Page 62 of Lady Willa's Divinely Wicked Vicar
She clearly had to tell him more. She launched in, telling her story in a fashion that had little logic, and avoided the matter of love. “Charlie, I will be honest and tell you I have not conquered my anger at my father. Nor my mother for siding with him in this matter of my marriage to you. I should have fought them then, but was so lost in my own challenges that I failed myself—and you.”
His features fell to a torment she had never seen before.
“Oh!” She stepped backward then. “I have presumed too much, haven’t I? That you might still want me after I was such an idiot. I do…I do apologize for my tardiness and my stubbornness. And so much more that I—”
He rushed forward and grasped her hands and pressed them to his chest. There, his heart beat like ten drums. “Listen to me, my darling. I think the two of us have much for which to apologize to each other.”
She shook her head, lost in his rejection of her proposal and this new tack of his. “What? What? I’m asking you to marry—”
“I know, darling.” He cupped her chin. “Listen to me. You may not want to have me after you hear what I’ve decided.”
“Oh, Charlie. If you don’t love me, just say—”
He kissed her then. Quick and raw. “Be quiet.” And then he kissed her again. This kiss was sweeter, kinder, but as potent. His lips declared that he’d missed her, he’d feared for her and he needed her. “I love you. I love you, Willa. I have from the first moment I saw you in my pew.”
She drew back, searched his gaze. “If you love me, then—?”
“There is more you must know. Much that has changed. Hear me. While you had a mistaken belief that you may have inadvertently caused the death of your two suitors, I have mistakenly accepted the profession that was decreed for me from my youth. I do believe in God and all His good works. I do think guiding principles are necessary to live with grace and dignity, and I do believe all people need those principles pronounced on Sundays and every day. But I doubt I am the man to do it. I doubt I am a man who does it well. And I do doubt I should continue to try.”
He led her to sit down in the pew and he followed to sit beside her.
She was shocked, searching his eyes for clues to his ultimate meaning, for surely he had more to say of this new approach to his profession.
“During the past year, I have run my father’s estate. I divided my time between that and my duties here. I continued my articles for theReviewand have gained some recognition for the ideas I’ve expressed there.”
“The fame of Reverend Peoples spreads. The Vicomtesse knows of you.”
“Yes, after I told her of your relationship and mine, she and I spoke of much. I told her about my duties here and confessed much of my dismay about my role as vicar. She is a kind and loving person. You are fortunate to have her as a friend.”
“And as my almost-employer!”
“That, too!” He became wistful. “She, like so many, knows of the problems in the Church. How clergy are not necessarily called to their duties, but take them on because of their own need.”
“Poorly paid, too,” she said and grasped his hands in hers, “and overworked with more parishes than a man can adequately care for, a clergyman gives of himself and ofttimes his family to the point of ill health and despair.”
“And what can a man do for his flock if he himself fears for the future?” He gripped her hands tightly. “I love my work, my parishioners, but I agonize more about my inability to change their lives. Now, working for my father and our tenants, I see how a new plow can put more food on a family’s table. I see what a trench or a ha-ha can do to reclaim a field from floods and save a barn and a cow. I know that a higher yield of grain can put money in a man’s pocket and buy him strawberries from the market and a new bonnet for his wife. I have preached about the salvation of a man’s or woman’s soul when they die, but I rejoice at the smile on their faces when they have enough to eat and clothes to keep them warm. Rather than preach about the glories of heaven, I would rather work now for heaven on earth.”
“You will leave the Church?”
“I will. Can you see me as an ordinary man?”
“Charles Compton, to me you have ever been extraordinary. I love you as you are, whatever you wish to do.”
“As a man who stands for Parliament?”
That stunned her. “A perfect fit.”
“My father thinks so, too. I would stand for his borough.”
“Fitting that you should,” she said. “A perfect role for a man who wishes to change the lives of those who truly make this country great.”
“Men and women. There is much that needs improving for the fairer sex.”
“And don’t I know that, first hand.”
His green eyes danced merrily. “If I am elected, it’s work. For you, too.”
“A challenge that will bring meaning to every day.”
