“I make mistakes, too.”
“Really, sir? Might I inquire—how long has it been for you? How many days?”
The question was invasive and impolite, and Mark raised an eyebrow.
Tolliver cringed back a step in response. Perhaps he’d recognized the impertinence.
“I—I’m sure it’s in all the papers,” he said, “but we only get a handful of them, when someone visits London. I…I surely should know. P-please forgive my ignorance.”
Perhaps he hadn’t. And what did it matter if he asked Mark? Mark had written the book on chastity. Literally. He sighed and performed a rough calculation. “Ten thousand,” he replied. “Give or take.”
The boy gave an impressed whistle.
Mark was less impressed. If there was a local MCB here, all that remained to cut up his peace was—
“Your worshippers are not restricted to the men, of course,” Lewis said. “On Sunday, after service, I hope to introduce you to my daughter, Dinah.”
—that. The constant efforts to thrust suitable women in Mark’s way. In all truth, Mark wouldn’t have minded meeting a woman who actually suited him. But beside him, Tolliver frowned, rubbing his chin, and glanced at Mark in consternation, as if the man had set himself up as a sudden rival. If this Dinah was someone that interested the youthful Tolliver, it meant that this exchange was following the usual pattern. After all, the only women that others deemed suitable for a gentleman of his supposed righteousness were—
“She’s a sweet girl,” Lewis was saying, “obedient and chaste and comely. She’s biddable—a confident, strong man such as yourself would make her an extraordinary husband. And she’s not quite sixteen, so you could form her precisely as you wished.”
Of course. Mark shut his eyes in despair. Write a book on chastity, and somehow the whole world got the notion that your preferred bride would be a malleable child.
“I’m twenty-eight,” Mark said dryly.
“Not yet twice her age, then!” the rector said, with a smile that contained not a hint of awareness. He leaned forward and whispered confidentially, “I should hate to see her saddled to an old man. Or—” he cast a pointed look at Tolliver “—a young pup, who scarcely knows his own mind. Now. I know you’re keeping a bachelor household. I can start drawing up a rotation immediately. If we have you scheduled for tea and supper on a daily basis, why, within six weeks, all of the best families—”
“No.” There was nothing for it. Mark was going to have to be rude. “Absolutely not. I came here for peace and solitude—not daily engagements. Certainly not twice daily engagements.”
The man’s face fell. Tolliver flinched, and Mark felt as if he had just kicked a puppy. Why, oh, why, could his book not have disappeared into a sea of anonymity, as most books did?
“Weekly,” Mark conceded. “No more.”
The rector gave a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose. Perhaps if we had larger events. A church picnic? Yes. That should answer. Followed by—oh, dear.” Lewis glanced across the square and his voice hardened. “Well. At least this way, we can keep you from the unsavory elements.”
Mark followed his gaze. A few rays of sun shone through the clouds, brightening the produce in the market shambles across the square. The patrons at the marketplace had arrayed themselves so that they all had a view of him. But the rector was staring at a woman who had entered the square.
For an instant, all Mark could see was her hair—an ebony spill of ink, braided and pinned up in intricate loops that just kissed her shoulders, covered with the barest excuse for a lace bonnet. He’d always thought of black as a colorless hue, but her hair seemed so black it was every color at once, the rays of the sun spangling it. And there was a great mass of it on her head. Freed from the pins and braids, rid of that flimsy bit of lace, all that dark hair would reach past her thighs. It would be a great warm cloud of silk in his hands.
She moved smoothly, almost gliding over the cobblestones. Her strides suggested long, lean legs beneath her flowing skirts. She stopped before the public house. Even though it was not yet market day, the greengrocer had begun to gather goods for the next morning. She peered at the items and made the act of examining a head of cabbage seem like a verse of poetry.
It was only then that he noticed precisely what the rector was staring at. Her gown was the lightest shade of pink, but she had cinched it at her waist with a cherry-red ribbon. Yet more ribbons were threaded through the bodice of her gown, drawing attention to the curves of her breasts. Not that her bosom needed attention to be drawn to it; her figure was, to put it mildly, stunning. She wasn’t impossibly thin and delicate; nor was she extraordinarily buxom. Still, she somehow made every woman around her seem wrong and ill-proportioned by comparison.
For just one second, Mark felt a wistful tug. Why doesn’t anyone ever try and foist women like her off on me instead?
In London, she would have garnered second and third glances—more out of curiosity and admiration than contempt. Here? No doubt the inhabitants of Shepton Mallet had no idea what to make of a woman like this one—or a gown as daring as the one she wore. But Mark knew. That was the sort of dress that commanded: look at me.
Mark had never taken well to commands. He turned away.
“Ah, yes,” the rector said. “Mrs. Farleigh.” The stuffy tone of his voice suggested that Mrs. Farleigh was an unwelcome inhabitant of the village, but it was belied by the rector’s posture. He watched her, his eyes following her across the square with an expression that was closer to avarice than outrage. “Just look at her!”
Mark wasn’t one to gawk. In his mind, he built a wall of glass bricks—clear, yet impenetrable. With every inhalation, he reminded himself of who he was. What he believed. Breath by breath, brick by brick, he built a fortress to contain his want before it had a chance to roar to uncomfortable life. He stood behind it, lord of his own desire, until nobody could command anything of him.
Not want. Not desire. And definitely—most definitely—not lust. When he was in firm control, he looked again. Even with that gut-struck feeling of stupidity walled off, she was objectively, undeniably beautiful.
“She arrived almost two weeks ago. She’s a widow. Still, she’s said little about her people or her past. I suspect it’s because she feels it’s best left unsaid. One has only to look at her to imagine what she’s done.”
Rectors, Mark supposed, were as free to imagine lascivious goings-on as anyone else. He didn’t think they should gossip about them, though. Mrs. Farleigh looked up across the market square, and her gaze fell on him. Her expression didn’t change—which was to say, that small mysterious curl of a smile stayed on her lips.
Still, even through his fortress of glass, he felt a tiny jolt of electric resonance, as if lightning had struck nearby. She started in his direction.
Before she could come much closer, the rector snapped into motion. He darted through the stone arches of the Market Cross and took hold of Mrs. Farleigh’s shoulder. Not in a friendly, rectorlike way. Nor even as a rebuke. His gloved hand landed rather too close to her breast for any of that.
Mrs. Farleigh’s artful smile suggested that she was worldly. Her revealing gown shouted that she was a temptress. The rector’s gossip said she was worse. But when Lewis placed his hands on her, she flinched—no more than a half step backward, a twitch of her skin, but that was enough. For one instant, she had more the look of scalded cat about her than graceful swan, and that half second of response betrayed her air of worldly sensuality. She was not who she appeared at first blush.
Mark was suddenly interested—interested in a way that a low-cut gown and a striking figure could never have accomplished.
From these yards away, he could barely make out the conversation. No doubt neither