The Accused Curate

Prologue

Dinah Fenn was growing used to the gnawing anxiety in her heart, the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach whenever she thought of her future. Which she did all the time now.

It was some relief to have escaped Chadbon Court, where she worked as a housemaid, for her half day of freedom, but she was aware she needed to use it to her advantage.

She had walked to Chadleigh, the nearest town, on market day, desperately wishing to meet the perfect man, yet with an uncharacteristic desire for anonymity—and an entirely conflicting hope of seeing him.

He was already her perfect man—that was the tragedy—but there could be no fairytale ending there. She would have to work for her survival, make some tremendous impression on a decent, hardworking stranger.

Instead, the first person she recognized was a total surprise.

He sauntered out of the churchyard gate at the corner of the market square, soberly dressed in faded black, and yet carrying with him an indefinable air of rakishness—something in the tilt of his hat, perhaps, or those fine, knowing eyes.

She had almost forgotten his distinctive kind of careless grace, a poise that could not be learned.

It came from wealth and birth and fearlessness of life.

That was what had first drawn her to him in London all those months ago.

Even now, the very sight of him caused an instant lifting of her spirits.

She wanted to laugh and cheer and hug him.

He caught sight of her at almost the same time, and she was gratified to see the instant recognition widen his eyes, which sparkled with all the joy in life she remembered. He did not hesitate but sidestepped two passersby to get to her and seized both of her outstretched hands.

“Dinah Fenn! What in the world are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

All the remembered sense of fun in his company soared up from her toes. “Same as I was doing in London. Same family, different house. More to the point, what brings you here to Chadleigh?”

“I,” said Lord Rupert Grande, offering his arm to the housemaid, “am the new curate.”

She burst out laughing. Even in London, she had found it exquisitely funny that he was a parson, for a more convivial, devil-may-care gentleman she had never encountered.

He was also a charming and wickedly inventive lover…

What was it his friends had called him? The Irreverend Grande or the Grande Irreverend. Or something like that.

“You are the curate?” she exclaimed. “No wonder all the girls are suddenly wild to go to church on Sundays!”

He gave her a modest grin. “One does one’s poor best. Where might I escort you?”

“I don’t care right now,” she said with genuine warmth, as all her worries slid away to the back of her mind.

“It does my heart good just to see you.” They had walked the length of the square and were just passing the narrow opening to the inn’s back yard.

Overcome by nostalgia and better days, she couldn’t help dragging him into the opening and throwing her arms around him, pressing her lips to his.

Because he was part of that heady, wonderful past before anxiety had knocked her sideways.

And just because it felt good and she needed the embrace, the closeness.

Lord Rupert cooperated with enthusiasm, though only a for a moment.

“Now then,” he said, drawing back to straighten his cravat. “Mind the clergyman’s dignity. To say nothing of your own reputation. Villages have eyes everywhere.”

It was spoken with a smile, and she knew, although he pulled her back out to the street into a more decorous stroll, that he was not remotely offended.

Her throat closed up. “Oh, Rupert, I am in such trouble.”

He didn’t laugh, bless him. In fact, his usually roving eyes were suddenly serious. “Are you, Dinah? What’s happened?”

She cast a glance behind her and waited until a squabbling family had walked past them. “You won’t tell, will you?”

“Clergyman,” he reminded her. “And friend.”

“I need a friend,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to do. He’s too far above me to marry me, and as soon as I start to show, I’ll be thrown out without a character. What am I to do, Rupert?”

He nodded, not even attempting to make light of it or brush her away. “First, try not to fret. We’ll think of something. Would your mistress be sympathetic if you went to her?”

Dinah shook her head despairingly. “She couldn’t be. It’s Lady Chadbon up at Chadbon Court, and her husband is this bigwig in Parliament. Everything has to be proper, and I’m not, Rupert, am I?”

“No, bless you. We’ll have to make you so. Are you sure the father won’t marry you?”

She gave him a look. “He’s going to marry someone else. I know. I shouldn’t have gone near him, but…” She swallowed back the weak tears, dashing one hand across her face. “That’s the other thing I hate—I’ve turned into a watering pot.”

“Weep no more. Would your own family help?”

“I got no family, except a sour old aunt who wouldn’t let me in the house even before this.”

“Well, who wants anything to do with a sour old aunt? Don’t despair. You still have options, as I see it. Either you can be called away by family and have the baby in secret—I’ll try to pull some strings there—but you’d have to let the child go…”

“Can’t keep it anyway when I got no job, no earnings.”

“…or you could marry someone who’s not the father.”

“That’s what I thought,” she admitted. It was, after all, one reason she had come to Chadleigh on market day, in the hopes of encountering such a paragon. “Only he’d be mad as fire when he found out. I’m four months gone, and no baby’s that early.”

“Oh, I think you’d have to be honest. After all, you want a good man, and you have a lot to offer a lucky suitor.”

She stared at him. “What, a stained reputation and a little bas—”

“Is your reputation so stained?”

“Not yet,” she said bitterly. “I been good since I come down here. I was trying. Apart from just the once. But then, it only takes once, doesn’t it?”

“It does, and it isn’t fair that women bear it all.

But there we are. You need to have a think, decide if you’d rather keep the child if you could, or if there’s anyone you know you’d be prepared to trust and marry.

Or we can talk Lady Chadbon into taking you back on after you’ve been away looking after some mythical relatives.

I’ll speak to you again in a few days and we can make more definite plans. ”

She stared at him with something like wonder. The knot of fear in her stomach had miraculously loosened, and for the first time in weeks, she knew something close to hope. Even if all his talk was just a gentleman’s ignorance and wishful thinking, he was taking her problem seriously.

“You’re not alone, Dinah,” he said gently, and those dratted tears started again. He winked. “Now, shab off before you get the curate into trouble.”

And she actually laughed as she walked away from him, because just maybe, with Lord Rupert at her back, everything would work out.