The Merchant and the Clergyman by Bonnie Dee

Author:Bonnie Dee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: family drama, gay romance, gay historical, forbidden love, victorian era, opposites attract, businessman hero, minister hero

Chapter Thirteen

The sun rose the next morning. The day passed. James might as well have been floating in a dream he paid so little heed to it. Generally when parishioners spoke to him, he listened carefully, not just pretending to be interested. Their welfare meant a lot to him. They were his flock in every sense of the word. But that day he could barely make sense of the simplest comments about the weather, let alone gossip, worries, and troubles brought to him in confidence. Nothing could stop his mind from returning again and again to the previous night.

He was Saul traveling the road to Jericho. He’d seen the light, tumbled off his ass, and landed on his arse on the ground—born anew. That was how fresh and open-eyed he felt after a night of tawdry coupling with Declan Shaw. It was so wrong to feel that way, and to use a biblical reference to conversion, for heaven’s sake. But nevertheless, it was what he felt, as if he’d come fully alive. Opened like a flower to the sun, to use a poet’s stock phrase.

And he wanted to do it all over again. Ah, there was the trouble with sins of the flesh, or with any delicious treat—one taste only made a man wish for more.

James managed smiles and kind words to everyone he encountered as he performed his duties that day, but he prayed for nightfall and hoped for Declan to knock at his door. Surely any minute now, he thought again and again as hours crawled past. But Declan didn’t come that evening, and well past midnight, James finally gave up and went to bed.

Perhaps tomorrow he’d see Declan again. After all, James had promised to help come up with a solution to make certain Mrs. Darnley was properly cared for before Declan left, so at the very least they must discuss that. Unless—and here was where late-night doubts and fears crept in—unless Declan didn’t want to see James again and made certain he didn’t.

Perhaps all the glowing feelings James experienced were on his side only. Declan was much more experienced and worldly, and such an encounter might be quite common for him. He could enjoy the sins of the flesh with no entanglements. Feeling the sticky tendrils of James’s too-emotional attachment already latching on to him, Declan may have brushed them off like so many cobwebs. He might not return.

He would not return.

James might see him at the wedding, but then Declan would return to his business concerns. If he ever came back to Bishop’s Hartfeld, it could be years from now. And foolish, needy James would be left with a hunger he could never feed. Yet, lying sleepless in his bed, James knew if Declan came knocking, even now just before cock’s crow, he would welcome him with open arms. He’d fallen under a spell again, such as he’d suffered during his school days when Kip held sway over him. Except this felt like much more than that schoolboy crush.

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