Talk of the Ton (Free Fellows League 5)

Her hand sank into his hair, the other clinging tightly to his shoulder, fingers digging through fabric to bone, her desire as stark as his. His cock grew hard between them, and he pressed it against her. Mrs. Becket responded by moving seductively against him, her pelvis sliding against his, her breasts pressed to his chest. It was a wild kiss, full of illicit pleasure, hot and full of longing and anticipation.

But then suddenly, she jerked away, pushed his hands from her body, and stepped back. Her eyes blazed with passion and fear and a host of other things Darien could not identify. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, then pressed it against her bosom, over her heart. “Oh my God,” she whispered, staring at him. “Oh dear God, what have I done?”

“Mrs. Becket,” he said, reaching for her, but it was too late. She’d already turned on her heel and fled the dark cellar. He could hear the click of her heels against the stairs as she fought her way up to the surface.

Darien stood there until he could no longer hear the sound of her shoes.

He’d just kissed the vicar’s wife. A bloody rotten bounder, that’s what he was. Idiot.

With a sigh, he straightened his clothing, adjusted his trousers, and ran his fingers through his hair. When he was convinced he had returned quite to normal, he picked up a bottle of gin and his candle, and strode from the cellar.

He did not see Mrs. Becket again that night. Nor was she in church the following Sunday.

And every Sunday after that, she pretended not to see him. But Darien saw her. He did not press his case, but he saw her, for he could not take his eyes from her.

A few months later, in a tragic collision of his horse and a rogue carriage, her husband, the vicar, was thrown off Blackfriar’s Bridge to the murky Thames below.

His body was not recovered for several days.

Chapter Two

London, 1819

For the first time in the little more than two years since Richard had died, Kate Becket finally gave in to her father’s urging and put away her widow’s weeds. She donned a new gold walking gown trimmed in green around the hem and sleeves. Standing in her bedroom in the little guest house on the vicar’s property—where she and her father had been permitted to live since her husband’s death—Kate looked at herself in the full-length mirror and smiled. Gold was a much more becoming color for her than black.

She’d been reluctant to discard her widow’s weeds and had worn them longer than the customary two years. It seemed as if taking them off made her disloyal to Richard’s memory somehow, as if she was anxious to be rid of his ghost. Nothing could be further from the truth—she had loved Richard, had been devastated by his tragic death, and had truly and deeply mourned him.

But when spring came, she had awakened one morning with the surprisingly resolute feeling that it was time to move past her husband’s memory and live her life again.

Today, when she made her weekly call to the elderly and infirm members of the congregation with their fruit baskets, she’d be wearing her new gold gown and matching pelisse and bonnet. It had cost a fortune for a woman on a widow’s pension, but it made her feel pretty, and the good Lord knew she had not felt pretty in a very long time.

It was well worth the expense.

An hour later, with her father trailing behind her pushing the small cart of fruit baskets, Kate made her first call to the positively ancient Mrs. Biddlesly, who defied the universe by living past her eightieth year. Mrs. Biddlesly instantly declared her dislike of fruit and pushed the basket aside (although Kate knew she’d eat every last bite once she’d gone), then peered at Kate through rheumy eyes and demanded to know what had happened to her mourning clothes.

“My husband has been gone two years, Mrs. Biddlesly.”

“My husband died thirty-four years ago,” the old woman said, shaking a crooked finger at Kate, “and to this day I mourn him!”

That she did, in the same black bombazine she wore every day.

“I mourn my husband, too, Mrs. Biddlesly, and I always shall,” Kate assured her with a smile. “But life must go on. Don’t you agree?”

“Bah!” Mrs. Biddlesly said and eyed an apple in the basket. “Rotten stuff, that fruit. Don’t bring fruit again!”

Kate assured her she wouldn’t, and moved to the door, smiling at the equally ancient footman who moved to open it for her.

“Ho there, where do you think you are going?” Mrs. Biddlesly shrieked. “I’ve not said you might go!”

With a look toward heaven, Kate turned round. A full half hour later, she managed to escape, having endured the cataloguing of all Mrs. Biddlesly’s physical ailments—in precise detail, thank you.

Kate’s father was leaning against his little cart as she bounced down the stairs.

“A list of complaints again, eh?”

“Indeed,” Kate said with a laugh. “And she’s added quite a few more since last week.”

With a snort, her father rolled his eyes. “Don’t know why you bother at all, Kate. She’s an ungrateful old bat.”