The Vicar's Widow

It felt as if the ground buckled beneath her feet. Kate reached for a chair and slid into it while she tried to keep smiling and tried to keep from sobbing or gasping or crying out to the heavens. “How marvelous for him,” she said unevenly. “He’d have quite a catch, were he to offer.”


“Yes,” Miss Forsythe said, taking a step toward her. “Wouldn’t he?” But then she whirled around to the other ladies. “I mean to say, it would be marvelous if he truly esteemed me in that way.”

Once again, they all hastened to assure her that he did, and that his imminent offer would certainly come at the Southbridge Charity Auction Ball. One of them vowed that Lady Southbridge had said, in fact, that she had it on very good authority that was precisely where he intended to make his offer, in grand fashion, just as they used to do in the olden days.

How Kate managed to endure that luncheon was quite beyond her comprehension. She could not look at the fair Miss Forsythe and not see that it was true. Of course he would offer for her—it made perfect sense. The girl came with a respectable dowry, was properly credentialed in the eyes of the ton, was the perfect wife in every way for a man of his stature. She was a vicar’s poor widow. And when he’d said he should always keep her near, he meant something entirely different than a legitimate offer of marriage.

How pathetically foolish she had been to believe otherwise! He’d wanted beneath her skirts, that was all! He’d seen a widow and had acted upon his male instincts, just as Lord Connery hoped to do. And even though she could believe that Montgomery did indeed esteem her in some way, it was clear to her that he’d never intended to have more than what she had so freely given him, and more the bloody fool that made her, for she was not a young miss. She understood the way of men and women, yet had chosen to believe her silly, childish fantasies!

Her bloody heart felt as if it had been crushed to tiny pieces.





At the end of the Ladies Auxiliary meeting, Emily watched Mrs. Becket clear the cake plates. She moved lethargically, as if she had been dealt a tremendous blow. It was strange, Emily thought, as she gathered her gloves and reticule, that it did not bring her the pleasure she had imagined. It seemed as if the woman had been mortally wounded, and she imagined how the vicar might find her Sunday morning, sprawled in the church’s kitchen, an arrow through her heart, the very life bled out of her.

The image was so strong that as she walked down the street, lost in thought, her mother mistook her silence for fretting, and put her arm around Emily, drawing her in close to her side. “You mustn’t fret, Daughter,” she whispered reassuringly. “Lady Cheevers is quite right. The rumor never would have carried so far if there were not some truth to it. It was obvious to all in attendance at the May Day Ball that he held you in highest esteem. Lady Southbridge said he looked after you quite lovingly.”

Only because she had told Lady Southbridge that he had.

“Now when your father returns from the country, he’ll pay a call to Montgomery and determine what he’s about.”

A knot formed in her belly; Emily looked down at her feet.

“There, now,” her mother said again. “Your father is quite adept at this sort of thing. I’d wager by the time he leaves Lord Montgomery’s study, his lordship will wonder why he waited so long to make an offer for the fair Emily Forsythe, mark me.”

Unless, of course, his esteem of her had been manufactured and planted in her mother’s head, just as it had been deviously planted in every feminine head among the ton.

But then again, Emily thought brightly, perhaps the gems of gossip she had left behind in all those drawing rooms might somehow work together to convince Lord Montgomery that he did, in fact, esteem her as he ought. Perhaps, when her father called, he’d be begin to see it, and if not, her father would help him to see it. She imagined Montgomery imagining her walking through a field of flowers, a garland in her hair, and resisting the urge to run to wherever she might be at that moment.

She lifted her head, smiled at her mother.

“Ah, there’s my darling! The world is a much brighter place when you smile, Emily. I am quite certain that Lord Montgomery noticed it instantly the night you came out. I recall that he watched you very closely the entire evening of your debut,” she said, and seemed firmly convinced of it.

Perhaps, then, Emily thought as she marched alongside her mother, her plan wasn’t so very far-flung after all. Perhaps she had only aided the inevitable.





Chapter Ten




By the time Sunday morning rolled around, Darien was feeling a bit frantic. He’d not been successful at seeing Kate since the day of the picnic. His calls to her house were rebuffed by her father, who said she was, alternately, ill, indisposed, then ill, then indisposed.