Matilda’s words had a strange effect. Tremont’s heart—so recently thumping with glee—began a measured tattoo in his chest. A slow, hard rhythm that gradually faded, like hoofbeats disappearing into the night. He felt light-headed for a moment, then a curious warmth.

“You are very fierce, Matilda Merridew. I noticed that as soon as I laid eyes on you.”

“I am also very hungry. If you don’t finish what’s on your plate, I will be happy to assist.”

She was shy of compliments and more tenderhearted than she wanted the world to know. The warmth Tremont experienced spread from his body to his mind, to his memories, and to his hopes for the future.

He would court this magnificent, dear lady, and he would marry her, and they would all the joys and pleasures and dreams prove. For the first time in his life, Marcus, Earl of Tremont, felt he did not lack a mysterious collection of attributes so many others took for granted, but was instead a man blessed beyond imaginings and lacking for nothing whatsoever.

Chapter Nine

“I feel as if,” Matilda said, arranging loops of yarn over her hands, “the closer I come to happiness, the more Harry’s ghost haunts me.”

Dorcas MacKay made a face at that disclosure—a considering face, not a shocked face. “For anybody raised in a vicarage, happiness itself is problematic. Papa was never a dragon of doom, as some who take holy orders are, but neither was he ebullient. When I was ebullient, his reaction was a sort of saintly tolerance that in itself chided me.”

Dorcas began winding the yarn into a ball. The blue color suggested the project would be for young John, Matilda’s weekly charge in the nursery, rather than for Major MacKay, who did love his plaids.

“You mostly knew your father as a widower,” Matilda said. “Perhaps as a younger man, he was more outgoing.” Though considering Vicar Delancey in later life, that theory was unconvincing.

“Michael used to be ebullient,” Dorcas said. “My older brother was a jolly lad. After he was ordained, it was as if he forgot that happy boyhood altogether. Working for the archbishop has knocked whatever joy he still claimed right out of him.”

Matilda did not know Michael Delancey well. He’d occasionally been paired with her at vicarage suppers. For all he was a gorgeous-looking fellow, his conversation was bland, and his company… uninspiring. He would probably take up his father’s post when the present Vicar Delancey retired.

Over the next thirty years, the ladies of the congregation would distinguish between Old Vicar Delancey and Young Vicar Delancey. For the men, it would be Vicar Tom and Vicar Michael. Both pleasant fellows, in their way, though pleasant was damning with faint praise.

But then, compared to Tremont, any man’s company would be dull.

“How long has your Harry been gone?” Dorcas asked.