Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways #5)(22)

Christopher put Albert on a leash and proceeded to the entrance of the house with a little stab of dread.

If he were fortunate, no one would be available to receive him.

After tying Albert’s leash to a slender porch column, Christopher knocked at the door and waited tensely.

He reared back as the portal was flung open by a frantic-faced housekeeper.

“I beg your pardon, sir, we’re in the middle of—” She paused at the sound of porcelain crashing from somewhere inside the house. “Oh, merciful Lord,” she moaned, and gestured to the front parlor. “Wait there if you please, and—”

“I’ve got her,” a masculine voice called. And then, “Damn it, no I don’t. She’s heading for the stairs.”

“Do not let her come upstairs!” a woman screamed. A baby was crying in strident gusts. “Oh, that dratted creature has woken the baby. Where are the housemaids?”

“Hiding, I expect.”

Christopher hesitated in the entryway, blinking as he heard a bleating noise. He asked the housekeeper blankly, “Are they keeping farm animals in here?”

“No, of course not,” she said hastily, trying to push him into the parlor. “That’s . . . a baby crying. Yes. A baby.”

“It doesn’t sound like one,” he said.

Christopher heard Albert barking from the porch. A three-legged cat came streaking through the hallway, followed by a bristling hedgehog that scuttled a great deal faster than one might have expected. The housekeeper hastened after them.

“Pandora, come back here!” came a new voice—Beatrix Hathaway’s voice—and Christopher’s senses sparked in recognition. He twitched uneasily at the commotion, his reflexes urging him to take some kind of action, although he wasn’t yet certain what the bloody hell was going on.

A large white goat came leaping and capering and twisting through the hallway.

And then Beatrix Hathaway appeared, tearing around the corner. She skidded to a halt. “You might have tried to stop her,” she exclaimed. As she glanced up at Christopher, a scowl flitted across her face. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Miss Hathaway—” he began.

“Hold this.”

Something warm and wriggling was thrust into his grasp, and Beatrix dashed off to pursue the goat.

Dumbfounded, Christopher glanced at the creature in his hands. A baby goat, cream colored, with a brown head. He fumbled to keep from dropping the creature as he glanced at Beatrix’s retreating form and realized she was wearing breeches and boots.

Christopher had seen women in every imaginable state of dress or undress. But he had never seen one wearing the clothes of a stablehand.

“I must be having a dream,” he told the squirming kid absently. “A very odd dream about Beatrix Hathaway and goats . . .”

“I have her!” the masculine voice called out. “Beatrix, I told you the pen needed to be made taller.”

“She didn’t leap over it,” came Beatrix’s protest, “she ate through it.”

“Who let her into the house?”

“No one. She butted one of the side doors open.”

An inaudible conversation followed.

As Christopher waited, a dark-haired boy of approximately four or five years of age made a breathless entrance through the front door. He was carrying a wooden sword and had tied a handkerchief around his head, which gave him the appearance of a miniature pirate. “Did they catch the goat?” he asked Christopher without preamble.

“I believe so.”

“Oh, thunderbolts. I missed all the fun.” The boy sighed. He looked up at Christopher. “Who are you?”

“Captain Phelan.”

The child’s gaze sharpened with interest. “Where’s your uniform?”

“I don’t wear it now that the war is over.”

“Did you come to see my father?”

“No, I . . . came to call on Miss Hathaway.”

“Are you one of her suitors?”

Christopher gave a decisive shake of his head.

“You might be one,” the boy said wisely, “and just not know it yet.”

Christopher felt a smile—his first genuine smile in a long time—pulling at his lips. “Does Miss Hathaway have many suitors?”

“Oh, yes. But none of them want to marry her.”

“Why is that, do you imagine?”

“They don’t want to get shot,” the child said, shrugging.

“Pardon?” Christopher’s brows lifted.

“Before you marry, you have to get shot by an arrow and fall in love,” the boy explained. He paused thoughtfully. “But I don’t think the rest of it hurts as much as the beginning.”

Christopher couldn’t prevent a grin. At that moment, Beatrix returned to the hallway, dragging the nanny goat on a rope lead.

Beatrix looked at Christopher with an arrested expression.

His smile faded, and he found himself staring into her blue-on-blue eyes. They were astonishingly direct and lucid . . . the eyes of a vagabond angel. One had the sense that no matter what she beheld of the sinful world, she would never be jaded. She reminded him that the things he had seen and done could not be polished away like tarnish from silver.

Gradually her gaze lowered from his. “Rye,” she said, handing the lead to the boy. “Take Pandora to the barn, will you? And the baby goat as well.” Reaching out, she took the kid from Christopher’s arms. The touch of her hands against his shirtfront elicited an unnerving response, a pleasurable heaviness in his groin.