Page 45 of Who’s That Earl

In two strides, he was beside her. “You did say ‘properly dressed,’” he reminded her, as if he knew just what she’d been thinking.

He bowed a greeting to the others, who then continued their journey, all save Mrs. Murdoch, who paused to look him up and down before giving a satisfied tip of her chin and turning toward the path.

“You should consider yourself fortunate not to have fallen from Mrs. Murdoch’s good graces,” she said, trying to muster her usual cool voice.

“Indeed, I do,” he replied in his customarily cheeky tone, “though I confess I’m more curious to know whether I’ve risen in your esteem.”

“What nonsense. Do you dare to ask about—? On the way to—?” Her voice fell to a fierce whisper, and her eyes darted to the backs of the others, though they were already far in front and out of earshot.

He inclined his head and, under cover of the brim of his hat, gave her a naughty wink. “I’m pleased to hear I didna disappoint.”

She parted her lips, but as happened far too frequently of late, no retort would come. Heat swept into her face, and with a huff, she looked away. After they’d taken a half-dozen silent steps, she said, “I’m not sure either of us is in the proper frame of mind for one of Mr. Donaldson’s sermons.” Then she pressed her lips primly together, at least in part to squelch a smile. “Or perhaps we’re in precisely the proper frame of mind.”

Thomas’s eyes twinkled. “Will he rain fire and brimstone upon us? Is he the sort to make us tremble for our sins?”

As if she had not trembled enough already.

Mrs. Murdoch chose that moment to send a sharp glance over her shoulder. Jane could guess how they must look, walking side by side, heads together, laughing. Agnes obviously suspected something, but if she ever guessed the whole of it...

“Fine morning, is it not, ma’am?” Thomas called out, and to Jane’s astonishment, the elderly housekeeper all but giggled her agreement before turning around again. Was there a woman alive he couldn’t have his way with?

“How long has this Donaldson fellow been the parson?” he asked as they reached the edge of the village.

“Only a few weeks,” she explained to his evident surprise. “In the autumn, old Mr. Parkham’s health began to decline. I took the liberty of writing to Mr. Watson, Lord Magnus’s—” Too late, she darted an apologetic glance toward him. “Your land agent, to inform him of the matter. I’m sorry if I overstepped, but I felt someone in a position of authority ought to know.” Thomas gave a brusque nod. “Shortly thereafter, Mr. Donaldson arrived, to function as a sort of curate, I suppose, if such a thing exists among Presbyterians. In spite of having help, though, Mr. Parkham still insisted on wearing himself to a shadow over Christmas. When his housekeeper went in to check on him on Boxing Day morning, she found he’d died in his sleep. Afterward, Mr. Donaldson simply...slipped into the clergyman’s role, as no one was here to say anything to the contrary.”

For a long moment, Thomas said nothing. Then, “Is he a young man?”

“In years, yes. But not in spirit.” To Thomas’s frown of incomprehension, she could only say, “You’ll see.”

The kirk stood on the far edge of Balisaig, hemmed in on two sides by the churchyard and on the third side by the manse. Once inside its stout stone walls, more than ample to enclose the small congregation, the castle servants filed into a pew near the back. Jane, without giving the matter much thought, walked up the nave to her usual seat in the Dunnock pew, to which she considered herself entitled, given the rent she paid.

After a hesitation so slight she could almost persuade herself she had imagined it, Thomas opened the pew door, which bore a faded coat of arms, and seated himself beside her, beneath a solemn plaque bearing the name of some previous Earl of Magnus.

He drew the congregation’s notice—how could he not? If he’d intended to hide, a scarlet coat had been a poor choice indeed. Jane heard the buzz of whispered voices rise, then fall again when Mr. Donaldson came in.

Services began unenthusiastically, as they had since the advent of Mr. Donaldson’s tenure, with some off-key warbling that passed for singing and a mumbled prayer. She tried to focus on the text, on the deliberate discomforts of the wooden seat, on the play of light across the chancel. Anything but the shape of Thomas’s thigh, barely hidden beneath white pantaloons, or the breadth and strength of his shoulders when they nearly brushed hers. Perhaps she ought to have feigned a headache this morning.

Church was no place for a woman so entirely unrepentant for her sins.

Mr. Donaldson was a man of twenty-five or so, tall and rail thin, with dark hair and eyes. For all he’d lived his entire life in Scotland, his voice contained little of that pleasant Scottish burr. She suspected he had forced himself to abandon his natural accent for something he thought serious-sounding and respectable.

The people of Balisaig did not appear to appreciate his efforts. As he ascended to the pulpit, congregants’ shoulders began to sag, as if the assembly had heaved a simultaneous sigh. She gripped the edge of the pew tight enough to make her fingers cramp, bracing herself for this week’s onslaught on the simple pleasures enjoyed in the little community.

Of course, Mr. Donaldson did not have his predecessor’s forty years’ experience with Balisaig, did not have forty years’ experience with anything. The sins of a city like Edinburgh, from whence he had come, were so far removed from life in a quiet Highlands village as to be laughable. Very little was to be accomplished by telling folks hereabouts that they ought to forgo the pleasures of the Thistle and Crown or that they must forswear gambling. After all, Mrs. Shaw’s loss of an entire shilling at a game of whist in 1796 had still been a subject of some discussion in the community when Jane had arrived.

Which was not to say that the people of Balisaig were free from fault. Though she’d seen little evidence of gluttony or sloth, certainly wrath and envy were occasionally on display. And as they were only human, she had no doubt that they indulged from time to time in—

“Lust.”

When Mr. Donaldson shouted that single word into the silence of the congregation, like a lead weight launched from a catapult, it landed with a predictable thud. From somewhere behind her came a snort (almost certainly Edward Shaw, aged twelve, who had a twelve-year-old boy’s interest in the sins of the flesh), followed by the slap of a hand (likely belonging to Mrs. Shaw or perhaps one of her daughters) against the side of the snorter’s head. Jane gripped the edge of the pew more firmly yet, partly to stave off the laughter that was building in her chest, and partly to keep her mind from wandering in the direction of things best not dwelled upon in church.

The second motive was thwarted, however, when Thomas’s hand slid from his knee and came to cover hers, his fingertip tracing a seductive pattern over the delicate skin on the back of her hand. The proper response would have been to pull away and fold her hands primly in her lap.

Somewhere in the last twenty-four hours, she had grown accustomed to his touch. She had lost the will to be proper.

“Again and again, Christ and his Apostles order us to avoid the temptations of the body,” continued Mr. Donaldson, only slightly rattled by the Shaw family’s performance. “And not simply to avoid them, but to cut off the hand that offends us, or to pluck out the eye. If sacrifice, if violence are necessary to control our sinful natures, to resist the lures of lust”—that fine bit of alliteration earned another snicker, from someone other than Edward this time—“then are we called to exercise righteous passion as the best means of defeating those passions which are anything but righteous.

“So too must we cull from our number those who would lead us into temptation.” As he built to his conclusion, the young reverend paused to scan his audience, lingering on particular faces. “The immodestly dressed woman. The purveyor of liquors that inflame the baser appetites. The teller of lewd stories.”