As I hope I will.
She sighed. Confessions such as that only depressed her.
But the sight of Madame and her English fiancé stirred her further. Madame was of middling height, a golden blonde with sweet blue eyes and a laughing disposition. Lord Dalforth was a comely man, but only a few inches taller, yet he took the Vicomtesse against his lean form with a tenderness that brought a grin to Madame’s lips—and tears to Wills’s eyes. His gentle touch, the way he threaded his fingertips through Madame’s coiffure, the way she circled her hand around his nape, rose on her toes and welcomed him with a searing kiss of love, had Wills aching for that which she’d given up.
Never to love.
Only to observe.
To yearn.
To want the same for herself and yet she would walk the earth alone.
She dashed her tears from her cheeks, but the sobs that racked her would not stop. She cupped her forehead in one hand and clutched her stomach in the other. What had she done? To herself? To Charlie? She glanced up and outside, the Vicomtesse and her fiancé stared at her.
She gasped. Unable to calm herself, she whirled from the window for the nursery door and ran down the hall toward her own room and the solitude that would hide her misery. The solitude that she was forever to claim as her only protector…and no solace at all.
She threw herself across her bed and wept for all she had lost. She had committed herself to this lonely life and to pine for the one man she did love more than she had believed.
Minutes later, a knock came upon her bedroom door. She collected herself. Wiped her tears. Pushed back the loose tendrils of her hair over her ears. And bemoaned her swollen eyes in the mirror. For those there was no remedy.
She moved to her door and opened it to allow her employer to enter. She pasted a small smile upon her face.
“No, Miss Stanley.” The lady put up a hand. “I will not enter. This is your sanctuary. It is the least I can provide. Will you come downstairs with me and share tea?”
“Oh, ma’am.” Wills might not be but days-old at this governess business but she’d been well trained in etiquette and treatment of servants. She knew enough not to take tea with the lady of the house and her intended groom. “I do not wish to intrude.”
“You will not, I assure you, Miss Stanley. Lord Dalforth will not join us. He has taken the boys to the Lanes for ices. And I have a matter I wish to discuss with you.”
When they were settled in the drawing room, Madame handed Wills her tea and settled back into her lively little yellow Chippendale chair. She had not asked Wills how she liked her tea but had added the two small spoonfuls of sugar that Wills preferred.
“Now Lady Willa,” she began and Wills nearly spilled the fragrant Soochong brew into her skirts. “I do know you are not the self-proclaimed Miss Edith Stanley. Not from Bath. But from De Courcy Manor in Hampshire. The daughter of the Earl and Countess De Courcy.
“You are descended from Valois kings of France as well as English stock. You are an expert on your family’s genealogy and with your father, trace your pristine lineage. You did attend Miss Shipley’s School for Young Ladies, but were four years behind me. There you were studious and kind. Had many friends, too. You excelled in French and that has been your calling card to join my household as governess. But let us be clear, you may be expert at French language but you are not expert at hiding or changing who you are. So now you will tell me every detail about why you are here, pretending to be a woman happy to spend her life teaching other people’s children.”
“I’m shocked, Madame.”
“Luella, please. And I shall call you Wills. That is how your friends address you, yes? I should like to be your friend.”
Wills placed her cup and saucer on the tea table. Emotion had her lips quivering. But she fought off tears when she realized how cheered she was at the revelation. “Thank you for that. I would like to call you my friend, Luella. I hardly know how to begin to apologize for the ruse.”
“Do not. I will not hear it, whatever it is. I will hear your rationale for it, however.”
“You must have thought me such a charlatan.”
“I was not certain at first. I wanted to detect your character before I jumped to wrong conclusions. One should, don’t you think?”
“Be cautious about judging people? Oh, yes.”
“And so why are you here, Wills? Not because you are in trouble, I do hope.” Her gaze dropped to Wills’s midsection. “But if that’s so, then—”
“Oh, no. Not that kind of trouble. But a mess that I have made.”
“Regret it, do you?”
Wills met her gaze. “I do.”
“How much?”
“Dreadfully.”
“A man is involved, I gather?”
Wills nodded. “He is.”
“And the problem there was what?” Luella certainly did not worry about being too intrusive regarding her personal matters.
Wills gave a rueful laugh. “Not him. He is…divine.”
“But? Your mother disliked him or—?”
“He has no money. Little position. My father dismisses him as unimportant. And lastly?” Wills sighed. “I thought if I accepted him I might kill him.”
Luella caught herself from spitting her tea across the room. A serviette to her lips, she cleared her throat. “Pardon me. What?”
With great chagrin, Wills explained the death of her two suitors and her superstition.
Luella shifted in her chair, pensive and wary. “I see. Do you believe in such things as a regular rule? Black cats. Bad luck at the races. Ghosts?”
Wills frowned, sure about all those. “No, no. Just the deaths.”
“Come now. Do you really believe you killed them?”
“Well, I—”
“Did you wish them dead?” Luella asked that, a scowl upon her pretty face.
“No. Never.”
“Oh, good. I would have thought you rather odd, you see, if you did. Not a jolly idea to curse someone, is it?”
“But I was so aggrieved when they did each pass away. I could not recover. The very idea that they were so young. So bereft of joy. Waltzes and hunting and ices and laughter. No more Christmas puddings or syllabub. No arguments with their friends over cards. No new coats to buy or ships to sail. No oysters for dinner or chess games to win. Their deaths seemed so unfair. I hated God for it. Hated—”
“That you survived and they did not,” Luella said with a far away look in her eyes.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“And so you created this other myth—” She waved a hand in the air. “That put the blame on you instead. And forced you to coil inward.”
“Because…because I never wanted to feel such sorrow again.” Willa stared down at her hands in her lap.
“But you know you will.”
“Yes,” she admitted this too in a strangled little voice. “Because now…now I cannot bear the grief of not having him to love.”
Luella took from her sleeve a handkerchief and stuffed it into Willa’s hand. “Dry your tears, my dear. There. Good. Now. Tell me. Is this divine man yours to have?”
She shook her head, confused.
“He’s not married or engaged to another, is he?”
“No, nothing like that. He’s a vicar.”
Luella’s beautiful blue eyes drifted closed. “A man of God who calls you from despair to the heights of love, but has not a penny to his name.”
Willa sighed. “He’s tried so very valiantly to improve himself. He writes for the Edinburgh Review. He has also written novels. Hoping to arouse the gentry to the understanding that they are—”
“Killing their tenants with enclosure acts and starving them with the gaming laws. Paying them a pittance in the factories. Oh, dear me. Is this divine man of yours Reverend Peoples?”
Willa fell back to her chair. “How marvelous you have heard of him.”
“Heard? My dear Willa, my darling Dalforth adores the ma
n! He says we must have him to speak here in Brighton. Imagine the stir to have him in our pulpits here with all the ton in the pews down from London! Oh, my!” She clapped her hands. “Fabulous!”
They gazed into each other’s eyes for a long minute.
Wills gave her an apologetic smile. “I think I must give my notice, Luella.”
The woman grinned. “I do accept it, Willa.”
“I’m off to Courtland Green in the morning.”
“And you shall have my coach to take you there.” She shivered in delight. “I wish I could go with you. I do love surprises.”
Willa tipped her head. “How did I detect that?”
Her friend lifted a long blonde brow. “I was waiting until I was sure of you.”
“Oh, how so?”
“Well. There is the matter of this little piece in the Brighton Gazette about the disappearance of a certain Lady W. from a recent wedding where the bride ran away. A certain Miss H.’s wedding!”
“Nooo! In the papers, eh?” Willa chuckled. “Oh, dear. She’ll hate that. I do wonder what happened to Esme.”
“Esme Harvey! Damn! I thought so! I said to Dalforth, Esme was a pip. Always up to highjinks. She was to marry Northington but I am confused! I understood she loved him.”
“She did.” Willa said sadly.
“She and Fiona Chastain always had jokes going on with another girl. The pretty blonde. And then they all ruined some other girl’s affair with a good fellow. What was her name?”
“Miss Millicent Weaver and James Carlisle, Lord Langdon.”
“How did that turn out?” Luella asked.
Willa shook her head. “A disaster. They did not marry.”
“A shame. Those who love should have each other to enjoy.”
Willa agreed with a nod. “Til death do them part.”
Chapter 13
Courtland Green
Tuesday, May 7, 1816
The most outrageous characteristic of tiny old English chapels was the chill. The dust she accepted. The mold irritated her, made her sneeze…or she was most sure it was the mold, in any case. But Wills had never totally enjoyed her Sunday mornings in the pews because of the damp. She’d always been well dressed, suitably attired for the hour-long service and the usually uninspired sermons. This afternoon she huddled in her good green plaid wool redingote with black fox collar and hoped she might impress Charles Compton to find a way to make this chapel, if no other in the country, cozier. After all, the word of God should warm believers but could do the job entirely if one could count on a high fire behind a grate. Such comfort might even increase attendance. Who could say until it were done?
Footsteps…of someone running…approached the chapel. She smiled. She’d propped the far door open for that very purpose. She didn’t wish to be surprised should the Reverend Compton return home from his sojourn to Brighton and burst in on her. Lord Courtland had informed her when she appeared on his doorstep earlier of Charlie’s mission to Brighton.
“Once your friend tells him you’ve returned to us, dear Willa, he will fly home.”
The viscount was in a joyous and forgiving mood. Even to she, who had added to his notoriety and his distress, when she, as well as his daughter, had disappeared from the family wedding festivities. Remarkable that. Wills’s own father would not be so magnanimous, she was certain. But Lord Courtland was a man of greater largesse, full of delight at the news he’d received early this morning that his daughter had been found by and married to her betrothed the Marquess of Northington days ago. The bridegroom had also miraculously fabricated an excuse to give to the clergyman whom he persuaded to marry them in haste in a small church east of here.
Willa girded herself for her comeuppance. Its very embodiment marched down the aisle in clipped, harsh steps upon the stones. Would that her own restitution to the world might be as easy. And as quick.
She stood in her pew. And turned.
Oh, my. Charlie was quite angry.
Never more so.
And never so thrilling to her eye.
* * *
She was a vision he’d never thought to see again. Bright—chipper even—in her magnificent plaid ensemble, her little matching bonnet tipsy on her rich black hair. She even smiled. Beamed at him! The scamp.
He came to a halt. His hat, he dropped to the stone floor. His arms, he spread wide in frustration. His heart, full of questions, he opened to her. “I don’t understand you.”
She glanced away at the altar, frowned at the gold Cross, and then looked back upon him, her smile once more on her luscious lips. “I’ve returned. The prodigal woman.” She chuckled at her silly double entendre.
“Oh, that’s funny.” But he didn’t laugh.
She knit her brows. “You’re angry.”
“No.”
“No?” She tipped her head and that hat of hers did, too. She pulled it off, sailed it to the pew and her ebony curls spilled over her shoulders. Witch.
“I am furious!” He spread his arms. Windmilled them, actually. A mad man, he was! “You ran away. No word. We’ve been crazed. I—” He stepped closer to her, his fingers jabbing his chest. “I have been out of my mind to find you.”
She grinned.
Ohhhh. That boiled his liver! “You gave us heart palpitations. You changed your name. Edwina Stanley! Who in h—” He glanced at the altar. “Forgive me. Who is Edwina Stanley?”
“Edith.”
He jammed his hands on his hips. “What?”
“I changed my name to Edith Stanley not Edwina.”
He ran both hands through his hair. Took a step toward her.
She shrank back a bit.
Well, he didn’t wish to frighten her, for heaven’s sake.
“I made the name up. It sounded like a governess. A stuffy one.”
“I’ve chased you all over the southeast! You did a da— dreadfully good job of hiding!”
She bit her lip, which was wise, because if she smiled, he was going to yell louder.
“The owner of the Horse and Dog was a Hellhound to get information from.”
She nodded. “Fitting that he is!”
He winced. “What?”
“Hound. Horse and Dog. You see…”
He rolled his eyes and stepped closer to her. This time, she did not retreat. “You paid him well.”
“I did. Two pounds.”
“I paid him four.”
She grinned. “Good for you! But of course, I’m here. Now. Returned. So you didn’t have to waste your money.”
“Lord Courtland’s.”
“Ah. Kind of him. I will apologize for the trouble.”
“Today?”
“As soon as you and I are…” She lifted her shoulders. “Reconciled.”
He eyed her, suspicious. “To what?”
“First, I must apologize to you.”
He crossed his arms. “Appropriate.”
She got this flirtatious glint in her eyes. Made her look years younger. Joyful. “I have been very wrong about so many things.”
Well, finally, some sense. “Go on.”
“I sought to control my life by retreating. Claiming a curse.”
He nodded. “Any idea why?”
“Indeed, I do have one. I was afraid to live fully. Having cared for Williams and Dennybrook, when they died, I did grieve for each of them. I could not believe how men so young, so healthy, vital, could die. I’ve never been to a battlefield, of course. And so, I have no comprehension of the terrors of combat. I’ve also been healthy most of my life. And so to die of a chest congestion seemed…odd, out of my realm of understanding. So I thought the explanations of their deaths must be some element I could have controlled, should have anticipated. All the while what I wished to do was find an explanation for me to never have to grieve again. That, of course, is ridiculous. Because life and death are the realm of human existence. And I was foolish to think them controllable. By me.”
Thank goodness she could understan
d that.
“And so having fled, and fled unknowingly to a situation that showed me what indeed I wanted for myself and could have, if I had the courage, I left it.”
“Your friend, Vicomtesse Grizard, explained to me what happened.”
“I hope she does not think me a ninny. But she was helpful to me and I am grateful. Even loaned me the use of her traveling coach to return here.”
He inhaled. Now they were to the point. “And why did you come here, Willa?”
She smarted at the use of her formal name, but checked his gaze and marched onward. “I came to ask your pardon for being so short-sighted. To hope you will forgive me. And then to do as you once made me promise to do. To ask you to marry me.”
* * *
He stared at her as if…as if he’d not heard her or worse, he did not believe her.
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.”
Lady Willa’s Divinely Wicked Vicar: Four Weddings and a Frolic, Book 4 Page 13