“I will not lower myself!” he’d yelled at her that afternoon when she confronted him minutes after Charlie had climbed into the Courtlands’ traveling coach.
“And I, sir, am ashamed of you!”
“What gall, you have, girl! I will bend you to my will. You will not see him. You will not wed him. But you will most certainly wed one man before the New Year!”
“Over my dead body!” She trembled when it came home to her what she uttered. Was she the one to die now over a failed proposal?
“You will wed or I will cut you off without a penny!”
“Do it!” She’d swung round to leave him where he stood.
Never had she been so appalled by her father. Never had she seen him so hateful toward others and toward her.
During the following weeks, she’d barely spoken to him. Instead she made plans for her escape and the means she would use to effect it. That began with her announcement that she would attend the Courtlands’ annual frolic and, too, Esme Harvey’s wedding on May second. The trip was a ruse, a camouflage, but the best she had to conceal her new endeavor.
When she finished stating her plans to leave for the party, her father virtually shook with exasperation as he pointed to the letter from Esme that Wills held in her hand.
“Gatherings like that?” her father blustered, his cheeks red with anger. “No! It’s meant for the riffraff to mingle with the toffs. Better to cultivate a refined set than tarnish one’s image with the ordinary.”
Of course, he knew that the man who had asked for her hand would not only attend this year’s house party, but also that the Reverend Charles Compton was the man who would officiate at Willa’s friend’s wedding.
“Why must you always attend this ridiculous party?” Her father continued his argument. “I see no point in it. You and I must finish charting the tenth generation of the de Courcy family before we return to Amboise in June. No use courting him! I will never approve of you with Southbourne’s son. A lady should marry well.”
Ah, yes. One of Papa’s Rules. Marry for position and money. A useful rule for most gels. Not this one.
“Bark, dearest.” Her mother removed her pince nez, yet pinned him to his spot with her sharp eyes. “A lady who marries the man her father wants for her gets what he wants for her. Not what she deserves.”
Her papa, a tall brusque fellow, wrapped himself in his rectitude. His imperious stance—long practiced and used successfully on many—was intended to sway his opponent to his cause. “And a lady who marries the man her mother wants for her gets a mama who visits too often.”
Unimpressed, her mother sniffed. “The man I want for our girl is one she wants.”
Oh, Mama. Do give over. You cannot change his mind. And much will you rue the day you could not. But next week…yes, next week, much will change in this house.
“Willa could want any of the very fine men I have suggested in the past year!”
If I were blind or dumb, perhaps.
“Bark.” Mama shook her head. “A bookworm. A skinflint. And a snob.”
“You must look beyond their noses,” he insisted.
“I did, my darling man.” Her mother waved her tiny glasses at him. Poor dear, she tried to lure him back toward his sweeter self. “I saw a bore, a bully and a dandy dressed finer than I in my Season.”
In earlier days, Before Charlie, Wills called it—B.C. to be exact—she might have chuckled. Mama had been the Diamond of the Year she debuted. Beautiful, lavishly attired and richly endowed.
Before Charlie, her father had indulged in a sense of humor and could be cajoled.
Her mother was no longer successful at it. Ever intrepid, the countess wrinkled her nose. “Our Wills could not love any one of them.”
True.
“Rubbish!” he shot back. “She can! She’s done grieving for…for…what was his name? Wilfred?”
“Wit,” Willa supplied the name of her first betrothed, Wittford Williams, second son of the Earl of Dunford.
“Wit! That was it. Imagine! Wit and Wills! That’s what they termed the two!”
“Please, Bark!” Her mama settled her glasses back on her nose and glared at him over the rims. “The man is dead.”
“God rest him, yes, yes.” He searched his waistcoat pocket for his pipe. “But really, Madam. Willa as Lady Wittford Williams? A tongue-twister. Mouth full of mush. No, simply no.”
Wills did not object. In fact, those names were more commendable than many other monikers the ton ascribed. Like Jumbo to the Prince Regent. Or Yelper to the Prime Minister.
“Ignore him, my sweet,” her mama advised in her stern-let-me-wrestle-him tone. “Continue to pack. Go to your party with your friends.”
There is no stopping me.
Mama repeated her wish each year for Wills to enjoy some gaiety. Ever since Wills’s first betrothed Wit had died in the battle of Albuera, Mama had become a parrot repeating injunctions to joy. Come to think of it, she’d also encouraged her to do so after her second fiancé, the Marquess of Dennybrook, Frederick Tipton, had passed away of an ague.
Her mother leaned toward her. “Do laugh and dance, my dear girl. You need it.”
Wills shivered in anticipation. Yes, she needed more than that. She needed to settle her future. In a way none of them could dispute.
“Enjoy yourself, dearest,” Mama went on, raising a defiant brow at her husband. “Find some pleasure.”
“I will,” she assured her doting mother. Not the way you want, but still. “Never doubt.”
“You see, Bark? Our girl recovers!”
Would that her father could find it in his heart to do more than recover. But repenting was not in his ability and so Wills would do what she must. She’d take the family coach to the Courtlands’ May Day Frolic and then, before they could blink, she would simply…disappear.
“As long as she does not encourage that clergyman.”
Wills glared at her father. How dare he speak of Charlie in that manner.
“She won’t. Will you, darling?”
Wills stood. “I’ll not discuss this.”
“Now the two of you,” he said, “know my view. Vicars should be perfectly godlike.”
“You mean prigs,” Wills bit off.
“Precisely. Compton is not. He’s soft.”
How dare you? Wills would not hear this lie. “Charlie is stronger, more valiant, more virtuous than ten bishops rolled together.”
Mama gave her husband her prune face. “Viscount Courtland likes him.”
Her father snorted. “I respect Courtland. Smart if often misguided. But about his vicar? I am right and I know it, because I hired a Bow Street man on him!”
“Bark! You investigated Compton?!”
“Oh, Father!” Wills clenched her fists. “Reverend Compton is a man of God. A soldier. A hero of Salamanca!”
“Vicars should be reserved!” he raved on. “Not—not soldiering.”
Wills took umbrage for the muscular, darkly enthralling creature who kissed her each night in her dreams. “He comforted the dying and wounded. Walked miles with wounded men in his arms! Saved them, I am certain of it.”
“Of course, justly so,” he conceded with a hint of humility.
She would not let him win with so little acknowledged. “He fought for his country.”
“Commendable! But Christ, he dances!”
Wills was furious!
“A moment, please, sir!” Her mama raised her voice another octave, a sign her papa was in terrible trouble. “Charles Compton is Church of England. Not a Jumper!”
“Thank the Lord!” boomed the man. “We know he’s no Methodist because he drinks!”
Mama narrowed her eyes. “As do you!”
“He gives rousing sermons.”
“Awakening the parishioners!”
Dear God!
Her father put up a palm. “Next thing we know he’ll reveal himself to be that rabble rouser, Reverend Peoples!”
Wills p
ut a hand to her forehead. Papa needed to read Reverend Peoples to learn how desperately people needed a kind church, a caring government. The good man her papa referred to was a source of inspiration to his readers…and to her. This past winter, Reverend Peoples had also published two novels. Both had sold thousands of copies. Ranting against workers laboring long hours in mines and factories, Charlie was so popular, he was oft referred to by those on the floor of the Commons. To many, Peoples was a beacon and a blessing. To those who favored the status quo—like her papa—a thorn in their sides.
Wills would procliam that good man’s value any day, any hour. “The good reverend tells tales we should all hear.”
“He’s teaching them to revolt!” He shook a finger at her and her mother.
“Bark.” The lady scowled at her husband of thirty-one years. “I would too if my vicar cried with me over my poverty, praised me for my fortitude, then took my bread as thank you for saying prayers over my bare cupboard and my skinny body!”
Done with this, Wills put up a hand. “Stop. I am going to this party. And yes, I will see the Reverend Charles Compton. I will!”
“Don’t you think,” said her father, “before you go that you should make decisions about your marriage?”
She fixed him with blank eyes. “I’ll tell you when I return.”
Two days later, on the way to the Courtlands’ party, Wills ordered the family coachman to stop at an inn on the main road. Wills had made her acquaintance with the owner of the Horse and Dog last year when she’d traveled to the May Day party.
Wills ran inside, leaving her maid Mary bewildered as to why she’d not allow her the duty of fetching whatever Wills wished from the innkeeper’s wife. Posting the newest letter from ‘Miss Edith Stanley’ to a lady in Brighton, Wills secured her future and rejoiced in her ingenuity.
Then she quickly returned to her carriage and squeezed Mary’s hand. “Tell no one we stopped, please.”
“But the coachman may have reason to tell your parents that you did.”
“I’ll take a chance on that. But you will know nothing. Only that I fetched a letter.”
“A love letter then?” Mary ventured, her expression troubled. All in the de Courcy household knew of the rift between father and daughter—and the cause.
“No. Far from that.”
Mary seemed to accept that and Wills settled into the squabs.
Four hours later, her traveling coach rounded the drive to Courtland Hall. She’d taken the opportunity of the quiet time in the family carriage to solidify her plans for ‘Miss Edith Stanley’. Truth was that Lady Willa Sheffield was about to vanish. She would not go to France in June with her irascible father. She would not marry one of his obnoxious candidates for her husband. Nor would she ever be able to marry her darling Reverend Charles Compton. She had committed herself to becoming Miss Edith Stanley before he’d arrived at her home and proposed marriage. Even if she no longer believed that she was a curse to men who wished to marry her, she had pledged to change her life. She would not go back on her promise to her new employer, nor to herself. She would change her life immediately after she enjoyed herself at this house party for the last time.
In three days, she would become someone else. Fashioned of her own efforts, Miss Edith Stanley would begin a new life. Without mother, father, friends. And without charming Charles Compton.
* * *
Charlie turned at the door of Eunice Billoughby’s cottage and prayed he might give her more than words of comfort and a few potatoes for soup. “You’ll need help peeling those vegetables, Mrs. Billoughby. I’ll send my housekeeper down to you.”
“No, sir!” The woman was just as proud and stubborn as her husband. But the broken arm she cradled in the sling the village doctor had made for her, would attack that pride with pain. Nor would she take aught for her anguish, save her husband’s jug of gin. Serve him right for her to drink up his lot. But two drunks in the family would bring disaster on the four little children who depended on both parents to survive. “I will not have her. I can do for us.”
“Vicar!” George hailed him with a hand weaving in the air as he stumbled to the door. “Send the woman. Ol’ ‘Unice here needs a hand.” He gave a rueful chuckle at his double meaning.
She gave her husband the evil eye. “You broke me arm, you fool.”
“And you must help your wife, Mr. Billoughby. Go to bed. Sober up!” George had become a mean drunk in the past few months. The worst kind. Robbed of the pride the man should have to feed and clothe his family in the right way of honest labor, George took to Blue Ruin to salve his wounds.
Charlie nodded. “Good day to you both.”
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 red hat 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 l
ike 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.
Lady Willa’s Divinely Wicked Vicar: Four Weddings and a Frolic, Book 4 Page 8