Charming the Vicar's Daughter by Aileen Fish Read Free Book Online Page B

enter before he did. The rich aroma of fine tobacco hit him as he followed her inside. In the front windows were finely-crafted tobacco boxes, monogrammed ink wells and other masculine necessities of life. A small display on one wall had perfumes and colognes for both men and women. And tucked in the back were three tall bookshelves filled to overflowing, one of which had a sign marking it as containing the books to be borrowed at a small cost.
    Since he was on his way out of town, he avoided that shelf, but he always had room in his bag for another book. He was more interested in what Miss Cookson would seek out, however. Did they have a good supply of romances here, or were they more intellectually inclined?
    She lifted down one slim volume after another, reading the first page or two before returning it to the shelf.
    “Are you not finding anything to your liking?”
    “I have read many of these. Father has been generous in sharing his books with me.”
    He noticed the book in her hand had a Greek title. “Do you read Greek?”
    She turned her head far enough his way that he could see her face behind the broad brim of her bonnet. “As I said, father was generous with his books.”
    Her smile was merely polite, and Neil had to remind himself she didn’t consider him a friend. He was the annoying nephew of the man from whom her father was given his living. Neil could quite possibly become a complete, pestering nuisance and she would remain polite. Her good manners required it, and so did her livelihood, on the chance he might complain to Bridgethorpe about her behavior.
    Neil’s shoulders sagged. That knowledge removed all the enjoyment from encouraging her into witty banter. She was capable of matching him point for point, but he knew she wouldn’t engage no matter how hard he pushed.
    The more time he spent with her, the more he noticed her finer qualities, such as her education, which led to his wanting even more. How sad he would never be able to know her beyond the formal, polite persona she portrayed.

    Neil studied the cards he’d been dealt as he sat in the card room of Boodle’s gentlemen’s club in London. His two cards added up to nineteen, so the chances were small of anyone else at the table getting closer to twenty-one.
    The odds were much better than those against him being able to forget Miss Cookson any time soon. Even the pips on the nine card in his hand kept blurring and resembling the freckles across the lady’s nose.
    In the two weeks since he’d seen her, he’d taken his curricle out to Richmond Park in Surrey to outrun the visions of the vicar’s daughter as she stood waiting for her turn to dance, or laughing with Neil’s cousins as they talked. His horses couldn’t run fast enough.
    Neil lost more than he won in the card room, a result of being unable to concentrate on the game at hand. He’d taken to limiting his time there, to keep from needed an advance on his quarterly allowance.
    The final straw came when he grabbed the arm of a young woman as she entered a linen drapers’ shop. “Miss Cookson, I am overjoyed to see you!”
    The woman in question was not Miss Cookson, as he should have known, had he been thinking clearly, and she was quite put out at his assault on her person. Her husband, who’d witnessed the incident from the street beside their carriage, was even more so, and gave Neil a black eye to express his feelings.
    Pressing his fingertips to the tender flesh below his left eye, Neil groaned when another player revealed the ace dealt upon his ten. Slapping his own cards onto the felt tabletop, Neil shoved away from the table. The time had come to put an end to his woolgathering once and for all.

Chapter Eight
    The weeks after the Lumley wedding passed quickly for Rebecca. She tucked away the few happy memories of dancing with Mr. Harrow, settling into her normal routine of calling upon neighbors and helping Father write his sermons. She found the latter rather