To Loveand To Cherish

  “Christy, don’t ask me.”

  Still holding her wrist, he used his other hand to smooth the hair back from her cheek so he could see her. “All right. Not now. But I’m sorry you were hurt. And I wish I’d known you then. I wish I could’ve helped you.”

  She made a half-turn toward him. Their bodies were almost touching; if he was in doubt about the nature of this new silence between them, the soft intensity in her eyes answered all his questions. And then she touched the tip of her tongue to her top lip and whispered, “Christy, would it be a sin if you kissed me?”

  He didn’t laugh. Nor did he say what he was thinking—that for him it would be a sacrament. He didn’t want to scare her. He bent his head and pressed his mouth to hers, lightly, feeling her soft breath on his face. Her lips quivered, but he kept the kiss gentle and didn’t touch her, on the chance that he’d misunderstood what she wanted from him. Her hand crept to his cheek. Her mouth was warm and sweet, soft as a pillow; he couldn’t keep from moving his lips over hers in a caress. Then she lifted her arms and slipped them around his neck, and he knew he hadn’t made a mistake. “Anne,” he murmured, joyful, and gathered her close.

  They kissed in earnest, then pulled back to look at each other, full of amazement. He closed his eyes when she touched his face with her fingertips, tracing his brows, his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose. He had her pressed against Molly’s sturdy flank; the horse shifted lazily, and they staggered. Laughing, they turned in slow circles until they were next to the wooden bench along the wall. Christy kicked his coat out of the way and they sank down, never letting go of each other.

  “I’ve wanted to touch you,” he confessed in a whisper, moving his lips along the underside of her jaw, marveling at how soft she was.

  “I’ve wanted you to.”

  “It was wrong—”

  “Then.” Her fingers twisted in his hair. “Not now. Oh, Christy, this is so right.”

  He put his hands inside her woolen coat and slid them around her waist, pulling her closer so he could feel her breasts against him. The velvet of her dress wasn’t as soft as her lips. When he kissed her this time, he parted them with the tip of his tongue, relishing her gasp of surprise and pleasure. She was trembling—so was he. She framed his face with her hands and kissed him passionately and without reserve.

  “I haven’t done this in a long time,” she told him in a shaky voice. “I was afraid I might not like it.” A smile blossomed on her lips; she leaned in to whisper against his mouth, “How wrong can a girl be?”

  He took her in another long, drugging kiss, feeling like a randy adolescent with his first girl. His hands inside her coat were wandering with a will of their own, and she wasn’t doing anything to discourage them. She closed her eyes and made a soft humming sound while he stroked the sides of her breasts, then cupped them, caressed the tips with his thumbs. Without a thought, he began to unbutton her dress under the lace collar—until an inkling of where all this lovely fumbling might really lead brought him back to a semblance of reason. He started to laugh. “What are we doing?”

  “I don’t know, but don’t stop,” she said in a throaty murmur that made his blood race.

  It took all his self-control to take his hands off her soft, perfect breasts and put a few inches of distance between them. She was adorably mussed; she even had a straw in her hair. He removed it tenderly, then took her hands in both of his. “Anne.” He made his voice serious; he wanted to be sober, so to speak, for what he was about to say, so she would know that passion wasn’t all that motivated it. “Anne, my love.” She bent her head to kiss his fingers. When she looked up again, he saw that there were tears in her eyes. “I love you, darling. With all my heart. It’s too soon to tell you that, I know”—she shook her head—“but I have to. I love you. If you’ll have me, I promise I’ll make you happy.”

  “I’m already happy.” The tears welled over and spilled down her cheeks.

  He had to kiss her again. He tasted salt on his tongue and felt like weeping with her, he was so happy. “It’ll have to be a secret engagement. Probably for a whole year,” he said ruefully. “Even after that, we couldn’t marry for a few more months, not without offending the whole—”

  “Christy, stop—I can’t marry you!”

  The surprise in her voice was more of a shock than the words—at first. What did she think he’d been leading up to? “You can’t?” he said stupidly.

  “No. No. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you—that you wanted—that you were proposing to me.” She made the word sound outlandish, even distasteful. “It’s just—oh, Christy, I’ll never marry again. I have no intention of marrying again, anyone. But especially you.”

  She stood up and backed away from him. All he could do was blink at her while she made a shaky-fingered attempt to rebutton her dress. When his wits came back, he said, “Why not?”

  She looked at him as if he were a slow-witted child. “Because! You’re a minister!”

  He stood up, too. “It’s the first I’ve heard that that rules out marriage.” He thought that came out sounding fairly reasonable; odd, since inside his head everything was chaos.

  “Christy,” she said patiently, “I don’t believe in God. You’re a priest and I’m an atheist.”

  “You’re an agnostic. That’s—”

  “No, I’m not, I’m an atheist. For me to marry you, it would be like—like St. Paul marrying a harlot.” He snorted. “Or Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene.” He started to laugh, but she cut him off. “How can you even consider it? It’s impossible, absurd. We can’t be together like that.”

  He spread his hands. “Then how can we be together?”

  She started to pace. The mare sidestepped out of the way, sensing her nervousness. “It would be risky for you. I don’t care for myself, I honestly don’t, but if we were found out I suppose it could be very bad for you. They might even defrock you or whatever it’s called.”

  The truth hit him. Just to make sure, he said, “What are you talking about?”

  She stopped pacing and looked him in the eye. “I’m talking about an affair,” she said boldly.

  “An affair.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Are you in earnest? Because it’s wrong.”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with it! It’s not adultery—we’re not married. ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’—we wouldn’t be. ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife’—you wouldn’t be.”

  He didn’t know whether to laugh at her or throttle her. “Have you ever heard of the sin of fornication?”

  “It’s not a sin to me.” She crossed her arms and lifted her chin.

  “Is that so. How many affairs have you had?”

  “That’s not the point. If I haven’t had any, it’s because I haven’t wanted to until now, not because I think they’re immoral.”

  She had an answer, albeit a stupid one, for everything. “Anne, have you ever thought about this? Ever sat down and really given it any serious consideration?”

  “Have you?” she countered.

  “Yes, I have. In the abstract as well as the concrete.”

  An impish light came into her eyes. Moving a step closer, she made her voice seductive and asked, “With whom have you thought about it in the concrete, Reverend?”

  He was enchanted all over again. But he kept his hands to himself and just said, “Fishing for compliments?”

  “Maybe.” She smiled naturally, dropping the coyness. “You want me, don’t you?”

  “I want to marry you.”

  “I can’t marry.”

  “In time you won’t feel that way. It’s too soon, you’re still—”

  “No, you’re wrong. I never wanted to marry Geoffrey either, and I was right. I never should have.”

  ??
?Marrying Geoffrey was a mistake,” he agreed. “Marrying me—”

  “Would be almost as catastrophic. Christy, it’s impossible, it’s absolutely out of the question!” She pounded her fist against the palm of her hand, meaning it. “If there were ever two people who shouldn’t marry each other, it’s you and I. And not only because of our—ha!—religious differences. When you get down to it, we have nothing in common. I couldn’t live here in Wyckerley for the rest of my life. Me, a minister’s wife?” She laughed again, without humor. “Visiting the poor and the sick, having people to dinner, being nice to the bishop—all that political nonsense—”

  “I can see you doing all of that.”

  “But this isn’t my home. I—I want to go back to Italy, to Ravenna, where I grew up.”

  “Ravenna?” It was the first he’d heard. He tried to keep exasperation out of his tone, but it was getting harder. “Do you have people there? Family?”

  “I was happy there,” she evaded. “We left when my mother died, but I have memories—”

  “Anne, you were seven years old!”

  She turned her back on him for a moment, then spun back around. The distress in her face made him close the gap between them and take her hands. “Oh, Christy,” she wailed, “it’s hopeless. I’m simply not the wife for you. You know it too, I think.” He started to deny it, but she put her fingers over his lips. “But we could still be together. We could still be happy.” She caressed his cheek, then his lips with her fingertips. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed his mouth, whispering his name. He watched her eyes close, felt a tremor of wanting shudder through her body.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and gently pried her away.

  She blushed. At first he couldn’t believe it; he thought she must be about to cry. But she didn’t cry, and the blush—her first ever, as far as he knew—was because she was embarrassed. Such a storm of tenderness seized him then, he couldn’t contain it. “Oh, Christ, Anne,” he mumbled, reaching for her.

  But she jerked back, and now there was a holy fire in her eyes. “Oh, so it’s a sin to kiss me now?” she said scathingly. “I loathe your religion. You say you love me, but you won’t be my lover. How can love ever be a sin?” She brought her arms out and dropped them back to her sides. “Oh, this is completely hopeless. I’m sorry, Christy, I made a mistake. The truth is, you’re too provincial for me. I can see now that we don’t suit at all.”

  She had her hand on the door to the stall before he realized she was leaving. Leaving. It was a trick to move fast so he could catch her, and smoothly so he wouldn’t spook Molly. He managed it, and he had the added satisfaction of seeing Anne’s face go from grim to astonished in the second before he grabbed her, backed her up against the rails, and growled at her, “This is the way we kiss in the provinces.” Her surprised mouth was an open target. He took an intimate, breath-robbing kiss from her, then another and another.

  She wilted. Making the loveliest sounds, she found the strength to reach behind him and press her hands to his buttocks, pulling him close against her. Raw sexual heat burned him. He pulled her head back and kissed her throat with his hot, open mouth, while his fingers played over the soft swell of her bosom, teasing her, making her moan. “Marry me,” he grated, taking dangerous little nips of her neck with his teeth. “Marry me, Anne.” She tried to shake her head, but he wouldn’t let her. “Marry me.” All she got out was “Nnn,” before he silenced her with his mouth. He could feel himself losing control, and at the last second it came to him that seducing Anne wasn’t the solution to his problem, but to hers.

  Shivering with frustration, he dragged his mouth away and rested his forehead against hers. Their mingled breaths sounded harsh and desperate, and it was no consolation at the moment to know that he’d succeeded in getting her as excited as he was; in fact, he felt contrite. Without much hope, he said, “We wouldn’t have to wait a whole year. To hell with it—six months.”

  She shook her head and said, “No, no, no, no no.”

  Standoff. Their hands fell away from each other, but they didn’t move apart. She looked the way he felt—drained.

  “I’m going to wear you down,” he warned.

  “I’m going to seduce you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am. If I’m a sinner and I have to go to hell, I damn well want you with me.” Suddenly she smiled. “Just you. Think about it, Christy—you and me in hell. Wouldn’t it be heaven?”

  He stepped back, shaken. If she was the devil in disguise, he had serious fears for the fate of his immortal soul.

  “You’d better run,” she taunted shakily. “I’m going to get you.”

  He pointed his finger at her. “The bigger the sinner, the harder she falls. I’m going to get you.”

  A noise from the front of the stables made them both jump. “Collie’s back!” Anne said in a guilty whisper.

  Christy snatched his coat off the floor and said, his eyes rolling upward to God, “Thank you.”

  XIII

  Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea thunder and all that is in it; let the field be joyful and all that is therein. Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy before the Lord, for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth.

  WHEN HE COMETH to judge the earth, thought Anne, I will be in trouble. Because I tried to corrupt one of his finest creations.

  Sitting in her warm, padded, D’Aubrey family pew, she lifted her gaze from her prayer book and let it rest on Christy. He was reading the 96th Psalm, his Bible in his left hand, gesturing with his right with smooth, slow, hypnotic movements, perfectly in tune with the psalm’s joyful message. His vestments were white today, in celebration of Christmas. In the light of the altar candles, his graceful robes glowed like mother-of-pearl, and his gorgeous golden hair gleamed with a radiance she could only call heavenly.

  Heavenly? Good Lord. But it was true; what she thought of as his militant angel quality always seemed to intensify when he had on his liturgical garments and was backlit by candles and crucifixes. If he had suddenly sprouted wings and brandished a fiery sword, she doubted anyone in the congregation would have been surprised.

  And she’d tried to seduce him. If the memory of that afternoon in Molly’s stall weren’t so vivid, she’d have thought it a hallucination. Seduce the vicar of All Saints? Look at him! He was reading the Collect, preparatory to the Lesson and the sermon—she could follow the liturgy now like a seasoned congregationist—and his voice rang with the absolute conviction that God’s only Son was born of a pure virgin and became a man. She lowered her eyes, ashamed. If there was a God, she’d have to ask his pardon; but since there wasn’t, she guessed she’d have to ask Christy’s.

  She hadn’t seen him alone since their encounter in the stables. He’d invited her—in a note—to attend the adult choir’s Advent program, and she went, not knowing what to expect. As it turned out, there was nothing to expect; after the singing, he disappeared. On some church business, no doubt, but she didn’t want to ask Reverend Woodworth exactly what. And once he’d come to the Hall to ride Devil, but he left immediately afterward without coming to the house or trying to see her; she wouldn’t even have known about it if William Holyoake hadn’t mentioned it to her. Since then, nothing.

  It meant he’d come to his senses, and that was a good thing. That was the best thing that could happen. Yes, yes, yes, but why did she feel so let down? All that heat, all that new, forbidden wanting, the excitement, and the hard, wrenching denial in the end—gone! And apparently forgotten by him, as if it had never been. Could he really have discarded her that easily? Written her off as a risk not worth taking? An occasion of sin his soul was better off avoiding? The thought was not only distressing but perversely galling. She already admired his willpower; she didn’t feel like increasing the admiration by adding herself to his list of successfully abandoned tempta
tions.

  But he’d said he loved her. Oh, God. He loved her.

  He didn’t know her, of course; if he did, he couldn’t love her. She had too much bleakness inside, too much desolation. Compared to her, he was a sun god—Apollo to her dark Diana. Oh, but he’d said it, “I love you, Anne,” and so he must believe it, because Christy would never lie. So she could keep that, no matter what else happened.

  But evidently he was fighting his illicit passions and winning. She should feel glad for him; that would be the Christian thing to do. But she didn’t feel a bit glad. She listened to his sermon in a bad mood. It was a simple one, and short for him, on the miracle of the Nativity. He thought he gave terrible sermons, but Anne disagreed. Maybe sinners didn’t suddenly fall to their knees, repent, and turn their lives around because of his power and eloquence, but she doubted if anyone’s sermons accomplished that, not in any lasting way. What Christy couldn’t see was that he—“manifested” was probably the word—he manifested God’s teachings by his own manly, gentle, upright example. She could listen to him preach all day, because his intentions showed through so plainly. He’d told her more than once that even he had doubts at times, occasions when his faith failed him—a confession that, had shocked and fascinated her. But if he did have doubts, it never showed in his sermons, during which he appeared to believe in, glory in, every word he uttered. That was his magic: his absolute earnestness.

  The children’s choir sang “Behold a Little Child” like angels, led by Sophie Deene, who still looked pretty despite the heavy black mourning she wore for her father. When the time for Holy Communion came, Anne sat still in her pew, as always, and watched Christy distribute the bread and wine to the communicants. These were the times when she almost envied people for their devout-looking, mysteriously simple belief. Christy said faith was a gift, which was not consoling since it meant God had decided not to give it to her. Did the villagers wonder and whisper about the interesting fact that Lady D’Aubrey never took the sacraments? Oh, probably. They’d whisper louder if they knew she’d never been confirmed in their Anglican religion. They’d shout if they knew what she’d tried to do with their pastor two weeks ago in a horse stable . . .