Free Heaven Sent by Alice Duncan

on the
lawn. Her skirts and petticoats went flying, and Aubrey was
privileged to a view of her shapely legs encased in plain cotton
drawers.
    In the time it took him to blink in
astonishment, not untainted by appreciation, she’d popped up again
and started shaking her fist at tiny Becky. “Why, you big overgrown
scoundrel, you!”
    “ Aha!” cried Becky. “I
bested you in battle, Robin Hood! How do you like that?”
    Aubrey shook his head and
wondered why he hadn’t figured out what they were playing at before
now. He’d been so engrossed in watching, it hadn’t occurred to him
that they were enacting the Robin-Hood-meets-Little-John scene
from The Adventures of Robin
Hood . Now he remembered that Becky loved to
be read to from that book. Anne used to read it to her and now
she’d obviously talked Miss Prophet into doing the same.
    He was ashamed of himself for not
having thought to read to his daughter before this. Reading only
required his voice and some time. He wouldn’t even have had to
think of how to keep a conversation going. He’d only have had to
read words someone else had already made up and written down. But
he’d been too involved in his own grieving to read to Becky, and
now she had Miss Prophet to do it and didn’t need him
anyway.
    “ Damnation, will you stop
that, Aubrey Lockhart?” Hearing his own voice startled him. Yet the
question that had prompted the command was a valid one, and Aubrey
contemplated it as he gazed out the window and onto the happy
scene.
    Why did he always put the worst
connotation on things? He turned away from the window and wandered
to his desk. He didn’t used to be such a dismal specimen of
mankind. He seemed to have turned a corner somewhere in the last
couple of years, however, and now it was as if he barred good
thoughts at the door of his consciousness and only allowed the
depressing ones to enter. Frowning, he sat in his big chair and
drew a ledger forward. He needed to get some work done.
    Although he forced himself to
concentrate, from time to time snippets of song and conversation
came through the open window from Becky and Callie. They were
having a marvelous time. Aubrey knew he had no right or reason to
harbor this sense of ill-usage in his breast. It was his own fault
if Becky turned away from him and clung to Miss Prophet, who was
paying attention to her. Dash it, he was jealous. What a lowering
reflection.
    Later, he heard the word.
“monster” every now and then and assumed the play had turned from
Robin Hood to something along the lines of Frankenstein . Aubrey didn’t know that
he approved of Miss Prophet reading Mrs. Shelley’s eerie book to
such a young child. He might have to have a talk with her about it.
The prospect made him grip his pen more tightly and grit his
teeth.
    Irked with himself, both for being
distracted and, more, for being envious of Callida Prophet, he
finally rose and walked over to shut the window. He had to get some
work done. Rearing children was women’s work. He’d finally hired a
woman to do it. He had no reason to be offended because she was
doing it.
    No matter how hard he tried, however,
Aubrey couldn’t rid himself of the notion that Becky’s adoration of
her new nanny would be easier to take if her new nanny were
eighty-five years old and hard of hearing,
    *****
    Callie Prophet had been working as
Becky’s nanny—although it hardly seemed like work to her—for three
weeks before Becky showed her the letters.
    During those weeks, Callie had helped
Becky write letters to her mother in heaven. She’d answered the
letters she’d helped to write as well, feeling only a little bit
guilty about continuing to do so. After all, she reasoned, it was
important for Becky to know that at least one of her parents cared
about her thoughts and feelings.
    Becky’s father certainly
didn’t.
    Well, she temporized, forcing herself
to be honest, it wasn’t that he didn’t care, exactly. Actually,
he’d seemed a little