“You must kiss other men. Men you might wed.”
“I want no others.”
“But they, I am certain would want you, my darling.” He threaded two fingers through an escaping curl. “You must let them. Learn what it is to want and be wanted.”
He was too kind, too courtly. “I know what that is with you.”
He crushed her closer. “This is wrong.”
Beneath her derriere, his obvious physical desire made her proud and greedy. “Or oh, so right.”
He groaned. In two deft moves, he pulled her ridiculous hat away and dropped it to the rug. Sinking his hands in her hair, he bent her to him and took her mouth in the kiss she’d been fashioning in every dream of a life with him. His lips were hot and demanding, exactly as she hoped. She kissed him back, ravenous for more.
He lifted her chin and trailed hot kisses down her throat. “You are so lovely. I think of you, imagine you here with me. I wanted you to come. Glad you have. If you hadn’t, I would have come to drag you here.”
She laughed, her hands fluttering over his shoulders and up his throat to his strong jaw. “I would have liked to see that. Papa would become apoplectic.”
Charlie continued his journey down to the hollow between her breasts. And he slid the fichu away. “Hmm. No pins. How kind of you.”
Chuckling, she caught his chin. The dimples in his cheeks appeared. “I don’t want to make this harder.”
“Hard? My sweet woman, being with you—and not being permitted to have you will forever be difficult.” He brushed hair from her cheeks as she let out a hoot at his double entendre. “Let us laugh, darling. Laugh and giggle.”
She fought down the lump in her throat. “Ba, Reverend! You do not giggle.”
“But you do!” He tickled her ribs and she squirmed, squealing like a piglet.
“Stop, stop, stop!” She caught his hands. “Just kiss me again.”
His expression fell to despair. “Would that I might all my life.”
Tears burned her eyes again.
He cradled her close, tucking her face into the crook of his shoulder. “I will be good. I promise.”
They sat in silent communion for long minutes, he with his lips in her hair, she with her hand on his pounding heart.
“Gossips have it,” he said at last, “that your papa will not give up his quest to gain you a husband.”
“A proper earl’s family, drowning in money and swimming in land.”
Charlie picked up her hand and with his teeth, pulled off a finger of her glove, then all the others, and let it fall to her lap. Daring her to stop him with a gaze that seared her soul, he rolled open her palm and kissed her there. The tenderness of his homage called up more tears. He wiped them from her cheeks. “I’ve read of Lord Rasingdale. Is it true? Has he offered for you?”
“He talked with Papa two weeks ago, but has not asked me.”
“Coward.”
She pulled back. “You know him?”
“Eton.”
“Ah.” They’d gone to school together. “And?”
“Don’t marry him, sweetheart.”
“Dindon.” She grinned. The French word fit the man.
“A turkey?” Charlie hooted. “Oh, he is proud.”
“I can’t abide him.”
He tapped the end of her nose. “Good. And the others?”
She shrugged. “Lord Haver.”
“A goose. Shy of his own reflection. And the other?”
“Lord Shoreham.” She wrinkled her nose. “A bumpkin who loves his library so that his complexion is more pale than parchment.”
Charlie hugged her tightly, then pressed his lips to her temple. “Don’t settle for any man who doesn’t thrill you.”
“Papa is becoming adamant. He says the sooner I marry, the greater my dowry.” She was spilling all of this out to him and it was unfair of her to make him jealous. To tell him details. To summon ardor from him when she must go on to Brighton and leave him here. Alone. Alone as she would also be for the rest of her life.
“What? No. How can he do that?”
Sighing, she drew a fingertip down a prominent tendon of his throat. English inheritance laws were strict about dowries and jointures. “He can. Mama has argued. Her portion set aside for me is a fine amount. Three thousand a year plus the land next to her younger brother’s plot in Hove near Brighton. Papa tells us he will give another five or six thousand a year and the sooner I marry, the more thousands he’ll add.”
Charlie bit his lip.
She spread her fingers over the might of his broad chest. Firm and warm, this man pulsed with all the grace and dignity of humanity. “I see you fighting the urge to curse.”
He trapped her hand against his heart. “Soldiering is bad for the vocabulary.”
He was vital and principled, everything a man should be—and his wry humor tore her in two. “Oh, Charlie, I cannot marry a man I don’t want. I won’t allow any man to touch me who cannot love me. Why would any woman want that? It’s the devil’s work.”
Anger and jealousy flashed across his face.
She would have him. Must. Before she left, she would have him! She shot to her feet, brushed her glove to the carpet and pointed toward his bedroom to the side of his huge fireplace. “Come with me.”
Wary, he stood but did not budge.
She frowned at him.
Curling his hands into fists, he held his ground. “I won’t.”
She flung back her hair, now totally undone and flowing down her back. “I need you to do this for me. Make love to me. Show me what it should be.”
“Is this what you’ve decided?” He stilled, rigid, his eyes wide with horror.
Hmm. This was not what she had intended when she arrived, no. But not a bad idea now that she was here and aching for his affections.
Without waiting for his response, she took the few steps into his bedroom. It was spacious, warm and surprisingly neat, the bed made, the clothes press arranged just so, candles at the ready near his only chair, a woolen knit blanket across the back. She strode to the foot of his bed. With a nod, she admired its size. More than big enough for two. Determined, smiling what she was certain was an evil grin, she yanked off her other glove, dropped it to the bed and reached around to undo the laces of her gown.
“Wills.” He appeared by her side and turned her to face him. He put his hands around her waist to cover her own busy fingers. “Don’t do this, my darling.”
“Shall I simply climb into your bed and throw up my skirts?” The voice she heard was hers and thin as paper.
“Don’t make this more difficult than it is. I am bound by a morality that will not permit it. God knows I am not the best man to deliver his Word but I do try, Willa. I do try.”
She would not beg. She dropped her forehead to his chest.
With a kiss to the crown of her head, he whispered, “Don’t move.”
Chapter 9
His body demanded her but his mind refused her. Clear that he must stop following her risqué lead, he strode into his main room and headed for his liquor keep. The fire was so high in the hearth that he thought he’d go up in flames as well. Why had he fallen in love with a woman who was forbidden to him?
With a shaking hand, he unstoppered the wine decanter. He’d talk Wills out of this seduction.
A click of the lock in his front door caught his ear. The handle turned. And then the wooden hulk banged against the wall.
He spun.
“Charlie!”
“Jesus!” He gaped at his intruder. “Esme? Do you knock?”
“Oh, Charlie.” His friend, who was to be a bride tomorrow, halted in her stride and took in his state of undress. She grinned. “I am sorry. Did I frighten you?”
“Hell, yes!”
“Tsk, tsk, Vicar. Your rhetoric is scandalous!” She laughed, the minx, and strode toward him, feigning nonchalance.
He could not move, one hand on the bottle, one on a glass. How to explain the
shirt around his waist and—he winced—Wills’s little purse and frilly fichu just there in his home?
“You anticipated my visit!” she exclaimed though he figured she was simply pulling his leg—and trying to ignore his bare chest. “Wonderful! I came for a drink, a quote and advice.”
He squinted at the ceiling. How to send her on her way? “All right. We’ll be quick then. Wine, first. Quote, second, and advice, third?”
She brushed back a stray lock of her dark hair while she took her sweet time considering his bare chest. How could he give her spiritual advice when he stood here half naked? “Wine, then advice. Skip the quote.”
“As usual.” He rolled his eyes, then filled the second glass he’d intended for Wills and gave it to her. “Sit. I shall return with all you need.”
“Promises I need you to keep.”
He snorted and strode off into his bedroom.
Wills sat on his bed, her dark brows dancing in mirth.“Esme?” she mouthed.
He gave her a nod, then went to his clothes press to get another shirt. Pulling at the ruined one round his waist, he dropped it to his laundry basket. But he froze when she came and wrapped her arms around him. Then pressed her warm lips to his back. Her kisses were brands upon his skin. The touch of human love that made a man—any man, this man—yearn for more.
He spun. “Don’t.”
But she would not be deterred. She stretched up and brushed her soft lips across his. His blood surged to flames and his arms wrapped her flush against him. God, she was so supple, so giving. He pressed his mouth to hers, his tongue parted her lips and he tasted her surrender sweet as honey. To want her like this was so wrong. His mind screamed at him to stop. Stop.
“Have you been at the frolic all day?” Esme called to him.
“No.” He unwound himself from Wills’s embrace and frowned at her. She wiggled her brows. He shook his head and struggled to put on his shirt. He made up a bit about visiting a parishioner and yelled to Esme. “Why aren’t you thrilling your mother and getting dressed for the ball?”
“Because I’m here with you!”
Wills ran her hands up underneath the tail of his shirt and giggled.
“Stop that,” he whispered and planted his lips on hers to quiet her. She giggled anyway, and he caught her close. She widened her eyes at him and he had to laugh. He raised his voice to Esme and said, “I see. Soaking up the wisdom of the church, are you?”
“I am,” she replied.
Wills wiggled free, then tucked his shirttail into the top of his breeches. Her help dressing him filled up his mind with immoral thoughts of having her hands delve lower and cup him and…
He cleared his throat, and drove his thoughts to Esme. “Come for comfort before you enjoy the temporal fruits of love?”
Wills’s eyes danced merrily at that.
He scowled at her.
She lifted her brows, unrepentant. The termagant.
“I do need to talk to you,” Esme called on a more serious note. “I’m expert at the temporal pleasures. Always have I been indulged.”
He sucked in his breath at that statement. He must end his own indulgence. He put Willa’s hands firmly to herself and motioned to her to stay put.
“Don’t worry, Charlie,” Esme called from his gathering room.
He strode out and threw Esme a tolerant smile.
She met him, a sheepish look on her pretty face. “Aside from my vices, Charlie, I can say I’m still a virgin.”
“All credit to your fiancé,” he teased her, but his mind burned with his own lack of purity. He wanted Wills as a man and he couldn’t have her. He wanted Wills but as a vicar, he shouldn’t have her. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. A man of the cloth, he was supposed to be virginal in thought and deed. But he’d left his naiveté behind at age twelve when his best friend at Eton had been beaten to death by two bullies. Again at nineteen when he’d vomited after a cousin died, cut to pieces, in a knife fight. Nothing compared to the bloody carnage he’d tramped though on Spanish plains. Nor should he talk about anyone’s sexual life. He rarely had a need. But now he should not be discussing the morality of the daughter of that man who gave him his living.
Esme strolled closer, examining him. By the light in her eyes, he could see she knew he had thoughts other than her own pressing subject. “Well, there you have it! You do not trust me. But Northington is a gentleman.”
“Thank the Lord.” He tucked his white shirt more firmly in his breeches, then sat in the opposite upholstered Queen Anne chair. His wine decanter within reach, he topped up his glass of good red. “To your health, Madam Marchioness!”
She drank, taking her leisure before speaking again. “That’s what I want to discuss. My health.”
“Ha! Then you need a doctor or a chemist. Not a priest.”
“You consult on unhealthy humors of the soul.” She took another sip and settled back into the sumptuous cushions.
“Esme, you rid yourself of unhealthy humors years ago.”
“Bah. How do you know?”
“I rid myself of mine at approximately the same time.”
“Your’s were worse than mine.”
He lifted his glass in a toast. He had served in Wellington’s renowned army in Spain and witnessed more atrocities than he could count. Those horrors were primary motivators of his return to the clergy. “Indeed.”
“Forgive me for pointing that out.”
He pursed his lips and stared at the fire for a long minute. Then he lied. “I’ve come to terms with it.”
“Serving here can be peaceful.” From her skirt, she picked off two tiny crawling black insects.
He handed her his handkerchief to crush them.
She sagged in the chair, glum and melancholy.
He tried to draw her out. “The atmosphere soothes the soul.” He considered his glass, half empty now.
“I wish mine were soothed.”
“What bothers you, my dear Miss Harvey? You are about to become a bride of a man you adore. Or so you have told me. Have you changed your mind?”
“About Giles? No. Or rather…maybe.”
He slapped an open hand to his heart. “There’s a chance for me then?”
“Never.”
“Ah, well.” He took another draught. “A man can try.”
“You had better try instead to curry favor with your only love. Willa arrived finally,” she said.
He did not dare to blink an eye.
“Did you know she arrived?”
He stiffened. “That she’s here? Yes. That she does not care for me any longer? That too.”
“Who said?” she challenged him on a laugh.
“I do. Enough of me! What ails you, dear lady? Nerves about the wedding night? The vows of obedience? Or is it the family you take on?”
“You mean the duke?”
He nodded. The Duke of Brentford, Esme’s fiancé’s father, was an old libertine.
“I take him on not at all. In fact, I expect not to see him for years.”
“He may appear tomorrow. Then what will you do?”
“Offer my cheek?”
“Ah, yes. Your cheek—” He tapped his finger on his own. “Or your cheek?”
“Whatever gets me through the hour.” She downed another swig of her wine.
“And your larger problem? The wedding night? I assure you, love makes any night—or day—a pleasure.” He paused for a moment, the temptation of Wills stirring his wayward body. “Even the first for a virgin.”
She giggled.
He snorted. “You’ll become addicted to the joys of it.”
“You speak from experience with virgins, do you?”
“Yes. Once I was one.”
She threw back her head to chuckle.
He winked at her. “Oh, Esme. Northington cares for you and he will make it fun.” As I wish I could for Wills.
She picked at her skirts. “I always hoped so.”
“Well, then? Has your moth
er not taken you aside to explain the mechanics of the deed?” To be a true prude, he should not ask, he should not offer, he should not even think of the delicious ‘mechanics’ of that stirring act.
Esme’s cheeks turned bright red. “Oh yes. It sounded…terminally boring.”
“This piece fits there? A slight sting? A few kisses and we’re done? Babies come forth, viola!”
“Word for word. How did you know?”
“It must be a litany mothers share.” Every woman deserved to know the possibilities of joy. “My sister told me what Mama told her when she was to wed the Earl of Sudbury. Shall I finish the tale?”
“Yes. But all I want to know is, is your sister happy now?”
“Embarrassingly so.” I told her she should allow herself the glory of release. “She dotes on the man. He on her.”
Esme grinned. But then she frowned. “So…they have found pleasure?”
“Quite a bit of it. She doesn’t say, of course.”
“But you know because she…what?”
“Looks…” He waved a hand. “Dreamy.” Sated. Yet always hungry for more.
“Ah.”
Charlie sat forward. “Do you worry about pleasure?”
“I do.”
“Don’t.”
She scowled. “Can one have too much?”
Time to confess. “No.”
“Horses don’t seem to have it,” she blurted.
He gulped. “You’ve seen—?”
She nodded. “I have. Good heavens, Charlie! My father breeds horses.”
His laughter rang around the tiny room. “Forgive me,” he said and wiped tears from his eyes.
“Of course. And dogs don’t seem to like it either.”
“Dogs?”
“Papa’s hunters.”
“Yes.” He nodded once, envisioning the many ways he might embrace Wills and give her heaven. “Quite.”
Esme leaned over. “Why not?”
That seemed simple. “They are not humans, my dear.”
“But if I feel this burning need to—”
“What?”
“Why do I want more than kisses and other things from Giles if it is all so perfunctory?”
“Well, my dear girl, it is not. It’s glorious. It’s heaven. Or the closest you will ever get to it here on earth. But please do not tell anyone I advised you of that.”
Lady Willa’s Divinely Wicked Vicar: Four Weddings and a Frolic, Book 4 Page 10
