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  Artemisia was still waiting for him on the stoop when he got back. She ushered him inside. “I can’t believe you came in this weather,”

  “Me?” he asked incredulously. “What about you? You shouldn’t have attempted the journey in this weather, either.”

  “I didn’t. I slept here last night.” She held out her hand for his hat, which he gave her. “I’ve lived in this part of the world long enough to know when a good rain is coming. Though I didn’t think it would be this bad, or I’d have sent a message yesterday afternoon telling you not to come. When I woke to this…I assumed you’d be sensible and stay at home.”

  “I’m not sure I’m capable of being sensible when it comes to you,” he admitted. Water dripped from his coat, forming a circular puddle around his feet. Though he did his best to hide it, he was starting to shiver.

  She noticed anyway. “You need to get out of those clothes. Come with me.”

  After setting his hat on the rack in the entry way, she led him through to the parlor. A healthy fire danced in the hearth, throwing a heat he could feel despite four layers of wet clothing. As he began unbuttoning his great coat, she excused herself from the room, returning a few minutes later with two wooden chairs that must have come from the kitchen. She set them near the fireplace.

  “To hang your clothes to dry,” she explained.

  He nodded, shucking the great coat and draping it over the closer of the two chairs. Next, he removed his coat and waistcoat, laying them over the other chair. His shirt was relatively dry, although the same could not be said for his breeches. Still, he hesitated when it came to disrobing any further.

  Artemisia obliterated his doubts. Stepping in front of him, she began unknotting his cravat with skillful fingers. Obviously, she had done this before. “All of it. I shan’t have you expiring of an ague in my parlor.”

  Between the two of them, they removed his riding boots—a not inconsiderable accomplishment, for the leather had swollen from the intake of water and they fit his feet more snugly than usual. Once they were off, he rolled down his sodden breeches and drawers and pulled the shirt off over his head.

  Naked but for his stockings, he cast a rueful glance at her fully clothed form. “I am feeling decidedly underdressed for the occasion.”

  A sultry smile curved her lips. “On the contrary, I believe it is I who am overdressed.” Turning her back to him, she swept her hair over her shoulder, allowing him access to the buttons at the back of her dress. “If you would be so kind…”

  If? Was there any question?

  He eyed the settee, recalling last week’s banter. Heat and blood rushed to his loins, counteracting any after-effects of the cold on his person.

  “Is no one else about?” he asked, wondering how she had dressed herself in a gown that buttoned up the back without assistance.

  “My maid is in her chamber upstairs. She won’t disturb us.” When he didn’t immediately move to unbutton her, she added, “Polly came with me from London. She knows how to keep her counsel.”

  Five minutes later, she was down to her stockings as well. The wind howled outside and raindrops beat a fierce patter on the window overlooking the bay, but Walter was now anything but cold.

  Artemisia spun to face him, completely at ease in her own skin. He loved her utter lack of shame in her own nudity. And in her physical needs. No woman should be made to feel ashamed of her body or of her desires, he thought. God had given women the ability to experience pleasure for a reason. He made a mental note to work that notion, obliquely, into a future sermon.

  And then he put church out of his mind altogether as her gaze slid slowly from his face down to his chest and abdomen and then to his fully erect cock. Without a word, she dropped to her knees and took him into her mouth.

  Dear God, he’d died and gone to heaven.

  Artemisia had never particularly cared in the past for the practice of sucking a man’s cock. She had done it on numerous occasions, of course, but she was not sure she had ever genuinely wanted to; performing the act, like so many other things, had been more a matter of duty than of her own pleasure.

  But today, with Walter, was different. She had looked down at his thick, beautiful cock standing erect in that nest of dark curls, and she had known that this was what she wanted to do, both for him and for herself. Pleasing him pleased her. Immensely.

  And there was no doubt that this pleased him. His fingers splayed over the back of her head, and he thrust his hips to meet her mouth, the motion seeming involuntary. When she looked up at his face, she found his eyes closed, his features etched with bliss. Oh yes, he liked what she was doing, and the knowledge spurred her to double her efforts. To take him deeper, faster, longer.

  “Oh, God,” he groaned. His fingers tightened in her hair, and the rocking of his hips stilled.

  He stiffened, his back arching. Quashing her impulse to pull away, she took his bitter-salt seed into her mouth and down her throat. Satisfaction and triumph washed through her, warmed her, settled in her belly. Despite the aching hum of unfulfilled desire singing in her veins, she felt curiously fulfilled.

  Had she ever truly given pleasure without the hope of gaining something in return? Although she’d genuinely liked both Stratton and Montrose and had even found more than a small measure of enjoyment in their physical encounters, her involvement with them had been first and foremost a business arrangement. Tit for tat; sex for security. And even with Robert, with whom she’d believed herself in love, she had had expectations. In exchange for her surrender to his persistent advances, she had anticipated marriage. Again, sex for security.

  But this—what she had with Walter—was a freedom she’d never truly known. The freedom to make love purely for the sake of it. For the joy of it. For no other reason than that they wanted each other.

  Smiling to herself at the thought, she licked him clean as his shudders subsided. He reached down, pulling her back to her feet and into an embrace. Her breasts swelled and her nipples tightened as they made contact with the light dusting of hair across his chest.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” he murmured, brushing his lips across hers.

  “I know. But I wanted to.” And that was made it so wonderful.

  He shook his head, his eyes turning dark and smoky. “And I want to return the favor.” With a wink, he nodded in the direction of the settee. “Go sit down. I’ve been imagining you on that piece of furniture all week.”

  The husky edge to his voice made her knees weak. She turned and made her way on shaky limbs to the settee. Once she was sitting, Walter approached her, a wicked twinkle in his eyes. He kneeled in front of her, placing his hands on her knees. The warmth of his skin sent a tingle up her legs to her core.

  “Scoot forward and spread your thighs.”

  She complied, her stomach spiraling with excitement and anticipation. Nodding his approval, he looped his arms beneath her knees.

  “Now lean back and let me take care of you.”

  In the end, she hadn’t much of a choice about either matter, because Walter angled her hips forward until her head and shoulders dropped against the seat cushions. She knew, of course, what he intended to do—had known from the moment he’d knelt between her spread thighs—but that knowledge didn’t prepare her for the moment of contact. His mouth touched her, and she almost came apart right then. The intimacy of it, the sweetness of it nearly undid her even before his tongue swirled across that achy, swollen bit of flesh between her thighs.

  And that…oh God, that really was too much. He stroked her firmly, insistently, relentlessly. With a choked cry, she came, her release so blissful and complete, she felt as though she’d been shattered into a thousand brilliant pieces of glass and then reassembled, whole and better than before.

  Walter lifted his head and wiped his hand across his mouth and chin. He glanced down at his resurgent erection and then at her, that wickedly charming smile pulling at his lips again. “As you can see, I enjoyed that almost as
much as you did.”

  Cheeky. And utterly irresistible.

  “Almost?” she asked playfully, sitting forward just enough so that she could reach him to run a finger over the dewy, velvety tip.

  He grabbed her finger with a low growl. “Ever since you pointed out this settee, I’ve been imagining you, bent over it. Like this.” In demonstration, he pulled her to her feet then turned her to face the back of the couch. “Bend over,” he instructed, “and rest your hands there.” He indicated the carved, wooden back of the seat.

  When she was in the position he wanted, he stepped back, and she heard his breath catch in his throat.

  “If you had any idea what you do to me,” he muttered.

  She thought she had a very good idea. Whatever she did to him, she was fairly certain he did the same to her. But she didn’t say so. The words caught in her throat. This was too new—and too precarious—to risk by saying aloud what her heart already knew. That if she allowed this to continue much longer, she might well make the very grave mistake of falling in love with the last man on earth she could ever have.

  A vicar. What on earth was she thinking?

  Except, of course, she wasn’t thinking at all and when he nudged her legs apart, slid his cock inside her, and began to move in a slow, steady rhythm, she was able to think even less.

  And that, really, was just as well.

  * * *

  By the time Walter left the cottage in the late afternoon, the downpour had dissipated to a drizzle, and he and Artemisia had made love not only on the settee, but also at the dining room table and, right before he left—impulsively and feverishly—against the wall in the entry hall.

  “Next week?” he’d asked breathlessly as she’d smoothed her skirts back into place.

  After a brief hesitation, she had nodded, and he had kissed her good-bye. And then he had wondered the whole way back to the vicarage how he would be able to wait a full seven days to see her again. To touch her again. To kiss her again. To make love to her again.

  It must be the newness of the affair coupled with the requirement for secrecy that made him so needy and impatient. Yes, Artemisia Finch was beautiful and intelligent and wonderfully responsive in bed, but he had slept with beautiful, intelligent, responsive women before. This sense of urgency he felt whenever he left her would undoubtedly blow over once the novelty wore off.

  And if it didn’t…well, then he rather hoped he was wrong about the probability of divine intervention.

  12

  By the third week of Walter’s affair with Artemisia Finch, his parishioners had become accustomed to his absence from the vicarage on Tuesdays. The upside to their unquestioning acceptance of his regular disappearances was that he never had to worry about missing callers while he was gone. The downside was that he suffered a surfeit of them on Wednesdays. For the fourth time in as many hours, someone was knocking on his door. As he went to answer it, he reviewed in his mind the day’s earlier consultations.

  The first had been with an anxious mother who was convinced her four-year-old son was possessed of the devil. Walter quickly determined the boy, who had reluctantly accompanied his mother on the visit, was simply possessed of an impish nature—a familiar affliction—and a not altogether unwarranted concern about the impending arrival of a sibling. (An aunt had recently died in childbirth, undoubtedly increasing the boy’s natural anxiety.) After reassuring the worried mother that her son’s behavior was perfectly normal, albeit unacceptable, he’d made a few suggestions on the subject of discipline for mischievous boys, as well as a few ways she might allay his fears regarding the birth of her next child.

  Next, Mr. Pearson, the tavern-keeper, came to confess that he had been lusting after one of his barmaids and, with his wife planning to leave to visit her sister for a week, he feared he might give in to the temptation. Walter pointed out that a man who was on the verge of infidelity seldom came to his vicar for advice and, therefore, Mr. Pearson’s mere presence was a strong indication that he was exceedingly unlikely to act on his urges. Pearson had left in good humor and resolved to think of his wife whenever he felt weak.

  The third caller had been the greengrocer’s wife, Mrs. Wilson. She had recently given birth to her third child. Instead of being happy, as she had been after her first two children were born, she was melancholy and felt detached from her new baby. Perhaps she was incapable of loving more than two children? And what kind of mother did that make her? Fortunately, Walter’s sister-in-law, Tish, had experienced a similar bout of despondency, but it had occurred after her first son’s birth. The feeling had passed within a few months, however, and she loved her eldest son with every bit as much fervor as any mother. He told Mrs. Wilson this story without revealing its source, then encouraged her to visit the apothecary for a tincture of St. John’s Wort and to ask family members for some assistance, since caring for three children under the age of six was likely enough to make anyone a bit hopeless on occasion.

  Wondering what the fourth call of the day would bring, he pulled the door open to find Mr. Nicholson, the town’s master carpenter and employer of none other than Thomas Forster.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Nicholson. Please, come in,” Walter said, standing aside to allow his visitor to enter while he covered his surprise.

  A man of average height with impressive biceps and a receding hairline, Nicholson was a regular churchgoer, but he had never struck Walter as a particularly pious man. Nicholson’s attendance every Sunday seemed more a matter of pleasing his considerably more devout wife, and that made his appearance on Walter’s doorstep in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon seem decidedly…odd.

  At Walter’s direction, Nicholson took a seat in one of the vicarage’s two well-worn armchairs.

  “So, what can I do for you today?” Walter prompted as he moved to sit in the other chair.

  Nicholson cleared his throat. “I need to know if suicide is always a mortal sin.”

  Walter sank into his chair, a heavy sense of dread seeping into his bones. This was not a conversation he felt in any way prepared to handle. Why on earth would Nicholson be asking him this question unless…?

  “The church’s position on the matter is fairly clear.” Maybe that would be enough to dissuade the man from whatever course of action he was considering.

  “I didna ask you about the church’s position, Mr. Langston. I asked about yours.”

  Walter swallowed, buying time. “I believe I would need to know more about why you’re asking the question.”

  The master carpenter leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Only if you can promise me our conversation will never leave this room.”

  “Mr. Nicholson, that is a given. Everything you say here will be held in the strictest confidence.”

  The other man nodded. “Well, then. ‘Tis like this, Mr. Langston. When my mother was about my age, she got sick. It started with simple things—she couldna thread a needle, then she couldna use a needle at all, and then she couldna hold a kitchen knife. Eventually, she couldna walk, couldna talk, couldna eat. It took her five years to die, Mr. Langston. Five long, fretful years, not just for her but for me whole family. And now…now, ’tis happening to me.”

  Nicholson lifted one hand from his knee and held it out. Walter noticed that the motion was jerky and unnaturally deliberate. As the carpenter squeezed his hand into a partial fist, his outstretched arm trembled.

  “I can still hold a hammer and pound nails, but I havena been able to do fine work for months. That’s all fallen to my apprentice; he thinks I’m giving him a chance to learn the craft, but ‘tis only because I canna do it meself. ‘Tis but a matter of time afore I canna work a’tall.” He placed his hand back on his leg. “I know where this is garn, Mr. Langston, and ’tis not pretty. Truth is, I’d rather an eternity of hellfire and damnation than put my wife and daughters through what I know is coming, but Mrs. Nicholson—well, she’d suffer if she thought I was garn to hell, ye ken? But I reckon you know
the mind of God better than I do, so I’m asking you what I should do.”

  Walter might have dissolved into laughter if tears hadn’t seemed so much more appropriate. Know the mind of God? Him? That was undoubtedly the most laughable assertion he had ever heard. But then, he was a vicar. He had studied theology for precisely this reason. He knew the correct, Biblically prescribed answer. The problem was, in this case he was fairly certain that answer was dead wrong.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t entirely certain there was a right one.

  He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. “You must know, Mr. Nicholson, that I can’t possibly advise you to take your own life, no matter the reason.” Nicholson opened his mouth, undoubtedly to object, but Walter held up his hand. “What I can do is promise that, as long as I am vicar here, whatever the circumstances of your death may be, you will be buried in the churchyard, in consecrated ground, with your soul commended to heaven.”

  “Ye…ye would do that for me and my lass? Even though ’twould be a sin?”

  “It is not for me to decide what is a sin and what is not. That judgment belongs to God, and I have faith in Him to judge more wisely than I.”

  Nicholson looked away, blinking rapidly. “I canna thank you enough for this, Mr. Langston. This has been weighing heavy on my mind for nigh on a year now, but I couldna talk to the previous vicar. I knowt he wouldna understand. But young Forster, my apprentice, he said ye were different, that ye care more about doing what’s best for people than following the rules. I wasna sure, but now I ken ’tis the truth. If there’s aught I can ever do for ye, ye’ve only to say the word.”

  At first, Walter shook his head, but then, a notion came to him. “Well, perhaps there is one thing you could do.”

  “Anything, Mr. Langston.”

  “I’d like you to give Forster a rise of five pounds a month.”

  Nicholson blinked. “But…I’d be more than doubling his pay. He’s still just an apprentice, Mr. Langston.”