Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

ROSE

H e was a priest.

I still couldn’t believe I lusted after a priest. It had been an entire week since that night, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

If I was being honest with myself, most of the time I didn’t want to stop thinking about it. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. I saw the curl at the corner of his lips and how they turned up in that cruel smile, but also formed that sexy dimple. I saw the long, lean line that ran down either side of his spine, the curve from his broad chest down to his tapered waist, and even the chiseled definition of his abs.

Usually though, when I closed my eyes what I saw was color. The different shades of brown that had caught the candlelight and danced in his eyes. It had been just so unbelievably fascinating. For the first time, I felt truly inspired.

But he was a priest.

His body, his demeanor, everything about him made my body burn, and it didn’t help that he was the first man to touch me so intimately, to make my body feel things that I could never make myself feel.

Every night since, I tried to replicate what he did. I tried over and over to find inspiration elsewhere, to bring myself to the same pleasure he gave me, and it was nowhere near as satisfying or as frustrating.

After another countless failed attempt, I gave up. I tried to put it, and him, out of my mind, but it wasn’t happening. I couldn’t stop myself from drawing him. Since that night, I had spent every spare moment of my time in my art studio, that I used to share with my sister.

I spent hours drawing him, painting the colors of his eyes and the lines of his body. Then, absolutely paranoid someone would recognize who it was, I changed each piece to something else.

In the past week, I had done so many paintings that were of him, but not him. I had countless coffee cups filled with galaxies of gold and copper sparkling out of a deep mocha. I had so many landscapes with shadows and lakes that followed the lines of his body.

And one charcoal sketch that I couldn’t bring myself to alter.

It was of him, with his back to me as he waited for me to change clothes. I shaded in the shadows that moved against his skin in the candlelight, but I added a mirror in front of him. I kept his face in shadow, except for that cruel smile.

I tried to convince myself to rip it up. I tried to force myself to destroy it, and I just couldn’t do it. Instead, I removed the page from the sketch pad and rolled it up, securing it with a bloodred ribbon and hiding it in a drawer in my bedroom.

Knowing it was there waiting to be discovered was driving me mad, but not having it close seemed just as bad. If anyone ever found it, if a maid stumbled across it, they would be forced to tell my mother, and I couldn’t even imagine the screaming fit that would happen after she found out that I lusted after a priest.

Or if she had found out what I let him do to me…

I was going to hell. There was no doubt about it. There was so much guilt weighing on me for the way I looked at him, the way I saw him and thought about him before I knew…

Did I feel guilty because I thought maybe I had done something that tempted him into touching me, or because I liked it? Why did he do it? Was it only a sin for him if we had done more or if I had done something to him?

What were the rules?

I considered looking them up online, but I was too scared. What if someone tracked my search history? What if they found out I had opened my legs for a man, a man whose name I didn’t even know? One who turned out to be a priest!

I shook my head, got off my bed, and started pacing around the room. What was I doing? Why was I still thinking about this? I needed to push it from my mind, pretend it never happened. That was the only way to move on. I would just never see him again.

That was for the best. If I didn’t see him or look for him, if I didn’t talk to him or stare at that damn sketch every single night, if I continued not knowing who he was or what his name even was, then eventually he would fade from my memory.

More importantly, right now, there was nothing linking me to him.

When I got home, Mother was at some charity event, and the staff were all taking a much-needed break. So I snuck into my room undetected, bathed, and changed with no one knowing a thing. It was mid fall, so my thighs were covered at all times, and I used makeup to cover the bruise on my face. If anyone asked me about the swelling on my face, I had a story ready to go. I’d say I tripped on some new heels and fell down the stairs.

It was easy to believe because I was fairly clumsy, and by this point, I’d been making up stories like that for years anyway to cover the bruises Mother left on me.

I paced around my room, wondering what I was going to do now. There was so much still up in the air for me, and worse, I knew that soon, Mother would inform me of who she had chosen for me to marry.

I didn’t want that, but I was Mother’s last option to make a beneficial match.

Amelia defied her and chose her own husband. Harrison had actually asked for her help and then dumped his fiancée to marry his paralegal Edwina without really telling anyone. Amelia, Father, and I were present, but there were no formal announcements made in the news. There was no big church wedding, no society events for that marriage at all.

For Harrison, it was absolutely perfect, and with both him and Edwina so focused on their work, I couldn’t see her taking days off to shop for dresses and flowers.

But that was what I wanted.

I wanted the dresses, the flowers, and even the big church wedding with everyone in attendance. What I didn’t want was for my mother to choose my spouse. But if I didn’t make some type of decision soon, then I might not have a choice.

How was I supposed to go out and date when all I could think about were the different things that priest could have done to me in his room, or in that dark library?

How was I supposed to find love when I was consumed by the idea of sex with this forbidden man that I didn’t know?

“Ms. Astrid, your mother has a guest in the conservatory, and she would like you in attendance,” the butler said, opening my door without knocking.

I hated when he did that, but he did it under my mother’s orders to make sure I wasn’t doing anything a young lady shouldn’t do. I was a twenty-two-year-old woman who wasn’t even guaranteed privacy in her own bedroom.

“Thank you, I will get changed into something more appropriate and be down shortly,” I responded, the way I was expected to.

“See that you do. Your mother does not like to be kept waiting.” He closed the door behind him without waiting for a response and in a true lady-like fashion, I flipped off the closed door.

How I cursed when she wasn’t around, even if it was just in my head most of the time, and the vulgar gestures I occasionally made were what I considered micro rebellions. I used to be braver. I used to have so much more freedom, but once Mother lost control of Amelia and Harrison, I was all she had left. Meaning all of her energy, all of her focus and rage, were pointed at me.

The butler didn’t bother telling me who was visiting my mother, so I assumed it was one of her cronies. Other society women who liked to live vicariously through their children, to talk shit about how youth was wasted on the young and if we only knew how terrible our fashion was and how they would never be caught dead wearing such things in their day.

I considered, for a moment, a larger act of rebellion. Instead of appearing in front of whoever was in the conservatory with Mother, what if I went downstairs and just didn’t go into the conservatory? What if I just walked out of the front door and kept going? Could she stop me? She wasn’t able to stop Amelia.

I thought about that, and I realized Amelia had something that I didn’t when she left. She had a direction, a dream.

She found her own place. She didn’t just immediately move in with Luc, but she knew what she wanted to do with her life and was looking at how to open her school.

Maybe if I had a dream, if I had a direction or something to work toward, then I would be brave enough to walk out that door.

Until then, I had to face the music. But if I was going to suffer through what was no doubt a painfully long visit rehashing the same stories I’d heard a million times and listening to someone gush how lucky I was to have such young skin, I was going to need something to help get me through.

Quickly, I ran over to my door and locked it before opening my closet. Ignoring the dozens of hangers full of designer clothes, I instead dove for the back corner where I hid my secret.

The black shirt the priest had lent me. I grabbed the soft fabric, brushed it against my face, and then buried my nose in it and took a deep breath. Every time I smelled this shirt, I detected a fresh note. Something citrusy other than the bergamot. Lemon perhaps? Or citron? Another spicy note, something that reminded me of pink peppercorns, but deeper.

After a moment, I put it back in its hiding place and chose a pink sweaterdress made of the softest cashmere I had ever felt. It was warm enough to be appropriate for the season, but still hung from my hips and swayed every time I moved. Dresses like this always made me feel pretty, not overdone, not too fussy or flouncy, just pretty.

I even stopped to put on the pearl necklace that Luc and Amelia had gifted me on my last birthday, and a touch of lip gloss. Simple. Demure and sophisticated. Added stylish boots and I was ready.

Now, did I greet my mother’s guest or make a break for the door? Amelia would help me get settled somewhere to figure my life out. So would Harrison.

I headed downstairs, telling myself I hadn’t decided. I could still make a break for it. Fleeing was still an alternative option to plastering on a fake smile and sitting through the tedium. Reaching the base of the stairs, I heard a deep, masculine laugh. It was a forced one that was polite even if not genuine, but there was something familiar about it.

When I walked to the doorway of the conservatory, my heart stopped, as did all my plans to never see this man, the one man who haunted my dreams and dominated my waking thoughts, ever again.

“Don’t just stand there like some simpleminded servant. Get in here so I can introduce you to the new priest at our church.” Mother rolled her eyes and then looked back at the stranger—my stranger. “Father Manwarring, do you remember my daughter Rose?”

Manwarring.

Like Olivia, and Charlotte, and now my sister, he was a Manwarring. And the newest priest at our church. Worse, my mother had chosen God as her charity for the season. She was to donate her time to help the church with the winter program.

There was no escaping him. He was going to be everywhere.