Page 31 of Lady Willa's Divinely Wicked Vicar
Eunice snarled at her husband.
Charlie swung round, determined to let man and wife argue it out. These days, he had less and less patience for those who would not help themselves.
He strode away, cursing to himself. A bad habit he must break. He took pains not to excuse himself for it either, as had been his want for so long. Perhaps, he was suffering from lack of favor by God since not only had Willa refused his suit, but also her father.
Over the past year, he had certainly taken more gratification from serving his father, his editor and the foundling hospital than he had preaching sermons or tending his flock. As Reverend Peoples, he’d published two novels and thrown himself into writing a third. While he was more confident of his income because of all his extra duties, he questioned with greater frequency his decision last year to return to serving the church. He certainly had no saving grace to offer many in his parish. Tom Stockdon continued to love to settle his differences by using his fists on his neighbors. Two little girls, daughters of a sweet widow, had fallen into the icy river last winter and drowned. Annie Wargins had died in childbirth. George Billoughby would not stop his love of liquor.
What good was he doing here?
He trod the lane, kicking one stone and another to punctuate his anger.
A movement caught his eye.
He paused as he examined the Courtland mansion through the apple trees. A carriage approached the house along the circular drive. At sight of the smart yellow traveling coach drawn by four blacks, he identified whose it was. His heart gave a leap of joy just as his stomach clenched.
Wills. Charming Wills. Laughing Wills. Superstitious Wills who thought she killed men who wanted her.
Why not marry me, my lady? No one can kill me. I’ve proven that on more battlefields than I can count. And here at home what kills me is my failure to help anyone.
But he couldn’t marry her. Her father would kill him if he did. And he would hate himself for splitting their family in two. So there was all that.
Garr! He resembled a girl plucking petals from a daisy, reciting foolishness. Young and yearning for a solution that was invisible. Impossible.
But his feet would not move. His eyes had to feast. The elegant figure dressed in vermilion alighted from the coach. The Courtland family butler Ralston fluttered around her. She addressed him in her animated way, her little redhat with three huge white feathers waving gaily in the breeze. The little chapeau teetered on the wealth of her ink black hair and revealed the long line of her neck. She was a swan, gliding forth in a world that celebrated her beauty and her humor, as it should.
He mashed his teeth together. If she were his, he’d stomp on every damn hat she owned, discard every smart pelisse and gown to make her his in the flesh. Her glorious flesh.
As if stricken, she paused upon the stones and turned toward him. Did she sense his gaze? He believed it, silly man. Could she see him amid the foliage? Vain of him, but he hoped so. He wanted her to want him…and knew it was silly to tempt her—and him. He knew her line of sight because last year whenever he’d found her, he had a sense of her presence, long before they’d spoken. In the past year, he’d often halted at odd places at odd times of day or night to stand, paralyzed, recalling a moment with her here, an hour with her there. He’d remember how she walked, a flow like water rushing downstream, graceful and swift. She’d dazzled him, an ivory-skinned beauty with a faint pink blush upon her cheeks and mouth. When she spoke, her voice matched her essence, lyrical and lovely—and deep. She’d stolen his breath with her delicate Renaissance beauty—and stolen his heart with her insight.
Oh, blast it! A man who cannot make his body do what it must to walk on is a man who is dicked in the head. And God knew, fighting Napoleon, snatching up a man’s severed arm, replacing a soldier’s intestines in his belly or walking two miles with a bleeding man in his embrace should have made him crazier than falling in love with a woman he could never have.
Right.
Except that was not so. He’d done all of those things in the heat of battle. Automatically. With conviction. Saving comrades in arms, friends, strangers. Now he wanted her the same way. Without reserve. Instinctively. And he could not save himself from the tragedy that he could not possess her. Nor she him.
He swung away, clenched his fists and strode the path to his cottage.
What had she done in the few days he’d gotten to know her last year that had so enchanted him?
He’d asked himself that for months.
She’d not been prim or self-impressed.
That would have driven him away faster than a free Season subscription to Almack’s. He’d met his share of ladies who searched for a marital means to leave home and the sufferance of their papas.
She’d not feigned interest in the Church.
That would have made his skin crawl. He’d met the overly pious in spirit and he much preferred those who displayed affection for the Almighty in deed.
Nor had she done that most objectionable of acts: She’d not pretended interest in him because he was a son, albeit the youngest son, of the Duke of Southbourne.
If she’d preened and done the pretty for him, he would have given her his most officious Reverend-of-the-Ugly-Eye-who-Brooks-No-Flirting stance. That beast had scared off many a maid.
None of that had occurred.
No. The first time he laid eyes on her, he had discovered he could be enchanted by another being in a house of God. Her dark head bowed, she had sat in an old pew in the rays of sun bathed in pinks and reds that washed over her in heavenly hues. He’d remember until he died her lovely face and his loss of sanity and breath. Love at first sight, without reason, fully formed and rapturous.
But he could not have her as his own. The mere memory of her rejection and her father’s summoned uncommon anger.
