the open hearth in the kitchen, managing to bake, fry, boil, and perform any number of miracles with this ancient art. Emaline could only be amazed, and while she might wish she could afford a new enclosed range, Mrs. Cranley scorned them as being impossible contrivances. "How can you tell what's a proper temperature without a flame to see?" she would say.
Wiping her hands on her starched apron, Mrs. Cranley gave a satisfied smile. "It's lamb stew. The boys came home with a shank from Mr. Timothy's larder, but what an odd fellow he is, to be sure, to think his lamb can do his courting for him."
Emaline smiled. Mrs. Cranley saw potential suitors for Emaline in every unattached gentleman in the neighborhood, whether he was nine or ninety. "Well, I certainly would rather a lamb shank than any number of posies."
She went over to the basket where they had settled Bea and her kittens. It lay empty, its dented cushion the only evidence that Bea had once lain there. Panic rose, sudden and sharp. Spinning around on her heel, she asked, "Where's Bea?"
Mrs. Cranley's face fell. "Why, she was here just a bit ago. Begged a bit of lamb from me, she did. When I was setting it to stew. You don't think---"
"Oh, I do think."
Grabbing up her basket, Emaline started for the door. She did not even bother with her cloak. "Do not wait supper for me. I hope not be long."
\*
Ash watched fascinated as Bea carried her kittens back into the library cupboard, one by one. He had opened the kitchen door for her and she trotted in, head up, kitten dangling from her mouth by the scruff of its neck, and the tiny creatures half curled into submission. The kittens cried when she left to go and fetch the next of their number, so he stayed with them.
He sat in the enormous leather chair, piling the balls of fluff onto his lap, where they wobbled and stared about them.
When Bea brought the last of them---the black one---she crawled back into her cupboard and gave Ash an expectant stare as if to say, You can put them back in with me now that we are home.
He did so, and watched with a rather curious satisfaction blossoming in his chest as the kittens snuggled close to their mother for their next meal.
The expected knocking sounded on the front door all too soon. At first he thought he would allow Knowles to answer like a proper servant in a proper household. Recalling the broken furniture and Knowles distraction, he went to the door himself.
"I have come for my cat and kittens," Mrs. Pearson said and swept in like a duchess.
"Please do come in. Won't you take a glass of wine? I've discovered a tolerable port in the cellar. Or if you would prefer, we now have a daily supply of fresh milk."She halted and turned a startled stare on him, her red-gold eyebrows raised. "Milk?"
"The kittens put Knowles in the habit of acquiring the stuff. And since our kittens are having some themselves, I thought you might care to join them."
"Thank you, but no thank you." Hesitating, she bit her lower lip. "Are they really eating just now?"
"Come and see," he said, gesturing to the library.
Letting out a resigned sigh, Emaline followed him into the room and glanced into the cupboard. Bea lay there, looking contented, her purr a low rumbling. Five kittens lined up against Bea's gray and white belly, their faces lost in their mother's coat.
"Oh, Bea, why must you always keep your kittens here?" Emaline said, unable to keep the exasperation out of her voice.
"Why indeed?" Sir Ashten said. "Please, will you at least sit down? We have acquired a settee, as you may have noted. And you really ought not to disturb them just now. So why do you not tell me about Bea's attraction to this particular room?"
He was playing on her conscience, she knew. And looking as smug as Bea did herself. However, he was right. She could not simply drag the kittens away from their mother just now.
She sat down on the settee, her basket on her knees. "It is not much of a story. Bea arrived at Adair Manor quite full of kittens, and before we knew what was what, she had her litter here. Of course, we tried to move them. Uncle Walter was not pleased to share his library. But no matter where we took her---kitchen, barn, my room even---Bea brought them back into this room. Eventually, Uncle Walter gave in. And she has given us eight litters of kittens over the past eleven years. All in this same room."
He poured two glasses of wine into the mismatched goblets that Knowles had scavenged from a trunk from the abandoned room. "And do you really think you can now convince her to keep her kittens with you at the gate house?"
She took the wine from him, but did not drink. "I must be more vigilant, that is all. If we watch her, and do not leave open any doors or windows, she will have to stay."
He sat in the chair opposite her, looking amused and all too at home. She realized with a slight shock that was how he ought to look. This was his house now, even if he did not want to keep it.
Folding his hands before him, he asked, "Tell me, Mrs. Pearson, would you care to make a wager on whether you or Bea will be victorious in choosing where she raises her kittens?"
Emaline put her wine glass down on the floor and stood up, the comfort that had started to settle inside her shattered. Anger iced her veins. How dare he offer her a bet. She felt as if he had slapped her face.
Voice shaking, she said, "I do not make wagers. And now I should take my kittens and leave."
He stood as well, placing himself between her and the kitten cupboard. "You need not take such a huff. I'm only talking a friendly wager, nothing more. Or are you so righteous you allow no pleasure to enter your life?"
"There are many things that offer pleasure that do not involve gambling."
He smiled, his eyes turning more green than brown, and the suggestion of more pleasurable things lay like an invitation in that smile. All innocence, he asked, "Do you mean such things as kisses out of doors on a crisp autumn day? Or snuggling before a fire while the rain pelts down? Or a warm---"
"I mean none of those!"
His smile widened, and his eyes took on a mocking glint. "What? You've never enjoyed the pleasure that God designed for a man and woman to share?"
Cheeks flaming, she tightened her stranglehold on her basket and her temper. "Sir, allow me to tell you that are an unprincipled rogue. You taunt me. But I shall not allow you to torment me into making my cousin's mistakes. I was seventeen when my mother came to me and explained that a London season would be impossible due to the heavy debt placed on the family by Newell. I did not mind, but I did mind the heartache and worry his excesses caused my aunt and uncle. And if you ever dare suggest any sort of wager to me again, I shall be quite happy to box your ears for such impertinence! Now I bid you good day, and I shall come to collect my kittens on the morrow!"
She turned, her blue skirts swirling around her heels, her chin up and her color high.
The front door slammed behind her, and Ash let out a soft whistle. Lord, what a firebrand. A good thing he was selling this house, for if they had to live as neighbors, they would end scratching at each other like two wildcats.
Pity, though, that a comely widow such as her didn't even know how to flirt, let alone carry on a light dalliance. He certainly would not have minded instructing her in that art.
\*
The following morning Emaline collected Bea and the kittens early enough to avoid an encounter with Sir Ashten. She thought herself safe from him until the very next day when Mrs. Cranley left open a window through which Bea made good an escape, taking her brood with her. When Emaline went kitten collecting a second time, she thankfully found Sir Ashten out and only had to deal with Knowles.
The day after, however, it was Will's fault, for he had not fully shut the door behind him when he left the house for his lessons. For a third time in as many days, Emaline found herself trudging through crunching brown leaves, her nerves worn and her thoughts tumbling.
Would she have to see him this time? What would he have to say to her? Oh, why had she been so rude? Why had he been so...so...so much a rogue!
The wind stung cold on her cheeks and brought to mind the images he had planted of warm lips on such a chill day. They swirled inside her like a fever dream.
What would it be like to have his mouth on hers, soft and tender, a brisk autumn wind stinging her face? How would it feel to have his arms wrapped around her and the trees whispering secrets just as their hearts were?
She shook off such fantasies, angry with herself and even more so with him. What a devil to have suggested such things. And she was an even worse sinner to dwell on them. Well, she would stop thinking about it. In a few more weeks the kittens would be grown and Bea would stop bringing them back to the manor. Or Sir Ashten would sell the house and be gone.
Only why was it that either thought lay heavy as a weight on her heart?
Feet dragging, a tight band of nervousness around her chest, she mounted the stone steps of Adair Manor and plied the brass knocker, now brightly polished.
Knowles answered her summons and bowed her in with the news that she had managed yet another reprieve. Sir Ashten was out.
"He's walking his property," Knowles said, shutting the door against the chill of the early October day.
Instead of feeling relieved, irritation stung. Out again. Could the man not stay put anywhere? She could not stop from saying, her tone sharp, "Judging the value that he might get from it, is he?"
She blushed at her own poor manners, but Knowles merely shrugged and said, "More like gone off to think himself five and with a home again."
His answer made her turn and stare, puzzled. She ought not gossip with Sir Ashten's servant. But curiosity stirred, wiggling like a hungry kitten that would only quiet down again if fed. So she asked, striving for a casual tone, "Do you mean to say he has not had a home since he was five?"
Knowles led the way into the library, talking as he went, and Emaline listened to his story, astonished, a little horrified by the tale.
It seemed that Sir Ashten had been born to a gambling father, and a mother who doted on her husband above all else. Knowles himself had gone into service with the family just before Mr. Ravenhill lost the family home in a wager, resulting in that gentleman setting off for the continent with his wife, his son, and Knowles to look after the boy.
"It were lean years back then. Never more than a few weeks in any place," Knowles said, picking up a furry gray kitten and settling it into Emaline's basket.
"How awful to be so shifted about," she said.
"You don't miss what you don't know, missus. But there were times I'd catch him staring into a family's window, watching them act like a family. Course, matters weren't helped that Mr. Ravenhill, well, he were rather too fond of making sure the luck ran in his favor, if you know what I mean. Course, Ash wouldn't have nothing to do wiff such tricks."
Blinking, she stared at him, and realization dawned. "His father cheated?"
"Not regular like. But enough that it led to them parting harsh like. We joined up and was off for India when his parents booked passage to the Americas. 'Course, Ash had to add a couple years to his age to take the King's Shilling, but he was tall for his years. Got himself that knighthood for his service, but we didn't care much for India. Blisterin' hot it were."
Emaline added the last kitten to the basket. She sat on her folded knees, stroking Bea's head, seeing in her mind's eye a boy on the verge of manhood, gangly and proud. A man who had won his knighthood the hard way---with his own blood.
"Is that why he left the army?" she asked. "Because he...well, because he disliked India?"
"Oh, no, missus. Got a saber in his leg, he did. After that, what could we do but take up the cards again. The luck don't always run our way, but we done well enough."
He glanced around the room, his round face pulling down into a frown. " 'Course, this was supposed to be our windfall. Supposed to retire on this. Don't suppose that'll happen now."
Emaline rose and picked up her basket. She tried to remember that whatever Sir Ashten had been in the past---that lost boy, and that too-young solider---he had turned into a hardened gamester. She really should not feel sorry for him.
"Yes, well, I am certain Sir Ashten will find someone who wants to buy the estate."
A deep voice answered from the doorway, "I believe I already have."
Emaline turned to see Sir Ashten, his hair windblown and color stung into his sun-warmed face. He smiled as he came forward, but a challenging glint in his eyes left her wondering how much he had overheard. She itched to ask whom he had found to buy the estate, but she burned with guilt already for the impertinence of having been caught gossiping about him.
After a wink to Emaline, Knowles ambled from the room, saying, "Appears I'm wanted elsewhere, missus."
Ash turned to his guest, inwardly cursing Knowles's prattling ways. He disliked having his past trotted out like some novelty meant to amuse. But he noted the worry clouding his pretty housebreaker's eyes and his mood softened.
Over the past few days he had glimpsed Bea carrying her kittens to the manor, hauling them along by the scruff of the neck. Each time Emaline had strode up the drive, coming for them like an avenging angel to save a damned soul.
After their last encounter, he had thought it best to keep his distance and had left Knowles to deal with her. But now that he had her before him, he changed his mind.
He had missed her. He had missed teasing the temper into those sherry-brown eyes. He had missed her sharp edges and smooth curves. He was in need of diversion. And he wanted it from her.
He glanced down at the basket and the kittens struggling to climb out, their pointed faces poking out from under the covering of a blue and white checked cloth. She kept pulling loose their claws from the wicker and setting them back under the covering.
"You know, this really must stop," he said, trying not to smile at the kittens' persistent escape attempts.
She frowned. "I am trying to keep Bea with me, and if I can..."
"I don't mean that she must stop bringing them here. I mean you must stop taking them away. The weather's about to turn. My leg always lets me know about that. Do you fancy giving those little mites a soaking? And what if Bea tries to venture out at night? I certainly don't want to go walking and find some fox has made a snack of a kitten."
She glanced down at the basket, her forehead bunched tight, and he saw that he had breached her defenses at last.
With one hand, he scooped up the black kitten as it tried to climb out of the basket. He held it to his chest, feeling its purr rumble through his coat and shirt. "Mrs. Pearson, let us strike a deal."
"I do not---"
"No, do not interrupt. And you may stop looking daggers at me. I mean an honest bargain, not a wager. Let us allow Bea her way, and her kittens the cupboard. And while they are here I vow to keep it respectable enough that you may visit without a qualm. There shall be no gaming, no vice... not even so much as a dancing girl," he said, unable to resist adding the last.
She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes, wary, but calculating and he wished suddenly that she did play cards. He would wager she would play cautious but well, weighing her moves and shrewd with her actions.
"What if you sell the house?" she asked. "You cannot promise the next owners will be so generous with their rooms."
"Then I promise not to sell until the kittens are grown. What does it take? Six weeks?"
"Twelve. Bea has to teach them to hunt, you know. But you said that you already had a buyer."
"I have had an offer, but one so low that it has convinced me I must do something to at least put a pretty face on this place if I am ever to be rid of it for even half its true value. So let us say eight weeks, then, from the day they were born."
"Eleven from a week ago," Emaline said, and wished she had the courage to ask him who had made the offer and how much it had been. But that went beyond what was polite to ask.
With the black kitten climbing his coat to his shoulder, he held out his right hand. "Agreed."
Emaline stared at the tapering, elegant hand. Those long fingers were capable of manipulating cards, shifting them to do his will. Was he also manipulating her? Well, it did not matter. A ten-week reprieve was still a reprieve from an uncertain future.
She looked up at his face again. The black kitten had curled up on his shoulder, happy as if it had found a new home, its face pressed into the strong column of his neck. If a kitten could find it in him to trust Sir Ashten, perhaps she could as well. Just a little.
Slowly, she put her hand into his. His face relaxed into a smile as his fingers closed around hers, his touch warm, his grip gentle but strong. His thumb brushed across the back of her hand, drying her mouth to dust.
She pulled away with the excuse of kittens to deal with, too aware of him, of his strength, of his person. Bea was making little noises at the back of her throat, calling to her kittens and it gave Emaline an excuse to move away.
"I had best put them back, I suppose," she said, bustling to do so, wondering if he had this affect on all women, or if too many years of widowhood had left her particularly susceptible.
"There's still one more matter to settle," he said.
She had knelt beside the cupboard, and now she glanced up at him. "What matter?"
He came over to her, kneeling next to her, so close she could smell the damp of a light rain on his wool coat and see the fine stubble that shadowed his cheek.
Plucking the black kitten off his shoulder, he placed it with its litter mates, his hand brushing hers as he did so, leaving her thoughts scattered and the room suddenly warm.
And he asked with a smile, "Must we really give these kittens of ours biblical names?"
\*
They started through names the next night. Sir Ashten insisted that Emaline and her boys come for dinner to seal their bargain and christen the kittens. He promised there would be a table to eat upon---it had been too large to remove---and said they had hired some temporary help from the village.
Temporary.
The word carried a good reminder of Sir Ashten's habits. He drifted like the leaves on the wind, blowing away with the seasons. It also carried the ominous warning of her uncertain future. But it occurred to her to wonder if she could possibly convince Sir Ashten to sign a lease that would be binding upon the next owner as well?
Her chest tightened at the idea of having to ask Sir Ashten for anything. After all, why should he deal kindly with her? She certainly had not done so with him. She had judged him by the low standard of her gamester cousin, giving him no chance to prove himself.
Of course, he was not a complete gentleman. How could he be with his past? But all she knew of him to date spoke of at least an honorable man. A man who made his living from cards, but who did so honestly. And while he might tease her, he had shown kindness to Bea and her kittens. That spoke well of him.
Only he had no reason to sign any sort of binding lease with her. She had not even the knowledge if such a lease could be made legal. Oh, John, why could you not have been a more worldly man so that you left me and the boys better able to deal with this world?
With a sigh, she set aside thoughts of her late husband. He had indeed been a good man. But not a practical one. It seemed instead that she must always be practical.
Which meant she would have to do what she could to mend her relationship with Sir Ashten so she might ask about a more binding lease of the gate house.
With that in mind, she dressed for dinner in her best evening gown, a white muslin with silver and blue silk embroidery that she had not worn in three years. It still fit, though its train dated the style terribly, and the bodice pinched in and pushed up her breasts in a rather shocking fashion. She tugged up the dress as much as she could, and donned her mother's necklace of blue enamel and gold. She dressed Thomas and Will in their good, dark-blue suits, though Will wiggled dreadfully when she tried to brush his hair into charming curls. Settling for his having a clean face, and for Thomas looking remarkably like his father, they set out for Adair Manor in the pony cart.
The Findleys' eldest son, Rob, met them at the house to take the cart around to the back. Emaline's stomach fluttered as much as it had when she was a girl going to her first ball. But she took a breath to steady herself and herded the boys up the steps and into the manor.
It seemed transformed.
The hall glowed with polished floors and candlelight. A table she had not seen since her girlhood stood in the center of the square room, and a floral tapestry---moth-eaten on one corner---hung opposite the fireplace.
She glanced around her, startled by the change and oddly pleased to see the house look so welcoming again.
"Knowles and I have been busy today, so you'll have to excuse me if I fall asleep by nine before the fire," Sir Ashten said as he came down the stairs.
She turned to greet him, and the polite words she had ready caught on her heart and wrapped tightly around it. She had thought him handsome with his shaggy, sun-drenched hair and his beautiful clothes so carelessly worn. She had not known the half of it.
His forest-green coat brought out the green in his eyes. His close-fitting clothes set off the width of his shoulders and emphasized his narrow hips. Bushed and golden, his hair lay smooth from his face and the fire and candlelight drew glints from the warm depths.
She had time to study him as he bent to answer a question from Will and turned to bid good evening to Thomas, and it struck her that for a gamester he had an uncommonly strong jaw. A lovely jaw that ended in a square, stubborn chin.
He glanced up at her, that sensual mouth of his quirking, and mischief sparking in his eyes, and she knew she had been caught in her study of him.
He said nothing. No teasing comment. No tormenting suggestions about the intent behind her close observation. He merely acted like the gentleman he looked, saw to Knowles taking their wraps, and bowed them into the dining room.
Dinner passed easily.
Ash strove to be a courteous host, and bit the inside of his cheek a dozen times to keep back the seductive phrases he wanted to lavish on his pretty housebreaker, and which would have her frowning at him instead of smiling. She ought to be flirted with, however. That low-cut gown set his imagination working feverishly as to what she would look like without it, and challenged his self-control not to find out.
Thank heavens for the boys. They chatted on about their lives---about fox dens, lessons, neighbors, fishing, and hunting---so conversation never lagged.
Knowles had outdone himself in the kitchen, producing oxtail soup, fish pie, jugged hare, celery with cream, stewed peas, and baked apples with custard. The boys tucked into the last as if they had not eaten heartily of the other dishes.
As they quit the dining room for the comfort of the library and the kitten naming, Ash held back with Mrs. Pearson and asked, "Do they always eat like such good trenchermen?"
"Yes, and I am afraid they are rather like the river carp--- the more I feed them, the larger they become."
"You shall have giants on your hands."
She looked up at him, a smile dancing in her eyes and her lips curving, and something gave an odd twist in his chest.
But her boys called to her to come see Bea and she moved away, breaking the moment.
He stared after her, frowning, not quite certain what had just happened. He knew well enough what it was to fall in---and out---of love. He had done so a dozen times or more. And she was certainly attractive enough to stir more than lust in any man. But this...this sudden protective desire was a new thing. In that instant, he had not wanted her in his bed as badly as he had wanted with a fierce passion to keep her safe from anything that would rob her of that rare smile of hers.
The problem was that a gamester such as himself was one of the things most likely to steal that smile away.
What a damnable tangle.
"Sir Ashten," Will said, interrupting Ash's thoughts. "Do you like Rue or Peleg better?"
"Peleg," Thomas said at once, dancing a string before the gray kitten that lay with its littermates on the carpet before the fire, its eyes dominating its pointed face.
Ash came over to them and the naming began in earnest.
Half an hour later not one kitten had been christened. However, Ash had a far better idea of Mrs. Emaline Pearson's personality and her situation.
She and her Bea were both fondly protective of their offspring. Ash found it amusing that both kept an indulgent but watchful eye on the events, occasionally reaching in to smooth a tousled curl, or in Bea's case, to lick a spot left sticky by one of the boys after cakes had been brought in by Knowles.
From the comments dropped, Ash gathered that his pretty housebreaker lived on scant funds, taking in sewing to supplement her income, and that the boys hunted the estate as a much-needed source of food. It troubled Ash to think they might lose such rights when he sold the place, so he turned his thoughts away from such unpleasant things.
The boys were also getting to an age where they needed male guidance. He noticed the resentful looks Thomas shot his mother when she treated him as if he were as young as Will. He was a good lad, but Ash saw the burning desire in Thomas to be given more responsibility and to be recognized more as an adult.
Ah, but that was not his problem either.
As the arguments over names ranged---with Thomas insisting they must use the begats, and Ash arguing against it mostly for the sake of arguing, and Will torn between---she sat and listened to them. And Ash watched her watching them.
Finally, in a moment of quiet, she said, "Well, why do we not give them two names?"
Ash grinned. "Ah, the wisdom of Solomon and the beauty of the Queen of Sheba. What do you say, lads? Shall we honor the lady's request?"
Emaline gave him a warning look, but she did not rebuke him for his compliment.
Will scooped up the black kitten that had been chasing the gray kitten's tail. "I want to name him Sir Lancelot, and we'll call him Sir."
"We said his name was Eber," Thomas said, scowling.
"You said it. I didn't."
"And I said his name was Trouble, which is just what he's proving to be. What, oh, wise lady, is your just decision on this matter?"
Emaline realized that three sets of eyes now turned expectantly in her direction. She opened her mouth, shut it, and said the first thing that popped into her brain, "Call him Sir Eber Troublealot du Lac."
Eyes dancing, Sir Ashten regarded her. "The name is bigger than the kitten, but perhaps he'll grow into it. Do we all agree on this one?"
Sir Eber was now batting at Will's cravat and untying it, but Will looked pleased to have a knightly kitten. Thomas, still frowning, looked ready to argue, but he glanced at his mother and relented with a nod.
From there, the naming went quickly, but by the end of it, the suggestions had become so absurd as to leave Will giggling and even Thomas gave up a few reluctant smiles. The marmalade kitten became Lady Sheba Salah, and the striped kitten, Sir Nahor Galahad. Lady Peleg du Mist was settled on for the gray, and in the end all they could come up with for the tortoiseshell kitten was a simple biblical Reu, which pleased Thomas.
Within a week use had shortened the names to Sheba, Sir Eber, Lady Mist, Galahad and Reu. And Ash found that he was becoming dependent upon the company of his pretty housebreaker and her offspring.
That was born in upon him one rainy day when the drenching weather kept Emaline and her boys away. Ash prowled the manor, restless as a caged bear and almost as cross.
Trying to contain costs, he had not undertaken any major work but had settled for painting rooms, re-plastering ceilings, replacing missing stones from the exterior, and putting new lead on the roof. But what he saw still displeased him.
The house was coming back to life, and it made the bleak, tangled gardens look worse. Everywhere seemed to be scaffolding, cloth coverings, and more disorder than order. What had he gotten himself into?
His mood dark, he drifted into the library and threw himself into the leather chair that sat before the dying fire. How was he to ever sell this place for a decent price? Lord Rustard had made a ridiculous offer of two thousand pounds, a sum not even a quarter of what the property should fetch. Had he been wrong to turn the man down? Was he only wasting his capital by making these repairs?
He certainly didn't mind risk, but he disliked not even knowing the odds of this game. He wondered if the few hundred he had sunk into the house would turn into a few thousand, and for what? For getting his own money back?
Or for the smiles that transformed Emaline Pearson's face when she saw the rooms renewed and the house repaired?
What the devil was he doing?
A curious black face poked out of the cupboard, followed by a pointed gray face. The pair of kittens tumbled out, pushed forward by their littermates. Ash had to smile as the bits of fluff stared around themselves, sniffing the air before they ventured to his side.
"Questing already?" he said, scooping up the gray. She lifted her chin for a scratch and set to a rumbling purr. Sir Eber would not be caught, however, and darted off to lurk under the sofa, with only an occasional black paw lashing out at dust motes.
Ash grinned. Tiny, furry clowns, the kittens amused him, lightening his mood and making him wonder if indeed he ought to reconsider keeping the house. But he knew all too well his status in the neighborhood. Lord Rustard had certainly made it clear with his hints that a man like Ash would not be welcome into the society of a small community. Indeed, the only visitor to the manor had been his pretty housebreaker.
So he could not stay. Not unless he could somehow convince the community that he was a leopard that had shed his spots. Or unless he cared to become a hermit.
Which meant he ought to leave, sooner rather than later. October was nearly spent, after all, and today's rain foretold the winter to come. Better to leave with the roads still decent enough to travel. And Knowles might like going back to Italy.
He sat there, lost in his thoughts until a frightened meowing caught his ear. Sitting up, he listened. Lady Mist still lay on his lap, but what had become of Sir Eber Troublealot? Was that damnable kitten living up to his name?
Bea had also heard the faint cry, for she came out of the cupboard and streaked for the door.
Following, Ash tracked the cat and the cries into the drawing room, and saw at once that Sir Eber had stranded himself.
They had put up scaffolding to repair some of the plasterwork on the ceiling, and the kitten had clawed its way up a rope that dangled from the top-most planks. Sir Eber hung from his front claws, swaying slightly, mewing in panic, and utterly trapped. The kitten could not let go of the rope without falling more than twenty feet to the bare wood floor. And the tiny kitten lacked the reach and agility to climb off the rope and onto the scaffolding.
With a curse, and a shout to Knowles, Ash put down the gray kitten, leaving it beside the yowling Bea. He started up the scaffolding. The boards creaked under him, and he spared a thought to wonder if they would support his weight; they had been built for and by two spry, elderly workmen from the village. He paused, and Eber lost his grip on the rope with one paw. Ash knew he had no time to lose. He ran up the ladders, ignoring the dangerous swaying of the structure, and reached out just as the kitten lost its grip.
The black kitten fell into his outstretched hand, and Ash froze. Scaffolding swayed. Slowly, carefully, Ash started down.
"What the bloody hell you doing up there?" Knowles said, coming into the room.
"Amusing myself. Be a good fellow and steady that ladder," Ash said. And the plank under his foot snapped.
He caught himself on the rope, snagging it with his one free hand. Hemp tore into his palm, making him swear, and a sharp jolt of pain sang into his shoulder. Tears mixed with stinging sweat in his eye. Agony blazed across his shoulder. Something had torn loose.
"I'm coming up," Knowles shouted.
"Don't you dare!" Ash said between clenched teeth. "If it won't hold my weight, it won't hold yours or ours."
"Then I'll get help."
"Excellent suggestion," Ash muttered, but he had already heard the front door slam from Knowles leaving the house, his boots rapping sharp on wood.
Knowing he could not long hang there, Ash glanced about and gently swung himself. Each move stabbed searing pain into his shoulder, but at last he managed to swing far enough to wrap his feet around one of the scaffold polls. Sweating and now almost sick from the effort, he got himself half perched on a narrow plank that sagged ominously.
He sat there, dizzy with pain, a terrified kitten digging its tiny claws into the back of his hand. The door slammed again, and when he straightened, Ash realized he now had an audience.
"What the devil do you two think you're doing?" he called down."We're here to help, sir," Thomas said, his hair and coat wet from the rain.
"They're light enough to come up." Knowles shouted."I'm not having..." Ash started to say, but a jab of pain cut off his words. In the next second, Will and Thomas were already scampering up the scaffolding like two monkeys. Will reached him first and Ash thrust the kitten at him. "Here. Take him down and yourself with him."
Taking the kitten, Will hesitated. But Thomas arrived and said, "Go on, Will. And best help Mr. Knowles pad the floor. Now, Sir Ash, can you climb?"
His palm burned like blazes, his shoulder felt as if it had been wrenched out of his socket, but Ash managed a crooked grin. "I am only almost as helpless as poor Eber. Come and lend me your shoulder, and let us hope we do not need that padding."
Will and Knowles had been dragging in every pillow and blanket in the house, but in the end Ash made it down without falling. With his good hand freed from having to hold the kitten, and Thomas testing the boards for him in advance, the progress was painfully slow. When they reached the floor, Ash slumped onto the pillows and found it to be even more uncomfortable.
He started to sit up, and swore at what it cost him to do so. A blast of cold air told him he had yet another visitor.
"Oh, damnation," he muttered, and glanced up to see Emaline Pearson in the doorway.
"I thought you said this would be a respectable house while the kittens were here," she said, coming forward and undoing the ties to her rain-darkened cloak. A teasing tone softened her words but did not hide the worry in her eyes.Ash managed a grin, winced and held his shoulder. "A man ought to be able to mutter a much needed curse in his own house."
She came to kneel beside him, her hair slicked back against her damp, pale face and her eyes dark and wide.
"You are wet," he said.
"And you are injured. Thank you, Knowles, for leaving word with Mrs. Cranley that you were bringing the boys here." She glanced up at the scaffolding and took Ash's injured hand, turning it to expose his rope-burned palm. "What foolish nonsense were you thinking to climb up that after a kitten?"
"Well, I am a knight, after all. It seemed a good day to rescue fair kittens in distress."
She frowned at him, and reached up to touch his shoulder. When he flinched and tried to pull away, her worry clouded to fear. "Oh, you have done yourself a harm. It's not just your hand, is it? No, you are to stay still. Knowles, please fetch Dr. Pritchard. Thomas, go with him and show him the way. Will, go and ask Mrs. Cranley for her cucumber salve and the friar's balsam tincture that she uses for her joints."
"Yes, ma'am," three voice echoed at once.
Ash lay back on the pillows, letting out a sharp breath as his shoulder warned him to take care. "I see I am in formidable hands.""Well, it seems to be my day to rescue knights in distress, Sir Ashten. Now tell me where it hurts."
He grimaced as she touched his shoulder again, and she immediately pulled away. "I do not wish to alarm you, but I think you have dislocated your shoulder."
"I don't wish to alarm you, but I know I have. I've done so once before, and I was warned it could happen again. It's got to be put back. The sooner the better. Have you ever done such a thing?"
"Should we not wait for the doctor?"
"If you are squeamish, dear lady, we shall wait. But I can tell you from experience that it'll feel far better when it's back in place, and the longer it's out, the more it stretches parts that should not be stretched. Oh, damn."
Emaline winced, and not at his curse. Every time he moved, even a fraction, he seemed to be in pain. She could not stand to see him so. Taking hold of her courage, she drew in a breath, then said, "What must I do?"
He gave instructions on how she must pull his arm out to pop the joint into place, and offered up a crooked grin. "It will hurt me far more than you, so you'd best give me something else to think about while you do it."
"Give you what? Brandy?"
"A kiss. Just for distraction." He reached up with his good hand to caress her cheek, brushing at her damp skin. "Come now, no one is watching, and instead of slapping me afterwards, you can pull my arm until it aches."
She started to protest, but he slipped his around the back of her neck and pulled her close. Her lips parted with unvoiced reasons why she should not kiss him, but she let him draw her to him anyway, her chest tight and her skin tingling. His eyes seemed black pools that would drown her, and his hand urged her to what she had ached for in her dreams.
And then his lips brushed hers and she forgot she was kneeling on a pillow strewn floor and kissing a gamester.
Warm and soft, his lips touched hers like a summer sun. She lifted her hand to his face, traced the curve of his jaw with her fingertips, and tangled her touch into the silk of his hair. She let out a sigh...and something furry pounced her hand.
Pulling back, she found Sir Eber attacking her hand and Sir Ashten's hair. She untangled the kitten from Ash's sun-lightened hair as he glared at the wiggling black body.
He smiled at her and said, "Best do it now, for after a kiss such as that, I could die a happy man."
Putting the kitten to one side, she pulled in a breath. She took his injured arm and pulled. But, when she saw the pain twist his face, it was she who wanted to cry out.
Afterwards, with his shoulder in place, he lay still, white lines bracketing his mouth, and she needed to do something to ease his suffering. She leaned close to him, her chest against his, as she caressed wisps of warm brown hair from his face. This time she brushed her lips across his without his urging. Shifting, she pressed her mouth to his damp temple, and smoothed his face, and wished she could do far more than this.
Oh, but the man tempted her to folly.
He stared up at her, his eyes unfocused and heavy with pain, but he smiled anyway and said, his voice a rough whisper, "You make me long to be something I'm not, my pretty housebreaker."
Through his waistcoat and shirt---for he wore no coat---she could feel the race of his heart beating a rhythm to match hers. She started to ask what it was that he wanted to be for her, but the front door slammed open and she sat up. The doctor hurried in with Thomas and Knowles.
She had to rise, her heart still thudding and her head still spinning, and let the doctor take over. And she was left still wondering what it was that Ash wished he could be for her.
\*
"Six weeks in a bloody sling! I'll give it two at the most," Ash said. He sat in his bedroom, his shirt stripped off and with Knowles rubbing something on him that smelled of turpentine and beeswax. Dr. Prichard had left it for his shoulder, and Knowles insisted on its use.
"It'll be three, and six more with you not using it for much. That's what it were last time," Knowles said.
Grumbling, Ash eased into his shirt. "I smell like a painter."
"The missus and her boys will be over this afternoon. Said she'd stop by with some of Mrs. Cranley's concoction what's supposed to be good for aching joints."
Ash thought that over for a moment, and then decided that perhaps some good could come of looking romantic with his arm in a black silk sling.
Perhaps he could coax another kiss from her.
But was that wise?
That kiss had set flame to smoldering desires, which in turn could lead to dangerous places. His pretty housebreaker was no worldly widow who would dally with him. No, she'd need a ring on her finger and a vow before God before she gave herself. And how could he give her any promises?
Ah, such a pity she was so innocent.
And how he ached to bury himself in that innocence.
He let out a sigh, and Knowles cocked a knowing eyebrow.
"Oh, don't look at me like that," Ash said, slipping into a plain buff waistcoat. "I don't mean to seduce her.""It's not her being seduced that I see," Knowles said.
Ash glowered at his servant, but the truth pulled down his shoulders like a field pack. He was being seduced. By her. By her lively boys. By the image of himself with a home and the illusion of domestic bliss.
But how long would he stay content with such simple pleasures? How long until ties to her and to this place became unbearable restrictions?
He toyed for a moment with thoughts of sweeping her off her feet, taking her away with him. He could seduce her. He knew it. He could ride off with her and her boys. They could roam together, and he would lay the world at her feet.
He went downstairs, arranging his sling, and thinking of such things.
But in the library he saw Bea nursing her kittens. Sitting down in the leather chair, he watched.
The mother cat lay contented in her cupboard, the door swung wide open to show a view of her and her kittens. When Eber tried to push Mist away, Bea reached in with a raspy tongue, to wash a face and put order back into her offsprings' meal.
And Ash knew that his dreams of taking his sweet widow away with him were all but impossible.
In truth, his pretty housebreaker had too much in common with her cat. They were both creatures of place. Of home and habit. Pulling Emaline from this village would be as foolish as had been trying to pull Bea from her library. His lovely widow needed to know that she and her boys were rooted here. Oh, he might be able to coax them away, but would they thrive?
With reluctance, he thought back to his own boyhood.
He had hated being uprooted.
He had put it from his mind, from his memories, but now the uncertainty of it, the fear, the loneliness crowded him. He liked those lads of hers far too much to put them through such an upbringing. It had left deep marks on him---in his inclination toward solitude, in his distrust of others, in his restless ways.
But if he could not stay, and she could not go, where did that leave room for anything between them?
\*
Emaline stared at the barren trees. Winter was coming all too fast. Gray branches of the sleeping trees stretched to an even darker sky. Guy Fawkes Day had come and gone, with Knowles setting out a huge bonfire at the back of the manor. They'd had plenty to burn, and more than a few villagers came, for Sir Ashten had had the gardens cleared by them, and had hired yet others to paint and to act as servants. Now the land around the house lay bare and waiting spring's renewal.
And she had not found the courage to ask him about some sort of more binding lease. At first there had been his injured arm to think of. Then she had not wanted him to think she had become friendly only to benefit herself. But she was running out of time and out of excuses to keep the inevitable at bay. She really must try to be more practical about this all.
She turned her gaze to the manor, to its lovely square form, now able to be seen. It looked like a home again, with smoke spiraling from the chimneys and lights glinting in clean windows and a new raked-gravel drive leading to the front steps.
He would be able to sell it soon for a good price.
She dreaded the thought.
In the past few weeks the kittens had grown so they looked more like sleek, young cats, with their bodies filling out and their fur growing from its spiky kitten-fluff into longer fur. Squire Wilberforce had asked if he might take Lady Sheba Salah as a pet for his youngest daughter, and so the days were darkening in every way possible.
Soon the kittens would be gone, and so would Sir Ashten Ravenhill.
What shall I do when he goes?
She could not think about that. She did not want to. She tried to fool herself and tell herself that she only worried for the boys. They had become too attached to Sir Ash, as they called him. They adored that he had needed their help, and they spent time every day---and most evenings---up at the manor. In Ash's company, Thomas had become more outgoing and assured. And Will followed Sir Ash about, copying his manners and his speech with an alarming likeness.
In her heart, however, she knew she would be the one who missed him the most.
She was not fooled into thinking he might stay. She had spoken just yesterday with Lord Rustard and he had mentioned again his interest in the house. The determined light in his eyes had sent a tremor of uneasiness through Emaline. Lord Rustard meant to have the manor---and he would eventually end up naming a price that Sir Ashten would accept. And then Lord Rustard would want his gate house back from her. Lease or no lease.
She really must face the inevitable.
But the shameful secret she held inside her was that she cherished a ridiculous hope that something more than flirtation had lain behind Ash's kisses.
When he had kissed her, had he longed to be a man who could settle with her and marry? And if he wanted that, could he not become so? Was not the desire the start of all things?
Ah, but it was folly to think that way. Why would he want anything more than a kiss from a vicar's widow---a woman without beauty or money or fascinating skills? No, he had kissed her because he probably kissed any woman who would allow it. And if she tried to dream more into it than that, she would only break her own heart.
With her head up and her armor tightened, she strode up the steps to Adair Manor.
The Findleys' eldest boy had assumed the role of footman and let her in, with a word that Knowles was in the drawing room, supervising the disassembly of the scaffolding, and Sir Ashten was in the library with the boys.
Hearing voices, she headed for the library, a smile in place.
She stopped in the open doorway, the sight before her freezing her step and her heart.
Sir Ashten sat in the giant leather chair, leaning forward, his injured arm pulled out from its sling as he bent over a small table. Next to the table, Thomas sat on a footstool, and Will knelt on the floor. Both boys had cards in their hands.
Her throat dried and the bitterness surged into her like poison.
Dear Lord, he is teaching them to gamble.
Fury flamed in her, burning on her face and boiling in her stomach. Her hand tightened on the doorknob, and she fought for enough control not to scream like a fishwife. My God, after all he had promised about keeping this a respectable house. Oh, she should never have trusted him! She stepped forward with the intent of carving him alive with scathing words. But a second look stopped her.
She glimpsed his hand caress a pile of fur in his lap. The black Sir Eber and the multicolored Rue lay curled around each other. Long fingers rested protective and tender over the kittens asleep on him.
She hesitated, watching as Lady Mist sprawled upside down at Sir Ashten's booted feet. He reached down to scratch the kitten's gray stomach, saying to the boys as he did so, "Now feel the edge of the card for the difference between it and the one I shaved. The mark's a subtle thing, and designed so that a fellow who's had a glass too many won't notice. And that, my lads, is why a steady head in this world will serve you far better than any dependence on luck."
Her anger drained out of her, leaving her weak limbed and shamed face. It wasn't gambling really, but a lesson how not to be taken at the tables. Suddenly, she could not help but wonder if such lessons would have kept Newell from losing the house, his fortune, and even his family's respect? What if Uncle Walter had not ranted so much about sinful ways, but had shown his son more patience and reason? Would it have made a difference?
Only if Newell had not lost the house, Sir Ash would not have come to them.
Suddenly, she no longer knew if the man was the devil's temptation or the Lord's blessing in disguise. Perhaps he did not have to be either of those things. Perhaps it was she who had too long viewed the world in darks and lights, in rights and wrongs. Perhaps Sir Ashten could be what he was---just another soul struggling in this world like herself.
She bit her lower lip and hung back in the doorway. The kittens, it seemed, had placed their trust in Sir Ash and looked content to keep it there. They, she knew, judged the man, not his reputation. They sensed a hand that would care for them with kindness.
Something loosened in her. Some inward constraint that had left her for too long awkward and defensive. She looked at Ash for once without seeing a gamester, and what she saw made her heart clench as if his hand had tightened over it.
For what lay before her was a man with an easy smile, a way with her children and a heart too long dormant---just like her own. And for once it was enough to have him be so.
Straightening, she came forward into the room, asking brightly and determined to atone for her near mistake with him, "What mischief do you three plot now?"
Ash swung around, waking the kittens on his lap and frowning. Oh, damn, of all times for her to arrive. He stood, scooping up the limp kittens in his hands. Sir Eber stirred and his eyes---which had turned from kitten blue to dark green---opened. Lazy Rea merely yawned and relaxed, as limp as if dead.
A belligerent desire to defend himself rose in Ash, and he stamped it down. He didn't need to explain himself to her and her prickly loathing of anything pleasurable. In fact, it was a good thing she'd caught him here with the cards in his hands. It had been inevitable. Perhaps it was even what he had wanted when he'd suggested this diversion to the boys, for he had known in his heart that she would not approve. This way they would have a good fight about it. Then he could feel happy about taking the ten thousand Lord Rustard had offered him, and he could quit this place without another thought.
Stiffening, he waited for the inevitable hot contempt from her for his sinful ways.
She smiled up at him, tousled Thomas' hair, and bent over the makeshift card table. "Who is winning?"
"We're not playing, Mother," Thomas said, his tone scornful, as if she had not seen the obvious.
"Sir Ash is showing us how to avoid Captain Sharps," Will added.
"Well, perhaps he can also show you a little bit of whist as well. It has been, oh, since well before I married that I last played, but I used to like it quite well. Your grandmother and I used to play for the meringues that Cook made, so perhaps Mrs. Crawley will make some for us."
"Meringues!" Will jumped up at the mention of his favorite treat of baked sugar and egg whites. "Can I ask her now?"
"You may," she said, and the boys thundered out with only a last-minute-remembered polite bow.
Ash watched this, uneasy and still braced for war. What was her game? Had she not wanted to trim him down before the boys? His tone hostile, he asked, "Well?"
She smiled again, a little hesitant, and reached out to stroke Sir Eber's black head, her hand coming so close to his that it distracted him.
"Your arm seems better," she said.
Realizing that he had pulled off his sling, he glanced down. He gestured with the near comatose Reu to a chair and when she sat, he also sat down, settling the kittens back to their napping locations. Lady Mist jumped up onto Emaline's lap and Ash watched her stroke the kitten, thinking all the time---lucky cat.
"Aren't you going to say something?" he blurted out, unable to bear the waiting.
She dimpled. "About your arm? Or about the cards?"
"The dam---dashed cards. I know you despise them..." And me as well for being so impossibly linked to them.
She hesitated a moment, glancing down to the gray kitten in her lap and seeming to choose her words with care. "Despise is a rather strong word. And while I may despise what they did to my cousin---or, rather, what he did with them, I fear that perhaps I have been as wrong in my condemnation of them. Does not the Bible tell us that it is those without sin who should cast the first stone at another? And self-righteousness is such an awful sin."
Deliberate and provoking, he said, "I wouldn't know about that. I haven't read a Bible in years."
Still she smiled at him, as indulgent as if she were dealing with Will, not a man grown. And she said, "Then I shall take Bea and her kittens for my examples, for you do know them, and they offer nothing but love to those who care for them." She ducked her head low, seemingly to pet Bea who had come out of the cupboard with her other two kittens. With the slightest tremor in her voice, she added, "Do you not think that is a good example to follow?"
He sat still, numb, his throat dry and wondering why she was doing this to him. She could not be possibly hinting at what he thought she was with this talk of love. Not with him. His voice harsh and low, he asked, "What do you want from me?"
She put down Lady Mist and rose, and came over to stand before him. He started to rise, but she laid a white, slim hand on his shoulder. It stayed him as if she had tied him with weights. "Do not disturb the kittens again. They look so comfortable. And there is but one thing you can do for me---just be happy, Ash. You are a gentleman who deserves that and far more, you know."
Leaning down, she kissed his cheek, a flutter of softness against his face. In a swish of skirts, she was gone, slipped away like a dream of springtime.
He sat for a very long time, slowly stroking Eber's soft fur and scratching behind Reu's left ear, and thinking about his life, about her, and about too many other things.
\*
Emaline had to come back the next day to collect Lady Mist for Squire Wilberforce. The kittens were old enough to head to new homes, and it was best they go before they began to think the manor their lifelong residence. They would most likely take after Bea in their attachment to place.
Just like me, she thought as she walked through the bare beech woods.
And she wondered if she would go with Ash if he asked?
She looked around her, seeing a winter-bleak world ready for snow and rain. It seemed that as a woman she was making up for not having been a foolish girl. She had fallen in love with a man she could not have, and her heart both ached and soared. How was it possible to feel both the thrill of love and its heartache? But she did. And she feared, if he did ask, she would say yes. Could she do that to the boys? Could she uproot them for a wandering existence?
The only answer that came to mind was that her heart would bleed if he left here without her. And so would the boys'.
A few last leaves still clung to the trees, tenuous and determined to hang on. Am I like that? Clinging to place when I ought to let go, and let God guide me to what is next? Tilting her head back, she stared at the trees. If she left, how she would miss seeing them leaf out in the spring. And she would miss Mrs. Crawley, and what would she do with Bea? She had so many deep roots here.
She paused at the turn that led up to the manor.
A carriage stood in the drive, blankets laid over the horses to keep them warm against the bite of winter that lay in the wind. Pulling her cloak closer, as if it would hide her, she watched Lord Rustard and Sir Ashten came out of the house. They paused on the steps to shake hands, Lord Rustard smiling with smug satisfaction. He got into his carriage, grooms hurried to pull off the horse blankets, and the carriage moved off, clattering past where she stood, hidden by the trees.
When she looked back to the steps, Ash had gone.
So it is done. He has sold.
With her heart beating fast in her throat, she started toward the house again, half dreading that he would ask her to go with him, and praying he would not so she would not have to decide.
Ash stood in the library, dangling a ribbon for the kittens to chase. They were still kittens enough to be easily lured into mock chases, and they pounced the ribbon---and each other---with more comic clumsiness than skilled grace. Bea lay nearby, cleaning her coat and keeping an eye on the games.
Ash laughed aloud as Sir Eber caught the ribbon and had to let it go as the marmalade Lady Sheba Salah pounced him, igniting a battle.
Some instinct made him turn to the door.
She stood there much as he had first seen her, tousled and with that wretched cloak hiding most of her from his view. He gave up the ribbons to the kittens and moved to her.
"If I had an ounce of wisdom I should have tossed that cloak of yours onto the Guy Fawkes bonfire."
She put up a protective hand to the ties. "My cloak? I will have you know this is fine Shropshire wool, and has seen me good service."
"Too much service." He took it from her, tossed it aside and led her toward the chairs by the fire. The kittens chased after the flung-aside cloak and started a game of hide-and-seek beneath its folds.
"You see," he said, "Bea's kittens know a better use for that antique of yours."
She had to smile as Sir Eber poked his head out, only to have it slapped by Lady Mist. She glanced at Ash, her expression sobering. "I saw Lord Rustard leaving. I beg your pardon for asking, but since it rather affects me, I would like to know if you have reached an agreement with him on a sale?"
Ash frowned. He rose from his chair and went to stand by the fireplace. Not knowing what to do with his hands, he shoved them into his breeches. He pulled one out again and drag his fingers through his hair. Damn, how did he put this? The words he had rehearsed all night in his mind suddenly stuck in his throat.
What would she say to his offer? What if this was a dreadful mistake?
He turned and picked up the poker to jab at an already burning fire. The movement gave him an instant to pull together his courage.
When he turned back, he saw a streaking black form chased by an orange one dart under Emaline's skirts. The kittens distracted her, bringing laughter to those tawny eyes, and he knew this was no mistake. It would never be one so long as he could see those sherry eyes lighten with delight. He knew the name for the desire, the longing that had driven him home to England. But could he have what he wanted? He certainly did not deserve it.
"Emaline?" he said, and she turned her gaze on him, her glance full of the longing that lay in his own heart.
He was across the distance between them in an instant and had her in his arms as she rose up to him. Her mouth met his with the same urgent desire, the same hot need, the same trembling uncertainty. He lost track of all else.
Until sharp claws slapped at his boot, and a small furry body careened between his legs.
Pulling back, he looked down at Emaline's face. Her golden lashes slowly pulled open, and he stared at her, searching her expression for the certainty of her heart.
"Take me with you," she whispered.
He shook his head. "The boys need a home. And you...you, my pretty housebreaker are as married to this house, this land, as your precious Begat, and as her kittens after her shall be."
Her eyes filled with tears, but a small frown tightened on her brow. "Her kittens?"
His arms tightened around her. "Yes. And her kitten's kittens. And the kittens that come after that. I'm afraid I'm tangled in a cat's cradle here."
"But Lord Rustard...?"
"Bought some of my property by the river, and two tenant farms. I haven't the funds to mend them as they need, but he has the wherewithal, and he was quite satisfied that he is now the largest property holder in the county. He also seemed pleased to take me under his wing with advice. I think he has ambitions to see me made over into a gentleman farmer, and he likes the notion that he shall be viewed as the mentor who reformed me. Of course, we'll know that's not true."
She stared up at him, her expression confused. "You're staying? You will not tire of this place?"
He smoothed the trouble from her face. "Tire of it? I think that you---yes, and those imps you call sons---are what I've been searching for my whole life. I'm home, my sweet Em. That is, I am if you say I am. For it all rests in your hands now."
He took her hands and kissed each palm.
Emaline pulled them away from him, but only so she could wrap her arms tight around his neck.
"You are always home in my arms," she whispered. Delight swirled in her as his lips claimed hers again.
From beside the hearth, Bea watched, indulgent, her tail twitching as her kittens romped around the entwined forms, smug in her sense of home and place.
\*
Copyright 2011 © Shannon Donnelly
Cat's Cradle
For other stories by Shannon Donnelly visit www.sd-writer.com

