Adam put his head in his hands.
‘A jumble sale,’ he said, laughing unsteadily. ‘I can’t go back. I can’t ever go back.’
‘But Adam.’ She put her hand on his thigh. ‘What about us?’
I am lost.
‘You don’t mean it,’ he said. ‘You’re toying with me.’
‘Toying with you? D’you call this toying?’
She pulled his hands away from his face and knelt up on the branch. She clasped her hands around his neck and moved slowly forward, gauging his response, which was to remain stock-still and petrified.
When their lips met, he felt the penances of the past weeks come undone. As quickly as the washing of a wave, he was a man of flesh and blood again, drowning in his desires.
She was his nemesis and he would never be able to resist her.
Her soft mouth on his, she nipped at his lower lip, catching it delicately between her white little teeth, pulling at it. He plunged his tongue into her dark recesses, gathering her up, possessing her with a force that frightened him. She squirmed and gasped on his lap, her bottom grinding lusciously on his erect cock.
They kissed ravenously and without stopping for breath until a dog rushed by, hotly pursued by its owner, causing them to break apart with blushes on his part, though not on hers.
‘Come back to Saxonhurst, Adam.’
‘I want you. But I don’t want Saxonhurst.’
‘You can only be with me there. It’s my home.’
‘I hate it.’
‘Look,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you apply to the diocese for a transfer? We can sort something out, I’m sure. Maybe a nice little suburban church in Parham? All yummy mummies and bake sales.’
‘But you would be in Saxonhurst.’
‘As long as you weren’t too far away, it’d be all right, wouldn’t it?’
‘Evie, I want to marry you. If I marry you, we live together. I’m not leaving you in Saxonhurst.’
‘Well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. But you can’t stay here for ever. And the Archdeacon’ll want you back. Don’t trash your career for the sake of some stroppy villagers. If it’s that Julia Shields you’re worried about –’
‘What’s she said to you?’
Evie smiled slyly. ‘Nothing. I know what she’s like, that’s all.’
‘She’s a witch.’
‘Just come back for a little while, darling. Just until the Harvest Festival. You’ve got to do the Harvest Festival. It’s the one church thing everyone goes to. Put on a slap-up supper and a barn dance. The place’ll be heaving at the rafters.’
‘I can’t …’
She kissed him again, gently as air.
‘You can, lover. You can.’
‘Where the hell did you disappear to?’
Adam had not bargained on bumping into Julia. He finished pinning up the notice on the board and turned to her, his face set in unwelcoming blankness.
‘I needed to get away. To think. I’ve thought. Now I’m back.’