Alex drove Polly home to Alderford on New Year’s Eve. Dominic and Pippa had urged them to stay longer, but he declined for himself and Polly did too. He had said no more to her on the subject of marriage, but trusted to the welcome she had been given to assure her that his family considered her a more-than-acceptable bride for him.
Leaving the gig with his groom and collecting the kitten from Mrs Judd, Alex lifted Polly’s valise and walked her down to the schoolhouse. Her room was positively frigid, and, ignoring her protests, he bundled her up in the counterpane on the settle to keep warm, and set about lighting the fire for her. Pippa had provided a basket of food, but he put the kettle on the hob and made a pot of tea.
He brought her a cup and smiled as she curled her hands around it.
‘Warmer?’ He’d see about a closed carriage now that he was to marry.
‘Much,’ she said.
He sat down beside her. ‘Is it too soon to ask you again to marry me?’
Her hands trembled on the cup. ‘No, but I need to talk to you.’
That didn’t sound good at all.
She went on. ‘There is something I have to tell you. Something that might make you change your mind.’
Cold leached through him. He could imagine nothing that could make him change his mind, unless... Was she going to tell him there had been someone else? Perhaps Tom Eliot? They had once been as good as betrothed. He took a deep breath. It would be understandable. She had cared for Tom, would have had no reason not to trust him and give herself. A shudder ripped through him. He could forgive her that mistaken trust. It would be a great deal harder to forgive Eliot for betraying her... He swallowed.
‘So tell me, sweetheart.’
She shook her head. ‘Tomorrow.’
He wanted to push her, put it behind them and reassure her that it made no difference, but he nodded slowly. ‘Tomorrow, then. After which I will ask you again, you’ll say yes, and we’ll announce our betrothal at Alderley on Twelfth Night. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ she said softly. He reached out and she laid her hand in his.
* * *
Alex found the letter beside his breakfast plate the next morning. He turned it over, recognised the crest on the seal and groaned.
‘Stomach ache, sir?’ Mrs Judd bustled in with the eggs and bacon.
‘Not yet,’ he said and dropped the letter beside his plate again. He’d deal with a letter from Lady Eliot all the better on a good breakfast. Lady Eliot’s letters all followed the same pattern: a protestation that she was the last to interfere or pass judgement, but that she considered it her Christian duty to call his attention to the disgraceful behaviour of one or other of his parishioners.
He helped himself to bacon and eggs liberally, in the meantime mulling over his plans for the day. He needed to visit a couple of outlying farms with sick parishioners. If he took the gig rather than riding, then Polly could come along. He made a mental note to ask Dominic’s advice on buying a suitable horse for Polly. A nice little mare. They could stop in at Alderley on their way home.
Mrs Judd came back in with the coffee. He smiled. ‘Thank you, Mrs Judd. Er, I suspect I’ll be stopping at Alderley tonight.’ Dominic and Pippa would very likely demand that they stay to supper and insist that they remained for the night.
The housekeeper nodded. ‘Aye, sir.’
Footsteps sounded in the hall. Alex looked at Mrs Judd in surprise. ‘Who else is here?’
Mrs Judd shook her head. ‘No idea, but—oh! It’s your lordship.’
Dominic strode into the room. ‘Morning, Mrs Judd. Is that your coffee I smell? Excellent.’ He pulled out a chair and sat down.
‘Would you like breakfast as well?’ asked Alex.
‘No, thank you. I’ve had breakfast,’ said Dominic. ‘Just not enough coffee. Ah, thank you.’ Mrs Judd had handed him a cup and saucer from the sideboard. He poured a cup of coffee and sipped it.
Alex frowned. Dominic occasionally appeared at breakfast, but only if something urgent needed seeing to. ‘That will be all, Mrs Judd. Perhaps you could ask Symons to have the gig brought around in an hour.’
‘Aye, sir.’
As soon as the door closed behind her, he looked at Dominic. ‘Something wrong?’
Dominic subjected him to a very careful look. ‘I thought so, but—’ He broke off, staring at something on the table. ‘Ah. Read your post, Alex.’
Puzzled, Alex picked up the letter, broke the seal and unfolded it. ‘It’s only from Lady Eliot,’ he said, as he began to read. Yes, Lady Eliot in her usual form...my Christian duty...
He read further and his eyes widened....behaviour unbecoming to your calling...a little further and...stemming from the disgraceful appointment of a woman whose virtue must be questioned...
‘What?’ Somehow he was on his feet, the letter crumpled in his fist. ‘That—’
‘Bitch?’ supplied Dominic helpfully.
‘Yes! That and—’
Dominic’s brows rose as Alex described Lady Eliot in terms that would have shamed a sailor. He didn’t think he’d ever seen his cousin quite so angry. He’d certainly never heard him swear.
‘I take it your letter is as offensive as mine?’
‘Yours?’ Alex swung around, all guns blazing. ‘You received one, too?’
‘Excellent as Mrs Judd’s coffee is, I’ve got coffee at home. I came to show you this.’ Dominic reached into his pocket, pulled out Lady Eliot’s letter and offered it.
Alex strode over and snatched the letter, scanning it rapidly. Then he looked up. ‘Dominic, she’s written to the bishop!’
Dominic shrugged. ‘That doesn’t really matter. Your living is in my gift. He can’t dismiss you, although I suppose he could defrock you.’
Alex stared at him. ‘You think I’m furious about that? That she’s implied I seduced Polly? That I am unfit for my position?’
‘Rather more than implied,’ said Dominic mildly.
‘I don’t give a...a damn what she says about me,’ snarled Alex. ‘It’s what she’s saying about Polly!’ He waved Dominic’s letter and adopted a censorious and somehow prurient tone. ‘Encouraging improper, lewd behaviour in the Rector...entertaining a man—no doubt she means myself!—in her room at unseemly hours of the night...her name already a by-word after dismissal for attempting to intrigue her employer’s brother...and it goes on!’ He looked up from the letter. ‘She wants the bishop to force us to dismiss Polly!’
‘I’ll admit, I’m more curious about the lewd behaviour on your part,’ said Dominic lazily. ‘Not to mention the unseemly hours of the night bit.’
Alex snorted. ‘I kissed her, dammit! And some busybody must have told her that I called on Polly late Christmas Eve!’
Dominic wrinkled his nose. ‘Kissed Lady Eliot?’
‘Polly, you idiot!’ And there had been nothing unseemly about any of it!
‘Oh. Well, that’s all right then. Here, drink your coffee before it gets cold.’ Dominic pushed Alex’s coffee towards him. ‘If you’d been kissing Lady Eliot I would have been worried. Alex, it’s not that bad. I’ve invited the bishop to stay.’
He’d judged that announcement badly. Alex choked on the coffee.
After a solid thump on the back, Alex managed to get the coffee back on course and speak coherently. ‘You what?’
‘Invited him to stay. For Twelfth Night. And the Eliots. I wrote to them before I came down.’
Alex’s jaw dropped.
‘Pippa seemed to think it was the best strategy,’ said Dominic cheerfully. ‘Pity about the Eliots, but they are her family I suppose.’ He shrugged.
‘Dominic, Polly and I were going to announce our betrothal on Twelfth Night!’
Dominic took that in his stride. Pippa had suspected things were mo
ving fast. ‘Excellent. Congratulations. Pippa said to bring Miss Woodrowe back to Alderley to stay for a few days. That should squash any gossip, especially if you’re here. Finish your coffee while we plot this out properly.’
* * *
He found Polly curled up in the corner of her settle. She looked up as he came in and he knew at once that Lady Eliot’s spite had struck here, too. He was across the room in three swift strides, crouched down before her with her cold hands safe in his.
‘Polly Woodrowe, if you even think of letting this come between us, I swear I’ll put you over my knee and...’ His voice trailed off.
Her hands trembled in his. ‘That business at the Frisinghams’—that was what I was going to tell you about today, but—’
‘I know. But you can tell me now if it will make you feel better,’ he said.
She let out a shuddering sigh. ‘I should have told you the truth when I applied for the position of schoolmistress. Why they dismissed me.’
He said nothing, just lifted one small, cold hand to his lips, felt her fingers tremble and melt against his mouth. Slow heat surged through him in mounting waves. It was all he could do not to haul her off the settle into his arms and kiss her, kiss away the pain and sadness.
‘Don’t,’ she whispered. ‘I...I can’t think when you do that.’
Well, that made two of them. Instead he pressed her hand to his cheek. ‘Just tell me, love.’
‘Mr Frisingham’s youngest brother came to stay. He’d been in trouble at Oxford. Barmaids in his rooms, I think.’
Alex snorted. ‘That sounds familiar.’ Most young gentlemen spent more time at Oxford on extra-curricular activities with barmaids than on their studies.
She nodded. ‘He seemed pleasant enough at first. Polite. Held doors open for me. Then he started turning up in odd places where he must have known I’d be alone. Or he’d pass me something and make sure he touched my hand. Or just...touch me.’ She shuddered. ‘He grabbed my...my bottom once. Said something about—’ She stopped, scarlet. ‘I shouldn’t say such a thing to you.’
He fixed her with a glare. ‘Because I’m going to marry you, or because I’m the rector?’
‘Both,’ she said.
He sighed. ‘Polly, I’m still a man and being the rector doesn’t make me a eunuch. Our marriage is definitely going to be consummated and I’ll probably grab your bottom, too!’
‘If you must know,’ she replied, her cheeks flaming, ‘he said it was sweet and juicy!’
He took a deep breath and reached for control. ‘Hmm. Leaving aside young Mr Frisingham’s accuracy of observation—’ Polly’s jaw dropped and he smiled, despite the searing urge to find young Frisingham and tear him apart ‘—there’s still the matter of his bad manners.’ His voice hardened, he simply couldn’t help it. ‘He’s lucky that there are fifty miles of bad roads between us and that I have too much to do this week to ride over and administer a thrashing.’
‘A thrashing?’ It came out as a squeak.
‘Beat him up,’ explained Alex.
‘But you’re a clergyman!’
He shrugged. ‘I have my share of unchristian impulses. Sometimes I even act on one. Did Mrs Frisingham catch him with his hands on your bottom?’
‘No. She caught him coming out of my room,’ said Polly very quietly. ‘I...I didn’t invite him in.’ Her eyes met his, pleading for understanding...
Something in him went very still. ‘Polly, sweetheart.’ He swallowed, not sure he could say it for the murderous rage choking him. ‘He didn’t—’
‘No,’ she said swiftly. ‘But he tried. So I grabbed a poker and screamed. Which brought Mrs Frisingham along in time to see him leave, straightening his cravat.’
‘And naturally,’ said Alex, every vein iced with fury, ‘he blamed you. Claimed you enticed him?’
Polly nodded, not saying anything, and he settled her more closely against him. There was really nothing more to say, he supposed. With a sigh, she relaxed against him. His arms tightened and he breathed the fragrance of her hair. She fitted perfectly, warm and soft in his arms, close against his heart.
‘I was an idiot not to tell you, wasn’t I?’ said Polly at last.
‘You did tell me,’ said Alex. ‘Just now. When you were ready.’
‘After Aunt Eliot told you and I had no choice.’
‘After your aunt couldn’t mind her own business,’ he said. ‘You weren’t going to accept my offer without telling me, were you?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
He pressed a kiss to her hair, breathed its fragrance. He was silent for a moment. There was more. Much more. At last he said, ‘What you said last night, about something that might make me change my mind—well, I wondered if perhaps you and Tom...when you were betrothed—’ She wriggled around to stare at him, and he flushed, ashamed even to have thought it. ‘I didn’t care. At least, I did, but I understood. And I can assure you, even if that bas—Frisingham, that is—had forced you, or even just seduced you, I’d still love you and want you as my wife.’
‘You would?’
The shock and wonder in her eyes shook his heart. ‘Casting the first stone is not numbered among my many sins, Polly love.’ He scowled. ‘Unless Frisingham comes in range. For him I’d make an exception.’ He’d probably throw the second and third stones for good measure.
For a moment she just stared at him. Then she said, very softly, ‘I love you, Alex Martindale.’
For a moment he absolutely could not speak. His heart was too full and that simple declaration had just changed his world. For the first time he realised how afraid he had been that she did not, perhaps, love him, but liked him well enough to accept him anyway.
‘Then should I ask you again to marry me?’ he asked at last.
‘Do you need to?’ she asked softly.
‘Apparently not,’ he said. He kissed her gently instead, groaned as the soft lips parted, and tasted her deeply. Releasing her mouth, he whispered, ‘Tell me you got in one good hit with that poker.’
Something between a sob and a laugh escaped her as his lips found a sensitive place beneath her ear.
‘Two,’ she confessed.
‘Good girl.’ And he returned his attention to her mouth.
Chapter Nine
The bishop arrived at Alderley shortly after breakfast on the sixth, shook Dominic’s hand in the Great Hall and introduced his wife, an apple-cheeked lady with soft silver curls under a cap. ‘Very kind of you to invite us, Alderley.’ He looked around smiling at the decorations. ‘Well! I see you know how to keep Christmas here. Now, where’s young Martindale?’
Alex came forwards. He’d had a brief note from the bishop saying they’d discuss matters at Alderley. Nothing more. He didn’t know if the old chap had believed Lady Eliot’s libel or not, but since the letter hadn’t referred to it, he’d decided to answer it in person.
The bishop shook his hand vigorously, beaming. ‘Well, well. Good to see you, my boy.’ So maybe he wasn’t in danger of being defrocked. The bishop continued. ‘Now, you know I had a letter from Aurelia Eliot, I dare say.’ He grimaced. ‘Thank God it’s you dealing with her most of the time and not me! Dreadful woman! Anyway, where was I?’
‘Aurelia’s spiteful letter, dear,’ prompted his wife. ‘She always did have a nasty tongue.’
‘Oh, yes.’ The bishop cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘Most unpleasant. Couldn’t believe you were behaving badly over this Miss Woodrowe, of course. And I understand the school is a great success.’ The shrewd old eyes twinkled. ‘Took a most unchristian pleasure in writing to tell her so, too. Now, where is the girl? This her?’ He looked straight at Polly, who blushed.
Alex drew Polly forwards to present her, and the bishop gave her a careful look. ‘Hmm. Well, ticking off Aurelia El
iot was fun, but I believe marrying you two will be a great deal more enjoyable. Didn’t need Alderley’s letter to tell me you were courting!’ He took in their stunned expressions, and said, ‘That was what it was all about, wasn’t it, boy? You were courting and the Eliot harpy got her stay strings knotted over it?’ He scowled. ‘Dare say she wanted you for that totty-headed daughter of hers.’
Alex choked as the bishop’s wife said, ‘For heaven’s sake, dear!’
The bishop looked a little shame-faced, but said, ‘Anyway, when you two are ready, just let me know.’ He looked around the hall and said thoughtfully, ‘Of course, I’m here right now, you know, and...’ The bright old eyes travelled hopefully from Polly’s face to Alex.
‘Sir, you’d marry us now? Today?’ managed Alex.
‘With the greatest of pleasure,’ said his lordship promptly. ‘A bishop’s got to be useful for something, even if it’s only granting a marriage licence.’
‘Sweetheart?’ The endearment went no further than Polly’s ears as Alex turned to her and her heart stumbled at what she saw in his eyes.
‘You’re sure it’s not too soon?’ she whispered.
The bishop snorted. ‘Of course he’s sure, girl.’ He turned to Dominic and Pippa. ‘Suggest we leave Martindale to convince her, Alderley, while your good lady finds some Christmas cheer to warm our old toes while he’s doing it. Draughty things, carriages.’ Chatting cheerfully, he lead the way from the hall.
Alex drew her into his arms. ‘Polly love, there’s no need to wait. It’s all right here, just waiting for us. Our love. Our lives.’ He glanced up. The Christmas wreath was right above them, a few mistletoe berries still on it. A pagan tradition, he supposed, but he bent his head and kissed her anyway.
* * *
The wedding took place just before noon in the village church. Somehow word had gone around—Alex suspected Mrs Judd—and the church was packed with his parishioners. A message had been sent to the Eliots and they sat stiffly in their pew, the Creeds beside them. Lady Eliot looked as if humble pie were not at all to her taste.
The bishop performed the service with a positively scandalous enthusiasm, enumerating the reasons for matrimony with great vigour and clarity. It didn’t help that Dominic leaned forwards to murmur, ‘Did you read those books?’ He had, of course, but just glared at his cousin and resisted the temptation to tell him to shut up.
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