Page 47 of Temptations of a Wallflower
A few short minutes later, he found himself standingin front of the address taken from the parish register.
And stunned everyone around him by laughing aloud.
It was a shop selling women’s undergarments.
By God, she’d fooled him. The Golden Woman, the Lady of Dubious Quality, had tricked him. She must have known that someone might go looking for her, and she’d worked hard to obscure her trail.
Still, he had to be certain. He entered the shop, the bell ringing cheerfully as the door swung open.
His face flamed. Mannequins were laced into ribbon-trimmed stays, and countless trays were filled with filmy stockings and sly, satiny embroidered garters. He’d never been confronted with so many underthings. They were everywhere. On countertops, in glass-fronted drawers, draped across tables and display stands.
A pretty redheaded clerk, slightly older than Jeremy, approached him with a bemused expression.
“Is there something I can help you with, Vicar?” she asked. “No one here’s in need of saving.”
A young girl behind the counter giggled.
“I’m not here on matters of doctrinal concern,” he said.
“Then what brings you to my fine establishment?” she pressed.
“Are you Mrs. Chalbury?” he asked.
“I’m Mrs. Hart,” the woman answered.
“Does a woman by the name of Mrs. Chalbury live above this shop?”
She shook her head. “There’s a tailor above us. No one named Mrs. Chalbury.”
“Nor any employees who answer to that name, either?”
“Just myself and Jeanette,” the clerk said.
“I see.” He turned to go.
“Is there anything else I can assist you with? Something for your wife, perhaps?” She held up a pink garter worked all over with tiny roses.
He could just picture that wrapped around the silken flesh of Lady Sarah’s thigh. But then Lady Sarah melded in his imagination with the Golden Woman, and he couldn’t tell if he was aroused or confused. “Uh . . . no thank you.”
Hurrying outside, he paused to collect his breath. His head spun, and he looked up at the pale gray sky, gathering himself.
She’d led him on a dance, the Lady of Dubious Quality. One where she knew the steps, and he stumbled over his own big feet. Admirable, really, that she’d thought so far ahead, anticipating his moves, knowing how to outwit him. Respect for his intended target grew.
He’d have to find another way of tracing her—though he’d have to ponder the how of it later. If only it was late or early enough for him to go for a swim that he might clear his mind. Instead, he walked with a wide stride back toward his father’s house, letting the movement and momentum override the thoughts that crashed against each other.
Two women filled his mind: the Lady of Dubious Quality, also known as the Golden Woman, and Lady Sarah. They were forever apart, yet they occupied his every thought, the beat of his heart and movement ofhis body. He wanted all of them in different capacities. And he could have none of them.
Everything fell into place when Sarah picked up her quill—the external world dissolved, all questions and concerns evaporated like morning mist the moment the pen was in her hand. She had no doubts about herself or what she wanted out of life. Energy and purpose flowed through her as she sat at her desk, a blank sheet of paper in front of her. The stories were her stories, her breath and pulse.
She’d sequestered herself in her usual spot in the Green Drawing Room. It was an old-fashioned chamber that had been neglected when her mother had remodeled and redecorated the house ten years ago. Few ever came in here. So Sarah had claimed it for herself, setting up a little desk and a goodly assortment of quills and paper to feed her compulsion to write. Her mother always assumed that Sarah spent her time in here either writing letters or keeping extensive journals—never suspecting that the locked bottom drawer of Sarah’s desk contained manuscripts for Lady of Dubious Quality books.
Her mother was out shopping today, leaving Sarah in blissful peace. Wasting no time, she’d immediately gone in to work after breakfast. This latest story was coming together nicely, with Lady Josephinaand her university professor engaged in a torrid affair. They had made love in his study, as well as in a library.
Would Lady Josephina stay with the professor? Did she settle down with one man? Or would she move on to another lover? The idea of her heroine foreversearching for a specific man to satisfy her desires, always on the hunt, never finding a true companion . . . it didn’t sound as appealing now as it once had. Perhaps she would find completion in the arms of a single person. The most unlikely man. The professor perhaps, a scholarly man, serious but witty, insightful and thoughtful . . .
A tap sounded at the door.
Sarah quickly sanded her sheet of paper, then slid it underneath the blotter of her desk. “Come in,” she called when the evidence of her writing was secreted away.
