Chapter 17
Matthew watched at a respectful distance as his wife spoke to Lord Keaton and did his best not to interfere.
It was not easy.
“Stop clenching your fists,” Vix told him, a fixed smile on her face at his side. “You look deranged.”
“Right,” he said, forcing his fingers loose. “It is only that—”
“I know,” she replied. “I know. Just let her try.”
He sighed, turning toward his friend with open desperation in his face. “Distract me, then.”
She raised her dark brows. “The journalist was here. No! Your fists. Lord, Matthew, you’d think I was the vicar.”
“No one would think that.”
She blinked. “Don’t be rude. He was here, I think, to make amends. We sent him off, but he’ll be back. Maybe tomorrow or maybe in a few days. Likely with a gift or two.”
“A gift,” he repeated warily. “Delightful. This is indeed a distraction, Vix, but it’s almost worse than the thing you’re distracting me from.”
They both paused to glance back at Keaton and Rosalind to find that the man was actually smiling at her, looking quite puffed up at whatever she was saying as her pale lashes fluttered, her hands clasped at her chest like she was utterly charmed by him.
“See? She’s fine,” said Vix, though she, too, sounded a bit worried. “Right, a distraction. Have you consummated yet?”
“Vix!” he sputtered, turning so suddenly, he almost tripped over himself.
She was staring at him, unmoved by his panic. “Not yet, hm? Is it the leg? I suppose it’s the leg. She does seem much better now.”
“Vix!” he said again, unable to find any other words in his mind at all.
She gave a delicate, amused cough and shook her head. “Fine. What else? Oh, I’ve decided we’ve all waited around quite long enough for Mae and Roland to collide. We must engineer something so that they can no longer avoid one another. Have you any ideas?”
He stared at her, heat rising along his jaw and into his hairline. “Vix!” he said again.
“Oh, come now, it will be fun!” she said, tittering. “Ah, look, Lord Keaton has shoved off. And here comes your harem.”
“My … Vix!”
The ladies descended on Rosalind in a gaggle of about half a dozen, their skirts twirling as they circled her.
Matthew took a step forward, his blood surging, but Vix sank her fingernails into his shoulder and bade him stay put.
“It is difficult because Roland is so slippery and Mae is so willful,” she continued, as though they were having polite teatime conversation, “but recently there has been a spot of bother at the clinic with all the extra attention. Maybe I can convince Teddy that we need muscle at the door.”
Matthew scoffed, glancing at her. “To bat away the gossips?”
She frowned. “It’s not just gossips. I’m afraid that the clinic gaining notoriety has also drawn the attention of the hospitals. They already knew about us, of course, on some level, but I suppose they didn’t realize how well attended we’d become, and it’s turning into a point of contention.”
“Why would they care?” he asked. “It isn’t as though you’re skimming their profits. Your services are free.”
She shrugged. “Haven’t the foggiest. Perhaps it is just a matter of pride. Oh, look at that, she’s got them giggling. Don’t be fooled, though. A giggle can be mockery as much as it can be camaraderie. They’re still taking the measure of her.”
Matthew whipped back around to see his wife giving a tentative smile as several of his more fervent admirers shared a spot of mirth. If it was at her expense instead of in delight at her wit, he was ready to charge at them with his head down like a bull.
“I suggest you consummate now that she’s well enough to dress and move around,” Vix said, startling him back around to stare at her. “Have you made any progress at all? Or was it just that dry little kiss at the altar on the wedding day?”
“I’m sure it’s not an iota of your business,” he barked, startling Vix and drawing the attention of an elderly couple who were lighting candles at the altar. He cleared his throat, tugged at his collar, and lowered his voice. “Stop antagonizing me.”
“Never,” she said with a grin. “So it has been more. That’s good. She told me you quoted Shakespeare at one another. Very dry, Matthew. What was it? Bit of Macbeth?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Shrew.”
She curled her lip. “Are you insulting me, or naming the work?”
He smiled. “Yes.”
She gave him a sarcastic little grin in response. “Fine. It would be the worst of his oeuvre, I suppose. Which bit did you quote at each other?”
“The bit about the stinger,” he said.
“Oho.” She brightened immediately. “That’s very bawdy indeed. So you threatened to put your tongue in her bottom?”
“Vix, for Christ’s sake!” he hissed, elbowing her in the ribs. “People can hear you. And no, we did not get to that line.”
“Pity,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe you should pick the scene back up and then provide a demonstration.”
“Vix!”
“Ah, is that the time?” She glanced upward as the clock chimed from above them. “Ambrose will be pouting if I’m not home soon. Think on the plotting for Roland and Mae, will you? You’re the only one who will do mischief of that sort with me.”
“I will not!”
She rose onto her toes and pecked his cheek. “Lying is a sin,” she reminded him. “I’ll see you soon.”
He stood there in shock for a time until Rosalind approached him, her limp a little more pronounced now than it had been at the start of the service. He softened immediately, reaching out for her to support her left side as she came to stand next to him.
“Do you see that?” she said, pointing to the fig tree. “Some of the fruit has fallen. I saw some of the children taking them from the ground before they left today.”
“Did they?” he said with a chuckle. “Thieves, the lot of them. Oh, that reminds me, now that autumn is beginning, I was thinking about seeds for next year’s garden and remembered your brother’s fondness for tomatoes.”
She giggled, following him as he stepped down the landing of the church and into the yard toward the house. “You want to plant tomatoes for Abe? What if he eats them all?”
“Well, then, it was a well-chosen gift, wasn’t it?” he asked, grinning at her. “How else am I supposed to win him over?”
“Honestly, he’ll eat anything,” she confided. “I saw him dip a blueberry in egg yolk once. But, I was thinking. If the figs are ready, we ought to pick some of them, shouldn’t we?”
He hesitated, stopping mid-step to glance down at her where she was gazing up at him, blinking those long, pale lashes. “You think they are ripe enough?” he asked, his throat gone a little dry.
“Well,” she said, licking her lips. “There is only one way to know for certain. We could try one.”
He swallowed, turning toward her. “Is that what you want?” he asked, his voice gone deeper, softer. “To try one?”
She pressed her lips together, those lovely eyes tilted up at him, and nodded. “Yes, I would like that very much,” she confessed in barely a whisper.
He drew in a breath so deep that it made the whole of his body quake, and turned from her to walk toward the tree.
He knew it was not necessary to continue this theater, but he was committed to it all the same.
He stared up at the dozens of dangling fruits, heavy and splitting, several of them beginning to leak, and chose the one that looked most ready, twisting it in his hand until it fell away.
He returned to her and took her hand, pulling her toward the house. “We will eat this one together,” he told her, rubbing his thumb along the split seam at the bottom of the fruit and then raising it to his mouth to taste the juice. “It is very sweet.”
She stared down at the way he touched the wound in the fruit, at the glisten of the juice on the pad of his thumb, and drew her lip between her teeth. Her breath seemed to come quicker as she hurried into the house and drew him with her up the stairs toward their bedroom.
“Is it messy?” she asked him, turning to watch him pull the fig apart as she sat on the side of the bed and removed her gloves.
“It can be very messy,” he answered, holding out half of the fruit to her once her hands were bare and raising his half to his lips. “But that is part of the joy.”
“Oh,” she said, watching him savor the taste as she accepted her half and held it in her lap, too enraptured with his own enjoyment to take her own bite.
He held her eye as he finished and licked his lips clean. He licked his fingers as well, dragging each one through his teeth to clean them of the juices and seeds of the fig, enjoying how rapt she looked in watching the process.
She took a sharp little breath and set her fig half on the bedside table, unbitten.
She tugged the bows loose from her bonnet and tossed it aside, her cheeks in high color and her breath coming quickly.
Her pale ringlets fell loose on her shoulders, her fingers trembling as she pulled the ribbons free and let them float to the floor.
He stood above her, tilting her chin up so that he could taste what he truly craved.
He kissed her gently at first, sharing that fig’s sweet nectar between them.
She flicked her tongue out first, tentative and sweet, as though she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to initiate this escalation of kissing.
It almost brought him directly to his knees.
He gave her what she wanted, his tongue sliding along hers as he crawled onto the bed with her, pulling her onto his lap and letting his hands wander down the lines of that prim, modest little dress and all the delicious bountiful flesh hiding underneath it.
She threaded her fingers through the bands at his collar and pulled them free, tossing them to the side, her fingers dipping into the neck of his cassock to find that little scar at his collarbone and run her fingernails along the line of it.