Chapter Sixteen

B y the time Thomas returned to the fete after he'd put himself to rights, his mind felt as if it would explode for all the thoughts churning through it.

Once more, he'd proved himself a rogue by coming together with Geneieve in a semi-public place as if he hadn't sense in his brain, as if he were little better than the man he used to be, but where she was concerned, nothing made sense except being with her. When he'd seen her talking and laughing with his best friend, something had snapped within him, and jealousy had consumed him in a hot tide.

Yet he still had no right to claim her or dictate her time, so he'd had no choice but to tell her goodbye the only way he knew how, the only way it would mean anything to both of them. That emotional connection, that one last coupling had nearly broken him, and he didn't think he could survive the coming Sunday knowing it would be the last day he would see her.

Luncheon had concluded and the tables were being moved to one side of the village green, for dancing would take place on the other side before dinner was served later that evening. Another round of croquet had formed not far from that location, while couples and groups had decided to stroll through the village, perhaps in search of shade or shopping, but he immediately found Gigi with his gaze, and she appeared to be quite upset as she talked animatedly with Miss Partridge.

As he quickly walked toward them, Thomas finger-combed his hair into some semblance of a style, and prayed he looked presentable. Another sweep of the area didn't reveal Grantford, so perhaps the man had returned to his lodging house. At least he wouldn't try to spend more time with Gigi.

"What has happened?" he asked as he joined the two women—the one he couldn't have, and the one society deemed he must settle for.

"Oh, Thomas, the girls are missing," Geneieve said, with watery eyes and fear etched through her face. "Miss Partridge simply let them wander off."

"What?" Shock hit him like a punch to the gut. He rounded on the other woman. "I told you I had something urgent to attend to and asked you to watch over my nieces. Why would you let them run away?"

Miss Partridge blew out a breath. "Those girls are hardly docile or proper. There is no telling them what to do or hoping they will act demure or sit quietly." She shook her head, rested a narrowed gaze on Gigi. "Of course, knowing who their governess is, I cannot be surprised, for the children must have modeled their wild behavior after her."

Both he and Gigi gasped at the barb.

He cleared his throat. "In all honesty, my nieces were wild long before I engaged a governess for them, but that is beside the point." When he briefly met Gigi's gaze, saw the concern in those blue depths, he lost a piece of his heart to her. She so obviously cared about the girls, the difference between her and Miss Partridge was like night and day. "However, I did leave the girls in your care. Where did they go?"

Miss Partridge gestured vaguely to the east of the village. "I would have no idea. They were babbling something about picking flowers to make wreaths."

"Perhaps they went to the meadow not far from the vicarage," Gigi said as she shaded her eyes with a hand and looked in that direction, as if she could see the area from her present location.

"It's a good possibility. We'll start there."

"I would be happy to go with you," Miss Partridge purred with a hand on his arm.

In some impatience, Thomas shook off her touch. "You have done enough. I'll go alone."

While the woman pouted, Gigi huffed out a breath. "I'm going with you."

Worry collided with panic and the other jumbled emotions currently stuck in his chest. "If you had attended the fete as the governess you were engaged as, the girls wouldn't be missing now," he snapped at her, for if something were to happen to his nieces…

What sort of man was he to leave the girls—his own precious nieces—in the care of a stranger so that he could couple with Gigi like a half-crazed rabbit? He'd only thought of himself and the needs of his body, had let emotions have at him without stopping to think about his actions or to pray over the problem with God.

I have failed as a man and as a vicar.

"Ah, so then according to you and most of your church, I'm to be seen and not heard, act docilely mute, I shouldn't mingle within the community, nor should I talk with people who are higher in rank than a mere governess, regardless that I'm a baron's daughter." A fair amount of ire threaded through her voice, and her eyes flashed blue fire. "I am allowed my own life and my own interests, especially when your nieces were in your company this afternoon because you wished for them to come to know the paragon , Miss Partridge."

A blush stained the other woman's cheeks. "I apologize for not taking better care of them—"

Gigi snorted. "Well, we cannot all be governesses, can we?" Then she pushed her way past Miss Partridge.

Well, damn. Thomas gave Miss Partridge a half-hearted smile of apology. "Stay in the square in the event the girls return here. I must go search for them." Then he loped after a very angry Geneieve, but not so quickly that he couldn't appreciate the swish of her hips.

When he finally fell into step beside her, he grunted. "None of this would have happened if I hadn't engaged you as a governess."

She blew out a breath. "If you hadn't, those girls would have trampled all over you, disrupted your sermons, and generally been branded as heathens or hoydens, depending on who you talked to."

"Then why the devil weren't you watching them today? If you think yourself a governess who is unparalleled, you should have been with them." No matter that he knew the words were hurtful, he couldn't stop them from vomiting from his mouth.

With a gasp, Gigi paused and rounded on him. "How dare you." She poked a forefinger into his chest. "I brought Penny and Lily out to the fete because you were too busy acting like a damned politician, charming your way through your parishioners. Then when you remembered you were responsible for the girls, what did you do? Use them to get close to a woman you wish to court."

"I don't want to, but it's what I need to do in order to keep this living!" If he couldn't get on the other side of his emotions, the girls wouldn't be found, and he would inadvertently wound Gigi too deeply to heal.

"Ah, because that is the most important thing in your life." She looked at him as if he were a bug on the sole of her shoe. "Even more important than the people around you. Message received." Hurt reflected in her eyes, and the delicate tendons in her throat worked with a hard swallow. "Perhaps you should pray to God for help; you certainly don't appreciate me being here in any sort of capacity except the carnal."

Heat went up the back of his neck. "That isn't true." Though he understood the frustration and annoyance that had put her needles out, nothing had changed. Not really. Then he cleared his throat. "I apologize for what I said. Because I wished to couple with you, tell you goodbye in a way that I thought would make an impact, I left my nieces with a veritable stranger." The truth of his own actions was crushing. "It is my fault as much as yours."

She gave a curt nod. "At least you can see that."

"Gigi, listen to me." He laid a hand on her arm, and she immediately retreated to break their connection. "Being a vicar is an important part of my life. No matter who I take to wife, they will need to square with that."

"I understand, I truly do, but your position—the Church—cannot be the only thing in your life." Despair clouded her eyes, then tears welled to obscure any other emotions. "Knowing you are so high above us, that you practice at being so pious, makes it terribly difficult for the rest of us to live up to, and eventually it will isolate you."

Every moment they lingered to argue possibly meant the girls might have found trouble, but his pride was now engaged. "What the hell does that mean?"

"What do you think?" Gigi propped her hands on her hips, but that only served to draw his attention to that part of her, and his mind wandered to how it felt when he'd had his hands beneath her skirts and trailing his fingertips along her silky skin. "You are looking for perfection in a woman; you assume there is such a thing. You want a woman by your side who will make you look better in the eyes of the Church, who doesn't have flaws, someone whom everyone will adore, a woman who will never have her own opinion or interests or flaws." She shook her head. "There is no such thing, and why would you want any woman to parrot back your views or never challenge you?"

"I never said that I wanted perfection." How she'd come by such a theory, he couldn't know, but it only added to his confusion.

"Perhaps, but you implied it, and that's the same thing." Tears continued to well in her eyes. "It's how you have made me feel, as if I am less than everyone else, as if I will never be worthy enough to mean anything to you beyond a quick tryst."

Dear God, is that what she truly thinks? "It wasn't my intention—"

Gigi held up a hand to stop him. "Life is messy, Thomas. It doesn't matter if you have faith or believe in God or have impossibly high standards. Life is what it is and what it will always be. It's messy and scattered and frustrating and sometimes sorrow filled." A tear fell to her cheek as she shrugged. "Having faith can be comforting, sure, but you must understand that trying to figure it all out while living it is part of being human."

"That makes sense, of course, but I'm terrified of returning to the man I was before I became a vicar. The man of vices and sins. A man God would frown upon."

A snort came from her. "Then your version of God is askew. Does not God love everyone, regardless of their pasts?"

"Yes, but—"

"You assume that life is either one way or the other. It's not true."

He frowned. "Meaning?"

She sighed. "You labor under the assumption that you were bad or evil before as a viscount's son because the Church told you that you were. Now you are trying to be good and without sin, which not only is it impossible—for no human is that—but it removes so much of your personality you become lost in the masses. The Bible refers to followers as sheep because they will move en masse after one leader or another. And, nothing against the Church, but you are all blindly following someone else's dictates or interpretation of what the Bible truly means while trying to strive for some skewed view of perfection, of what a member of the Church is supposed to be. It's exhausting and you will never attain it."

Shock slammed into his chest as if she'd delivered a well-aimed punch. "No one can live up to that image."

"Exactly." A tiny grin curved her highly kissable lips. "If you continue like this, the girls will soon find they can never live up to those ideals. They will be gutted because they'll think the people they are will never be good enough—for you, for the woman you marry, for the Church, and possibly for the men they might marry." A waver entered her voice. "It's a horrible life thinking that way. You should live in a way that will serve as an example of truth for them. It is in the imperfections that we all find love and acceptance."

With the ache intensifying around his heart, Thomas stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. "I had no idea I was damaging so many people by perpetuating a lie inadvertently."

"At least you know now." Gigi met his gaze, and the moisture-spiked lashes that framed her blue eyes spoke of vulnerability. He wanted nothing except to hold her, comfort her, but to do so would prove folly, for he had already told her goodbye. "I don't begrudge you the church or the sermons. If that is your calling, then so be it, and you have a knack for orating." This time, her grin was genuine.

Heat went through his chest. "Thank you."

Gigi nodded. "If you enjoy being a vicar, that's all to the good. I just want you to understand there is good, joy, love in the imperfections. There is life there, interest too. And in being imperfect, in trying to live a good life, you do the best you can with what you have. You have faith the rest will follow, but you cannot continue to hold everyone around to such a high standard, because everyone will fail, even with grace."

How had she become so wise? "And that should be where the Church comes in, where imperfection lies, because we are all born of sin, and if we were already like Christ, He wouldn't have needed to die for us." Damn it all to hell. He stared, stunned, at her and the realization he'd just made. Or rather the one she'd smacked him upside the head with.

Have I unconsciously done that?

Had he used his position to stop living his life over a flawed view that he had to be so holy that he couldn't enjoy anything or anyone? So that his past would be erased, when all along he should have used that as an example of overcoming? That he'd isolated himself in an effort to be… perfect, when that was never attainable anyway?

What a nodcock I've been.

"I am so sorry, Geneieve. Please forgive me." He wanted to throw himself onto his knees and grovel until she relented, but he needed to find his nieces first. "For everything."

"Thank you." She wiped at her tears. "It is what it is. Once we locate the girls and make certain they're safe, I will pack my things instead of waiting until after Sunday. You and I are too different and always will be such."

Panic rose in a frantic wave throughout his being. "We aren't."

"Oh, Thomas." Another few tears fell to her cheeks. "We are, and I think you know it."

"No! It was flawed thinking, and—"

"Stop." Slowly, Gigi shook her head. "I live in the moment, go where the wind takes me, do things that make me happy, that make me feel wanted, and I don't worry about whether others consider those things scandalous or wrong."

"And there is nothing horrible about that, but—"

She made a sound that was much like a stifled sob. "Life is too short to always live how others wish us to. It's maddening, and in doing that, I do my best. I help others. I care for those less fortunate, but I do it because I want to, not because some man in a pulpit told me to do those things to redeem my soul." She paused while wiping away tears. "Life just… is. But there must be balance. If there is not, the mind will go insane."

"But I…" It didn't matter, for Gigi had turned away, gone ahead of him. She wasn't listening any longer. Besides, he needed time to think on everything she'd brought to his attention, make certain he had indeed been wrong. He needed to pore over texts, reexamine them with this new realization, and if he found that supporting evidence…

Dear God , could he possibly have a life with her as his wife?

The closer they came to the pond where Gigi had taken the girls several times before, the more the frenzied honking of geese reached his ears. "Penny! Lily!" Relief twisted down his spine, for the girls squatted at the edge of the pond as the sunlight sparkled on the ripples in the water. He ran to the pond and reached them the same time that Gigi did. "Why didn't you tell someone where you were going?"

I could have lost them simply because I've been distracted by their governess. Yet he would lose her regardless.

Before either one of them could answer, Geneieve pulled them both into her arms and held them close to her chest. "You gave us a fright." Her voice shook. "Don't ever do that again." As if her muscles would no longer support her, she collapsed to her arse with her legs folded to the side. "I was so worried."

"Miss Hasting, you're squeezing me too tight," Lily complained as she wriggled from Gigi's hold.

Penny frowned. "Why were you worried?"

Thomas sank to his knees on their other side. "Because Miss Hasting cares about you." He swallowed the ball of emotion lodged in his throat. "I do, as well, so when you ran away from the fete without a word, we were afraid." At the water's edge, the pair of geese were in the process of waddling out of the pond.

"Sweetheart, why did you come here so abruptly?" Gigi asked of Penny, who twisted the stems of daisies in her fingers.

"Lily and I wanted to pick flowers, but Miss Partridge said that was messy and hot." The little girl blew out a breath. Annoyance went through her expression. "So we came by ourselves."

"Why?"

The youngest girl put a daisy chain into Gigi's lap. "We wanted to make wreaths like you showed us."

Penny nodded. "So we could talk to Mama and Papa."

Thomas exchanged a glance with Gigi. "Why?"

Lily poked his shoulder. "We want to ask Mama if she would be upset."

"Why?" Gigi bounced her gaze between the two girls. "Why do you think that?"

Penny smiled. "We want Uncle Thomas to marry you, so you can be our new mama." She glanced at him. "Miss Hasting said we could always talk to Mama and Papa whenever we wanted."

"But Uncle Thomas doesn't want her, Penny," Lily said with a frown and watery eyes. "My friend Sarah said he wants Miss Partridge. She isn't as fun as Miss Hasting."

"Oh, dearest." Another trace of tears welled in Gigi's eyes. "There is much more involved in romance than being fun." With a poorly stifled sob, she gathered the girls to her again. "I'm glad you are both safe."

Penny pulled away. "We weren't in danger. The geese kept us company." When she moved to the water's edge and tossed in her flowers, Lily did the same.

Thomas got to his feet and stood with them, vowing to never let them out of his sight, but when he glanced backward at Gigi, his heart squeezed. The pair of geese had come up to them. They made low honking noises of either welcome or inquiry. One of them nibbled at the hem of her dress while the other came close enough that she stroked its neck. When she dared to kiss the goosey head, his world tilted, and he lost another piece of his heart to her.

How could anyone be considered bad when animals trusted them so much? When children did? When his staff did? How could he have doubted her when he felt alive and encouraged each time she was near?

As she murmured soft words to the geese, he pressed a hand to his chest.

Dear God, have I been wrong this whole time and sat in judgment of her when I am just as imperfect?

There was much to ponder. "Come, girls. Let's go home. This day has been exhausting. I need to be with my thoughts and discover when I toss the things that don't matter away what I'm left with and what exactly I need."

Penny snorted. "You talk funny, Uncle Thomas."

"Perhaps I do." He stooped down and hugged his nieces, those precious little girls he was entrusted to care for, but he couldn't do it alone. Then he picked up Lily and set her on his shoulders. Too embarrassed to look at Gigi, he said, "I'll make tea, and we shall have many sweets, because today is a special day."

For he knew now, more than ever, he was hopelessly in love with Geneieve Hasting.

I have been a fool.

Could he pull out of it, convince her of his sincerity? He smiled up at Lily, and then an idea formed. Perhaps he would enlist the help of the girls, and anyone else. He needed Gigi in his life in all the ways that mattered, and this time, he wouldn't allow convoluted views and half-baked thoughts to distract him from his purpose.