Patricia Rice (34 page)

“Of course.” With a bit more excitement than earlier, Overton launched into a treatise on small-crop farming.

Bea knew the instant Mac approached. She could feel
the heat of him, his vibrations of impatience and irritation, and his
awareness of her. She supposed one couldn’t spend days doing what they
had done without experiencing that invisible connection. He probably
wanted to wring her neck, but that wasn’t all he wanted to do. And it
made him angry. She liked upsetting his world as easily as he upset
hers.

As he reached her side, Mac held out his giggling, protesting nephew. “Here. Why did you let him out of the nursery?”

She smiled condescendingly at her husband. “He’s
afraid he’ll lose you if you’re out of sight. Children need the security
of the familiar.”

Mac growled but placed the boy on his shoulders,
where Buddy grabbed his hair and made himself at home. “Overton has
agreed to a share in the profits for looking after the place while I am
gone. You don’t need to worry about crops and tenants.”

Beatrice wondered what it would be like to smack
someone. She’d never had the opportunity or the incentive, but she
thought she might enjoy it right now. It was either that, or burst into
tears and have a tantrum.

“Since I’m the one who must hear complaints, then I
think I should have some understanding of why we’re doing what we are,”
she said sweetly. “And since you and Mr. Overton know even less about
women and children than I do, perhaps I should be the one to decide if
Widow Black and her children should take care of a cow and chickens
instead of plowing a field.”

“Widow Black can’t afford a cow and chickens,” Mac protested. “She can’t even pay her rent.”

“She could pay her rent if she had a cow and chickens,” Bea countered.

“She needs a place to sell eggs and milk,” Mac shouted.

“Then I will provide one,” she shouted back, with
absolutely no idea how she would do any such thing. She wiped at the
tears of fury springing to her eyes, as angry at herself as at Mac.

“Don’t make Missy cwy!” Buddy screamed, beating on Mac’s head with his fists. “Mama cwied and she went away. I hate you!”

He did his best to scramble down Mac’s back, but Mac
caught him and hauled him into his arms so he couldn’t escape. Overton
looked stunned and embarrassed and distanced himself from the family
argument, but it was the tears spilling from Bea’s eyes that wrenched
Mac’s heart.

He hugged Buddy hard, even though the boy continued
to beat him. “I’m not hurting Miss Bea,” he said calmly. “I yell when I
don’t understand something, and I don’t understand your aunt at all, but
I won’t hurt her. Do you hear me?”

“Papa yelled.” Buddy hiccuped and sought frantically
for Bea. Reassured that she hadn’t gone anywhere, he wiped his nose on
Mac’s coat. “Papa yelled and Mama cwied and then Mama went with the
angels. I don’ want Miss Bea to go with the angels.”

Bea rumpled the boy’s hair, and when he turned to
her, she gently scooped him into her arms. “Papas and mamas argue, love,
just like sometimes we yell at you because you scare us or make us
angry. It means we love you, not that we’ll go away.”

Mac fought the moisture in his eyes. He knew
Marilee. She would have adored her son, cosseted him fiercely, sung him
songs, and laughed with him. She would never have yelled in front of
Buddy as Mac had, and she wouldn’t have been able to hold back tears any
better than the boy could.

“Your mama didn’t want to leave you.” Mac sought
desperately for words he didn’t possess. He sent Bea a pleading glance,
but she didn’t know what to say any more than he did. She hugged his
hiccuping nephew.

Mac took a deep breath and sought for patience. “But
sometimes the angels need people more than we do. They knew you had me
and your daddy and Pammy, but they didn’t have anyone like your mama. So
your mama sent Aunt Bea to keep you company. When I or Aunt Bea holds
your hands, that’s your mama holding you. Understand?”

Buddy wiped a teary eye and nodded solemnly. “Aunt Bea is Mama holding me?”

Well, that made as much sense as anything he’d said.
“Yes. And if I take you to see your grandmama, she will sing to you
just like your mama did, and that’s like your mama singing to you. If I
yell and shout, it doesn’t mean anything except I’m angry and impatient
and shouldn’t be yelling and shouting.”

“Say ‘Bad Uncle Mac’ when he yells,” Bea whispered in his ear, loud enough for Mac to hear her.

Buddy grinned. “Bad Unca Mac!” he shouted.

Mac winced and tried to glare at his rebellious
wife, but she looked so tempting with her uncovered hair gleaming red in
the sun and her curls pulled all askew by Buddy’s clinging fingers that
he could barely manage not to kiss her.

He had to avoid kissing her. He might be sailing
within a week, and he could no longer bear the thought of Bea carrying
his child without him near. That realization had crystallized the day
she’d refused to accompany him to Virginia. He hadn’t decided what to do
about it yet, but he knew he cared for her too much to let her suffer
that travail alone.

She was smiling sunnily at him now, driving all his
responsible notions clean out of his head. They might as well be little
butterflies flitting through his brain, in one ear and out the other.

“Give me the brat. I’ll take him back to the
nursery, and you talk to Overton. But you’d better find money to buy the
damned cow before you promise the widow anything.”

He marched off, feeling better for having asserted
his authoritative, much more knowledgeable rights. He had taken money
that he needed for his ship to buy the seed. He wasn’t buying any damned
cow too.

Mac set Buddy down and engaged him in a game of
kick-the-rock for the rest of the way up the lane. He needed to kick
something, and rocks seemed safest.

He hadn’t known that making love with a lady like
Bea could be so wonderfully, immensely different from anything he’d ever
experienced. If he thought about the way her eyes watched him with
pleasure and admiration or the way her nipples tightened when he reached
for them, he’d be in agony before he reached the house.

He’d missed her last night. He’d wanted to throw
away all his resolve and take her in that damned virginal bed of hers.
But she was the one who had thrown the gauntlet in his face. A man could
bend only so far and still be a man.

She wanted a
teacher,
not a lover or a husband. Far be it from him to give her any less—or any more—than she wanted.

He opened the front door to let Buddy in and watched
his nephew scamper into the now amazingly spacious parlor. Bea had
thrown out all the stuffy old gewgaws and furbelows, leaving an open
slate—as it were—to write on.

Mac didn’t want to read the meaning in that.

“James, why isn’t there a place for Mr. MacTavish?” Bea frowned at the single dinner setting.

“He asked to be served in the study, Madam,” her cousin said with hauteur.

“Oh, stop that.” Glaring at the empty table, Bea
refused to sit. She would have months to sit here alone. She didn’t want
to start now. She glanced at James, who was giving her his disapproving
over-her-head stare. “James, sometime you’ll have to tell me why on
earth you came here to plague me instead of staying with your family.”

Impatiently, she started for the dining room door.
She’d never dared ask her cousin any of the questions that had bothered
her since his arrival. She didn’t know why she had said anything now,
except that Mac had taught her to say what she thought.

“Actually, my family is from here,” James replied, much to her surprise.

And to his own, from what Bea could tell as she glanced back at him. “I
know
everyone from around here. Did you spring up under a cabbage leaf?”

“My mother is from Broadbury,’ he said stiffly, not looking at her.

She halted in the doorway, frowning. “And where is she now?”

“She moved to London, where I was born. She often
spoke of returning here, but never did. Shall I serve your dinner in the
study also?”

She detected an undercurrent in his voice that she
ought to explore, but she hadn’t totally overcome her reluctance to pry.
She nodded. “Yes, please, if you would.”

Her father had introduced her cousin as James when
he’d hired him, but all footmen were called James. Bea knew from the
initials in her father’s account books that his initials were JMC, so
maybe it was his name. And the C? Should she ask? Perhaps Mac could.

Mac and James were like oil and water. Sighing, she
proceeded to the study. If her husband thought he could escape by hiding
in here, he’d best think again. She had nothing to lose by irritating
him, and everything to gain by staying at his side.

“This is now your house as well as mine. You need
not dress for dinner if you prefer,” she announced as she swept into the
study. Since Mac was still wearing his afternoon clothes, that was the
only reason she could see for his absence at the table.

He frowned as James appeared with the tea table. “I
wasn’t hungry. I thought I’d set up a new set of account books for you
before I leave.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if you asked me what I wanted
in those books?” She took the wing chair next to the desk and allowed
James to arrange the tray before her. “I’d like to have people’s names
instead of initials, for instance.” Since that was on her mind at the
moment, she turned to her footman. “Is your real name James?”

“It’s of no moment, madam.” He poured Bea’s wine and refilled Mac’s glass. “Will Mr. MacTavish be leaving us?”

“It’s of no moment, cousin,” she mocked.

James lingered. “The gentleman from the bank was here while you were gone, sir. I thought perhaps—”

“What gentleman?” Bea cried, nearly upsetting her
tray to stare at her contrary, anarchic excuse for a footman. “Why
wasn’t I told?”

“Out!” Mac shouted. “Get out now, you blight upon the face of the earth!”

Bowing formally, James sauntered out, his mission accomplished.

“What bank?” Bea demanded. “About what? Tell me!”

Mac groaned and plowed his hand through his hair. “I
don’t have time for this, Bea. My ship is almost ready, and I have to
figure some way of getting the children out of here, while keeping this
damned place afloat until I come back, plus a thousand details in
between. There is no reason for you to worry. You have your Ladies Aid
Society and your consignment shop and the household to look after. Let
me do my share.”

“
What bank
?” Bea shouted, shoving the tray aside and starting to rise.

“From his card, I’d say the bank carrying the estate
loan.” He gestured at her chair. “Sit down. And if I’m not allowed to
shout, neither are you.”

Terror rippling through her, Bea sat. “What did he
want?” she whispered. Had he come to assess the estate’s worth? To give
them final notice? What did bank people do?

“I wasn’t here. I don’t know what he wanted. But I
assume from the letter waiting on the desk that he wants to know when
we’ll repay the loan.” Mac lifted an official-looking document.

“Oh, dear.” With no further interest in her dinner,
Bea clasped her hands and looked pleadingly at the man who now held her
future in his hands. “What will we do?”

Any man with any sense at all would sell this
ridiculous house with all its ridiculous ornaments and get the hell out
of here, Mac thought. Had Bea sold the...? “What happened to the
parlor?” he asked cautiously.

“I had it cleaned out,” she replied in puzzlement at this diversion. “It’s all in the attic. Why?”

Had she done it for him—made space in her life for
him? “I thought perhaps you’d sold them.” He gestured dismissively. “The
parlor looks good,” he admitted, as if he knew anything of decorating.
His shins appreciated the difference.

She smiled. “It does, doesn’t it? I’d hoped you’d
like it.” Her expression returned to worried. “Could I sell them? Would
that help?”

He shook his head. She looked so scared, he wanted
to assure her everything would be just fine, and that she needn’t worry
her pretty head.

She’d take off
his
head if he said any such thing.

Mac rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think selling
things will pay this loan, Bea. Let me see if we can persuade the bank
to extend it for another year.”

She sat silently for a minute, staring at her
hands—or at the ring he had given her on their wedding day. He very much
wanted to make things right, to give her everything her father had
given her and more, but he had just sunk all his cash into his new
shipping venture.

He’d made an extremely expensive choice in marrying Bea. His father would berate him of a certainty.

But when she lifted her head and met his gaze, he
didn’t regret his marriage for a minute. This was the woman he wanted,
come hell or high water.

“I don’t think the bank will extend the loan,” she said quietly.

Mac raised his eyebrows in query.

She sighed and produced a crumpled letter from her
pocket. “I asked Aunt Constance if she had any influence over the
officers of the bank. I received this in the afternoon’s post.”

Mac thought his breath had formed a solid mass
blocking his throat. He took the crumpled paper she handed him, but
waited for her to explain rather than read it.

“The principal officer is the Earl of Coventry. He was a friend of my father’s.”

Mac groaned. The children’s grandfather. All was
lost. Bea couldn’t hide the fact that she’d married a kidnapper. The
earl would want revenge.

***

Bea nervously smoothed the folds of her silk
nightgown. Aunt Constance had amused herself over the years by sending
items to tuck away in her wedding chest, and she had a selection of
nearly indecent nightgowns she’d never thought to wear. This one made
her feel awkward and self-conscious, but when she looked in the cheval
glass, she saw a woman who knew what a man liked. What
her
man liked.