by Jo Manning
Behind him, he heard the earl’s cackling, derisive laughter. It rang harshly in his ears.
Chapter Nine
…I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!…
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warm, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light…
—William Wordsworth, “She Was a Phantom of Delight,” 1807
The moon and the night were communing, or so it seemed to Charles when he rushed into the garden and saw Sophia’s pale hair brushing against Brent’s dark head. They were closer than close, it seemed, touching intimately. Charles felt a murderous rage; the lewd scene on Dunhaven’s snuff box burst into his brain, mocking him. He approached the pair, hands itching to wrest them apart. Their heads bent over a prolific stem of Blanca, Gloriosa, they were chatting amiably.
Charles drew in his breath sharply, clearing his head. Simply smelling snuff had set his brain buzzing with vile thoughts unworthy of the vicar of St. Mortrud’s Church. He was ashamed of himself.
Lady Sophia looked up at his approach, her smile sweet and welcoming. “I was showing Lord Brent our unusual rose, Mr. Heywood. He would like to take a cutting home for his father, who is an amateur horticulturist.”
Charles restrained the impulse to snort. Gammon! He’d bet a monkey, not that he was a betting man, that Brent’s father didn’t know a rosebush from a field daisy. The man was attempting to install himself in Lady Sophia’s good graces, even admiring her blasted roses. “Indeed?” he replied, forcing his face muscles into what was more grimace than genuine smile.
Sophia frowned. The usually mild-mannered vicar was decidedly out of sorts; she immediately recognized the difference from his habitual demeanor. They had been interacting daily for several weeks now, and she felt she knew his humors. He had none, really; he was astonishingly even-tempered.
A thought leapt into her mind, a lovely, welcome thought! Mr. Heywood is jealous! Of Lord Brent! So, all was not entirely lost, then. Jealousy was a volatile emotion, as she well knew. A memory of the woman who’d won her last lover flashed across her mind, and she winced. Oh, yes, she knew jealousy. It was monstrous and it was powerful. Sophia would wager that it was an emotion Charles Heywood had never really experienced. She would take full advantage of that knowledge.
Sophia put one arm through Brent’s and offered the other to the vicar. She was in her element, now, a man on each side. She smiled; it was almost like being back in London. She had missed the open admiration of handsome young men such as these. Slanting a glance first at Mr. Heywood and then at Lord Brent, she compared them. Brent was a charming devil, saturnine and wearing his masculinity easily and well, but Charles had a quality she had rarely encountered. She realized more each day that he was a good, moral man. She swung her gaze toward him again. And why did his looks attract her more, now, than those of the virile male on her other arm?
Sophia frowned. What was there about Charles Heywood that touched a side of her she’d never known to exist? He warmed her heart and melted her insides. She swore she could feel herself melting, like chocolate left outside in the sun. What was it about the man? She vowed to find out.
Edging her body closer to the vicar’s, she noted the clean, fresh smell of his person and the particular shape of his mouth. She adored that short upper lip and remembered pressing her lips against his and nipping at that sweetness. Her body grew warmer and suddenly she wanted Brent gone.
“Lord Brent,” she purred seductively, “I forgot my wrap. Would you be so kind as to fetch it for me? The air is cooler than I thought.”
Looking displeased to be singled out for fetch-and-carry, Brent nonetheless bowed and hastened to do the lady’s bidding. Sophia turned to Charles.
“Well, Mr. Heywood, alone together at last…and in the rose garden.” She placed her hands on his chest and looked into his gray eyes. “Was there anything you wanted to say to me, now that we are alone again?”
Charles was not used to feminine wiles. Although he had sisters, he had never been in the petticoat line. What, did she want him to kiss her, with Brent about to tear back at any minute with that blasted wrap? If not, why had she sent the man on a foolish errand? The air was warm—balmy, in fact. Sophia was a practiced seductress; he well knew it. But she was playing with fire.
“My lady, Lord Brent will return at any moment.”
“Lord Brent must first find my abigail, and she will then have to go to my dressing room to find a wrap. It may take her awhile to find a suitable one.” She opened her eyes wide. “Joan has been with me a very long time, but sometimes…sometimes she has trouble finding things.”
“You are incorrigible.” Charles was impressed with her stratagem. He quickly surmised that this “finding a wrap” ploy was one that she had used many times in the past, with Joan as abettor and collaborator. Women and their tricks!
Sophia pretended to brush lint from his waistcoat, looking up at him through a warm golden veil of curling eyelashes. “I am single-minded, sir, and I know what I want. If you continue to reject me, I shall have no choice but to pay more attention to Lord Brent.” She reached up to touch his mouth. His lips burned as her long fingertips played over them.
“My lady,” he breathed deeply, “what is it that you want from me?”
Sophia looked into his eyes and told him.
Even the best abigails could be bribed, however, and Brent was no fool. He returned to the garden in time to interrupt a moment of burgeoning passion. The vicar’s hands were cupped about the lady’s face and they appeared to be drinking deeply, hungrily from each other’s mouths. Brent was taken aback. The vicar and Dunhaven’s notorious daughter? He tiptoed backwards to the French doors and made some noise, whereupon the couple flew apart, Sophia smoothing back her upswept hair and Heywood pulling down his waistcoat. Brent sauntered over to them, pretending he’d seen nothing untoward.
There was more than one way to skin a cat, he mused, or to attract the amorous attentions of a woman who was clearly no better than she should be.
Behind the French doors, the Earl of Dunhaven chuckled as he viewed the charming scenario. It appeared that his protégé would require his interference if he were to make it to Sophia’s bed. Clearly, Brent had what appeared to be serious competition in achieving that goal. It behooved the earl to remove the vicar of St. Mortrud’s as a rival to Brent for his daughter’s affections.
Lady Sophia thought she had never in her life been so happy. She had told the vicar exactly what she wanted from him, in succinct if bold terms, and he had cupped her face in his hands and kissed her thoroughly. It was not the shy kiss of that previous episode in the garden, but a man’s kiss, deep, aggressive, and…She was warm all over, thinking of it. He was a passionate man; she’d known it all along. And that surprising kiss had signified a wordless acceptance, one that overwhelmed her senses. She’d melted in his arms, her bones liquefying. When had that last happened?
She was exhausted and exhilarated. She would have lovely dreams, all night…
Joan approached her mistress hesitantly. “My lady, about that wrap…”
Sophia barely heard her. “What? Oh, the wrap.…I do hope Brent made it worth your while to find it quickly, Joan. I am too tired to discuss it now, my girl, but I do believe some matters must be clarified, don’t you?” Sophia’s eyes, half-teasing, half-serious, turned to her maidservant.
Joan’s skin turned the color of her flaming hair. “Ma’am, I…I thought you fancied the gentleman. He is very handsome,” she added.
Sophia was overcome with a sudden fit of laughter, a rush so strong that she felt her eyes beginning to water. Lud! What a mistake! Yes, there were several things she and Joan had to discuss, clearly. Yes, Brent was the type of man Sophia had always favored, ’twas true, but Joan had gotten her signals crossed. She was a faithful servant, after all, just uninformed of the present situation.
>
“But, Joan, I do not fancy the man. I do not fancy him at all!” Sophia hoped that was clear enough. She began to take off her jewelry and put it in the ornate carved walnut box on top of her dresser.
There was a scratching at the door. Sophia raised her eyebrows. Who? “Answer that, Joan. Perhaps it is Harriett, and one of my boys is unwell.” Sophia’s exuberance dissipated like a bladder quickly deflated as Joan ran to do her bidding.
Lord Brent slipped a large, booted foot into the room as Joan opened the door. He held Sophia’s pink and green paisley wrap in his large hands. “May I speak to your mistress?” he asked the maid.
Joan frowned. “My lady is abed, sir,” she lied. Brent was determined, however, maneuvering his foot further into the breach. Joan would not let him in; she made a grab for the shawl, but Brent held it out of her reach. A stalwart farm girl with six older brothers, she leapt for the fabric and secured one corner. Brent was put slightly off-balance, but recovered, lunging forward to pull it back.
Sophia had had enough of this bizarre dance; she was too tired to enjoy their lively pas de deux. Marching to the door, she ordered, “Sir! Unhand my wrap, if you please.”
“Lady Sophia! I wonder if I might have a word.”
“Wonder no more, Lord Brent; the answer is no. Good evening, sir.” She pulled the shawl from his hands in one swift, graceful motion, pushing him back into the hallway. Now he did lose his balance, possibly from the pull of gravity on his jaw when it fell open in disbelief. As the door slammed shut and Sophia turned the key in the lock, she and Joan heard a loud crash as the nobleman fell backward against the hard wooden floor.
Sophia leaned against the shut door and began to giggle. Joan joined her in mirth as they walked backward to the bed and collapsed, overcome by the fit of hilarity. Brent’s face! The man was not used to rebuffs, that was for certain.
Downstairs in the drawing room, Brent was disgusted. “How could you be so wrong?” he challenged Dunhaven. His rump hurt; he had landed heavily.
The earl was consuming the wine he had not drunk at dinner and was now on his third bottle of George Rowley’s best claret. “What are you talking about, boy?” His words were slurred, his eyes slightly unfocused.
Brent sat down, too hard, on the drawing room sofa, wincing in pain as the wood responded with a creak of protest. “Your daughter is not interested in dallying with me, sir!”
Dunhaven snorted rudely. “My daughter is renowned for lifting her skirts merely at the sight of a handsome face. The fault must lie in you, my lad. Perhaps your technique needs improvement.” He laughed at his own insulting joke.
The younger man leaned forward, fixing the earl with a direct glare. “And perhaps your daughter is not the doxy you make her out to be.”
The older man’s drink-clouded eyes snapped into focus. “What are you talking about?”
“It is a distinct possibility, my lord,” Brent responded, his tone sarcastic, “that your daughter and this vicar may be truly in love.”
Dunhaven choked, spilling the contents of his claret glass over his trousers. Recovering, he blurted, “You are out of your head, man! That girl is only interested in two things: men and money. As for the priest,” he scoffed, “that wet-behind-the-ears cleric is hardly a man. More a monk! And a poor, down-at-the-heels monk, at that. There’s no money there! Sophia would have no interest whatsoever in such a specimen.”
“Well, sir, I was certainly fooled, then. That was a lover’s kiss I interrupted in the rose garden after the lady sent me away searching for her blasted shawl. It was neatly done, in truth. No, my lord, that man is no eunuch…and I would say he has your daughter’s heart,” Brent swore.
Glaring, Dunhaven poured himself another glass of claret. The servants could wipe up the spill on the carpet. “Listen to me, Robert Winton, my Lord Brent,” he spat out each word, “my daughter has no heart.” He stood and jabbed his index finger at the left side of Brent’s chest. “She has no heart, sir! I saw to that.”
Brent pushed away the jabbing digit. Dunhaven was foxed, and wrong, so terribly wrong. His daughter and the vicar were lovers. It was plain to anyone with two eyes in his skull. He had no chance with the lady, whatever her scheming father thought. Yet Brent’s hope persisted. Could it be that he was falling a little in love with the notorious lady, himself? She was certainly beautiful and intriguing.
The vicar of St. Mortrud’s was unburdening himself to his best friend, after receiving the physician’s promise that he would not say a word or quirk an eyebrow, until Charles had finished. “Lewis, I count on your discretion, man. Unfortunately, there is no one I can confess to but you.”
“You are placing impossible restrictions on me. I am but a mortal man, neither cleric nor confessor,” Lewis protested. They were walking on the outskirts of Rowley Village; it was a beautiful early summer’s day.
“Nonetheless, Lewis,” Charles faced the larger man down (no easy task), “I rely on you to hear me out and perhaps provide me some guidance. This is the most important matter in my life.”
“What have you done?” Lewis sat down heavily on a boulder at the side of the footpath.
“Nothing.” Charles ran a hand through his hair, betraying his nervousness with that habit. “That is, nothing much, nothing much yet.…”
“You are confusing me,” Lewis warned, pushing the spectacles up on his slightly hooked nose.
The vicar sighed, plucking a large handful of rye grass and chewing the stems thoughtfully. “Lewis, I may have made the biggest mistake of my life.”
“I doubt it,” Alcott interrupted. “Please dispense with this Cheltenham farce, I pray you.”
Charles winced. “I assure you, this is serious. Pray listen.”
Lewis was not convinced. “Go on, then; I am listening.” He assumed an intent pose on the rock, hand on chin, elbow on knee.
“I rebuffed Lady Sophia’s amorous advances.” He looked at his friend, whose expression betrayed no surprise. He waited.
“She kissed me.” Charles slanted a glance at Lewis again, but the surgeon’s expression had not changed. “And I, uh, I kissed her back.” He paused.
“And?” Lewis inquired.
“And, Lewis, and? I am a simple, poor country vicar and she is a worldly, sophisticated woman, the wealthiest in the county!” Charles flung out his arm, narrowly missing Lewis’s leonine head.
“Calm yourself, Charles, I beg you,” Lewis suggested, leaning back on his elbows and assuming a languid pose on the outcropping of rock. “I fail to see your problem. We have already discussed the possibility of the beauteous widow falling for your handsome face.” Lewis’s eyes seemed to twinkle merrily, or was it a trick of the early morning light?
Charles looked at him suspiciously. “Lewis, are you taking me seriously?”
Lewis rose from the boulder and dusted his hands on his breeches. “Charles, Charles, you are a man, and the lady is a woman. What is the problem?”
Charles turned his back on his friend. “I rebuffed her the first time, Lewis, but there was a second.”
“And?” Lewis repeated his question.
“And, indeed.” Charles swallowed. “The second time, I did not spurn her, Lewis, and I fear I gave the lady the wrong idea.”
“What idea, Charles?” Lewis asked.
“I…I asked her what she wanted from me, and—”
He ran his hand through his locks again. He must look as though he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, he thought. “And she told me.”
“I can’t bear the suspense,” Lewis commented, his tone sarcastic.
“I find it difficult to repeat her exact words, Lewis, and I beg that you forget them the instant I utter them, or I will feel terrible, nay, worse than that, immoral! The gist of what she said is that…that she desires my body and wishes to bed me.” He flung the handful of wet, chewed grass to one side of the footpath and took Lewis’s former position on the boulder, hanging his head in shame.
“A
m I supposed to commiserate with you?” Lewis asked. “Because, if that is what you expect, be forewarned that I will not. I know few men who would hesitate to accept the beautiful Lady Rowley’s advances, myself amongst them!”
“Lewis,” Charles’s voice was muffled from the vicinity of his chest, “you know I do not believe in casual fornication. I cannot do it, man! The notion troubles me. I have not been with a woman—in that way—for a long time.”
“But you want to,” Lewis remarked. “You want to, don’t you, old friend?”
Charles rose from the stone outcropping and paced, rounding the rock twice. “Yes, yes, I do, so help me, God.” He looked heavenward as if expecting divine intervention. None came.
Lewis brought him back to earth. “What did you tell the lady, then?
“I had no chance to say anything. We kissed, and—”
“No more ands, Charles, I beg you!” Lewis pleaded.
Charles stopped pacing and looked directly at his friend. “Lord Brent came upon us, with milady’s wrap, and thus ended the conversation…and the kiss.”
“You did not say nay, then, to the lady’s bold suggestion?”
Charles shook his head. “I did not have the chance to say nay or yea, Lewis.”
Lewis pursed his lips. “Well, well, well. What a pretty kettle of fish we have here.”
“Does silence give consent?” Charles wondered.
“You kissed Lady Sophia after, or before, she made you this proposition? More important, did you initiate the kiss?”
A flush wiped across Charles’s face. “After,” he whispered, adding, “and I think I initiated the kiss.” The last part of his answer sounded strangled to Lewis’s ears; he could barely hear his response.
“Then, I would say you consented, my dear fellow, consented wholeheartedly. Yes, you certainly did!” It was to Lewis Alcott’s everlasting credit that he did not laugh or otherwise gloat at the vicar’s predicament, and for that Charles was grateful. He was in a rare old coil, one that might be impossible to escape.
The surgeon’s big hand clapped his shoulder in sympathy. “You poor sod, you,” Lewis murmured.