Author: Anne Stuart

"As for you, my dear Simon," Monty continued, looking up into the vicar's lined face, "you need to treat my darling Lina with more respect. She has stayed by me when most others were off consorting with Satan or whatever other bauble has caught their eye at these gatherings."

"You don't know?" Simon demanded, appalled. "You host these gatherings and you have no idea what your guests are doing?"

"Oh, I imagine some of them are trying to summon Old Scratch, but since I don't believe in his existence I hardly need to worry about it. They're just children playing games, the ones who aren't busy with rousing fornication." He glanced at Lina. "Hard to believe this straitlaced fellow ever knew a thing about fornication, isn't it, Lina? But he did. He had quite the reputation."

She really hadn't wanted to be dragged into the conversation, but for Monty's sake she turned back. "Very hard to believe. I suppose, then, that there must be redemption for us all," she said lightly. "Even whores like me."

It was an ugly word, and Monty looked distressed. "I think he's having a bad influence on you, my dear. You aren't usually so self-critical. Trust me, compared to some ladies 1 know, you've been a model of restraint." He glanced at Pagett. "If you're going to make Lina feel bad about herself then you'll have to leave, dear boy. I can't have my darling girl feeling sad.”

Simon had remained noticeably silent on the matter. "Everyone has to feel sad at some point in their lives, Thomas. And Lady Whitmore doesn't need my approval for how she chooses to spend her life—she only needs her own."

"Enough with the spiritual doublespeak," Monty said fretfully. "You two will simply have to learn to get along. I can't have you fighting over my deathbed—I prefer to be the center of attention at all times. Either the two of you go off and make peace, or you can setup a schedule of visiting with me where you won't have to see the other. Either way, I need a rest. Go away."

This was the second time Monty had told her to go off with his disapproving friend. She cast a suspicious glance at the pale man before rising. She could assume this was simply Monty having a temper tantrum, with no ulterior motive, but there had never been anything simple about Monty.

He continued to look fretful and exhausted, and she couldn't tell whether she was imagining things or not. And then Simon Pagett was by her side, his hand on her elbow, leading her away. "You always were a rude bastard," he said in a cool voice. "I'll do my best to convince Lady Whitmore to go away and leave you to me—it's no more than you deserve."

"You won't succeed," she said.

He glanced down at her, and for a moment she was caught, staring up into his brown eyes. Odd, she would have thought brown eyes would be warm and comforting. His were dark and almost bleak. "You underestimate my determination. Lady Whitmore."

"You underestimate mine."

She half expected Monty to shoo them off again, but when she glanced back at him he'd slipped into a restless sleep.

She tried to pull away from her unwilling partner, but his hand on her upper arm was almost bruisingly tight, and he whisked her out of the sickroom before she could even open her mouth to protest.

"You don't want to wake him up," Simon said, loosening his hold once the door was closed. "He'll need all the sleep he can get. And you can surely stand my company for a bit while we thrash things out. After all, we do have the same goal in mind. A peaceful passing for someone we both love."

That sounded much too intimate for Lina's peace of mind, but she decided not to argue. "Indeed," she said calmly enough, hoping to disguise the pain it brought her.

"I've told the servants to set lunch out on the terrace. We can talk without being overheard, and we'll be close enough should Montague need us."

This was fraught with a number of annoyances. First off, what right did he have to high-handedly order lunch, assuming she'd eat it? And to call Monty by his seldom-used first name. And why should he assume she wanted to hear anything he had to say?

He was the vicar and Monty's old friend, she gathered, but still—what right did he have coming in and making decisions and issuing orders?

And what was Monty doing? If she didn't know better she'd suspect him of attempting the single most ridiculous matchmaking in the history of the world. Or maybe it just appealed to Monty's sense of the absurd. One of society's most soiled doves and a pillar of the church. He probably thought if he threw them together enough sparks would fly.

They certainly did. Simon Pagett was looking down at her with what had to be contempt. Oh, to be sure he was all that was polite, at least up to a point, but she knew what lurked beneath his passive exterior. Well, so what? She found him similarly distasteful. They would have to be the last two people on earth to ever consider being attracted to each other.

During her nightmare marriage she'd only tried for help once. Bruised, frightened, she'd escaped to their local vicar, begging for help, for advice, for rescue.

The old man had folded his hands across his ample stomach and told her it was the woman's joy and duty to submit. And that he wished to hear no more complaints.

When she'd returned home she discovered that the vicar had preceded her return with a note to her husband, disclosing their conversation. That was the first night he'd beaten her into unconsciousness.

She'd never set foot inside a church again.

And now this...this man dared to look at her with what she was certain was opprobrium, judging her. I’ll eat in my room," she said and whirled away from him.

He caught her arm again, pulling her back around. "You'll eat with me," he said calmly. "You don't want the servants to know we're fighting."

"I don't give a damn what the servants think," she snapped.

She almost thought she saw a smile in the back of those dark eyes. "In fact, neither do I, but Montague would hear of it and then he'd start this ridiculous matchmaking all over again. We're better off pretending to go along with it."

She could feel the color rise to her face. "I hadn't realized you suspected it, too."

"I've known Montague all his life—it would tickle his sense of the ridiculousness."

She'd thought the very same thing, but for some reason hearing the words from his mouth was particularly annoying. "I'm an extremely wealthy widow, sir," she said in an icy tone, "and not unattractive. Most men wouldn't consider me a ridiculous choice."

He escorted her out onto the terrace, where a table was beautifully laid for Iwo. "Surely I haven't offended you?"

She smiled sweetly. "I'm impossible to offend, Mr. Pagett."

"You may as well call me Simon. Every time you say 'vicar' or 'Mr. Pagett’ I hear poison dripping off your tongue." He released her arm to hold the chair for her. There was no way she could leave without mating a scene, so she sat, glaring at him.

"You're hearing your own fevered imagination, vicar” She put deliberate emphasis on the word.

"And I suspect it's a great deal easier to offend you than I would have thought," he added, seating himself opposite her. There were no wineglasses on the table, and she was very much in need of something stronger than Monty's clear, cold water.

"Aren't we to have wine?" she asked.

"I don't drink spirits."

Of course he didn't. And she would have given her right arm for some. But she certainly wasn't about to admit it.

For the first lime she had a clear look at him in the light of day. He wasn't as old as she'd thought—the lines on his face were ones of hard experience, not age. The one gray streak in his dark hair was all the more startling, and for the first time she realized he looked oddly familiar.

"Have we ever met?" she asked abruptly.

"Have you been frequenting churches recently. Lady Whitmore?"

"Of course not. I just suddenly had the thought that I might have...seen you at some point."

He shrugged. "It's possible. I spent some time in London before I joined the church. When was your first season?”

She remembered it all too well—she'd been seventeen, the toast of London, and innocent. "More than ten years ago," she said stiffly. "But I expect you'd remember me. I was quite the toast."

"I hate to disillusion you, my lady, but I don't remember anyone from that time, no matter how heart-breakingly beautiful. I was too drunk."

She looked at him in surprise. "I thought you didn't drink spirits."

"Not any longer. I find they don't agree with me. I sincerely doubt we saw each other back then, my lady. 1 spent my time in whorehouses and gambling clubs. No decent hostess would have invited me over her threshold, and certainly no one would have introduced me to a shy young virgin. Which I expect you were, way back then."

"You make me sound like an old crone. I'm twenty-eight. Decades younger than you."

"I'm thirty-five," he said flatly. "Close your mouth. Lady Whitmore. If you're going to be astonished it's better just to raise your eyebrows."

She snapped her mouth shut, starting at him. She could see it now, the signs of dissipation. Her judgmental, self-righteous nemesis clearly must have been a libertine par excellence.

"So you see," he continued in a calm voice, reaching for the crystal glass of clear water, "I know whereof I speak. I know just how vicious and deadly are the paths you and Thomas are following. Thomas is about to meet his maker, and while I have no doubt that God will welcome and forgive him, I think his passing will be easier if he made peace with things beforehand. Which is why I'd rather you didn't sit there telling him ribald poems and gossiping about all your acquaintances."

"You think having been a hellion somehow gives you the right to tell other people what to do, vicar?"

"Simon," he corrected in an equally frigid voice.