It was a terrible scheme, and yet he couldn’t be sorry for it. He had been alone for so long, and although there were women who had been part of his life, there was always a distance he never allowed them to breach. He’d told himself that was because he had a past that held him back when it came to giving himself over completely, but now he wondered if it was just that he hadn’t found the right woman. A mistress to visit when his physical need was strong was all very well, but he had wanted more than that. He’d wanted a companion who could make him listen and think, who he could talk to without having to watch his words, and who would make him smile. More importantly he’d wanted someone to love.
His own happy ending.
Margaret opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling of her bed chamber. It was the second night since her encounter with Monkstead and the second night she hadn’t been able to fall asleep without thinking about it. Or him.
It didn’t help that she’d been up with her mother, who kept believing it was time to rise and called for help getting dressed. Margaret had finally settled her an hour ago, but she still couldn’t sleep.
Another of the reasons for her disquiet was her father’s meeting with the dean. The vicar had come marching upstairs to his wife’s room, where Margaret was trying to tempt her with some toast and tea, and informed them that he was going to be moved south to a more lucrative living. Not, he was quick to assure them, among the nasty, smelly coal mines, but in a nice rural area where the farmers and land owners held sway.
Margaret knew he had been trying for many years to secure himself a parish he considered more deserving of his abilities. Denwick had never been a wealthy area, and apart from the farmers who struggled to grow their crops and feed their stock on the moorland, its major employer was a foundry that made equipment for soldiers. The defeat of Napoleon and the end of the war had meant demand had plummeted and jobs lost, and now the parish was even more depressed.
“It seems I impressed at least one important gentleman,” he had said with a triumphant smile, “and when the living became vacant he thought of me.”
His wife smiled vacantly, but Margaret was already wondering if that meant Louis Scott would take over the parish of Denwick. Living here without her father’s beady eye on them would be vastly different to being at his constant beck and call.
“That—that is very good news,” she said, realizing she had been silent too long. Luckily her father was too full of his news to notice.
“Yes, it is. But don’t concern yourself about being left behind, Margaret, because I have already asked that Louis accompany me. As his future wife, you will accompany him.” He gave her a toothy smile.
“Oh. Well … what a relief.”
He didn’t seem to detect the lie, or if he did he ignored it, as he did all things that did not fit in with his view of the world.
“What does Lady Strangeways think about you leaving?” she asked, knowing the woman wouldn’t be pleased to have her favourite vicar abandon her. Surely her father did not mean to bring her ladyship with them too?
He frowned, as if the reminder of this particular hurdle wasn’t to his liking. “We won’t tell anyone about this until it is official. I do not want to jeopardize my chances, do you hear?”
Margaret and her mother had been quick to promise complete and utter silence.
Now Margaret stared at the ceiling some more, wondering how she would manage in a new place with her mother’s health failing and her father’s demands, and poor Louis run ragged. Even ridding them of Lady Strangeways barely tipped the balance. As there seemed no answer to this problem, she turned to her other worry, which was a much more confusing and yet strangely enjoyable conundrum.
Monkstead.
She mulled over the words he had spoken to her. It didn’t seem to matter how often she repeated them, she still didn’t know what to make of them. Or him. She only knew that when she thought about that brief moment they were alone together she knew she had experienced feelings she had never felt before. Well, not since she’d seen him last in Mockingbird Square. Her heart had sped up to a quick march, and then a warm tingling sensation had enveloped her lips as she imagined his mouth on hers. The warmth had spread from there, and down into her breasts and even her belly.
This needy feeling only became apparent when she was with the earl. She never found herself thinking about any other man in such a way, and the fact it was this man confused and vexed her. Like most girls, she did dream about love and someone who would be with her until death, but that someone had always been faceless. She read romances and smiled to herself, mostly thinking how silly the characters were, and how they could so easily solve their problems with a little common sense.
In that she was rather like the earl, she supposed, only he liked to take a hands-on approach.
Then there was her cousin Olivia and the passionate love she had for her husband Rory. Once, after an argument, Margaret had seen them clasped together and kissing wildly. Yes, she admitted, she did want that. She wanted a man to love her, to be with her, to make her happy. And at the same time she knew that dream was impossible.
She’d told herself the earl’s words were not to be taken seriously, that he was using her as a distraction, but the more she pondered it, the more she accepted he was not a man who would do that to her. He would not play with her feelings like that. He could be charming, he could be amusing, and he could definitely be annoying and self-important, but he was not frivolous. He was not thoughtless.
The way he had looked at her … I want to suck your lip into my mouth. She gave a shiver. There had been times during their encounters in London when she had wondered if he wasn’t considering seducing her, but the idea of a man like Monkstead thinking of her in such a way had seemed so preposterous. She’d dismissed it.
Now the idea was no longer
preposterous and the question was: What was she going to do about it?
Restlessly she turned on her side. She was too inexperienced to know how to counter his moves. Monkstead was a man of the world, a married man of the world, although strangely his married state was not something that had concerned her as much as it should. It did now, and she reminded herself that giving in to him was quite, quite impossible, and she must not even begin to imagine taking that path.
And like a disobedient child, her head immediately did just that. She pictured herself saying ‘yes’ and him pressing his lips to hers, and declaring all sorts of unlikely things. Her arms were wrapped around his broad shoulders, and she could smell his shaving lotion—she hadn’t even known she recognized it by heart until now. A moment later he lifted her onto his horse and, when she was tucked in against him, held safe in his arms, rode away with her to some as yet undisclosed utopia. A utopia where leaving all of her responsibilities behind her and running off with a married man was not such a bad thing after all.
Shocked by how far her wayward thoughts had taken her, she pulled back.
When next she saw him she must speak to him bluntly. Whatever strange bee he had in his brain concerning her needed to be squashed flat before it could take flight.
No flirting, no staring at her in a way that made her body turn to warm syrup, and definitely no kissing.