Saxonhurst Secrets

‘That he can’t wait another two months. He won’t wait. He is too close to self-destruction. He’s even talked about killing my other lovers.’

‘Well, I know how he must feel. If they didn’t keep me alive, I would contemplate their murder myself. It is a paradoxical position for a man to find himself in. Come here, my Evangeline. Embrace me.’

In his arms, she continued to speak, her voice low and anxious.

‘Shields thinks I should leave the village for a while, and I can see her point. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. If I write to him, I can keep him on the string without him going over the top, d’you know what I mean? And I’ve got a chance to go and do a film shoot in the south of France. Seb and Kasia want to do a beach orgy movie. So that might work really well for me. What do you think?’

‘The Shields woman – I wonder at her motives. None of her kind has ever been on our side.’

‘I know. She wants him for herself. But I don’t think he wants her. He’s dying for me, John, I’m sure of it. He wouldn’t go after Julia Shields, no matter how much she flaunted herself in front of him. He’s a vicar, ain’t he? He’ll be faithful and chaste and all that kind of thing.’

‘No man can be chaste when he sees you in his visions. You have already driven him into a fever of lust. I see the quandary, however. A fever of lust is a dangerous thing and cannot be kept at a simmer until the harvest. Perhaps it’s as well if you do go away. Perhaps it will give him time to let his emotions steep. When you return, he will be at your mercy.’

‘So I?

?ll tell Seb and Kasia yes, then?’

‘Perhaps you should. And now, put the preacher from your mind and unbutton my breeches.’

When Evie told him she was going away, Adam tried to change her mind.

She was sitting on his desk, swinging her long brown legs, eating an ice pop. The ice pop was purple and it stained her lips, making him picture himself smearing blackberries over them.

‘Where are you going?’

‘France. Nice, I think. Nice in Nice, ennit?’ She grinned at her own wit.

‘Who are you going with?’

‘Seb and Kasia.’

He felt his facial muscles tense into a ferocious scowl.

‘Oh.’

‘It’s a work thing. Got to earn the crust, ain’t I?’

‘When you come to me, you’ll have to give all that up.’

‘What, my job? What if I don’t want to?’

‘I’m a vicar. I can’t be married to a porn actress.’

Evie stared.

‘Married? You’re a bit previous, ain’t you?’

‘I’m not going to live in sin with you.’

‘Hark at him! Living in sin. So, come on, then. Where’s my proposal?’

Adam, caught out and forced into action, looked around the room as if for an escape route before taking the ice pop from Evie’s hand and pulling her to her feet.

‘Evie Witts,’ he said, dropping to one knee. ‘Will you marry me?’

He felt ridiculous, a character in a play. This couldn’t be reality, proposing to the beautiful woman who had slept with every man in Saxonhurst except for him.

She giggled. ‘I really think you’re serious.’