Her gaze went to the upper floors. “I am fiercely grateful too, Pietr. I will think of you often, and those will be lovely, lovely thoughts.”
He kissed her cheek. He was allowed that much, and for an instant, he lingered near, then he straightened. This little drama was doubtless being witnessed from the innyard. If he wasn’t mistaken, Ned Wentworth was marching across the green, and it was time to get on with the parting.
“In you go,” he said, flipping down the coach’s steps. “Danforth, your sister is ready to depart. Comport yourself to her satisfaction, or I will bring down the retribution of the angels upon you.”
Not that the heavenly host had ever taken orders from Pietr before.
Hiram approached the coach. “Vicar. Thanks for your hospitality. I will mind my sister.”
“See that you do.” Pietr handed Joy in and glowered down at Danforth. There was good in the young man, but it was fading fast under the weight of desperation and self-interest.
Danforth climbed into the coach. Pietr closed the door and stepped back, and then the coachy was yelling to the team, and Joy Danforth was trotting out of Pietr’s life.
The ache was awful and sweet, miserable and precious. Time would help—a widower knew that much—and time would be the thief of dear, dear memories.
“Good riddance?” Ned Wentworth asked, sauntering across the street.
“I see you’ve learned how to wear a proper scarf. Good day, Wentworth.” The coach took the turn that headed west and was lost from view.
“You watch that vehicle as if your hopes and dreams just struck out across the moor, Vicar. If you’re that desperate for a cribbage opponent, I suppose I can oblige.”
Pietr reached for patience, for humility, for compassion, and all he could touch was heartache. “Wentworth, have you something to say? I have a sermon to compose.” A dream to mourn.
Though in truth, Pietr would sit and simply watch the birds. He’d watched the birds for years when he’d first arrived at Rothton. Behold the birds of the heavens: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them…
Pietr had watched them, marveled at their industry, their beauty, and their energy.
“Yes, I have something to say,” Ned Wentworth replied. “I usually do, if anybody will listen. The vestry committee is attempting to decorate the assembly rooms for this evening’s do, and you are needed. Rothhaven and Walden will soon come to blows, and the duchesses said if matters reached a bad pass, I was to summon you as the nearest we have to a heavenly intercessor. Lady Althea said I was not to allow you to politely cozen me into leaving you to brood.”
My heart is shattered, and life goes on. “This happens every year because Blackwell insists on plying the decorating committee with his Christmas punch, which is the only way Mrs. Blackwell will permit her husband to sample that punch before sundown. Tell them to hang mistletoe in every doorway and greenery at the windows. It’s not complicated.”
Wentworth studied him with a shrewd gaze. “Tried that. You can curse fate, shake your fist at God, and wrestle demons all you please, Vicar, but I’m to fetch you, so fetch you I shall. I have more experience than you can possibly dream of with wrestling both demons and dukes. Come along.”
Wentworth, may he suffer frostbite to his arrogance, spoke for not one but two duchesses, and for Lord Nathaniel’s lady, whom Pietr accounted a friend. Then too, Wentworth’s pleasant tone suggested he would enjoy physically pitting himself against a heartbroken vicar who had three inches of height and ten stone of misery on him.
“For the love of heaven,” Pietr said, stalking along the path cut across the green, “why must I nanny a pair of dukes?”
“You nanny everybody, as best I can tell,” Wentworth said, ambling along in his wake. “You said meddling goes with the job. Now I ask you to meddle, and you turn up crotchety. One would almost think you expected a lump of coal in your stocking.”
“Hush before I pound you flat.” Pietr stopped walking. “I apologize. I am out of sorts. Violence solves nothing.”
“Whoever said that had no brothers.”
Wentworth was amused, blast him.
He climbed the steps to the inn and unwound his scarf. “That no-violence fellow had no mates to pull him up short when he got out of line. No vicar to pummel his conscience when his decency wandered to far-off lands. An occasional pummeling can clear the air wonderfully where I come from. Besides, a fellow has a reputation to protect, and sometimes, that means putting up his fives.”
“Where you come from,” Pietr retorted, “the air savors of brimstone, and the children are left to starve in the street.” He tromped up the inn’s steps, the sound of raised voices drifting down from the assembly rooms.
“I’d say you’re here just in the nick of time,” Wentworth replied. “Before Rothhaven turned up epileptic, he was a normal boy with a normal pair of fists. I suspect he’d delight in smacking sense into Walden, and Walden wouldn’t dare smack him back. Could be fun.”
Their Graces were apparently arguing over the wisdom of hanging mistletoe in a doorway. Walden protested that such an arrangement would stop traffic. Rothhaven pointed out that the press of traffic would ensure nobody lingered overlong exchanging holiday kisses.
“Hang the perishing mistletoe in the doorways,” Pietr nearly shouted, “and hang it in random locations. Near the punch bowls, but not at the punch bowls. By the dessert table, but not at the dessert table. From the central chandelier. Hang it most especially over where the wallflowers sit, and cease making such a disgraceful racket. The holidays are a joyous time.”
Rothhaven, who rarely left the grounds of his ducal hall, exchanged a frown with his brother, Lord Nathaniel. “Have you been at the wassail, Sorenson?”
“Not yet, but I intend to remedy that oversight.”
The two dukes, both substantial, dark-haired specimens not much given to smiling, seemed amused. Lord Nathaniel, for some reason, found it necessary to consult his pocket watch. Dody Wiles was grinning outright, and Tom Lumley was winking as if he had a splinter in his eye. Old Man Weller lifted a tankard—had somebody won a bet?—and Mr. Petrie held out a glass to Pietr.
“Woman trouble, lad?”
“Of course not.” And I am not a lad. Pietr took the drink to be polite, but he knew better than to guzzle it. He wanted to, though. With every passing moment, Joy traveled farther away, and the notion made him wild.
“That’s worse,” Wiles said. “When you want to have woman trouble, but she’s not having any of it. Heard the little miss was off to marry a lord.”
“And what good can possibly come of that?” Ned Wentworth muttered, gesturing for Petrie to pour him a measure. “How could she give up all this for the blandishments of wealth and standing?”
All this was a pile of fragrant greenery, some bare tables, and a polished plank floor. A battered spinet sat in a corner, and chairs were stacked against the wall.
“Don’t begrudge us our humble pleasures, Mr. Wentworth.” The scolding note in Pietr’s voice horrified him. Scolding vicars were a blight upon society.
“Will you miss these pleasures?” Rothhaven inquired ever so casually.
“Miss them?” Wiles asked. “Why should he miss them? God knows, this place don’t change from year to year.”
“Decade to decade,” Mr. Weller muttered. “Century to century.”
Walden ambled to the side of the room and hefted some chairs, setting them down in a circle. “What’s amiss, Sorenson?”
Pietr went to the window rather than join the circle of men swilling ale and putting off the task at hand. In the distance, a coach and four trotted across a white canvas toward a distant horizon.
“Miss Danforth’s departure has left me out of sorts. I enjoyed having company.” Having a friend, a companion, a lover.
“Don’t we all enjoy that sort of company?” Lord Nathaniel asked, to a round of hear, hears. “If Miss Danforth enjoyed your com
pany, why let her go?”
“She deserves more than an assistant dean who never aspired to be a dean, much less a saint.”
Rothhaven took him gently by the arm and steered him to a seat. “They don’t know, Sorenson, because you haven’t told them. Why is that, I wonder?”
Pietr sat. He did not want to sit. He wanted to run after the Danforth coach and demand that Joy marry him. Not Lord Appalling Bellingham. Him.
“I have accepted a post as assistant dean at one of the northern cathedrals. While I have enjoyed my years here, one wants to make a difference, to use one’s talents where they will make a difference. I will leave shortly after the New Year.”
Pietr expected congratulations. He expected inane toasts—the punch was quite good—and he expected platitudes. We’ll miss you. Best of luck. Our loss is the Church’s gain. Anything, but this fraught silence.
Though if cathedrals could boast of any gift in quantity, it was silence. Eternal, hallowed, chilling silence.
Chapter Seven
Hiram fidgeted with the capes of his greatcoat. He fidgeted with the lap robes. He put the shade down. He put the shade up, the better to glower out the window.
“Cargo.” The word conveyed petulance and bewilderment. “Vicar called me cargo. Where does it say that a man of the cloth gets to wield such an insult against his betters with impunity?”
You are not better than Pietr Sorenson. “Are you still feeling under the weather, Hiram?”
“I am in the very pink, thank you. A man who cannot deal stoically with a passing affliction is no man at all.”
Was it an affliction when the misery was caused by a flask—a flask already again in evidence—that the man pressed to his own lips? Or was the more accurate word stupidity?
“Did Lord Apollo give you that flask?”
Hiram smiled, the expression smug. “A consolation gift, he said. I’d lost a bit of coin to him, and he passed it over to console me. He’s generous like that. Fine quality in a man.”
His lordship was a show-off. He would pass over a little fashion accessory to the poor fool who’d just lost enough coin to buy that trinket ten times over. Lord Apollo would never go quietly from one elderly household to another, discreetly checking coal supplies and hauling water into kitchens. He would never teach children to skate so that parents had one less bother on winter mornings. He would never see that a lamed drover could become an expert carver. He would never organize a brigade of juvenile snow shovelers, nor think to send them home with a hot potato in each pocket.
“Generosity is a fine quality,” Joy said. Generosity of time, energy, consideration. To toss aside an unneeded bauble for the sake of impressing a lot of inebriates was not generosity. “Hiram, do you aspire to be generous? What exactly are your aspirations?”
“To be the envy of my peers, of course. Marrying a Bellingham cousin would help with that, and some luck at the tables would not go amiss. Holiday house parties have seen more than one fellow’s fortune made.”
The coach navigated a wide curve, and for a moment, the village came into view in the distance. The spire of the church was a white lance against a blue sky, and the houses and shops clustered together as if having a cozy chat on a sunny morning.
“Damned glad to be rid of the place,” Hiram muttered, saluting with his flask. “Rural busybodies are the worst busybodies, mark me on that, Joy. They have nothing better to do than gossip and tattle while they idle away their days half soused on the local brew. They turn up pious every Sunday so they can collect more slander in the churchyard.”
Joy considered her younger brother, whose face was pale and puffy, whose flask remained in his hand. Hiram might have been describing the London gentlemen’s clubs where he spent so much of his time. Full of gossip and tippling busybodies who nonetheless attended services regularly and even spared the occasional penny for the poor box.
“Why do you suppose I am encouraging Lord Apollo’s suit, Hiram?”
He sent her a peevish look. “Because you ain’t stupid.” He managed to imply the opposite. “You’ll have all the furbelows and gewgaws you could ask for, a titled husband, and consequence with the people that matter.”
“Are there people who do not matter, then?” To Pietr Sorenson, every soul in creation mattered, be they a duke or an urchin, be they a robin, a finch, or an egret.
“Yes, there are people who matter not at all, as you well know,” Hiram retorted. “Unless you marry Lord Apollo, we will not matter, we Danforths, except as objects of pity and spite. Mama wants new frocks, and Papa has ideas for investments. I have an heiress to marry, some fine and not-too-distant day. I believe our stay in that execrable little cow byre of a village has addled your wits, Joy. The sooner you bring Lord Apollo up to scratch, the better for all.”
The coach rounded the base of a hill, and the village disappeared from view.
“You know, Grandpapa tried to teach Papa how to run the import business.”
Hiram sighed theatrically. “The best people eschew direct involvement in trade, Joy. They do not inflict it upon their children.”
“Grandpapa was trying to inflict security and self-sufficiency on his son. Trying to show Papa a path toward bettering our prospects. Instead, we are the next thing to a charity case.”
“No, we ain’t. Not as long as Lord Apollo offers for you. Mama will have her dresses, and the creditors will learn some patience. I will meet all the right people and be set for life.”
The Yorkshire sun on the vast expanse of snow was nearly blinding, as was the truth: Hiram, once a sweet, considerate boy, would be ruined for life if Joy married Lord Apollo. Hiram would disdain honest work. He would never care for anybody but himself and his cronies. He would pickle his liver and gamble away all the pretty flasks that tumbled into his lap.
“I love you, Hiram. You are my only sibling, my brother, and I have loved you since the day you came squalling into the world.”
He grinned and tipped up his flask. “You ain’t so bad yourself, most days. More to the point, Lord Apollo fancies you. That makes you the best of sisters, for now.”
Though Hiram was not the best of brothers. Somehow, he had become arrogant, greedy, slothful, mean, and selfish. His gifts had been squandered, and he was facing a ruin far more dire than a simple want of coin.
“I do love you, Hiram, and I love Mama and Papa too.” She rose and opened the slot that allowed communication with the coachman. “Stop the horses. We need to turn around. Now.”
Hiram elbowed her back into her seat. “Drive on, you lackwit,” he shouted. “She’s naught but a female suffering a fit of the vapors.”
“Stop the coach. Turn the horses around,” Joy called. “And do it now.”
The coach careened onward, and Hiram continued bellowing.
The silence in the assembly room stretched like ice over a birdbath, brittle and bright.
“Want to make a difference, do ye, Parson?” Wiles mused.
“I judge pie contests,” Pietr said. “I feed birds. I have an entire shelf of Mrs. Peabody’s remedies because she has to test them out on somebody, and I have the constitution of an ox. What sort of life can I offer a woman whose family depends upon her to make a decent match?”
“Lad,” Mr. Petrie said, “ye be daft. Wiles here was drinking himself to death until you happened by with a request that he whittle you some birds for the children in the Sunday school. Next thing we know, the nippers are memorizing Scripture at a great rate to earn their birds, and Wiles has a few coins.”
“Two years on,” Mr. Wiles said, “I have more orders than I can handle. My children have a trade, and my missus isn’t looking scared and cold all the time. Ye made a difference, Vicar.”
“Biddy Peabody was half daft herself,” Mr. Lumley said, “and then you tell her that her chamomile tea is the best you’ve had. She sends some to a cousin in York, who’s willing to sell it in her shop, along with the other vile concoctions old Biddy stirs up. Biddy don’t reall
y need the coin, but now she’s an expert on tisanes. A woman like our Biddy needs to be an expert on something, or she gets to being an expert on us.”
What was Pietr to say to that? “Biddy has great compassion, but she’s plagued by fears. Mixing up tonics gives her a way to deal with both.”
“And what of my fears?” Lord Nathaniel said. “I lived for nearly five years without so much as attending an assembly, Sorenson, but I had one place I knew I could always go. One ear I could fill with my frustrations and dreams. You never turned me away, you were never too busy to share a drink or a game of chess. Week after week, I lived for just two hours of intelligent conversation or village gossip. Unlike our dear Biddy’s potions, your tonics were always effective. I went back to the Hall a little less frantic and burdened. You made a difference.”
An odd feeling was welling past the heartache of Joy’s departure. “We are to be kind to one another. I enjoyed those games too, my lord.”
“And when I no longer needed them,” Lord Nathaniel replied, “you wished me well and fed your birds. When my darling Althea sought introductions in York to start her circulating schools among the poor, you politely battered down the door to every charitable association in the city and gently bludgeoned your bishop into supporting her work.”
He held up a hand when Pietr would have interrupted.
“Then,” his lordship went on, “you escorted her ladyship to meet with the archbishop, because you knew that his support would be a better endorsement than heaven’s seal. Hundreds of poor children are now reading because of you, Sorenson. You made a difference.”
Lady Althea—Lady Nathaniel now—had been determined, but without a means of implementing her ideas. “She asked for my help,” Pietr said. “It was little enough to do when the need is so great.”
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