Hot Under the Collar Page 3

  “Well,” Artemisia observed drily, “you must admit you are an excellent catch.”

  “I admit no such thing. I assure you that once upon a time, I was the last man to have his name etched on any respectable young lady’s dance card. And in any event, I have no interest in being caught on anyone’s hook just yet.”

  “In my experience, men never want to be caught, but they do tend to be attracted to bright, shiny objects, which often leads to that result.” She tilted to her head to one side, recalling the original question that had led them down the path of this conversation. And that it had not been answered. “Is that why you’re here, Mr. Langston? Because I’m a bright, shiny object that doesn’t have a hook hiding underneath?”

  He placed his palms flat on his legs, just above the knees, and leaned forward, his expression earnest. “To be quite honest, Miss Finch, I’m not entirely sure why I am here except that I felt compelled to meet you. And to offer you my friendship, for what it might be worth. I can’t imagine it’s easy for you, living here, given everything that’s happened.”

  Artemisia stood abruptly, sending her needlework to the floor with a clatter. She met his gaze to find his rich, brown eyes filled with sympathy and kindness, and wanted to slap him. “I don’t need your pity, vicar, any more than I needed a sermon on repentance.” Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to see to my father’s afternoon tea and biscuits.”

  Her skirts swirled about her feet as she turned to leave. It was rude in the extreme, but she meant it to be. She didn’t regret her choices, and she didn’t want anyone else regretting them on her behalf. The bed she’d made was perfectly comfortable—if a bit empty—and she was more than willing to lie in it.

  She had taken precisely two steps when strong, capable fingers wrapped around her upper arm and whirled her back to face him. His eyes were no longer soft with sympathy, but hard as the famous rocky cliffs of Dover.

  “Let me make myself perfectly clear, Miss Finch. I do not pity you.” He yanked her against his chest, which she tried not to notice was broad and warm and solid and very, very male. “Does this feel like pity?”

  It didn’t, but she couldn’t say so, because he was kissing her, and under no circumstances did she want him to stop.

  4

  He hadn’t meant to kiss her, but now that he was, Walter meant to take full advantage of the opportunity. After all, it was quite possibly the only one he would ever get. His chances of getting through her front door a second time after today’s fiasco seemed rather dim.

  The first order of business, therefore, was to quash any latent resistance. He’d taken her by surprise—only slightly more than he’d taken himself by surprise—and that gave him a brief advantage, which he immediately capitalized upon. Releasing his grip on her arm, he slid one hand around her waist and cradled her cheek with the other, affording her no immediate option but to allow him to continue his exploration of the honey-and-mint tinged territory of her lips. A few seconds of unguarded indulgence were all he hoped for, so he was momentarily unbalanced when, rather than pushing him away with the hands that had landed upon his chest, she slid them up around his shoulders and cupped the back of his head, urging him closer.

  Was she…could she actually be kissing him back? That seemed an unlikely prospect, and yet, her mouth moved beneath his and her lips parted for his questing tongue like the Red Sea for Moses. She arched into him, her body all heat and softness and surrender. Or was it conquest? He was no longer certain if he was the aggressor as her tongue swept into his mouth, answering the kiss measure for measure, pleasure for pleasure.

  Kissing her was better than he had imagined kissing might be. He had kissed any number of women in his time, of course, but it had always been a means to an end, a prelude to the primary purpose of the seduction. With this woman, though, he thought perhaps kissing could be an end in itself, an activity to be enjoyed for the pure delight of touching her, tasting her, savoring her.

  “Ahem.”

  The utterance to his left made them spring apart like guilty children. Walter tried for some semblance of nonchalance as both he and Artemisia turned to acknowledge whoever had interrupted them. In flagrante.

  Heaven help him if it was her father, for he had no idea what he would say to the kindly old gentleman. I thought it would be acceptable to take liberties with your daughter because she used to be a courtesan hardly sounded like a winning opening gambit.

  To Walter’s relief, a very young footman stood in the doorway to the room, blushing furiously.

  “Do you want me throw him out on his ear, Miss Finch?” The boy gave Walter a menacing glare.

  Ah, blushing with fury, then.

  Artemisia smiled gently at the boy. She was obviously aware of his crush. “No, Hodgson. No harm done. The vicar was just leaving.”

  “Didn’t look that way to me,” Hodgson muttered under his breath.

  She gave the boy a severe look. “I am certain it looked exactly as though he was just leaving.” Although she smiled gently as she spoke, there was no mistaking her meaning. If the footman breathed a word about what he had witnessed, he would do so at the risk of his position.

  The boy turned redder, which hardly seemed possible as his complexion had already achieved a remarkably brilliant shade of crimson. “Yes, Miss Finch,” he said, though he sounded none too pleased about it.

  Her attention shifted from the chastised servant to Walter. “I do hope you can see yourself out, Mr. Langston, as I believe I’m needed elsewhere.”

  He wasn’t sure what to make of her cool tone. If she had not been melting in his arms only moments ago, he would have imagined they were no more than casual acquaintances. Perhaps, in her eyes, they still were. Had he read more into her response to his kiss because he wanted more?

  “I don’t believe it will tax me overmuch to locate the front door,” he answered, attempting to match his reserve to hers. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Finch.”

  And even more of a pleasure to kiss you. Unfortunately, it appeared he would not be afforded another chance.

  A shame, that, but then, he hadn’t expected otherwise. She might once have been a courtesan, but she was no longer, and taking him as a lover would offer her no benefits whatsoever—he could not afford to keep himself in high style on his wages, let alone keep a mistress—and a great deal of risk. She would be a fool even to consider such an arrangement.

  “Good day to you.” He executed a polite bow and headed in the direction of the entry hall, preparing to pass the glowering footman on his way out.

  “Mr. Langston.”

  He stopped and turned to look at her. Her lips were still pink and swollen from his kisses. His heart pounded dangerously.

  “Yes, Miss Finch?”

  “I am planning to go out for a ride tomorrow shortly after breakfast. Would you care to accompany me?”

  Walter had never been so pleased to meet a fool in his life. But then, birds of a feather…

  “You’re late,” Horace Finch observed without rancor as Artemisia entered the solar with the tea tray.

  It was their custom to have tea together in this room every afternoon at four o’clock sharp, rain or shine, sickness or health. She had never before been late. There had never been a reason.

  Until today.

  “Yes,” she acknowledged, setting the tray on the table next to his chair.

  Her father sat, as he always did, in the one of the two large wingbacks facing the windows that overlooked Finch House’s small but beautifully manicured formal garden and the thick forest beyond. Situated on the outskirts of town, the property had been in the family for nine generations, the land purchased in the early 1600s by Alexander Finch, a perfumier who’d made his fortune crafting personalized scents for Tudor London’s rich, famous, and royal. In keeping with its original owner’s profession, the garden boasted a profusion of sweet-smelling flowers that bloomed in every season except the depths of winter. At this particular time of year, th
e planter boxes were filled to bursting with a breathtaking array of colors—the purple of lavender, the pink of campion, the bright yellow of daffodils, the white of primroses, and a hint of scarlet courtesy of the budding Finch roses.

  It was easy to understand why her father loved Finch House so and refused to leave it. In truth, Artemisia loved it, too. On days like these, when the sun was shining and the flowers were in bloom, she even wondered whether she would have the strength to leave it all behind when her father was gone and she was no longer tied here by love and duty. Would being freed of the stigma of her past be worth the loss of all this? Sometimes, she wasn’t sure.

  And yet, if she lived anywhere but Grange-Over-Sands, she would not be planning to embark on a clandestine affair with a gentleman like Walter Langston. Anywhere else, she would either take him openly as a lover or demand he treat her as a respectable woman by courting and marrying her. Here, however, complete discretion was the only choice—for his sake.

  “You seem preoccupied,” her father said. “Is aught amiss?”

  She shook her head as she set the tray on the table between the two chairs. “Not at all. I was just thinking about how lovely the garden is this time of year.”

  “And perhaps about a certain young vicar?” Her father’s face broke into a wide grin as he spoke.

  Hodgson. She should have known he wouldn’t be able to keep his counsel. If he had let on about the kiss he had interrupted, she would sack him as soon as she laid eyes on him.

  Feigning nonchalance, she settled into her chair and began to pour out. “So you heard Mr. Langston was here, then?”

  He nodded as she passed him his teacup, his hand trembling ever so slightly as he took it from her, another lingering effect of the apoplexy. She had learned months ago not to fill his cup to the brim, lest he spill the scalding liquid on his lap.

  “I hope he lived up to my estimation of him by treating you like the lady you are. If he was anything but a gentleman…” Her father let the thought hang, obviously aware that he was hardly in any condition to threaten to thrash anyone for pressing inappropriate attentions on his daughter, let alone a man as obviously fit and vigorous as Mr. Langston.

  Some of Artemisia’s tension dissipated. Apparently, Hodgson had managed to keep the kiss to himself, after all.

  “He was a perfect gentleman, Papa,” she lied, lifting her teacup to her lips in the hope of covering the blush she felt spreading to her cheeks. She rarely told an untruth to her father—he was the least judgmental man she had ever known, after all—but in this case, it would be best for all concerned if she kept her transgressions to herself. Especially since she was on the verge of a transgression that she suspected she might well one day repent. “I must admit, Mr. Langston is not at all what I expected.”

  Her father chuckled. “I don’t suppose he is what anyone was expecting, especially after more than twenty years of Samuel Withers in the pulpit.”

  Artemisia’s lips twitched. Mr. Withers had never, as far as she knew, been either young or handsome or remotely interesting. Balding and rheumy-eyed with a weak chin and a weaker disposition, the former vicar had spent the better part of a generation putting the residents of Grange-Over-Sands to sleep in their pews.

  “Still, he seems to take the doctrine of forgiveness rather more literally than most clerics. Even in London, I would have been unlikely to escape a lecture on the sinfulness of my ways.”

  “All the more reason I quite approve of him.” Her father lifted his cane, which leaned against his chair, and thumped it on the floor for emphasis. “Seems to me a good many churchmen don’t pay much attention to the actual scripture, especially when it comes to matters of sin and repentance. The world would be a considerably better place if folks paid more attention to the beams in their own eyes and a damn sight less to the motes in the eyes of others.”

  Artemisia thought it best to change the subject, for she knew if she allowed the conversation to continue, her father would launch into a tirade against his former friend, the Earl of Sandhurst, and the man’s unwillingness to acknowledge or redress the injury his son had done her all those years ago. The past was past and best left dead and buried with the tiny stillborn babe she’d borne. No amount of anger or complaint could change what had happened, and as Walter Langston had observed, it was foolish to repent what one did not regret. A marriage to Robert Beaumont would have been far worse than the actual outcome. She was now a wealthy woman, dependent on no one for her keep. Perhaps she ought to thank the earl’s son for his refusal to make an honest—and desperately unhappy—woman of her.

  “It looks as though the roses will be in full bloom next week. We should consider which bushes have the best chance of producing this year’s champion at the county fair.”

  Her father, fortunately, could nearly always be derailed from any train of thought by talk of roses. The Finch red roses, a variety bred by that long ago perfumier for both its color and fragrance, grew nowhere else in England and, aside from Artemisia herself, were her father’s greatest pride and joy.

  Sometimes, she envied those roses, for unlike her, they never gave her father cause for heartbreak or disappointment. Not that he had ever given her reason to believe he loved her any less for her faults. Still, it saddened her that he would never have the opportunity to give a gentleman permission to court her, walk her down the aisle at her wedding, or hold a grandchild in his arms. All because she had succumbed to a foolish infatuation.

  And yet, here she was, on the verge of succumbing to another foolish infatuation. She ought to send word to the vicarage that she had changed her mind about the ride tomorrow. To do otherwise was madness. But the low hum of desire in her belly and the memory of Walter Langston’s lips on hers, sweet and seductive and oh so skillful, were a form of madness.

  What was more, she was tired—deathly tired—of being alone. Perhaps it was Georgie’s fault for sending that letter and reminding Artemisia of how very isolated she was, how deprived of human contact and especially of the warm, wonderful contact of a male human body against hers. Or perhaps it was Walter Langston’s fault for sweeping her into his arms and demonstrating exactly how much she missed the feel of a lover’s arms around her.

  Either way, her course was set. Tomorrow, she would take the vicar of Grange-Over-Sands as her lover. And if she regretted that decision, she would have only herself to blame.

  5

  It had been a long time since Artemisia had embarked on a seduction. And she had, of course, never seduced a vicar.

  Perhaps that was why her stomach quivered with nervous anticipation as she sat her mare in Finch House’s front drive awaiting Walter Langston’s overdue arrival. They had agreed upon a ten o’clock meeting, but it must now be approaching a quarter past, which only served to heighten her anxiety. Men never made her wait; if anything, they stumbled over themselves in their haste to reach her.

  She was beginning to consider the possibility that Langston had thought better of their association and decided not to come when a horse and rider rounded the bend in the road. Even at a distance of one hundred feet, the rider could be none other than the vicar, if only because no one traversed this road unless they had business at Finch House, and these days, no one else had business at Finch House.

  As he turned his mount—a sleek bay far too fine to belong to a cleric—onto the drive, Artemisia held her mare steady, determined not to reveal her impatience by riding out to meet him. Seduction was never accomplished by overt displays of enthusiasm. Men preferred to exert some effort in the process, to feel as though their success depended upon their own powers of persuasion rather than being a forgone conclusion.

  When he was close enough not to have to shout to be heard, he said, “Good morrow, Miss Finch. I apologize for my tardiness. I’m afraid an urgent church matter required my attendance and delayed my arrival.”

  “And what matter was that, Mr. Langston?”

  He pulled his horse up in front of hers, a wry sm
ile curling his sensuous lips. “A mouse was found drowned in the stoup. My housekeeper refused to remove it on the grounds that it might be a heavenly sign requiring clerical interpretation.”

  Visualizing the baptismal font in St. Mary’s Church, which was three-feet high and carved from solid granite, Artemisia frowned in puzzlement. “How on earth did the mouse get into the stoup?”

  “Ah, that was precisely Mrs. Graham’s concern. She felt rather certain that such an event must be the result of divine intervention. I, on the other hand, suspected feline intervention, given the number of feral cats that prowl the premises.”

  That seemed a perfectly rational interpretation, but rationality and religious belief rarely seemed to go hand in hand. “You do not believe in signs from heaven, then?”

  Langston shrugged. “If I ever receive one, I am certain I will believe in it. Until then, however, I am confined to interpreting signs of a more earthly variety.” The smoldering look in his eyes told her exactly how he had interpreted her invitation to accompany her on this morning’s ride. “So, where are you taking me on this fine morning?”

  She smiled. “That, my dear Mr. Langston, is a secret. If I told you all, it would spoil the surprise.”

  His horse pawed at the gravel and took several impatient steps to one side. Langston murmured under his breath and brought the animal under control. “It would seem Mercury is even more anxious to discover this surprise than I am. Lead on, Miss Finch.”

  With a nod, Artemisia turned her mare toward the narrow path that bounded the west side of the house. They would travel south on Finch land for some time, most of which heavily wooded. For several miles, the path was too narrow for horses to walk side-by-side, and so they rode in tandem until the forest gave way on the east to pastureland, allowing Langston to pull alongside her.