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He looked down at her in the light of the one whale oil lamp that lit the back of the inn, and Lina’s heart felt as if it turned over. Tom was so inexpressibly dear. And so beautiful too, with his dimples and deep-set eyes, and the masculine strength of him that made her feel—well, he wasn’t at all like her ethereal, spiritual father. It was hard to believe that they were both vicars, to tell the truth.

“Perhaps if you weren’t a vicar,” she said reluctantly.

He dropped a kiss on her lips. “I love you.”

Lina blushed, and she hadn’t blushed in three years. “You’re a fool, to be sure,” she muttered, brushing away his hands. “Now, shall we find Mrs. Fishpole, or not?”

Without waiting for an answer she marched back through the dingy door into the kitchen. Tom strode after her. He entered the kitchen to find Lina with her hands on her hips and an air of command that he’d never witnessed on her face before. “You’ll tell me Mrs. Fishpole’s direction immediately,” she was saying in a clear voice, “or it will be the worse for you.”

“Pshaw!” Sigglet said, and spat on the ground for emphasis.

Lina opened her mouth and sang one high, ear-piercing note.

“God in heaven!” Sigglet gasped. The glass in his hand shattered. Splatters of red wine joined the grease clinging to his beard and hair.

“I wish to know Mrs. Fishpole’s direction in London,” Lina said conversationally, “or I shall stroll into your public room and give a free performance. Do I make myself absolutely clear, Mr. Sigglet?”

He was eyeing her with a kind of malice that made Tom step closer. Sigglet’s eyes shifted to him, and Tom eased back his cloak, the better to give Sigglet an unadorned view of his muscled body.

“She lives in Whitechapel, on Halcrow Street,” he gabbled. “I don’t know the number, so you can break all the glasses in the house before I can tell you.”

“No need,” Lina said with a tranquil smile. “We shall find out the house ourselves, thank you very much, Mr. Sigglet.”

She turned to leave, Tom protectively at her heels. Then she paused at the door. Sigglet had taken to swigging wine straight from the bottle.

“I did want to tell you,” she said sweetly, “that I fear a little glass may have flown into your soup. Although”—she eyed the gray water with distaste—“it may add flavor.”

Sigglet curled his lip. “Complaints! All I ever gets is complaints!”

Tom pulled Lina out the door.

Thirty-one

Lessons in Love…and Rage

They seemed to have lost the others. Rees wanted Helene to see Roubiliac’s statue of Handel, so they had left Esme and her husband watching Indian jugglers. There was a stiffness in Lord Bonnington’s behavior toward Rees that made Helene quite uncomfortable although Rees, characteristically, didn’t appear to have noticed. To her relief, Tom had whisked Lina off to another area of Vauxhall.

“I simply can’t get over the fact that your brother shows no disinclination to—” but Helene stopped, realizing that it was hardly polite to point out just why a vicar might not wish to wander Vauxhall with a fallen woman. Under the circumstances.

But Rees, naturally, waded directly into the subject. “My brother is showing a striking desire to shepherd Lina from place to place. All with the purest of motives, naturally.”

“It seems odd for a vicar,” Helene commented.

“Perhaps he’s bent on reforming her. Actually, I’m not sure Tom ever really wanted to be a vicar. My father had him staked out for the church before he could walk, and he did seem suited to the task. But now he seems changed.”

“Do you think that he might give up the profession?”

“Hard to tell. The whole piety and charity business comes naturally to him.”

“He’s a good man,” Helene said with reproof in her voice.

“Exactly,” Rees replied, unperturbed. “A far better man than I.”

“You’re a good man too,” she said, slipping her hand under his arm. Then she looked up to find him grinning at her.

“Is this my shrewish wife speaking? Wife? Wife? Wherefore art thou? A changeling has taken your place!”

“All right,” she said, with an answering smile. “You’re a horrible person who occasionally has good moments. Most of which take place at the piano.”