Chapter 13
Annabelle
The next day I am surprised by a visitor.
And it is not Alfred Saintsbury.
No, my butler, Montgomery, shows another familiar—but much less welcome—face into my study.
“Ah, madame,” Mr. Thompson says after seating himself across from me. “I am glad to see that you are well. After the excitement of yesterday.”
I cock my brow at him. “It will take more than a few overset men to affect my health, Mr. Thompson.”
“Of course, of course,” he says. “And I hope that I was of service to you.”
I sigh. One of the advantages of being notorious is that you needn’t be unnecessarily polite.
“Yes, you were very helpful, sir,” I say, with apparent lack of conviction. “I thank you for your efforts.”
“You are most welcome,” he says. “The little incident reminded me that it is important to have a vicar of strength here in Trescott.”
“As you’ll remember, Mr. Saintsbury seems to have acquitted himself adequately on that score.”
“What may seem adequate,” the man says as if it pains him, “may, in fact, be anything but.”
“Dear God, Mr. Thompson, if you have something to say, please do say it. You needn’t warm me up before you pour horseshit in my ear. I’m not my father.”
The man reels back.
“I merely meant that firing into a crowd of his own parishioners is hardly measured. There is strength and then there is—well, violence.”
“Given that I was the object of the enraged mob’s proposed violence, I am not inclined to see his actions as excessive.”
“Of course, you did not choose Mr. Saintsbury for the post. He was your father’s choice.”
His eyes gleam at this pronouncement.
And for some reason it bothers me that he even dares to speak Alfred’s name.
“He was not,” I say flatly. “But he suits me now. As I’m sure you’ll agree, religion is not a preoccupation of mine.”
“But you are a woman of reason,” he counters, “even of intelligence.”
Really, I should throw the man from my office. And I would if I thought he was worth the exertion.
“Yes, even that,” I say dryly. “Is there anything else, Mr. Thompson, that you would like to share?”
He reddens.
“My son was to have the living. It was practically agreed upon by your father. And then when I retired, your father suddenly changed his mind. He gave it to Saintsbury.”
“Perhaps he thought he deserved it more.”
“Impossible!” Mr. Thompson cries. “I think he was already sick, your father. It was an addling of his brain.”
“He chose Mr. Saintsbury three months before his illness. And I will be frank with you. I have no inclination to change who holds the living at present. I am sorry to your son—but I understand he holds a very nice living in Kent.”
“It is two hundred pounds less a year than the living here. A substantial sum.”
“Surely he will rise in time.”
Mr. Thompson flushes again.
“You didn’t even esteem your father. You had not seen him in years when he died,” he says. “Why would you keep his choice?”
I settle him with a stare.
“Because it pleases me to do so.”
“Could there be a personal reason? You are an unmarried lady, Miss de Lacey. And Mr. Saintsbury went off with you unaccompanied yesterday—don’t think I didn’t notice.”
“Few would regard me as a woman in need of a chaperone, Mr. Thompson.”
“Ah, perhaps not, but who is to say—perhaps you are—”
He splutters. His imagination cannot even reach in the direction it wants to go.
“Yes, perhaps it is not that the man carried a weapon, but that he was trying to arrange a tryst. Good day, Mr. Thompson.”
“You cannot dismiss me!”
“I very much can and I very much just did.”
“The living belongs to my son.”
“Out,” I say. “Or I should see you escorted.”
He rises with a huff and turns on his heel.
What an absolute imbecile.
It is comical really. He knows I cannot be ruined and yet still tries to threaten me on that score.
Absurd.
I shake the encounter from my mind.
I must focus on what is truly important.
I am ready to seduce Alfred Saintsbury definitively and finally.
I am ready to bed this man.
I desire him, and I am done with waiting, with delaying my pleasure.
I am ready to begin the process of begetting myself an heir.
I have delayed too long. I have enjoyed playing with him too much. I have to remember my objective and where this relationship will lead.
The more I know him, the more I like him. Which makes me all the more convinced he is the right choice for the sire of my future child.
But it does present other problems.
I hope that my emotions, my vulnerability to him, might quell when I finally bed him.
I was determined to ruin him, get with child, and discard him. But when I am with him, I struggle to remember that scheme.
I must remember my plan.
Because ever since our carriage ride on Wednesday and his heroics in defending me from the angry mob of Trescott residents (it is hard to see his actions in any other light), I have been unable to stop thinking of him.
I imagine him in his little vicarage, his cock hard and angry, and I touch myself. He assails my consciousness at odd times, such as when I look over the reports from my counting house in London or my ledgers for Trescott, and I feel sick at heart and in need of physical relief.
Therefore, I am prepared to bed him. To get him out of my thoughts. To purge him from my desires. After all, I am not going to stay in Trescott forever. Soon enough, I will return to London where I belong and leave Mr. Perry to keep an eye on the estate and send me reports.
I never wanted to return to Trescott and only did so out of spite. To show my father and Mr. Perry and the village itself that I could run the estate better than my father ever had. That I was not broken by what happened to me here.
Thus, I am done with pretenses. I am not going to play anymore games. This time, I want no distractions.