They’d stayed only two weeks although she knew Magnus’s mother would have stayed indefinitely with their granddaughter if her husband had not put his foot down.
Melissa knew that neither of Magnus’s parents could ever love her. Indeed, it was questionable whether they would even like her. But they fiercely loved their favorite son’s child. Melissa was satisfied with their civility, although she knew it pained Magnus that they couldn’t accept her with open arms.
Perhaps the most unexpected visitors were Daisy and her husband, Joe.
Daisy, Joe, and Sarah had purchased an inn not far from Calais on the advice of Daisy’s friend Julia, another woman who’d once worked at The White House, but now lived in France with her husband.
Daisy sent regular letters and Melissa often read them aloud, bringing Magnus to tears with stories of three very English people in a country where they had no knowledge of the language. It was good luck for all of them that Sarah fell in love with the inn’s cook, who stepped in and saved the business from failure before it was too late.
Joe’s parents still operated the inn in New Bickford and were a constant source of information. It was through them that they learned a new vicar had come. Mr. Heeley, it seemed, had suffered from a weak heart. When he died from a sudden attack Mrs. Heeley had been fortunate enough to have a younger sister she could live with.
It was also through them that they learned about Sir Thomas.
“Burned to death ‘e was—in Mr. Felix’s barn,” Daisy told them during a visit Mel suspected she’d made especially to relay that information.
“How?” Melissa had asked, Magnus too shocked to speak.
Daisy shrugged. “I dunno. Neither does anyone else. It seems there was a lantern found in the wreckage.”
“Do they suspect Mr. Felix?”
“Oh no, ‘e was up in Lincolnshire.” She cut a look at Magnus. “It appears ‘e’s got a piece of land up there that’ll take care of that family of his.”
Melissa had gaped at Magnus. “Do you have something to do with this, Lord Magnus?”
He’d shrugged. “Perhaps.” But the slight smile on his face told her it was him. Her husband was no longer their curate, but he was still helping the parishioners of New Bickford.
“So if it wasn’t Mr. Felix . . .” Melissa began.
“Folks reckon Sir Thomas had a few too many and knocked the lantern over himself,” Daisy said. “Anyhow, that’s what the magistrate decided and most people seem keen to accept it and get on with things—especially Lady Barclay. He won’t be missed.”
No, that was certainly true, Melissa thought, turning the small sock to inspect a mysterious hole in the heel.
“Darling?”
Melissa looked up from her disastrous knitting to find her husband watching her, a gentle smile on his face. “I thought you’d fallen asleep,” she said.
“I was, but then I had a dream.” His eyes shifted to their daughter and back to Melissa. “An angel came to me and told me what we should name her.”
Melissa choked back a laugh. “Go ahead, then—let’s hear it, my lord. Tiger? Boots?”
He shook his head, his expression serious but gentle. “We should call her Hannah.”
As if she had been cued to do so, their newborn opened her magnificent blue-green eyes.
“Hannah,” Melissa said contemplatively.
Magnus nodded, tracing the sweet curve of the baby’s cheek with one big finger. “This Hannah will have a wonderful childhood, surrounded by people who love her.”
“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes on their beautiful little girl. “Hannah.”
Melissa didn’t realize she was crying until he looked up and said. “Oh, darling—what’s wrong?”
She smiled through her tears—happy tears this time—at the man she loved with all her heart. “Nothing is wrong, Magnus. Not one single thing.”
Thank you so much for reading MELISSA AND THE VICAR!
Keep reading for an excerpt from JOSS AND THE COUNTESS, Book 2 in THE SEDUCERS SERIES!
Chapter One
London
Alicia, Countess of Selwood, pulled on her black kid gloves and turned to the man on the bed. Lord Byerly was asleep, the fine Irish sheets he favored twisted around his slim body like the pale arms of a lover.
They’d been seeing one another for almost a month and already he’d become cloying, clingy, and apt to put his “mark” on her in public situations. He was an attractive man but a barely adequate lover.
He was also becoming a bore.
She picked up her reticule, opened the door, and closed it quietly behind her. Byerly, thankfully, kept his family’s house operating in London even though he was a bachelor. Alicia wouldn’t have consented to this union if she’d had to meet him in some dreadful lodgings. Although he kept the big mansion open, he didn’t have the money to properly staff it, which was also good because it meant she had no need to dodge servants and their prying eyes.
The only servant in the foyer when she descended was hers.
Jocelyn Gormley looked up from something he held in his hands—she squinted through the poorly lighted room, a book?—which he swiftly closed and slid into the pocket of his greatcoat. He got to his feet before she reached the bottom of the stairs and left to find a hackney without her having to ask.
Alicia went to the mirror that hung above a dusty, battered console table and inspected her reflection. Her honey-colored hair was pulled back in a smooth chignon rather than the fussier styles favored by younger women. Her skin was pale, translucent, and free of wrinkles—at least in the dim lighting of the foyer. And her gown as fresh looking as it had been when she’d left her house four hours earlier. She looked exactly like the Ice Countess, a name used behind her back and one she found amusing.
Gormley reentered, his massive frame filling even the oversized doorway of Byerly House.
“The hack is here, my lady.” His voice was toneless, the low, rough rasp of a man who rarely used it.
Alicia preceded him out the door and into the waiting carriage without speaking. The old, but clean carriage dipped precariously on its worn springs when Gormley climbed in behind her. He was a huge man with a history of prize fighting, which was partly why she’d hired him. He was also taciturn and self-contained—two other reasons why she chose to employ him as the servant who accompanied her on her most private of errands.
No words were exchanged on the short drive to her townhouse. Alicia couldn’t recall speaking more than a dozen words with the man since employing him a little over two months earlier—right after she’d made up her mind to engage in her first ever affair.
He was perfect for her needs. In addition to handling all the business she conducted between herself and her paramours he was also unflappable, polite, and unusually well-spoken for a man of his class. He also appeared utterly incurious about her and what she did on her late-night jaunts.
And he wasn’t only closed-mouthed around her; he was universally tight-lipped. Maude, Alicia’s maid and also her spying eyes in the servants quarters, assured Alicia that she’d hardly heard the enormous man exchange two words with anyone, and he never spoke about his mistress.
“I can’t decide if he’s dull-witted or extremely sharp,” Maude admitted. Maude herself fell into the second category. Alicia hadn’t told her maid that Gormley appeared to spend his time waiting for her occupied with a book—an activity which would indicate he was not stupid. Not that all smart people read. Alicia considered herself fairly smart but she never read if she could help it.
She looked away from her silent servant and stared out the window at the passing streets, which were peopled by men returning home after a night of debauchery, or perhaps just setting out for one. Young bucks bent on sensual pleasure—just like she was, in other words.
She thought back to her evening with Byerly and snorted. Pleasure? Well, in theory.
What was she doing with her life? Why had she believed a
n affair was what she needed to bring some joy to her colorless existence? She was no carefree aristocratic male in his twenties, no matter how much she might wish to behave like one. No, she was a woman of almost eight-and-thirty.
She straightened the seams on her already straight gloves, wishing she could straighten out her life just as easily. Edward had died thirteen months ago and yet here she was, still mixing among people who despised her, but who could not reject her entirely because of her wealth. An unpleasant smile curved her mouth. Oh, they didn’t know who she really was, but they could smell it—like one of the hounds the English upper class were so fond of—and they scented something about her that was not quite . . . right.
Not that her social life had been any better back in New York. No, society hadn’t been any warmer—quiet the reverse—but at least she hadn’t felt so foreign, so much like a traveler in a strange land.
Alicia was torn.
Some days—or nights, more often—she thought fondly of home; other times she enjoyed being a tourist, a visitor here—no real need to settle in and learn the customs of the natives because she would one day move on.
But she couldn’t leave until she could take Elizabeth with her. It was a vicious trap: she couldn’t go to New York without Lizzy, and David would never let Alicia take her.
She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and chewed it, allowing herself something she did not often permit, even when she was alone: a moment of despair.
But then she recalled she was not alone. She turned to look at her servant. Gormley appeared to be sleeping—or at least resting; he was certainly not paying any attention to her. Even so, she rearranged her expression and closed the door on the darkness that always threatened to leak out if she was not vigilant.
Besides, it was self-deluding to yearn for New York. There was nothing for her there; nothing but a past she’d been in a hurry to leave behind after Horace died.
Something inside her twisted at the thought of her first husband. Forty years older than her, the iron magnate had been in his sixties when they’d married. His body had been wrinkled, sagging, and covered with a pelt-like mass of gray hair—but that didn’t mean that Alicia hadn’t welcomed his hands on her. Indeed, she’d labored, planned, and schemed for the day he would take her to his bed.
Horace was one of the wealthiest men in New York—in America—he could’ve done whatever he’d wished with her and nobody would’ve raised an eyebrow.
She smiled. Well, except for the one thing he eventually did do to her: make her his wife. That had certainly raised enough eyebrows.
Yes, Horace had been good to her—not that she hadn’t given him everything she had in return. But really, how much had what she’d given him been worth? After all, she now gave it away for free to a sneering aristocrat like Lord Byerly: a man who offered little in return—not even sexual satisfaction.
Allie Benton, or what was left of her, chuckled somewhere in the dark confines of Alicia’s mind. Oh, if only these arrogant aristocrats knew the truth.
She turned from her black thoughts to the silent man’s profile.
It occurred to her, not for the first time, to wonder what he made of her activities. She was not so much to-the-manner-born that she didn’t know servants had minds, brains, and curiosity, just like the upper orders. Not that it mattered what he made of her activities. What mattered was that he kept his opinions to himself. The fact that he was gentlemanly in his speech and deportment just added to his suitability for the position of protector, messenger, and a dozen other roles.
Out of all the applicants to her rather vague advertisement, Alicia had liked this big quiet man best. He’d been a groom to Viscount Easton for almost eight years, a high stickler of an aristocrat who’d sent along a glowing letter of recommendation for Mr. Gormley.
Not that Alicia took the viscount’s word for it. No, she’d hired her own man to investigate her new servant—a man named Shelly, whom she’d used several times in the past for sensitive matters.
Mr. Shelly followed Gormley for two weeks before Alicia decided to hire him. While she knew such caution might seem excessive, it wasn’t. If David learned about her private life he would make Alicia suffer; he would destroy any chance at ever getting control of her daughter. Whoever she hired must, above all things, be discrete and trustworthy.
Shelly’s report had been short:
“Jocelyn Gormley, twenty-eight, grew up in London. His elderly father owns a small but prosperous butcher shop, he has two married brothers with children—the eldest operates the butchers now and the other works as a clerk in a counting house. One younger sister who keeps house for the father. Gormley visits them every servant half-day.”
“His mother?”
“She died when Gormley was fifteen. It seems she was a gentleman’s daughter who’d fallen on hard times. Worked as a governess before marrying Gormley. Neighbors remember her as a “lady” who not only taught her own children to read and write, but also several in the neighborhood. Apparently all four of the Gormley children are exceptionally well-spoken.”
Alicia had taken a moment to absorb this information, the two of them alone in her study. So, Gormley had received at least some education. She’d guessed as much from the brief interview. He was a man of few words but those he did use were not spoken in the accent of the streets. His accent was like that of the cits she’d met: wealthy English businessmen who put effort into aping their betters but could never quite manage to replicate the diamond-hard, clipped accents of the aristocracy. Well, neither could Alicia.
“Go on.”
Shelly flipped the page. “He has been employed these last eight years by Lord Easton, working his way up to second groom.”
Alicia did the addition in her head. “What did he do for the years before that?”
“After his mother died there was no more schooling. He went to work for his father but then left the shop when his oldest brother took over.”
“Is that when he went to Easton?”
“No. From what I can tell he did pursue his fighting for the three years before his uncle—on his father’s side—brought him on as a stable hand at the viscount’s.”
“Hmm, rather an odd transition, isn’t it? Butcher to pugilist to groom? Why did he leave the family business?”
“I don’t know what happened to make him leave home. Perhaps there was something between Gormley and his eldest brother—too many cooks spoil the broth.”
Alicia didn’t have siblings, but she’d seen her share of sibling rivalry.
“Apparently he’s sharp,” Shelly cleared his throat. “Not that you’d know it to look at him.”
Alicia had chuckled at that. “He does look like a prize fighter.”
Shelly flipped pages until he found what he was looking for. “He was still fighting the first few years he worked for the viscount. It seems Lord Easton enjoys wagering on a good mill and gave Gormley unusual freedom to pursue his pastime. But he rarely takes fights anymore, only those that offer a hefty purse.”
“Is he any good?” Alicia had seen too many men fight when she was young—for real—to have anything but repugnance for such an activity.
“He wins more than he loses, but he’ll never be one of the greats.”
“Why is he leaving Lord Easton?”
Shelly’s face, usually as expressive as an oak door, flushed.
His hesitation had made her smile. “I think you know I am not easily shocked, Shelly. Please go on.”
Shelly cleared his throat. “I spoke to a couple of the stable lads, who say Lord Easton’s eldest daughter has been loitering around Gormley lately and, well—”
Alicia took mercy on the blushing man. “I understand. She’s taken a fancy to our Mr. Gormley.” She drummed her fingers on the glass-like mahogany surface of her desk. So the man had applied for this position because he’d wanted to evade an amorous young girl rather than exploit her? His actions indicated either
wisdom or fear, or both.
She stilled her restless fingers. “Does our paragon of virtue have a lady friend?”
“None that I saw, my lady. Viscount Easton gave Gormley his evenings free, probably to attend mills. But Gormley is no longer fighting and he only left his lodgings twice at night in the two weeks I followed him.” Shelly stopped again, sucking his teeth in an unprecedented display of agitation before adding, “His destination both times was a very exclusive, er, brothel.”
Alicia’s eyebrows arched. “Indeed.”
“So exclusive no amount of bribery could gain me access.” His face was the color of a glowing coal. “Nor could I bribe or purchase reliable information as to what or with whom Gormley spent most of his evening, not departing until the early morning hours.”
Alicia’s heart sped and her palms became damp at the introduction of such a prurient, taboo subject. “Continue.”
“The brothel in question is perhaps the most exclusive in the city, operated by a woman—Mrs. Melissa Griffin—who is known to be exceptionally selective when it comes to her lovers. It’s rumored she even declined the great Wellington, who apparently offered her a good deal of money.” Shelly coughed. “It seems unlikely a man of Gormley’s, er, station could afford such a place. Which makes me think perhaps he was visiting somebody who works there—a servant, perhaps a maid or somebody on the kitchen staff,” he’d shrugged. “It is a large establishment that employs a great many people. He could visit any of them.”
Not to mention the women who actually worked there. They couldn’t all be as selective as their notorious madam if the place was still in business. But Alicia kept that observation to herself. She’d been more intrigued than she liked to admit by the man’s connection with such a place, but she’d let the matter rest and not paid Shelly to investigate any further. Besides, something about Gormley associating with such a place—a place that valued discretion so highly—demonstrated he was capable of keeping secrets.
So, Alicia had hired him. She had to admit she’d amused herself more than once wondering what Mr. Gormley did at the exclusive brothel. Just what would a sexual encounter with such a dour hulk of a man be like? He was the farthest thing from attractive, his features rough-hewn, his nose bent and re-set at least a few times, his heavy-lidded eyes a non-descript shade of mud brown, his mouth an impassive slash with thin lips that never smiled. But his body. She allowed herself a quick look at his well-clothed form now: he was one of the biggest men she had ever seen. Even in America, where the people tended to grow bigger, she couldn’t recall seeing a man so large. He should have looked laughable in the somber, well-cut clothing she’d had made for him—like a gorilla dressed as a man—but he didn’t. Alicia somehow doubted anything could make such a man look laughable.
Melissa and The Vicar (The Seducers Book 1) Page 33
