Howson’s eyes bulged with fermented zeal. He was the sort of man who never changed his ideas about anything, no matter the evidence.
“I am servant to a higher truth,” he gasped.
“So am I, and a higher servant than you,” Chatty retorted, silently cursing his brandy-less state.
“In this head,” Mr. Howson said, raising his voice, “is a compendium of knowledge related to terrible matters such as these. There is no cure for this situation!”
Decapitation would cure Howson all right, Chatty reflected. It would solve a lot of problems.
“Move aside,” he said irritably. “I expect you’ve made a double ass of yourself this time.”
“I am a hammer of the Lord,” Howson said, demonstrating an adroit avoidance of the topic.
“I wish you were a bloody glass hammer,” Chatty said. “I’d open the sessions with a bang, I would.”
At last Howson moved so that Chatty could see. His heart sank. The vicar had outdone himself.
That man with his arms crossed over his chest, managing to resemble both a hungry wolf and a duke? That was surely the Earl of Gryffyn’s son. The little spell-caster looked like an angel. And . . .
“Holy Bejabbers!” he burst out, “Eugenia Strange, is that you?”
Chapter Twenty-two
The moment she saw the resplendent bishop deposit his generous bottom onto a red velvet cushion, Eugenia started smiling so widely that Ward gave her a puzzled look over Lizzie’s head.
She shook her head at him and waited impatiently while the vicar ranted about being a servant to a higher truth and a hammer of the Lord.
Mr. Howson was a withered man who looked as if he considered personal cleanliness—its proximity to godliness notwithstanding—to be a waste of time. When he started holding forth on the devil, she squeezed Lizzie’s hand to reassure her, but the girl’s blue eyes were entirely unafraid.
Though there was an odd expression in them. A distinct hint of drama.
Eugenia bent down. “Lizzie, I’m very good friends with the bishop, and we shall be out of here in the shake of a lamb’s tail.”
“Without speaking to the vicar at all?”
“There will be no need,” Eugenia assured her.
“That’s not fair,” Lizzie whispered. “Everyone has the right to face their accuser.”
“Well, if you would like to,” Eugenia said, taken aback.
“Yes, I would! I memorized my speech last night.” And with that, a look of tragic innocence settled back onto Lizzie’s face.
“This isn’t theatricals, you little donkey.”
Lizzie gave Eugenia an uncannily mature look. “That vicar would love to send me off to a nunnery, you know the way Hamlet said. I have the exact expression my mother had when she played Ophelia.”
Just then, the vicar moved to the side, allowing the bishop—or Chatty as he’d always been known to Eugenia’s family—to recognize her. A moment later, Eugenia was close in the incense-perfumed embrace of one of her father’s oldest friends.
“What the deuce are you doing here?” Chatty demanded. “I know you’re not married again, because I’d be very hurt if I hadn’t officiated. Very hurt, indeed. But poor Andrew has been gone nearly a decade, hasn’t he? Time to think of marriage.”
He swiveled about, cassock flying, Eugenia still tucked under his arm, and surveyed Ward and Lizzie.
“No, no,” Eugenia said hastily. “Mr. Reeve is a client of Snowe’s, that’s all. May I introduce Mr. Edward Reeve and his half-sibling, Miss Lizzie Darcy?”
“Of the Northampshire Darcy’s?” the bishop asked.
“No, my lord,” Ward said, bowing. “In fact, my half-sister’s father was Lord Darcy of Darcy Manor.”
Chatty’s mouth fell open. “What?”
“Lizzie’s younger brother Otis inherited the title,” Ward added.
“If I understand you correctly,” the vicar erupted, with an expression that suggested he’d just swallowed turpentine, “this child is the offspring of a notorious—”
“Mr. Howson,” Eugenia interrupted, “I’m certain you have no intention of saying anything disparaging before a child who is mourning the recent death of her mother.”
“Dead, is she?” Chatty said with interest. “Lady Lisette was barking mad, of course, but a lovely woman.” With a little start, he looked over his large stomach at Lizzie. “Forgive me, child.”
Lizzie heightened her air of innocent pathos. “My father once told me that madness is a pirouette away from genius.”
“My lord, I thought it best if I brought Lizzie to speak to you,” Ward said, intervening. “I would be dismayed if the absurd rumors circulating in the village are countenanced here.”
Chatty turned to the vicar. “Howson, the truth is that I’ve allowed your nonsense to go on too long. I’m feeling ashamed of myself. This young girl has no need of spiritual guidance.”
He looked down at Lizzie’s conspicuously innocent gaze. “She is clearly as guiltless as a lamb,” he said, with more vigor.
“We must discuss these events,” the vicar spluttered.
Chatty’s eyes narrowed. “You just spit on me, Howson! Spit! Do you know what spit does to silk? The only thing worse is blood. It was bad enough when you accused that old woman of running a house of ill repute, when in fact she was nurturing indigent orphans.”
Howson had a desperate look around his eyes. “I know the smell of evil!”
“No, you don’t,” Chatty snorted. “I’ve had enough. You’re lucky that Mr. Reeve is an understanding man.”
Ward was standing with his arms folded over his chest and Eugenia didn’t think he looked very understanding. Nor did the vicar, considering the way he edged away from him.
“I’m sending you to Africa,” Chatty said. “Or perhaps somewhere farther away; geography was never my subject.”
“The Antipodes,” Ward suggested.
“Right, that’ll do,” Chatty said obligingly. “Howson, get your affairs in order because you’ll be off on the first boat. I think you’d better apologize to this young lady. If you make it back to England, don’t get yourself tangled up in the pastimes of the nobility. This young girl is the daughter of the late Lord Darcy. Her brother is a lord.”
“That is irrelevant!”
The curate walked forward and took the vicar by the arm. “If you’ll be so kind, vicar, I believe that you might want to begin packing your books,” he said, pulling the protesting man straight out the room.
“Eugenia, Eugenia, Eugenia,” Chatty said, enveloping Eugenia in his arms again. He smelled of roast beef, incense, and port.
“I didn’t get to say my speech,” an indignant voice said from behind Eugenia.
Lizzie was tapping her foot for all the world like a frosty dowager who’d been kept waiting.
“You can perform it at home,” Ward said, glancing down at her and then back at Eugenia.
She could feel herself getting pink around the ears. Hopefully no one else could interpret that intent look of his. She glanced sideways and realized that Chatty’s eyes had narrowed.
“Miss Darcy,” Eugenia said hastily, “it is not appropriate to complain when you’re in the company of a bishop.”
“Why not?” Lizzie demanded. “He sent the vicar away before I could make my speech. I had the right to say it, because the vicar was accusing me of nefilius things. All sorts of nefilius things.”
“Nefilius?” Ward repeated.
“I presume you are referring to ‘nefarious’ things,” Eugenia said. “While I applaud your vocabulary, there is a time and place for everything.”
Lizzie glared. “This was the place and the time,” she said, not unreasonably.
“She has a point,” Chatty said, interrupting. “I’ll be tickled if she doesn’t remind me of you, Eugenia. Remember that time when you secreted yourself in a basket and had it brought into the parlor? You were around seven years old.”
Eugenia opened her mouth
to stop him, but Lizzie got there first. “Why was Mrs. Snowe in a basket?”
“She had memorized a soliloquy from Othello, and wanted to give it to the company,” the bishop said. “As I recall, her father had made her promise not to recite any more Shakespeare, but she got around him by being delivered as a birthday present.”
“I have memorized the whole of Othello,” Lizzie said, nodding. “I was the prompter when my mother played Desdemona.”
“Lady Lisette playing the innocent Desdemona,” Chatty muttered. “Flabbergasting.”
Eugenia threw him a quick frown. No matter her reputation, Lady Lisette had been Lizzie’s mother, not to mention Ward’s.
“Well, go ahead and give your speech,” Chatty said. “If you’re anything like young Eugenia, you won’t relent until you have your way.”
“What did Mrs. Snowe do when she didn’t have her way?” Lizzie asked, eyes wide.
“I am not a good model,” Eugenia said hastily.
“Oh, she was a terror, a right terror,” Chatty said. “Burst out screaming, she would. Her papa had spoiled her rotten.”
Eugenia swatted her old friend on the arm. “Hush, you beast.”
“I am not spoiled,” Lizzie said. “I don’t mind if no one hears my speech.”
“Good girl,” Chatty said, bending down. “I hate Othello myself. That being the case, would you be so kind as to escort an old man back to the vicarage?”
“I can do that,” Lizzie said, as regal as any queen. She and the bishop left the room, her high voice fading as the door swung shut behind them.
“Spoiled, were you?” Ward said, with distinct amusement.
Just a few minutes before, he had resembled an ancient berserker, wanting only an axe resting on his shoulder to complete the picture. Now he looked like an English gentleman again, if handsomer than most.
“Well,” Eugenia said briskly, gathering up her reticule and shawl, “we’d better follow them.”
Ward took the shawl and wrapped it around her shoulders. “How spoiled were you?”
“Monstrously,” she admitted as he drew her down the aisle. “I was the light of my father’s eyes, and I spent a good deal of time with him or alone. Thus the plays.”
“Is that why you became a governess?” He held open the door.
“I was never a governess. I operate a registry office for governesses, which is not the same thing.”
They entered the dim passageway leading to the vicarage. Its only illumination was weak sunlight filtering through narrow windows badly in need of a wash.
Ward took a quick look ahead to make certain they were alone, drew Eugenia to a halt, and slid his arms around her waist. “I thought you were too naughty to be a governess.”
“I think we established that you were a naughty child, Mr. Reeve. I was quite biddable.”
“Only if you weren’t crossed, according to your friend the bishop.” Ward drew her closer and bent his head. “I can’t go on without a taste of you.”
Her eyes were luminous in the dark corridor, her skin translucent. “You’d best be careful, Mr. Reeve. You’ve made Chatty curious, and if he were to drop a word to my father, you might find yourself dumped at the base of an altar. And I don’t mean as a pagan sacrifice, either.”
“You’re a widowed woman,” he said, his lips hovering over hers. “Your father needn’t defend your honor the way he would a maiden’s.”
Eugenia shook her head. “You have a great deal to learn about fathers and daughters.”
“I have time before Lizzie grows up.”
Ward’s ready acceptance of Lizzie and Otis into his life was almost as alluring as the muscled leg holding her against the wall.
Or the warm mouth ravaging hers, kissing her with a ferocity that pricked all over, making heat radiate through her body.
“We can’t do this here,” she whispered.
“No one can see,” he growled back, the catch in his voice making her knees wobble because he so clearly wanted her as much as she wanted him. His hand slid past her shoulder and shaped her breast as he drank from her mouth.
“How spoiled are you these days? Will you scream if I don’t give you what you want?” He was rubbing her nipple with the side of his broad thumb, making her eyelids droop and her knees tremble.
“Screaming in the vicarage would not be a good idea,” she managed. She could scarcely speak. She was boneless against the wall, her hips arching instinctively against the hard muscular curve of his thigh. With a gasp, she pulled away from his kiss and sank her hands into his hair.
“You sound so damn wanton,” Ward growled. “You’d let me do anything to you, wouldn’t you, Eugenia? The perfect lady is no longer in control.”
“No,” she whispered.
He pulled at the edge of her gown so that one breast gleamed in the dim light. “Ask me for what you want.”
“Kiss me,” she cried, helpless in the grip of a desire so potent that she could feel herself tremble.
He bent his head and his warm tongue found her nipple. Her eyes closed and a broken moan floated from her lips.
“Hush,” he commanded. His teeth nipped her at the same moment that a hand covered her mouth, stifling her hoarse cry.
“You want everything I’ll give you, don’t you?” he growled.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Even here, in this church corridor. If I wrapped your legs around my waist, I could take you right here, couldn’t I?”
His smoldering voice made her shudder again. Her breasts felt heavy under his restless caress.
“Couldn’t I?” Ward repeated, his voice branding her skin. He was kissing her again, taking her mouth as his hands petted her, but even so, when he drew back she had just enough presence of mind to speak the truth.
“Yes,” she gasped.
“You’d take every inch of this into your sweet, tight body,” he said, kissing her ear lobe at the same time he rubbed her hand against his cock, now straining to break free of his breeches.
A trickle of sense penetrated Eugenia’s consciousness.
He was using those words with her—a lady? Not that she wasn’t curious about his privates, but—
She heard the low words he whispered in her ear. “Right here in the corridor.”
Eugenia was melting, her skin singing, her breasts throbbing . . .
But.
No.
Ward was starting to sound altogether too much like those men who came to Snowe’s Registry, thinking they could make her do whatever they wanted.
She summoned every ounce of self-control she possessed, and pulled away. “The answer to that is no, Mr. Reeve.”
That man was going entirely too far, thinking that he had her under his command.
Perhaps he did have her under his command, but she was constitutionally opposed to revealing that truth.
She gave her skirts a shake. “Shall we join the others?” She walked ahead of him in the passageway feeling shaken—and triumphant. She’d be damned if she let Ward know how susceptible she was to his charms, simply because he was promising to make love to her.
Make deep, immoral, illicit, debauched love to her all night long.
She was no man’s possession, and she wouldn’t be—at least, not until she chose to give herself away again.
Chapter Twenty-three
During the time it took for Ward’s blood to cool down, he discovered that he couldn’t stop grinning. He was entranced by Eugenia’s sensuality, by her candor, by her laughter.
Even the way she drew her ladylike cloak around herself and dismissed him, all the time with a glint in her eye that admitted it was a pretense.
She was like no other woman he’d ever met. Just now she was prancing down the hall ahead of him, and he knew perfectly well that every twitch of those rounded hips was calculated to drive him insane.
When she reached the end of the corridor, Eugenia looked over her shoulder, and damned if she didn’t look as composed as i
f he hadn’t tried to make love to her. She had been close to coming in his arms.
He knew she had.
Her breath had caught and she had writhed against him, fingers clenching his shoulders, all because he was kissing her breast.
It was the first time that he’d ever ground out a series of demands like that, perhaps because other women in his experience had made it clear that they were happy to do anything he wanted.
Anything, anywhere.
Not inconsequentially, he had walked away from them without a second thought.
But Eugenia?
She had walked away from him.
He strolled into the vicarage’s drawing room and waited for a maid to pour him a cup of tea, taking the time to add milk and sugar, both of which he loathed. One sip of that revolting beverage, and his cock deflated.
A cup of tea, a chat with the bishop, and he could summon his carriage and return home. Where he fully intended to pull the owner of Snowe’s Registry upstairs and ravish her against the bedpost.
Or against the wall.
He turned around, holding his tea. Tears were trickling down Lizzie’s cheeks. “What happened?” he rasped, dumping his tea cup on a side table and crouching down beside his sister.
“Nothing,” Eugenia said. “Lizzie is demonstrating the art of weeping. She planned to employ the art this morning, but she was thwarted by Chatty’s expeditious handling of your vicar.”
“Howson was not ‘my’ vicar,” Ward said testily. Granted, the bishop was a middle-aged man, but did Eugenia have to nestle in his arm like that?
What about when she married again? What if he was crossing a London street and saw her gazing at her husband with that sweet expression?
He would turn the other way, obviously.
“Lizzie, what is the possible good of being able to cry on command?” he demanded.
“It might do her a rare sight of good when she’s married,” said the bishop—or Chatty, as Eugenia was calling him. “There’s nothing that controls a man as quickly as a woman’s tears.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Eugenia said. “Ladies never use tears to get what we want. There are other ways. More honorable ways.”