Page 22 of Sinfully His

“You say the donation with the empty envelope was sent on the fifteenth?” My mother’s voice helped pull me from the edge.

“Yes,” Father Manwarring said. “The cardinal assumed it was a mistake, or some type of accident, but I knew you were the type of woman who would want to know that your donation slip was received without the actual donation. I just knew that you would want to make that right.”

“Of course,” my mother said, her lips pinched, probably mad someone finally called her on her empty donation envelopes.

“You know, I understand you are very busy this holiday season. Plenty of things to do, I’m sure, far too many obligations for someone of your age. So why don’t you send Rose in your stead? The Christmas bazaar is coming up in only a few months and unfortunately the priest that left hadn’t started organizing it before he was reassigned. I am forced to play catch up. We desperately need volunteers. Perhaps Rose would be a better fit?I mean, with all that youthful energy, we could definitely put that to good use.”

My thighs clamped shut around his hand and his fingers stilled, but he left them there. I tried to push his hand away from me as subtly as I could, but he refused to budge. If I put in any more effort, Mother would know there was something wrong.

“I don’t think I’ll?—”

“That sounds perfect,” Mother said, talking over me. “This will be her top priority. She is yours as long as you need her. I expect you to put her to work and make sure that she leads others to do the same. I think it’s so important for our children to be connected to the church and learn obedience.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” he said, smiling, finally shifting his hand to my leg.

“Let me just write another check and fire the maid who must have taken it. Stealing from the church, shameful.” She stood and walked out of the room, no doubt going to fire the new maid the service sent over.

I went to follow her, but Father Manwarring’s hand tightened on my thigh and held me in place.

“It looks like you are all mine, angel. And did you hear? Your mother wants me to teach you how to be obedient.”

CHAPTER 11

THOMAS

Entertaining as it was to go round and round with Mary Quinn while I had my fingers between her sweet little daughter’s thighs, caressing her wet, quivering cunt, I had other business to attend to. As soon as it was polite, I made my excuses. Mary Quinn said something about needing to make some calls anyway, so I volunteered to show myself out.

When I got to the door and slid on my coat, ready to brave the New York weather, Rose leaned out of what looked like a study. Her face was white as a sheet as she motioned for me to follow her.

I should have ignored her.

I should have turned around, finished buttoning up my coat and left, but there was this morbid curiosity. What was this little angel going to say to me? Would she yell, cry, or beg? I just had to know what she intended to say.

I went into the room, closing the door behind me and subtly flipping the lock on the doorknob.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a priest?” she hissed between her lips. She sounded far too much like her mother when she did that. Good, it would remind me who she really was, and why I was here.

I took a step toward her, shrugging my shoulders like it wasn’t of any consequence, like she had asked me why I hadn’t told her my favorite color was red.

“Because I thought you knew. I took you into the rectory under the church. I thought it was fairly obvious. How was I to know you wouldn’t make the simple connection?”

“It was really dark. I couldn’t tell where we were,” she said, backing up another step.

I mirrored her step with another one forward, angling my body just enough so I was herding her toward an empty spot on the wall.

“My turn to ask a question. Why didn’t you tell your mommy what happened to you?”

She took another step back, angling her body to the side a bit, so I was directly in front of her.

“Because I didn’t want her to worry,” she lied.

“Bullshit, your mother has never been worried about anyone other than herself once in her entire life. You being attacked by a bunch of thugs wouldn’t have affected her reputation at all. If anything, she would have played it up for sympathy. So why didn’t you tell your mommy what happened to you?”

Her cheeks got red as she opened and closed her lips. I noticed she did that a lot when she didn’t know what to say, like if maybe she just opened her mouth, the words would come to her.

“I–I–” she stammered. It was actually kind of cute.

“What’s wrong, princess? Did Mommy not give you permission to speak?” I taunted, and her jaw clamped shut as she glared at me for a moment.

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