The Vicar's Widow

“I thought I had been perfectly clear on that, my lord,” she said, smiling sweetly. “You shouldn’t wait at all, as I do not intend to grace you with my company.”


He was completely unrattled by her, and simply smiled in a way that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. “Very well then. I shall wait,” he said, and with a wink, nodded his good day to her father and continued his affected saunter out of the parlor.

Kate and her father walked to the front of the parlor room and looked out the window at the departing gentlemen as they walked quickly across the lawn, their umbrellas bobbing above them.

“Like rabbits, the lot of them,” Papa said, scowling. “Hopping eagerly about when the widow comes out of her weeds. There’s not an honorable one among them, I’d wager,” he opined and turned from the window.

“I can’t understand it, Papa. I’ve scarcely spoken to any of them, other than to greet them at church.”

Her father laughed. “You are not aware of your charm, Kate. But I think that just as well, for there is nothing more appalling than a woman convinced of her own appeal. In the future, mind you have a care about the bachelor gentlemen of our church.”

Kate laughingly agreed and glanced over her shoulder at her father. “You should rest, Papa.”

“I am rather tired,” he said, nodding. “Have William wake me before supper, will you?” he asked, and with a yawn, walked out of the parlor.

Kate thought to rest, too—the trek through the rain had been grueling. Perhaps she would lie down for a few moments in here, in the dark of the parlor. She turned round, went to the window again to draw the drapes closed, but she noticed someone standing at the gate. She stepped closer to the window and peered out.

It was Montgomery, leaning up against the wrought-iron fence, one leg casually crossed over the other, holding an umbrella over her his head as he absently twirled a timepiece around his finger, then out again, then in. He nodded in something of a silent greeting.

A smile, golden and warm, slipped across Kate’s lips. With a furtive glance over her shoulder to assure herself her father had gone, she looked out the window again and could not help the small laugh that escaped her; Montgomery had moved forward and was standing now, his legs braced apart, one hand shoved deep in his pocket, staring up at the parlor window.

There was something about that man that drew her like a magnet, and Kate pressed her hand against the glass pane. From where she stood, she could see that he grinned. She abruptly whirled about, walked to the door of the parlor, gathering her bonnet from the chair where she’d dropped it as she went into the entry hall. Picking up the umbrella William had put next to the door, she slipped out.

He was standing beneath the overhang of the small front porch. “Good afternoon, Kate,” he said, quietly smiling.

The tenor of his voice reverberated in her chest, almost stealing her breath. “My lord,” she said, returning his smile. “What an unusual way you have of calling.”

“I would have presented myself, but it seemed rather crowded within.” He closed his umbrella. “I thought it best to wait under the old oak,” he said, nodding to a tree at the corner of the guest house, which could not be seen by the departing gentlemen, lest they turned fully around.

Kate laughed. “And did you not think, sir, when you saw the other gentlemen depart promptly, that perhaps it best if you joined them?”

“What? And leave you quite alone?” he asked playfully, tapping the tip of his umbrella against hers. “It was quite clear to me that you were sending them forth so that you might honor me with the particular pleasure of your company.”

Another warm smile soaked through her. “My, my, your flattery grows more eloquent with each passing day!”

“That is because I cannot possibly adore you enough,” he said with a smiling bow. “Casual words are increasingly insufficient to describe my esteem for you, so I must improve my thoughts and speech to capture your lovely essence.”

“That’s really very lovely,” Kate said with a coltish tap of her umbrella against his boot. “But I confess to being quite in the dark as to the true motives behind such eloquence, my lord.”

“My lord, my lord . . .” He sighed wearily. “When will you take leave to call me by my given name, Kate? I shall remind you once again that it is Darien, the name of my grandfather, and his father before him. As to my motive, I think you have deduced it quite accurately—it is simply to hear my name on your breath as I make you succumb to pleasure.” He gave her an easy, roguishly charming smile.