The Vicar's Widow

“A mouse,” she echoed and closed her eyes a moment as she sought her breath. But she did not let go his lapel. When she opened her eyes again, she was looking at his mouth. Her lips parted softly with a sigh of relief, and she drew a ragged breath.

In the dim golden light of that single candle, Darien saw the rosy skin of her cheeks, the smooth column of her neck, the rise of her bosom, and a look in her eyes that he felt deep to the very depth of himself. In a moment of madness, without thought, without so much as a breath, he let go her arm, put his hand around her waist, and pulled her tightly to him at the same time he put his lips to hers.

She did not resist him; her hand loosened on his lapel and slid up to his neck, to his jaw. Reverently, he kissed her, sinking into a vague feeling of remorse for having done it at all. But she wore the scent of gardenias in her hair and on her neck, and the scent filled him with an almighty lust. Remorse was swallowed whole by desire spreading through him.

His hand tightened at her waist; he touched his tongue to hers, and she easily opened to him. He had an image of her body opening much like that, and his desire got the best of him. He kissed her madly, his tongue in her mouth, his teeth on her lips, his hand drifting to the swell of her lovely bum, grasping it and holding her against him.

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.