A Notorious Countess Confesses (PG7) (25 page)

“You don’t have to believe me, Amy,” she said more gently. “Go ahead and hate me. But if you’ve a shred of logic remaining in your head, ask your father to look more closely at Haynesworth’s finances, or into his connections. A good man will withstand a little scrutiny any day. And I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try to talk some sense into you.”

They turned their heads toward the barn when they heard shouts and laughter. Reverend Sylvaine was standing atop it, shirt open two modest buttons-worth, sleeves rolled up, hands on his hips, gesturing to Simon Covington to hand him up something.

He saw Amy and Eve and waved.

Reflexively, Eve and Amy waved back.

They were silent for a time. Soft sounds, the quiet bock bock bocking of the chickens and laughter bursting through the windows of the house, in stark contrast to the furious emotion.

Amy said almost casually, “You do know that the entire town will shun the vicar if he takes up with you, Lady Balmain. And it will be the ruination of him.”

The words landed on Eve like a slap.

She stared at the girl, who defiantly tried to meet her gaze. But Amy hadn’t as much practice as Evie with burning as hole into someone with her eyes.

She shifted her eyes back to the barn.

Eve’s voice shook with the effort to control her temper. “Consider that he gave the cross to me because he thought I might have need of the comfort, Miss Pitney. And consider that a good man recognizes the good in others. Consider that he views me as a friend, and only that. ”

Consider that you’re a hypocrite, Evie.

Amy turned back to her, and said with weary incredulity, “Oh, for heaven’s sake. At least do me the honor of assuming I’m not stupid. I may be plain, Lady Balmain. But I’m not blind. And neither is anyone else in this town.”

ADAM BOLTED THREE cups of coffee and wolfed a slab of buttered bread in the Sunday predawn darkness. Sunday service loomed. The foolscap remained nude of words, as intimidating as a bloody abyss, mimicking his empty mind. He held his quill over a sheet of foolscap, praying for inspiration to pour down through it and magically produce the sermon he hadn’t managed to finish yesterday since he’d been hammering boards into the O’Flahertys’ roof.

Yes … yes! He felt a twinge of something! It was coming now!

He scrawled:

I kissed her I kissed her I kissed her

Well.

As a sermon, it was a failure, but his parishioners would doubtless find it edifying.

Light seemed to pour from the words, soak into him, fill him with a rising tide that threatened to burst from him in a roar of emotion that would terrify Mrs. Dalrymple right out of her slumbers. He held himself very still, as if he contained something volatile, explosive. He allowed the joy to pulse in him for a moment. Surely, he deserved that much. Surely, there was no harm in just that much. And yet he knew this was how the rationale for every sin began: “Surely there’s no harm in stealing one ha’pence from the collection plate—no one will miss it.” “Surely one kiss does not adultery make.” That sort of thing.

If he lived in the memory—considered nothing that came before or nothing that would come after—he felt weightless. But the escalating momentum—a waltz, a cross, a kiss—of whatever lay between them had the power to carry him inexorably, dangerously down, down, down, like an anchor thrown overboard.

He now understood with piercing clarity why scripture was so unequivocally unforgiving about lust. Because he believed quite sincerely he would die if he didn’t make love to Eve. This in fact felt truer than anything he’d known or been taught before. And if he allowed this thought to elbow aside his will and good sense, he would soon be useless to the people who needed him and trusted him most. A fraud of a vicar.

He drew a breath, exhaled in a rush so scouring it was nearly punishing.

And then he carefully, deliberately, shredded the words into strips—I and kissed and her—and fed them to the fire. Which seemed absurdly symbolic in dozens of ways.

And just as little Liam Plum set the church bells to ringing, calling the town to service, he managed to dot the last ‘i’ in a sermon about helping one another.

AND MINUTES LATER, groggy, but relieved not to be completely ashamed of the quality of his eleventh-hour sermon, Adam stepped up to the altar, notes rustling in his hands.

He lifted his head to smile at the congregation.

And shock did a slow, jagged plummet through him.

A cluster of his relatives sat near the front. One of them was wearing an expression of sympathy that bordered on “I told you so” (that would be Colin). The only other people in church were Mr. Brownwell, Mr. Eldred, and a scattering of other parishioners who, he instantly surmised, abjured gossip more than the others.

In the back row next to Henny sat Eve. Wearing a serene, impenetrable, neutral smile. She was straight-backed and utterly still, as if no one would see her if she didn’t move.

Not one of the women who belonged to the Society for the Protection of the Sussex Poor were present.

Except, that was, Mrs. Sneath. Who sat dead center, alone, like a pin inserted in a battle map. Her head tilted, her expression peculiarly sympathetic, a trifle mournful, faintly obdurate. The expression his mother used to wear when she’d fed him cod-liver oil: It’s for your own good, Adam. This will hurt me more than it will hurt you, Adam.

And behind these people the empty pews, glossy, shined by centuries of shifting Pennyroyal Green bums, seemed to unfurl dizzyingly in his vision. An illusion: The church was small. He expected it had seen emptier services throughout its history.

Still, the point seemed made.

Mr. Eldred, he of the goat dispute, sat in the front row and turned his head to and fro, mildly puzzled. Then he crossed his legs and spread his arms out like wings across the backs of his pew, looking quite pleased to have it to himself.

Adam realized now he’d found safety and reassurance in the number of eyes aimed up at him on Sunday mornings. How ironic it was that he’d forgotten how dangerous eyes could be, too. Belatedly, impressions penetrated now: The sound of Amy Pitney’s carriage wheels when he’d stood outside the O’Flahertys’ with Eve, the two of them frozen in an anguish of desire. The expressions of stunned amazement on her face as he’d led the countess onto the ballroom floor.

And yesterday he’d stood on the O’Flahertys’ roof and watched as Eve and Amy Pitney appeared to have a heated discussion, complete with arms waving and then defensively crossed. He’d thought then that it might have something to do with the decorating committee.

It occurred to him that he might as well have read I kissed her I kissed her I kissed her aloud to everyone present in the church, for he suspected it was what they would hear in his every word anyway.

“Thank you for coming.” His voice was steady and resonant. “Lately, I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing the miracles that can be wrought when we help one another. I believe …”

He paused. His voice seemed to echo mockingly in the nearly empty church.

“Go right ahead, Reverend. Tell us about helping one another,” Mr. Eldred urged happily, in a near whisper, from the first pew.

And so Adam did. He got through the words, every single one of them. He even managed to inflect them with a certain amount of feeling. But he heard them only distantly, as if he were speaking underwater.

As though an anchor had carried him down, down, down.

“WHATEVER CAUSED IT, Adam,” his uncle Jacob Eversea had said pleasantly as he left the nearly empty service the morning, his voice low. “Put it to rights, eh?”

He’d given him an affectionate back pat, which could just as easily have been a warning. For what Jacob Eversea giveth he could just as easily taketh away.

And now Adam sat in Mrs. Sneath’s parlor, in the regular scheduled meeting of the Committee to Protect the Sussex Poor, encircled by all the women who’d punished him with their absence this morning.

Confronted with the reality of his presence, however, they all looked vaguely abashed and diffident.

Adam thought it best to seize the rudder of conversation immediately.

“How are the plans for the Winter Ball progressing, Mrs. Sneath? Do you need my approvals for any expenditures?”

“Oh, it’s all going very well, you’ll be happy to hear, Reverend Sylvaine. Decorations are proceeding apace. Lady Fennimore has agreed to donate flowers from her hothouse, and I think we’ll be able to persuade the orches—”

“Do you believe the countess will be able to lend some of her expertise with regards to decorations?”

The hush was almost comically instant. Eyes looked everywhere but at him, then at him and away again. Cheeks were almost universally pink. Hands plucked fitfully at skirts. Many of them seemed to find the contents of their teacups fascinating.

Mrs. Sneath cleared her throat. All eyes swiveled in relief to her.

“With regards to the countess, Reverend Sylvaine. We’ve some business to discuss with you. And I fear you may find it a bit disappointing—I in fact find it terribly disappointing—as it involves a matter in which you’ve taken a special interest.”

“I’m all ears, Mrs. Sneath.”

“Now, I know we’ve viewed the Countess of Wareham as a special project …”

“Parishioner, Mrs. Sneath, I view her as a parishioner. And entitled to all rights of a parishioner. Not a project.”

“Very well. And as such,” Mrs. Sneath continued bravely, “you’ve been valiant in your efforts, as have I, to be accepting of her past and to offer her the benefit of the doubt when she expressed a sincere interest in a new beginning. I have admired her efforts toward that end immensely. She is a very charming person. I know you have tried your best to counsel her and to steer her in the proper direction. Which, naturally, could be the only reason you gave to her a cross once belonging to Lady Fennimore.”

The women in the room became as statues, petrified in the act of fidgeting or sipping.

Adam’s jaw clenched, and he slowly turned his head to stare at Jenny Fennimore.

Who dropped her eyes and took a noisy sip of her tea.

“You are a very good man, Reverend Sylvaine, but sometimes merely setting an example of goodness is not enough. And while the Countess of Wareham has undeniably been remarkably helpful with the O’Flahertys, based on some new information we have obtained, we nevertheless believe we have cause to curtail her association with the committee.”

He despised the waiting expressions on their faces. They were dying to hear what he had to say about this.

“I see. Since we are in agreement that everyone deserves a chance, Mrs. Sneath, pray tell, what led to this decision?”

Mrs. Sneath exchanged a glance with Miss Pitney, who, with an air of martyred womanhood, nodded some sort of assent.

“Lord Haynesworth, who as you may know resides in London much of the year, was pained to inform Miss Pitney that when the countess …” she lowered her voice to a delicate whisper … “opera dancer,” she eagerly sought his attentions and he rejected her advances. The countess has since made an attempt to greatly disparage his good name with Miss Pitney.”

Haynesworth.

The word slithered through his gut, dark and synonymous with an insidious doubt.

“I’m certain Christian duty was behind his compulsion to share this story. That his own character is unbesimirched, and he has no other motive for claiming such a thing.”

He directed this to Miss Pitney, who was trying out a new bold stare, which wavered beneath his ironic delivery.

She swallowed and turned away.

If Miss Pitney didn’t know about the alleged duel Haynesworth had fought over her, it would be churlish to mention it before everyone. And it would hardly do Eve any favors.

He fought to keep his voice level and dispassionate, even as a pressure welled in his chest.

“The countess has been a friend to all of you, is this not true? She has worked hard on behalf of the committee. She has welcomed you into your home, and you have welcomed her into yours. You enjoy her company.”

“This is true. We have undeniably enjoyed her company. Yet so much is known about her and yet unknown. And there is no denying the story is unsavory, Reverend.”

“No.”

“And that there is no denying her history.”

“No.”

“Which lends credence to his story.”

“Perhaps.”

“And if the viscount were to take up residence in Sussex …” And here Miss Pitney ducked her head demurely and blushed fetchingly, and affectionate looks were aimed in her direction. “Well, you see the difficulty, Reverend.”

“I do.”

The slightest of pauses here before Mrs. Sneath spoke again.

“We have reason to believe the countess has engaged in a pattern of such behavior.”

Ah. Very delicately put. She’d saved this for last. He understood now. He was to be assumed the innocent victim of her wiles. A good man, but just a man, susceptible as any to a beautiful face and the skillful advances of a born temptress. And once the temptation was removed, well, he’d align with his senses once more, and once more be the object upon which they could impose their hopes and fantasies.

And yet … he breathed in sharply as he saw again the artful angling of Eve’s head, the glance through her lashes, as he’d lowered his gift of the cross around her neck. Her allure was legendary, devastating, proved. It had driven Haynesworth to challenge another man over her.

Could it merely be a coincidence Haynesworth was in Pennyroyal Green now?

What really lay between the two of them?

Adam wished, in that moment, that he’d been cowardly, or less able to see clearly. Because it took all of his courage to confront the fact that something of truth must lie within all of this.

His knuckles whitened around the brim of his hat.

“Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, Mrs. Sneath. Have you discussed your concerns with the countess?”

“I think our concerns will make themselves known soon to her enough.”

Very oblique, that. He sensed an onslaught of shunning was imminent.

Distantly, he marveled. He’d been neatly trapped. By a group of determinedly self-righteous embroidering women. His lungs tightened, as surely as if the walls of his life were closing in.