Holy Scoundrel Read Free

bottle.”
    “I’ll get you a bottle.” They spoke together, stopped together.
    He gave a half-nod and set the lamb on its wobbly legs. Then he proceeded to take everything from the scullery that Lace would need to feed the mite.
    Not sure what more he could say without exposing old wounds, Gabe nodded and headed out to get their bags. The click, click, click of puppy paws on the slate floor behind him assured him that Ivy and his dog followed.
     
    Once Gabriel quit the room, Lacey nearly swooned from the effort she’d expended pretending indifference while jolted out of mind.
    She glanced about her at the kitchen that had been a haven for half her life. Twenty years ago, Gabriel’s mother had taught her to make jam tarts and sew her first stitch by this very hearth.
    Here, tonight, she came face to face with the stormy, soul-deep longing that led to her downfall—memories she could not classify; she had not come to terms with them after five years. In her mind, they were not wicked, though not quite righteous, either. Nevertheless, she’d brought upon her family the ultimate disgrace.
    After the birth, and death, of her fatherless child, Ivy had taken her from here, where she grew up, to the Peacehaven Home for Downtrodden Women, in Newhaven on the Sussex Coast. There, she’d tried to hide. But she’d been brought back to life with a vengeance and with love, first by Jade, and then her girls—women really, who had suffered at the hands of their men. Eventually, Jade’s Marcus, too, had helped bring her back.
    At Peacehaven, she’d regained her self-respect, grown strong, confident, assertive. She’d discovered, and finally accepted, that she must face her past before she could hope for a future.
    This morning she’d set boldly forth, carrying heart-flags of purpose and determination, eager to brave the world she’d left behind . . . and ended trembling in a vicarage kitchen, fragile as the lamb butting her leg.
    Despite herself, Lacey smiled at its antics. “What makes you think I have what you need? Do I look like your mama? Oh.” Lace placed a hand on her aching chest. The self-inflicted wound, unexpected and sharp, the more so in this place where she had brought a fatherless, stillborn babe into the world.
    Determined to calm herself before Gabriel returned, she poured milk into a pan to warm as she rinsed a lambing bottle and nipple. She reminded herself that her purpose in returning stood at hand—her little cousin, Gabriel’s stepdaughter, asleep upstairs, the child she would save . . . as soon as she saved herself.
    So near, yet so far. So possible, yet not. Only Gabriel stood between her and success, between joy and despair.
    Some thing s neve r changed.
    Lacey sat on the floor near the hearth and coaxed the lamb into her lap by tugging gently as it followed its grip on the nipple.
    She was home. To face her ghosts. An entire village of them, specters who’d condemned her and turned their backs on her, called her wanton, and rightly so—Gabriel at their head, she sometimes suspected.
    While his flock considered him a saint, they’d called her a sinner. About the latter, they were correct. About the former—Gabriel himself—however, they were mistaken. He was human, all too human. Flawed. No one knew that better than she.
    Oddly enough, she believed she’d forgiven him a long time ago. ’Twas herself she could not seem to pardon.
    Gabriel returned to the kitchen after bringing Ivy and their bags upstairs, and Lacey tried to appear composed as she sat before the fire, the greedy newborn in her lap suckling lustily.
    Gabriel stopped beside her, hands behind his back, a paradox of a scoundrel, bigger than life, deadly handsome, stirring her just by looking at her.
    As if he realized it, he stepped away, fixing his gaze on the old oak table with its slab of a top and legs big as tree trunks. Then he sat, confused for a moment as to what to do with his beefy hands, which he placed finally on his