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“I see you know Othello. But why are you calling me John?” he asked, irritated beyond all control. He drained his glass of wine and poured another.

“You are John the Baptist, are you not?” she said. In the candlelight, the skin of her throat glowed a creamy delicate white. And her throat led down to sweet mounds of breast, looking like snow against the dull gold of her gown. “I rather think that young Meggin called it right,” she said, and the husky amusement in her voice had deepened. “If I am the Whore of Babylon, perhaps I should serve as your temptation. Or have I got it wrong? It was John who was tempted in the desert was it not?”

“No,” he said, “it wasn’t. And I believe you know that as well as I do, given the rather surprising extent of biblical knowledge you’ve already demonstrated.”

“Ah, it must have been John who lived in the desert for years. Now how long did you say that you’d been a priest, John?”

He met her eyes. Hers were deep pools of chocolate-brown mischief, and yet with a hint of vulnerability. That label whore had stung.

“I shouldn’t have called you that word,” he said. “I wished to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

“It was very difficult to make my way to London on my own,” she said casually, peeling herself an apple, her hands absolutely steady. “Do you know, I actually contemplated, one night, whether it was better to live poor or die in sin? But I chose to live poor, Reverend. Believe it or not, when I chose to move to this house, it was because I thought myself in love with your brother.” Her smile was self-mocking now.

“I’m sure that he feels the same,” Tom said, cursing Rees. “No. He never did, although he might have experienced some sort of temporary infatuation with my voice.” There wasn’t a trace of self-pity in her voice.

“I—I’m sorry,” Tom said finally.

She shrugged. “He’s kind enough. He’s a gentleman, your brother, for all that most of the nobility think he’s a degenerate. He has rather wished I wasn’t living in the house any time in the last two years, but he’s caught by his own integrity, you see. He can’t put me out because he’s honorable, and he doesn’t really want me in, because he’s honorable.”

“And do you wish to leave?” One of the candles was guttering, casting her half of the table into a shadow that hid the sparkle in her eyes and made her look as if…but he couldn’t stand the idea that his cursed brother had broken her heart.

“I believe I shall return to the opera house in the very near future, and yes, I will welcome that.”

“But do you like London? Has it been as enthralling as you hoped to find it, back when you were a girl in Scotland?”

“No,” she said. “London is disappointing, like so many things in life. Don’t you find it so, John?”

“On occasion.”

“I find it so virtually all the time,” she said almost dreamily. “Your brother is a prime case in point. Disappointing.”

“I’m sorry,” Tom said, feeling a surge of gratitude for his brother’s shortcomings.

She stood up. “I am worn quite ragged with all this confession, John. I believe I shall retire.”

He came to his feet, and walked to her side in order to escort her from the room. He stopped her with a touch on her arm, just as she was about to open the door. “Please don’t call me John.”

She looked up at him, and there wasn’t a hint of sadness in her eyes; he must have imagined it. Instead, she came up on the tips of her toes and brushed her mouth across his. Tom froze.

“Don’t do that,” he said, and he was shocked by the roughness of his own voice.

She didn’t seem to realize her own danger. She thought it was all a game. “Tempting the vicar?” she said pertly. “A crime, I’m sure. But I never could tempt you into sin, Mr. Holland. From everything Rees told me about you, back a few years ago when we used to converse, you are the perfect son.”

Tom tightened his jaw and kept his hands at his sides.

“Always kind, always forgiving, always Christian. I suspect Meggin is not the first waif you’ve rescued. If I remember the stories correctly, you’ve never put a foot wrong, isn’t that right?” She smiled up at him, as seductive a woman as he’d ever seen in his life. In fact, he had never seen anyone like her.

And just like that, he snapped. He put out his hands and drew her into his arms. His blood was pounding so that all he could hear was the roar of seawater in his ears. And all he could see was the tempting sweetness of her mouth.

It was the kind of kiss that brings drowning men back from the edge of death. He pulled her against him hard, relishing every inch of silky satin flesh, so giving to his hardness, so very unlike his own body. He even pulled her off her feet because he had to have her closer, all that soft, warm flesh. And she didn’t protest; instead she melted against him, curling her arms around his neck, letting him ravish her mouth. After a bit, she started teasing him with her tongue until he growled and sucked her tongue into his mouth. She made a little noise, a funny little hoarse noise but it didn’t sound like a giggle.

Still, that tiny noise reminded him of where he was. Of who he was. He put her back on her feet and tried to think of an apology. If there was an apology for that sort of behavior.

But she cut him off. “Am I to suppose that the Baptist has succumbed to temptation?” There was a trace of wonder in her voice, and the words seemed to hang on the air. For a moment, she stood there, staring up at him with her beautiful lips stung by his kiss and her eyes all lazy with pleasure.

Then she turned and was gone.

Eighteen