The Vicar's Widow

“Yes, yes, I take your meaning,” she said with a dismissive flick of her wrist. “It seems as if my reputation has taken a rather strange turn, for reasons I am happily ignorant.”


Frankly, Darien had wondered about that—oh honestly, when it came to Kate, he wondered about everything. What did she eat? When did she sleep? How did she look with her hair completely unbound and mussed? Did her sleepy morning eyes still shimmer with her spirit? What books did she read? What thoughts did she have? Who did she love?

“Do you miss him?” he suddenly blurted, and mentally kicked himself for voicing the question aloud.

To her credit, Kate did not seem either appalled or surprised. She put aside her plate and girlishly lay back on the pillows, rolling onto her belly. “I missed him terribly at first,” she said, looking out at the rain. “But I don’t think of him as often now.” She glanced at Darien from the corner of her eye. “Do you think me horrible?”

“Not in the least,” he assured her. “Time has a rather cruel way of marching on.”

“Yes, rather determinedly, I’ve noticed. I still think of Richard, I do. And I treasure the time that we had. But it seems that as of late, there is someone else occupying my thoughts.”

Darien stilled. “Is there?”

“There is,” she said, smiling again, lifting her funny walking boots above her knees.

“Not Connery, I should hope.”

She laughed lightly and rolled onto her side, propping her hand beneath her head, “It’s hardly Connery. The man is intolerable.”

Darien put his plate aside and calmly wiped his mouth with a linen napkin as he considered that. “Then might I be so bold as to inquire?”

She laughed, put her hand reassuringly on his forearm. “Can you not guess, my lord? After all, I turned the other gentlemen away.”

The gentle, lusty timbre of her voice wrapped around him, and Darien impulsively reached for her hand. But Kate startled him by catching his hand in hers, her long, delicate fingers closing tightly around his.

“Can’t you guess?”

The question sent a white-hot bolt of lightning through his body. Darien’s blood was churning; he felt as if he was being swept away, carried off by the stream of her voice. She suddenly sat up, took his hand firmly in hers and laid it in her lap. With her other hand, she traced the lines of his palm, slowly to his wrist, and then back again, to the forefinger, her touch scorching him as she moved. It seemed minutes, if not hours, before she shifted her gaze from his face to his eyes. “Shall I tell you your future?”

“Not,” he said hoarsely, “unless you are in it.”

Her gaze calmly roamed his face. “Do you truly want me in it?”

“I want you, Kate,” he confessed in a gruff whisper. “Is it not obvious to you by now? I’ve wanted you for my own the moment I laid eyes on you. I’ve wanted you so long and hard that my body aches with it.”

She gazed at his lips for a moment. “Those words,” she said, “which you speak so carelessly, are a salve to my wounded heart.” She lifted her gaze to his, her green eyes almost the color of the ivy that grew along the riverbank. “But I fear for my heart, sir. I fear it will not withstand another blow. You will please forgive me, then, if I ask if I am the only one to whom such poetic and . . . stirring words have been spoken?”

Darien impulsively grasped her hand, leaned down to kiss her palm, his lips lingering there, wondering how in God’s name he might convince her of what was in his heart. But then Kate withdrew her hand and laid it tenderly against his cheek, and Darien lost all reason.

He reached for her, seized her, really, and pulled her hard to him, then bore her down into the cushions. He pressed his mouth against her cheek, then her eyes, and slid to her lips, drinking in the wine she had drunk, the saltiness of the roasted chicken. He felt the succulent surface of her lips and held fast there, relishing the feel of her in his arms.

“Only you, Kate. It has been only you these last few years,” he said hoarsely. “I bare my soul to you now. I’ll not tease you about something so important as this.”

It was Kate who moved first, Kate whose fair lips parted slightly, Kate’s tongue that dipped between his lips to touch him. And then Darien was falling, drifting down like a feather onto the field of gold where she pushed him.

He rolled onto his back, bringing Kate with him, on top of him, his hands on either side of her head, his lips covering hers, and her face, her ears, and neck. He devoured her soft lips, inch by extraordinary inch. Then he tasted the inside of her mouth, reveled in the feel of her teeth, her tongue, and the sweet, smooth flesh of her mouth. One hand fell to the slender column of her neck, drifted down to the wool cloth that covered her bosom, cupping the pliant weight of her breast before fumbling with the dozens of small buttons that kept her from him.