Page 8 of Lady Willa's Divinely Wicked Vicar
She shivered…or so it seemed. “Why are we here among the flowers? Hiding, are we?”
He recovered his senses. “Not even, I’m afraid, escaping the violin’s cries for help.”
She chuckled, and as her laughter died, she bent near. “Well, then? What is it you wish to discuss?”
“Your proof.”
“My…proof? Of?”
“What in the world leads you to believe that you have contributed to the death of two gentlemen who loved you?”
A frown took over her mood. “I do believe that touches the problem. They did not love me.”
“They did not proclaim it, perhaps?”
“Nor know me well.” Now she scowled. “I count them proper not to have made any grand proclamation of undying love.”
“But they offered for you, so surely they cared enough to—”
“To want my dowry? Yes. To like my…eyes? Hmm. Or my…lips. Other parts of me?” She swept a hand before her firm breasts. “Why not? But me?Me, sir? I never asked. Did not learn. And one should learn, test the appearances, don’t you agree?”
“I do.”
“But I am harsh. I am to blame as well because I did not love either of them. I was swayed by order. What was expected of me. Of any woman. But then I must also excuse the men. The first gentleman who asked for me had little time to acquaint himself with me. He was kind. Sweet. Funny. He was to go to war, but he was no trained soldier. He should not have died upon that field.”
Charlie had counseled men who had charged into the chaos of canon and shot, others who’d been maimed in it, more who’d been about to die in it. Grief washed over him in a scalding wave for those he had not saved in any way, spiritual or physical. He struggled not to drown in it. “Where?”
“Albuera. Spain.”
Charlie had been there. Known many who fought. “A dreadful siege.”
“Aren’t all battles?” She asked, her sorrow tinged with anger.
“They are.”
“Why did you go? Violence is not what you’d condone. Why fight?”
“I did not take up weapons, but served as a chaplain.”
She exhaled, appearing flummoxed. “How could you go? How does any man?”
He gave the simple answer he knew so well. “Because it is expected. Much like you with the marriage proposition. It is what is done.”
“Not you. Not a clergyman.”
“I was raised by my father to be an honorable man who upholds his country and his king. I went.” He focused on the blood red roses. “I went.”
“Most of us do what we are told.” She set her jaw. “If we choose well within those parameters, we never regret our decisions. I agreed to the rules, the restrictions and it brought me no joy. I am asked to do so again.”
“You are to marry?” He froze. “Who? When?”
“Someone. Anyone. My father says soon. Before I am twenty-five and a spinster.”
“And you? What do you say?”
Tears sprang to her lids. But she blinked them away. “I say no.”
He had let her go. In his bed that night, he lay awake hungry for a woman, for her. That sensation was so new, he laughed at himself and his naiveté to believe he’d have to wait for many years to feel the pull of a woman’s charms. Silly, he knew it was, to want her so badly after only a few days, a few conversations, but he was committed. He vowed to not let her leave this house party without hearing his views on her predicament—and having proof of his growing affections for her.
