None of that had occurred.
No. The first time he laid eyes on her, he had discovered he could be enchanted by another being in a house of God. Her dark head bowed, she had sat in an old pew in the rays of sun bathed in pinks and reds that washed over her in heavenly hues. He’d remember until he died her lovely face and his loss of sanity and breath. Love at first sight, without reason, fully formed and rapturous.
But he could not have her as his own. The mere memory of her rejection and her father’s summoned uncommon anger.
He was not accustomed to rejection. What he had in life—a university education, violin lessons, his Army rank and even his position in his parish—he himself had demanded or earned. Roiled at her father’s abrupt rejection, Charlie had left her family’s home and returned to his vicarage. While he pined, he also criticized himself for vanity. If she had suffered as long or as much as he, he had not written to ask or to prolong the agony. He had left her with an injunction three weeks ago. Was she here to enact it? Propose to him?
Her father was within his right to refuse his suit. But he’d done so in anger. Without moral cause. Marriage to a lowly vicar in a small parish was not a socially acceptable choice for the daughter of an earl, an heiress, a blue-blood of Norman descent and cousin to Valois French royalty. No matter that he was son of a duke. No matter that the use of a house from his father and a generous salary this past year plus the living the Courtlands gave him brought him more than enough money. No matter his beneficent work at the Marlborough Foundling Hospital saving children, feeding them, clothing them, loving them. He could save the world. But if she would not fight to have him, he must not pursue her.
Despite what he’d done to improve his lot, he would not propose again to her. She had to come to him. And so…
He’d not go near her. He’d not attend the ball tonight. Ignore her tomorrow at the wedding and the breakfast reception. Then soon after she would leave.
And he would spend months once again imagining her smile.
He shook his head and slogged on.
Bugger it! He needed his luncheon. One of Mrs. Powell’s sturdy stews that would put lead in his stomach, blubber in his brain and send him to his favorite chair for a nap. To hell with finishing his sermon for Sunday!
Chapter 8
“Good afternoon, Ralston.” Wills smiled at the kindly butler who saw to the precise running of Courtland Hall as if it were a clock in Windsor Castle. “I’m so pleased to see you well.”
“As we are to have you, my lady.” He waved a few fingers at his footmen and her servants, dispersing them all to their duties of luggage and equipage. “A welcome note on your good health.”
“Yes, quite. My indisposition was mild.” Her ‘sniffles’ had truly been a foil in case her father did more than stomp his foot at her departure. She would have had to find another way to easily escape the house, but that problem had not come to fore. “I would not miss this event for the world.”
“We have you in the same accommodations as last year.” He led her into the spacious foyer, alive with the perfume of cut roses from Lady Courtland’s well-tended orangerie. “I imagine you wish to rest after your journey.”
“Briefly.” She pulled off her gloves and noticed the house was quiet. Surely her other school friends had arrived. The Livingston twins made it a point to appear to every event on time. Millicent Weaver, who had suffered a disaster here one year had written to Wills to say she hoped she’d see here here. Lady Fiona Chastain had written to say she arrived with another of their school chums. So many more would be here, looking for fun and eligible men. “Has everyone gone to the Frolic?”
“They have, my lady. If you wish, I can send a small tea to your rooms?”
“Lovely. My maid is lodged in my dressing room?”
“She is.” He stood to one side as Mary, her maid, nodded and took the broad staircase following one of the Courtland footmen.
“And Miss Harvey?” She’d love to have a few minutes alone with Esme. Her dear school friend had had a whirlwind courtship with her fiancé, the Marquess of Northington, and Wills wished to bask in the thrill of such a romance. Her own with Charlie had been all too sudden, too fleeting and oh so tragic that she questioned the accuracy of her memories.
“She is about. Shall I inform her you wish to speak with her?”
“I will wait until supper.” She dare not reveal her new course of action to anyone. Even her best friend.
“Shall I show you up, my lady?”
“You may indeed.”
* * *
By three o’clock, she’d visited with a few other guests until she’d exhausted all polite talk. Her conversation with Esme had been too brief and unrewarding because Esme was off to do work for her father. So it was time to pull up her courage and set out to grab hold of her future. She’d go to the village to view the last of the May Day festivities and find former school friends. Or that was her rationale, should anyone ask.
Tying her fichu about her throat, she picked up her bright red pelisse and secured the braided passementerie frogs closed. She perched on her head the tiny hat that matched her coat and patted the escaping tendrils of her chignon into place. Sighing at her lack of total success, she turned this way and that in the long mirror. Her hat, like all others she owned, slid to the side. Her mama often said that her inability to keep a hat on made her look tipsy.
Would that I were today. A bit of Dutch courage would be welcome.
If resolve made for valor, liquor was quicker. Alas, the Courtlands did not place decanters of the stuff in the ladies’ suites.
To rush her fate, she flipped open her little ivory accessary box in search of a hat pin. The pearl and ruby was the only remaining one—and she stabbed the long lethal thing into her straw concoction, then tapped the crown of her hat.
“Mary?” She called to her maid who was at work in the far dressing room.
“Yes, my lady?”
“I’m off to the village. Finish your sorting and rest.”
“But ma’am,” the girl said as she rushed to the doorway, “I should go with you.”
“Mary, I’m old enough not to need you to hold my hand.” The girl was six years younger and six inches shorter than she. In a melee, who would protect whom, eh? “And I know the way. I shall return in an hour or so.”
Off she went, grabbing up her little red purse and her short gloves. Down the main stairs, she hurried along through the foyer to the drive and the far lane to the village, inhaling the brisk May air, carefree as…Oh hell. Carefree as she was not.
I know what you are about, Willa Sheffield. (That was her mother’s voice chastising her when Wills was a naughty sprite of ten and picked all the seedlings from the winter box and threw them in the copse.) We see you.
No, Mama. You do not!
Not when she saw the charming limestone vicar’s cottage or at its rear, the little Grecian folly of white stone. The octagonal neo-classical structure was open to the air and sun and rain on three sides. Called ‘The Vicar’s Folie’, the tiny building was surrounded by a profusion of budding rhododendrons and supported by stone columns of four tall, muscular Greeks in scant costumes. The statues, which Wills swore left little to one’s imagination about the men’s virility, wore scant loincloths and grins that denoted their lascivious ambitions. As Wills passed, the four of them seemed to wink at her. In truth, they reminded her less of ancient splendor and more of one well endowed dark angel with a ready smile, a come-hither gleam and firmly sculpted lips a woman could kiss in the madness of passion.
Suddenly, that mouth was real. Those eyes smiled. That angel loomed over her, expectant, hesitant, handsome as sin.
She halted. She had hoped…oh, yes, honestly! She had planned she might see him here. God might be with her this time? Possibly?
“Good afternoon.” Sir? Reverend? Charlie, my darling. “How are you?”
He had his arm crooked up across a tree limb as if he’d just climbed down.
His white shirt, smudged with dirt and greenery, was open at the neck. The gap gave evidence to his heavy breathing and the fine black hair that covered the expanse of his chest and his ribs. Ribs she’d touched, traced. Yearned to…
The tiger kitten in his arm mewled.
He set her down.
Wills tore her gaze from him to watch the creature kick up her heels and scamper away. The little one trotted off without a thank you, ungrateful animal. But the man had won praise and medals for his habit of saving creatures.
He rose to his full height. She was taller than most women, but he was majestic, his towering height a comfort and defense. The full force of his green eyes bore down upon her as he ran both hands through the shocks of his coal black hair. “I am well, my lady. And I’m pleased to see you are, too.”
She tried mightily to smile, but her heart was not in falsehoods. “I’ve no sniffles.”
“I doubted the reports of your illness.”
She tipped her head toward the village. “I’m off to the events.”
“As you should be.”
She noted dark smudges around his eyes. Did he not sleep well? “How are you?”
He looked away and came back with a rueful twist to those full tempting lips. “You already asked me that and I told you.”
“Well! Then.” She feigned indifference to his small rebuke. “I had to come.”
“Of course you did.”
“For the wedding.”
“Of your friend,” he added.
But did he perceive the truth? Yes! It was the truth that she had come to see him. That she could not help her desire to see him, kiss him, want him. Oh! She stomped her foot. “You are not helping me here.”
“Should I?” A sharp note of reproof laced his voice.
“You’re a minister.” She rebelled. It’s my father who rejected you not me. “A man of God.”
He burst out in laughter. “And not a mindreader.”
“No, but—Ohhhh, good day to you!” She filled herself up with indignation. She’d engage him again when she had her wits about her. Or perhaps she’d ignore him. And so she strode around him.
But he caught her by the elbow. And stepped so close to her, she could smell his bergamot cologne and his anger…and adore the flash of desire she found in the depths of his large eyes. “I’m happy you’ve come, Wills.”
Her lips parted as she examined his ruggedly handsome face. “Not to see you.”
He winced and turned his head. “Not wise, that.”
Her brain was a jumble with yearning and desperation. What to say to a man who knew her so well he’d call her bluff on stalling a real discussion with perversions?
“We shouldn’t stand out here,” he said, as his bass voice burrowed into her resolve to leave.
“No.” Her agreement was right. Proper. “Let’s not.”
Verdant fury blazed in his eyes as he grabbed her hand. “Come inside.”
Oh yes.
He pulled her the few steps toward the front door of his cozy limestone home. Across the threshold, he tugged her. And when he shut the door behind her, when he stared down into her eyes, when he cupped her cheeks, when he unbuttoned her coat and tossed it to a chair, she knew her next move was wrong. But right. And necessary.
She stretched up on her toes and spoke on his beguiling lips. “I haven’t missed you.”
“Nor I, you.” He brushed his mouth across hers.
To touch him thus lit fires in her soul. Pulling back, she clutched his arms and stared up at him. Last year, he’d been so respectable to stand apart, to take her hand for mere moments, to dance with only his flashing emerald gaze caressing every inch of her. Last year, he’d been the fine gentleman, the faultless vicar, a pillar of righteousness—and virile masculine desires. “To want you gets me nothing.”
“Only more sorrow. For me as well.” He stepped back, swept two hands through his hair and inclined his head to offer her one of his two chairs before the fire. “You’ve come to talk.”
She sat—oh, dash it all!—of course she did! Sat like a nervous ninny on the edge of the cushion. Words tumbled from her lips. She wanted to summon his mercy. “I’m to have proposals.”
He snorted. “Three to be precise.”
“Someone wrote you?” Others knew of his desire for her?
He shook his head. “I read the papers.”
“Gossip sheets.” She threw him a wicked smile. “Do vicars read such rags?”
“This man does.”
Full of pride in him and satisfaction that he showed his jealousy, she feigned a laugh. “Papa is choosing them.”
“There will be more. And why not? It is the function of fathers.”
“He is disturbed I like no one.” No one but you.
“You will. Many honorable men exist in this world. Do not count any of them out.”
She fastened her gaze to his. “I don’t count them in.”
Charlie frowned and turned his face toward his fireplace. The symmetry of his profile was so perfect her fingers twitched to sketch it. To celebrate his perfection. “Does he know what you think about hurting those you love?”
“No.” She focused on her hands. “He’d call me daft.”
“We know you’re not.”
“I have evidence it’s true.”
“Not so, my darling.”
At his endearment, she was torn in two. Delight registered first because he hadn’t stopped wanting her. Sorrow came next, because he must not address her so unless he wished to disregard all the reasons why they would not match.
He opened his arms, palms up, as if he were inviting his congregation to stand and pray. “Sweet Wills, you have killed no one. They died of war and disease.”
“But I was to marry them and—”
“Did you love them?”
She pulled back. This was the topic she wanted to explore. And so she objected, but only by deflection. “You’re picking a fight, Charlie.”
He nodded. “Indeed I am. You did not really love them. No, you didn’t.”
“God was punishing me for—”
“For what? Being alive?”
“For agreeing to marry them and not loving them. Yes!”
“There. You’ve said it!” He looked as if he rejoiced.
“So now we know my fault!”
“No fault, Wills.”
“Yes. One most women have. To be forced to marry a man one barely knows for…for…society’s rules!”
“There you go,” he said with wry satisfaction. “Conforming to social order.”
“Isn’t that what we all demand of others?” she needled him. “Even you? Marry, as required. Procreate, at will. Provide and endure, forever.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “How might I argue that point?”
“Must you?” she taunted him.
“I prefer to hope that most couples care for each other with sufficient affection before they marry.”
“You hope. But it is not so. I have no hope to marry any of Papa’s nominees with any affection. It seems each of his candidates becomes more objectionable than the last. And of course, I do not wish to kill them with my lack of affections, as you call it. So I refuse each one.”
“Of course, you do. And justly so.”
“And he presses me the more.” Oppressed, she shot to her feet. “By the new year, I must marry.”
“Or what?”
She hung her head as hot tears stung her eyes.
He took her hand. “What will be your fate if you do not choose?”
“He hasn’t said.” But I know what it is. I have made my choice…too late for us. But a choice nonetheless. Tears spilled over her lashes and down her cheeks.
Charlie pulled her into his lap and dashed her tears away with his thumbs. He hugged her close, cradling her body to his torso, one hand pulling her legs up over his knees. “Don’t cry. Don’t.”
She snuggled against him as if she could burrow inside him and a
void the world.
“You didn’t love them.” He tipped up her face. So close to him, she wanted only to put her mouth on his. To savor him, taste his tongue and his raw need.
“How do you know?” she asked, in a dream of wanting him.
“I have proof, dear Wills. I am still here.”
She had never said she loved him. But he knew. This man of God intuited when one cared for another. How could she have not fallen for his consolation when she revealed how she feared for men she’d been engaged to?
“You cannot be certain.” Her voice was a whisper. “We’ve known each other days.”
“Conversing for hours,” he added with both brows arching high. “Laughing through more. Dancing for one.”
He did not seem to breathe for an eternity. If he had, she could say only that she wished to linger like this in his presence until she died.
He blinked—and the moment of communion vanished. Sadness dulled his beautiful gaze. “Why did you come, sweetheart? Didn’t you realize any meeting would lead to this?”
She swallowed. “I’ve made a decision about my future.”
“I see. Well then. Someone is in your sights. Who is it?”
You. Or no one. She licked her lips.
He watched her tongue trace her flesh. “Tell me.”
“I will if you do me one favor.”
He eyed her askance. “What?”
“Kiss me again.”
His expression fell to abject regret. “No more.”
She knew full well that every honorable inch of his body and his soul were his superb qualities. She clutched him close. Her nipples inside her layers and layers of clothing beaded. Her body flooded with wet desire. He hadn’t done more than brush her lips and hold her near, yet she blossomed at his proximity. “One.”
His eyes told her no. “What draws us together, Wills, is not kisses.”
She was being a witch, but when she left she needed to take memories with her. “I’ve never kissed any other man. Only you. You owe me one more.” Many more.
“Stop this, Wills. You cannot have more.”
“Why not? Are yours rationed?”
Lady Willa’s Divinely Wicked Vicar: Four Weddings and a Frolic, Book 4 Page 9
