He was ready to move on with his life after a long period of holding on to pain and recrimination. But was he ready to seek love again? Or was he too old for that tender emotion?
Chapter Eleven
It was a brilliant winter’s morning. Lord Jacob Vaughan trudged grimly through the snow, not quite listening to Miss Verity Allen’s chatter as she commented on everything from the weather to his horse. Somehow, though he had intended to get Lady Silvia alone for a half hour’s walk, it had turned into an expedition involving all four of them to gather mistletoe and evergreen boughs for the rapidly approaching Christmas day festivities. How had it happened?
He had, the previous night during a silly game with lettered squares, asked Lady Silvia to walk with him in the park the next day and she had agreed, but then at the breakfast table it appeared that she had mistaken his invitation for something entirely different and had invited Rowland and Miss Allen along as well. He had thought he was being perfectly clear about his intentions toward Lady Silvia, but that could not be.
Infuriating.
It would not have been so bad if Rowland would just keep Miss Allen busy, but somehow the old sobersides had managed to finagle things so that Lady Silvia was on his arm, and a fellow couldn’t very well cut out another fellow, could he? Especially a man of the cloth.
Puffy white clouds drifted across a sky so blue it looked like thick cerulean paint spilled across the heavens. It was warming up, and the snow was melting into itself, the drifts shrinking and becoming increasingly sodden with meltwater. Miss Allen was wearing again the ugly brown coat that irritated him for some reason. She looked such a quiz in it. Had the girl no fashion sense? He assessed her expertly in one quick sideways glance. She should be wearing hunter green and antique gold topped by a jaunty hat adorned with a quail feather, or perhaps a scarlet military-cut jacket and a shako. She would look dashing in that garb.
Moodily, he cast another glance toward her. She had so much energy! It was like walking a spaniel pup, for she bounced off the cleared trail constantly, fetching back interesting branches, dead weed heads that stuck up out of the drifted snow, or chased off when she saw or heard an unusual bird.
He craned his neck and looked over his shoulder. Behind them, Rowland had the neat, pretty, well-behaved Lady Silvia clinging to his arm just as a properly raised young lady ought. Vaughan knew very well that she could not prefer the sober and silent Rowland to himself, so he could only think that she felt sorry for the vicar. He honored the sweetness of character that she would tie herself to the brooding and repressed reverend for the afternoon, but such sacrifice was really not necessary. It went quite beyond the bounds of politeness.
“Vaughan, what is your home like?”
He snapped out of his unusual introspection to feel his arm grasped and Miss Allen, panting from her exertions, hanging on to him. Irritably he thought he should shake her off, but it would not do to look obstreperous in front of the gentle Lady Silvia. He shrugged. “Vaughan Hall is good enough, I guess. It is home, but I don’t spend much time there anymore. Have rooms in London.”
“I hate London,” she said, giving a dramatic shudder.
“Why?” he asked, interested in spite of himself. He found that his spirits were lifting as he and Miss Allen bounced along in step. They were like his carriage team of grays, he thought, well matched and high-spirited. Though the girl at his side was much prettier than even his best horse.
“Pretentious, drunken louts,” she said, her usually ebullient and cheery tone virulent with distaste. “And so many rules! I was the death of any peace my aunt had, for I was always spilling ratafia and stepping on toes, and being overly familiar with the lads she said . . .”
He lost the rest of her comments. “Overly familiar with the lads”? What did that mean? He looked her over with interest, from her glossy auburn hair and clear brown complexion to her generous mouth and sparkling blue-green eyes. Yes, there was that tug of interest again, of sexual attraction.
“Oh!” she said, suddenly, pointing. “I think that is the wood that Tidwell said was the oak grove the mistletoe could be found in.”
She let go of his arm and dashed off, galloping through the snow in a most unladylike way that made Vaughan want to laugh out loud. As much as he tried to resist, he was never bored in Miss Allen’s invigorating company. He raced off after her, leaping snowdrifts and pelting after her into the woods.
But her brown coat disappeared in a forest of brown and gray trunks. The snow had not drifted into the wood as deeply, for there was a break of evergreens at the edge of the forest, and even in the dim reaches it was melting off, shrinking away from the trees and leaving patches of wet leaves visible. “Miss Allen,” he called. “Where are you?”
His own voice echoed, taunting him. “Impossible wench,” he grunted, and followed her tracks as well as he could, where there was still snow. He tracked her down to find her staring up at an enormous tree with a trunk twice as thick as one of the pillars in front of the Bournaud home.
“I suppose you expect me to climb that monstrosity,” he said, leaning back to stare up, his hands on his hips.
She gave him a disgusted look. “No! I will do it.”
“No, you shan’t,” he said, shocked that she would even consider such a thing. “How old are you?”
She frowned. “What has that got to do with anything?”
“How old?”
“I am twenty-four.”
“And you have not yet left off climbing trees? Why can you not be more like Lady Silvia?”
A hurt look pulled down her mouth and furrowed her brow. “Sourpuss,” she said. “You are too great a lummox to be able to climb this tree properly. I shall do it.”
“Fine. I would like to see you try.” He stood back and folded his arms over his chest, watching her intently.
She eyed the tree with expert assessment, stripped off her gloves, threw off her heavy greatcoat, and rucked her gown up between her legs. Then she grabbed a handhold on the rugged bark. Vaughan watched in amazement as she tackled the tree, competently placing hand and foot in secure spots and gaining the first branch without too much trouble. From there it was as if she was a monkey, scampering from branch to branch until she was twenty feet off the ground.
“I found it,” she crowed.
He watched as she stripped the branch of the parasitic plant, throwing it down onto her coat where it lay spread out over some snow. She stared down from the tree.
“Is that enough, do you think?” she called out, one hand cupped around her mouth.
“How many kissing balls do you think you will need?”
“One for each saloon, and one for the servants’ hall,” she said, not catching his sarcasm.
“There’s enough,” he said, watching nervously as her foot skidded off the branch and she had to scramble for a foothold. “Come down out of there.”
“Am I making you nervous?” she said impishly, letting go of the branch and teetering precariously. “Are you a nervous Nellie, Vaughan?”
“Come down here now, you infuriating imp!”
“Certainly, Vaughan, but I just want to show you a trick I learned from my brothers,” she called down.
She came down about ten feet, and he felt the tension ease out of him with each downward movement. Despite her words, it looked like she was going to behave herself. But then she stopped and sat down on the lowest limb.
“What are you doing?”
“I told you!” She turned around so her back was to him, and then wiggled back on the limb, so that her knees were over it securely, then she let go and leaned back.
“Watch out!” he called, just as she started to fall, or so it looked like.
But instead of falling, she swung upside down and was staring him in the face, grinning, her hair tumbling out of its pins. “You look most odd, Vaughan, upside down.”
“So do you, wench,” he said. “Now come down.”
She tried to grab for a h
andhold as she swung her legs over the branch, and for one agonizing moment Vaughan thought she was going to fall.
And then she did and was coming at him, skirts flying, hair flying, legs flailing. She landed on him and he felt all the wind knocked out of him as he hit the ground with a resounding thud. When he opened his eyes it was to see her blue-green ones, slightly dazed, staring down into his.
Everything stopped for those few seconds. She was not heavy, but he was very much aware of her coatless body pressed down upon his own as they lay together in the wet snow. He licked his lips and saw her eyes rivet on his mouth, and then before he knew what to make of her expression, she had pressed her mouth over his in a haphazard kiss, her warm breath melting with his own as her generous mouth worked in an inexperienced melding.
And then she was off him, her knee hitting his groin as she stumbled to her feet. He doubled over in some pain as she staggered over to her coat, shook it out and gathered the mistletoe, stuffing it in the capacious pockets of the ugly brown garment.
“I shall find the others,” she cried, her voice oddly breathy and her cheeks flaming red. She raced back the way they had come.
• • •
Rowland felt a contentment steal over him. He supposed they should be gathering boughs or some such nonsense, but a walk in the woods with Lady Silvia was much nicer without the added distraction of any kind of labor.
“Will you have a house in Loughton?” she asked as they talked about the village where his curacy was to be.
“Yes. It is small, a cottage really, but of sturdy stone and with a patch of land. Mr. Leslie—he is the vicar I am replacing—he and his wife had a garden and kept goats and a couple of sheep.”
“Sheep? Really? I adore lambs! They are so pretty and sweet,” she said, sighing.
Rowland did not want to say that Mr. Leslie liked lambs, too, with mint jelly and new roasted potatoes. He glanced over at Lady Silvia. Her head was so close it was almost resting against his arm, but she wore an absurdly attractive bonnet with dyed pink feathers nodding at a rakish angle, and he could not see her face.
“It is a modest beginning, but it is all I could ever want or need. I am not an ambitious fellow.”
“Are you not?” she asked. She turned her face up and searched his eyes. Hers were a lovely melting brown, like a mélange of caramel and chocolate.
“No,” he said carefully. He longed to boast, to puff himself up, to expand his consequence so she would think him as fine a fellow as Vaughan, and he felt ashamed of that urge. It was pride, or . . . He wasn’t sure what. Why did he want to appear more than he was in this lovely lady’s eyes? “No,” he continued, sternly quelling his baser urges. “I have modest wants and my ambition has more to do with the people I will serve. I want to bring together those in the community who feel that the church has not served their needs. Too often I think my fellow churchmen think more about advancement and money than the spiritual needs of their flock. Not,” he hastened to add, “that most are morally at fault. I did not mean to imply that.”
“No, I think I understand,” she said, holding his gaze. “But I wonder, would . . . would a wife not be able to help you in this? Women are connected in a different way with people than men, I think, and we often see a different side, a perhaps more honest side.”
“Do you think that folks conceal their faults?”
“From their vicar? Yes. Who would not? Especially a gentleman so . . .” She paused and her cheeks flamed. “A gentleman so good as you. No one would want you to see their bad side. A wife would be more likely to see and hear about the true conflicts of the parish, I think.”
Rowland’s heart sunk, but he had to be honest. As much as he would like to pretend things were different, it was the moment for absolute truthfulness. “I wish I could afford to marry, but that is not likely to be for some years yet. When I do, I will look among a class of young ladies used to the rigors of a modest household. Being the wife of a parish vicar involves a certain amount of labor, for though I will naturally keep a housekeeper and perhaps a maid, there will be much, if I marry, that my wife would have to do for the family. Cooking, sewing, preserving . . . that sort of thing. A man in my position would be wise to choose a young woman from, perhaps, the merchant classes, or a squire’s daughter—”
“Someone used to poverty,” she said sharply. So he would warn her off, would he? Had she been so very blatant? She glanced up at his handsome face, the dark tumbling locks over his broad forehead, the coal-dark eyes. Or was he just speaking generally?
“Well, not poverty, certainly, but a modest budget.”
“Do you think that a young lady of a higher class could not learn those things?” she asked.
“I don’t think she should have to,” he said earnestly.
“So you think she should be allowed to remain in the slothful privilege in which she was raised?”
He quirked one eyebrow. “My lady, there is no answer for that that is not insulting in some way.”
“I know.” They walked on in silence for a while. Silvia was silent because she was doing some honest soul searching. She had never had to do anything in her life but what was pleasurable. She had learned to play the piano, paint, sew, and sing. She could make conversation with a duke or a bishop or even the Prince Regent himself if she had to. She knew how to gently discourage an unsuitable suitor and how to deflect unwanted attentions. But what did she know of running a household on a limited budget? How did one know how much food to order, what to cook and how, or how to hire a maidservant? Since she had been staying at the Bournaud estate she had observed that Miss Copland took care of all of those things, including such housewifely duties as mixing the tea and ordering the provisions. Perhaps it was time to pay the companion a visit. With some help she could learn those skills, and with that knowledge she could learn if she was suited to be the wife of a vicar or not.
She was an advocate of not making assumptions. She had always, in her life, taken pains to learn anything she needed to know from a direct source, and deciding whether she was a fit wife for Mr. Mark Rowland would be no different. He made her heart beat faster, and she thought that he liked her, too—surely the kisses between them proved that—but there was more to marriage than that. If he was practical, well, she was too. She would go about this in an orderly fashion. Her decision calmly made, she turned the discussion to other, more innocuous subjects.
• • •
“Where is that boy with the sledge?” Vaughan peered through the woods. “And where are the others? It is getting colder.” He stamped his feet in the snow.
Verity peeled off her gloves, stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a sharp whistle. The whistle was returned and a moment later the boy, a small but strong lad of about thirteen, arrived pulling the sledge. His cheeks were rosy and he was out of breath.
“Where did you hare off to, Bobby?”
“Found a hill, Miss Allen,” the boy said, his eyes shining. “This here sledge ain’t much on flat, but you should see ’er go down a slope!”
Verity laughed. “I can imagine.” She was tempted to tell the boy to take her there. She would like nothing better at that moment than to careen down a snowy slope just like she and her brothers used to do when they were children. She had done nothing half so fun since arriving in England, and her abundant energy had her insides humming like a top. How the ladies she had met in London could abide just standing around all the time looking bored or languidly reclining, she just did not know. It seemed a waste of time to her.
She glanced over at Lord Vaughan, who was loading a heavy log on the sledge. He made her feel all tingly inside, but she didn’t think he felt the same way for her. He certainly did not seem to approve of her “hoydenish ways,” as her aunt had called them. She sighed. She could not even bear to think of that kiss she had forced on him under the tree. He had said nothing about it when he caught up with her, and she wouldn’t be the first to raise the topic. “I suppose we should l
ook for some evergreen boughs, Bobby,” she said, leading the way. “I saw some likely trees back on the main path.”
As they followed the boy with the sledge, Vaughan looked her over with a frown. “So you have actually had a Season in London?”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Verity said ruefully. “I was a trial to my poor aunt, I can tell you. I cannot dance, and everything that she tried to dress me in just looked terrible. I am too tall, my arms are too long and freckled, and I cannot walk correctly. Not like my cousins. They are lovely swans while I am a goose.”
“Then you can be a Christmas goose,” he joked. “Why did you come here in the first place? It sounds as though you loved your life in Canada.”
“My mother was afraid that I was turning into a fellow, I think. And she was convinced I would only get worse, and would never find anyone to marry me.” Sighing deeply, and relieved that Vaughan was still talking to her after that wretchedly awkward kiss she foisted upon him, Verity kicked at some sodden snow as Bobby and the sledge pulled ahead of them.
“I miss home,” she continued wistfully. “Especially this time of year. But it is not so bad. Home is not the same anymore, not like it was when I was a child. My mother has talked my father into moving into town and letting my oldest brother have the homestead, and I could not live with Patrick—my oldest brother, you know—because he has a wife. They are having a fourth child and there is no room for me. Town there is almost as bad as here. Worse in some ways! You would think they would be different, but they try so desperately to ape the manners of ‘home.’ They still call England home as if any of them are ever moving back here! Well, I can tell you, Canada is my home!”
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