Hot Under the Collar

by Jackie Barbosa

  With those words, he hopped down from the cart and opened the gate that fenced the tidy front garden of the modest, two-story house that had housed St. Mary’s vicar for generations immemorial.

  Artemisia snapped the reins. Sitting here to watch him, dewy-eyed, until he entered the vicarage would only invite more rumor and speculation than they undoubtedly already had.

  As she turned off the main road from town and onto the spur toward Finch House, she tried to ignore the curious lightness growing in her chest. Because he was right. He did have her sorted. Far too well for her—or his—own good.

  She would have to end it. Soon.

  But it could wait at least one more Tuesday.

  Walter removed his hat and placed it on a free peg on the rack that stood just inside the front door to the vicarage. The aroma of coffee—the one ingestible item that Mrs. Graham seemed capable of preparing properly—wafted through the house, and his stomach growled despite his certainty that, whatever the beverage’s accompaniments this morning, they would be either inedible or indigestible. Possibly both.

  Nonetheless, he sauntered into the dining room, inordinately pleased with the progress of his morning despite his imminent poisoning. Mrs. Graham stood at the sideboard, arranging an assortment of scones, sausages, and fresh berries on a serving platter.

  “Ah, here you are then, Mr. Langston. You were off right early this morn. I feared you might not be back for breakfast.”

  Taking his customary seat at the head of the small table, Walter poured himself a cup of the coffee from the silver decanter, which had been polished to a glorious shine. “I had an early errand to attend to, but I didn’t want to disturb you. I should have left a note.”

  “Oh, no, that’s quite all right,” she said. She picked up the tray and set it on the table in front of him. “You needn’t inform me of your comings and goings.”

  Walter’s lips twitched at her long-suffering tone, which belied her words. “But it would certainly be courteous of me to do so, and henceforth, I shall be more mindful of my manners.”

  He took a sip of his steaming coffee and sighed with satisfaction as he eyed the platter in search of the least objectionable items for his repast. Unlike the shriveled sausages, the berries, which must have been picked from the rear garden, looked to be plump and juicy. The scones, too, bore some resemblance to their intended appearance, being more golden brown than burnt. Perhaps he wouldn’t starve this morning, after all.

  After selecting a small scone and adding several heaping spoonsful of berries to his plate, he said conversationally, “I met Horace Finch’s daughter this morning. She gave me a lift back from town, as a matter of fact.”

  Mrs. Graham paled and swayed as though he’d struck her. Which was more or less the reaction he had anticipated. “But, Mr. Langston, I’ve told you about that woman. She isn’t at all an appropriate person for you to be seen with.”

  Ironic, in some ways, that this was more or less exactly what Artemisia had said. He smiled to himself. If there was anyone whose company he shouldn’t be seen in on the basis of past transgressions, it was his own.

  “You know the parish council can sack you on a moment’s notice,” Mrs. Graham added. “It’s not the Duke of Moorcambe you’ll have to convince to keep you on if you’re reputation is sullied.”

  This was certainly true. The Duke of Moorcambe, whose seat lay a few miles north of Grange-Over-Sands, owned the living for the vicar of St. Mary’s, but as he rarely spent more than a few weeks a year there, he left the running of the church to the parish council. This gave the council and congregation an extraordinary amount of power. But Walter wasn’t worried.

  Calmly, he took a bite of his scone. Dry and somewhat chalky in flavor, it could be made palatable by the addition of the clotted cream he had spied on the sideboard. “Would you bring me the cream, please, Mrs. Graham?”

  She did as he asked, but he could see she was fair to bursting with the need to dress him down for his poor judgment.

  As he poured the cream over the scone—and then the berries for good measure—he smiled up at her. “I appreciate your concern for my reputation, but it’s wholly unnecessary. If the good Lord could be seen with Mary Magdalene and suffer no ill effects, I am reasonably confident that my brief association with Miss Finch will cause me no undue harm.”

  The housekeeper opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, then shook her head. He did so love when Scripture supported his outlandish opinions.

  “I suppose you must be right,” she grumbled at last. “But I still say you should not be in her company too often. People might get the wrong idea.”

  Or the entirely right one. But Walter had lived his entire life tempting fate and taking chances. He wasn’t about to stop now.

  10

  “But he’s a carpenter,” Mrs. Thursby wailed.

  Walter nodded sympathetically. He sat in the Thursbys’ well-appointed sitting room with the couple, both of whom had reacted with equal horror to the revelation that their daughter had fallen in love with—and wanted to marry—an unsuitable. “Yes, Mrs. Thursby, he is, but that means he has excellent prospects for supporting your daughter. I feel fairly certain you would not object to her marrying me, and once Mr. Forster is out of his apprenticeship, he’s likely to earn a better living than I do.”

  “But you’re a vicar,” she sobbed. “Not to mention the son of a viscount. Forster is naught but a common tradesman.”

  “Mrs. Thursby is right,” Mr. Thursby put in. “Alice can’t be allowed to marry so far beneath her. It’s…quite impossible.” The older man nodded sagely. “She’ll get over him in time, I have no doubt, and see this decision was for the best.”

  “I’m not so confident of that, Mr. Thursby.” Walter had not told the Thursbys that their daughter was no longer in an entirely virtuous state; the knowledge seemed more likely to harden their position toward the union rather than soften it. He had to convince them of the wisdom of agreeing to the marriage without divulging that particular piece of information. “I have spoken to both your daughter and Mr. Forster, and I feel assured this is more than a passing infatuation. Moreover, unless you are willing to keep Miss Thursby under lock and key for the foreseeable future, the pair will find a way to elope. Surely it would be better to give them your blessing—and the financial advantage of Miss Thursby’s dowry—than to force them to take drastic measures.”

  Mr. Thursby’s round face turned ruddy. “You are suggesting that we should reward their intention to act against our wishes by allowing Alice to have her dowry?” He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms across his chest. “No. Never. I’d rather she lived in squalor.”

  If Walter were less of an optimist—or paying less attention to Mrs. Thursby’s expression—he might have been discouraged by Mr. Thursby’s vehement refusal. Instead, he was buoyant. Success was in his grasp.

  Mrs. Thursby dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief, her nose reddening. “Now, Mr. Thursby, perhaps we shouldn’t be hasty about this,” she said. “Alice has always been a good girl, and she’s doing the right thing by trying to get our approval.”

  Her husband harrumphed. “She isn’t trying to get our approval. Nor, by the way, is Mr. Forster, who’s the one who ought to be here, hat in hand, begging our blessing.” He looked sharply at Walter. “Why are you doing this, Mr. Langston?”

  “Because I’m a hopeless romantic,” he suggested.

  “From what you preach in church, I’d say you’re more a hopeful pragmatist.” Mr. Thursby was more astute than he looked. “Which means you must have a practical reason for doing this. I just can’t think what it is.”

  Walter turned his palms upward in a gesture of surrender. “You have me, Mr. Thursby. My reasons are purely practical. You see, I am hoping you will name the church as the successor beneficiary of the trust you’ll be setting up for Miss Thursby and Mr. Forster.”

  Mr. Thursby’s mouth dropped open. Clearly th
rown off balance by the introduction of this new development, he repeated, “Trust?”

  Twenty minutes later, Walter left the Thursbys with instructions that he could call the banns for the wedding of Miss Alice Thursby and Mr. Thomas Forster beginning next Sunday and a satisfied grin on his face. The trust had done the trick, as Walter had known it would. Armed with the assurance that he would control the purse strings for the foreseeable future, Thursby had given his consent—provided, of course, that Forster came to see him and made a formal petition for Alice’s hand in marriage.

  Everything was going exactly according to plan, and Walter couldn’t help feeling just a little bit proud of himself. Becoming the vicar of Grange-Over-Sands had seemed a rather painful concession that he would never amount to anything else. Now, he was beginning to wonder whether he might not amount to a fairly good vicar. As it turned out, people didn’t need help negotiating the spiritual world; they needed help negotiating this one. And this meant the qualities he’d thought a good vicar should possess—piety, religious conviction, and a strong sense of “vocation”—were not, in fact, particularly useful for the job.

  Fortunately, these were also qualities Walter lacked. In spades.

  On Monday afternoon, Artemisia took one look at the bank of thick, black clouds gathering to the east and decided she had best spend the night at the cottage. It was bound to be hossing it down by morning, and she didn’t fancy riding from Finch House in the rain. Of course, if the weather were bad enough, Walter would probably avoid the journey himself, but she preferred to be there on the outside chance the heavy storm portended by those ominous clouds didn’t materialize, as was often the case in spring and early summer.

  To that end, she had the groom hitch up the horse and cart, and after telling her father she would be away until late the following afternoon, she drove with her maid, Polly, at her side to the cottage by way of the main road. Just before they reached the junction of the road with the shortcut she and Walter had taken through Sandhurst land, she caught sight of a lone horseman traveling toward them. Her senses jolted with recognition. It had been more than a decade, but the man’s erect carriage and the proud line of his head and shoulders were instantly familiar.

  Robert Beaumont. The last man on earth she wanted to see, let alone speak to. And yet, there was no avoiding the encounter.

  He pulled his horse short at the juncture of the trail and the road, studying her as she drove closer. She knew the moment he recognized her by the predatory smile that cut through his still-handsome features.

  “As I live and breathe, if it isn’t Artemisia Finch!” he exclaimed, as though he were genuinely pleased to see her. As though he had not coaxed her virginity from her with promises of true love, impregnated her, and then convinced his friends and servants to claim she had freely given her favors to them as well as him.

  She wished there were a well handy.

  “I had heard you were back in Grange-Over-Sands,” he continued conversationally, pulling his horse alongside her cart. “Your father had an apoplexy, I understand. I trust he is on the mend.”

  He sounded genuinely concerned about her father’s well-being, and so she answered, “Yes, he is quite well, thank you.”

  That was all she chose to offer, however, hoping he would discern from her silence that she had no desire to renew their acquaintance, but really, when had Robert ever shown any sign of being perceptive? Instead, he turned to ride alongside her in the direction of the cottage.

  “They say you did well for yourself in London. A duke and an earl. I always knew you were something special.”

  If you knew I was something special, you ought to have treated me that way.

  Instead, she said coolly, “Weren’t you heading into town?”

  “Ah, yes, but I am in no rush to get there. I just got in from Manchester yesterday morning, you know.” He gave her a smile that would have dazzled her a decade ago. Now, she compared it to Walter’s and found it wanting. “First time I’ve been back in years.”

  “Well, I’m sure your family is happy to see you.” Unlike me.

  “We’ve a house party this week, you know. My mother thinks it high time I marry.”

  It was high time you married ten years ago when you got me with child.

  “I wish you every happiness, then.” Curiously, as the words left her lips, she realized they were not untrue. The years had taken the edge off her bitterness even if they had not completely eliminated her indignation. He had treated her badly, even shamefully. But they had both been young and foolish, and she was at least as responsible for everything that had happened as he was.

  Beaumont loosed a dramatic sigh. “The leg-shackle must come to us all, I suppose. Especially when the heir fails to produce an heir.”

  And there was the essential difference between them. She had grown up. He, it seemed, had not. Looking back, it was hard to remember what she had ever seen in him. To her embarrassment, she was fairly certain she hadn’t seen much in him at all, but rather in his family, their wealth, and their connections. Becoming a Beaumont had seemed a desirable end in itself, and the young, handsome, and exceedingly randy young Robert a convenient means of achieving that goal.

  What a ninnyhammer she had been.

  He looked at her earnestly and said, “I would like to call on you at Finch House tomorrow, if you’ve no objection.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. Of course, she had an objection. He was a bounder, a cad, the man who had ensured she would live out her days as a barren spinster.

  “I can keep you very handsomely, you know,” he added.

  Polly—who had begun working for Artemisia during her time in London and hence had no notion with whom her mistress was speaking—gasped, affronted by such blatant effrontery. Even in the world of the high-flying demimonde, where fiscal matters were of the greatest consequences, it would be considered crass to broach an offer of protection in such a mercenary manner.

  Artemisia pulled the cart to an abrupt halt. If she had a spare glove on hand, she believed she would slap his face with it and call him out. Instead, she said in icy, clipped tones, “I would sooner be kept by the devil than you, Robert Beaumont, but as it happens, I am not ‘available’ to anyone. As you say, I did very well for myself in London, and that means I am quite capable of keeping myself, thank you very much.”

  She had the satisfaction of seeing his jaw drop and work up and down in a rather fine imitation of a fish out of water. Rather than waiting for him to respond, she slapped the reins and nickered at the horse, who immediately broke into a trot.

  To her relief, Beaumont at least had enough sense not to follow her. When she looked over her shoulder as she turned onto the drive off her cottage, he sat his horse in the middle of the road where she had left him, watching her intently. Making mental notes.

  “I don’t like that one a’tall, Miss Finch,” Polly said, wrinkling her nose as though she smelled something off.

  That made two of them. A shiver of foreboding ran down Artemisia’s spine. She had a very bad feeling she not seen the last of Robert Beaumont.

  11

  Tuesday dawned to torrents of rain and fierce gusts of wind rolling off the bay. It was no fit weather for fish, let alone a gentleman and his horse. Walter debated the wisdom of making the trip to the cottage; after all, if Artemisia had any sense—and he had every reason to believe that she did—she would most certainly not attempt to make the journey herself. But in the end, he saddled Mercury and, wrapped in a heavy great coat, his beaver pulled low over his brow, made his way out of town. If she wasn’t there, he would understand, but he would never forgive himself if she had gone to the trouble of making the trip and he was the one who failed to make the appointment.

  By the time he arrived at the cottage, the lashing rain had soaked through his coat and sluiced from the brim of his hat, pooling uncomfortably between his legs. In all honesty, he hoped he wouldn’t find her there; he hated to contemplate the thought
of her traveling from Finch House to the cottage in this downpour. The steady stream of smoke issuing from the chimney argued that someone was at home, however, and so he rode around to the front, wondering how he would explain his appearance to the caretaker when he answered the door. One way or another, there was no way he could return to the vicarage until both he and Mercury were dry and the weather was vastly improved.

  Before he could dismount, the front door flew open. Artemisia stepped out onto the small stoop protected from the rain by the overhanging eaves. She wore a green muslin dress dotted with embroidered pink berries. Her hair curled loosely about her face and down over her shoulders. She looked captivatingly lovely, and, to his relief, completely dry.

  “I didn’t expect you—“ They looked at each other and laughed. They’d spoken the same words in unison.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” she said as he dismounted. “You shouldn’t have. You’ll catch your death.”

  He shook his head. “I’m more concerned about Mercury’s health than my own. I’ve been wet before and never suffered for it. Is there someplace I can get him out of the rain?”

  “There’s a lean-to round the other side of the cottage.” She pointed to indicate the direction she meant. “You should find some dry blankets there, as well.”

  After installing Mercury in the promised lean-to next to her horse, he headed back to the front of the cottage. By this time, every scrap of his clothing was soaked through, right down to his smalls.