Page 20 of Temptations of a Wallflower
I would be most honored to accept your invitation. In truth, I’ve done little but think of our conversation at my uncle’s house, and was most pleased to have received your correspondence. Do send me the details, and I will eagerly await you.
I remain,
Yours, &c.
Jeremy Cleland
Happiness rose up within her, bright as morning. It was a fresh, unfamiliar feeling—one she’d only knownin connection with her writing. But now the emotion soared up, unfettered. Should she feel this way? Relieved and joyful? And all for such a simple exchange of words.
Jeremy. Jeremy. She liked the sound of his name, and even whispered it to herself. Yes, it suited him well. If only she could call him by his Christian name rather than the more formal “Mr. Cleland.” She wished he might call her by her own name without the honorific “Lady” in front of it—yet that was too forward and intimate for people who had met but once. If she was a character in one of her books, she would be bold and call him by his first name. She’d insist that he do the same with her. Bringing an intimacy between them.
Yet she wasn’t one of her characters. She wasn’t Lady Josephina. This was reality.
Still, she held his first name close to herself, like a secret.
He would accompany her to the exhibit. Perhaps the fashionable trio might object to him being there. And yet . . . what did it truly matter what they thought? What value was their opinion? Perhaps she could learn from her own books and be daring. She could go after something she wanted. She’d pursued her writing career, after all. Now she could be bold in another part of her life.
Having Jeremy at the exhibition was for herself alone. Where once she might have dreaded the day, now she looked forward to it with the excitement normally reserved for working on a new story. Now, if only for a few hours, she might be the heroine of her own tale.
Chapter 6
At once the highwayman obeyed, climbing eagerly into the carriage and shutting the door behind him. The space within the vehicle was quite small, but it didn’t matter, as soon the stranger and I were in each other’s arms, caressing one another everywhere. He was strong and solid as an oak, and the instrument in his breeches was just as thick. Never were two people so frenzied, so eager for touch as we were that night. I wasted no time in reaching for his instrument of passion, taking it in my hands and . . .
The Highwayman’s Seduction
Jeremy had awakened that morning in a fever of impatience. The afternoon couldn’t come quickly enough. And now here he was, only five minutes away from seeing her again. He thought his heart might puncture a hole in his chest from beating so fiercely. All the other young women he’d met had seemed so pallid by comparison. Never speaking their minds. Without that blaze of intelligence or curiosity. Deprived of hidden sensuality.
He stood outside an elegant town home on Mount Street, while her letter continued to reside snugly in his pocket. He’d read and reread it a dozen times between receiving it and today. The words never changed, and he’d memorized them. It didn’t stop him from touching the paper she had touched, trying to find hidden meanings in the loops in her penmanship, some secret message disguised in an admittedly restrained, almost dry, letter.
The missive hadn’t seemed much like her. Much more contained, less expressive than he would have anticipated from the woman who had spoken with such candor, moved with such unconscious sensuality. Whatever the letter did or didn’t reveal, he’d been pleased to receive it. His father had even remarked on Jeremy’s high mood after the correspondence.
“Got a grin on you, my lad,” the earl had said sternly at breakfast that morning. “Isn’t seemly in a man of God.”
“Sorry, Father.” Jeremy had tried to hide his good spirits after that, though it hadn’t been easy. Jeremy knew all about wearing a professional demeanor like clerical robes. Though he was in London, away from his parish, he had to remember he couldn’t be entirely himself in the city. Not around his father, anyway.
Why was he so excited? It wasn’t as though his association with Lady Sarah could lead to actually courting her. Yet he couldn’t make himself see reason.
As he continued to wait, three extremely well-dressed people approached the town house. Two women and one man, all of whom could have stepped from the pages of a fashion magazine. They seemed well awareof their magnificence as they posed and preened in the pale sunlight.
“My goodness,” one of the women, a blonde, whispered loudly to her companions. “A vicar.Here.”
“He’s just a priest,” the brunette woman answered, not bothering to lower her voice. “Not a panther.”
“But what is he doinghere?” the blonde pressed. “There isn’t a church for a quarter of a mile.”
“Maybe he’s looking for souls to save,” the man drawled. “Yours is stained enough, Lady Donleigh.”
“Hush, you beast!”
Jeremy pointedly didn’t look at the three people as they spoke. Apparently, they thought being a man of God meant he was deaf, like a young man gone old before his time. Either that, or they simply didn’t care that he could hear them talking about him so blatantly. Neither option particularly appealed to him.
“I say, Vicar,” the man said, approaching, “are you lost?”
Jeremy turned and saw that the man was not only well dressed but handsome, as well. “Thank you for your concern,” he answered. “I’m waiting for a friend.”
At least he thought he might be a friend to Lady Sarah. He wasn’t really certain, since they had only shared a few moments in a sunlit garden.
Yet he did know her. Understood her a little. A young woman with a hidden vein of sensuality, constrained by her role in Society.
