George leaned back against the sideboard, arms folded like a patient schoolmaster.
“Banks, you impress me. Most men I know can’t be that honest unless they’re drunk, the hour is late, and all around them are also in their cups. Shall we take our drinks to the terrace? I’ll hear about it endlessly if I track mud onto the carpets.”
Daniel would hear endlessly from his own conscience if he allowed George to get him drunk. George followed him onto the terrace, though even the bucolic splendor of a spring afternoon in Kent didn’t seem spacious enough for Daniel’s conflicted emotions.
George half sat, half leaned against the stone balustrade, looking handsome and elegant even in wrinkled riding attire. He had the knack of holding a drink elegantly, and the breeze teased his hair elegantly.
“Have you never been in love, Banks?”
“With my calling.” Or so Daniel had wanted desperately to believe.
The brandy comforted, not because it dulled Daniel’s sense of frustration or rage, but because turning to drink was something a normal, mortal man did. George’s commiserating company was also probably one of the comforts an everyday human would permit himself.
“You’re to be pitied, then,” George said, swirling his drink. “A calling can’t love you back. It can’t plop itself down in your lap when you’re trying to develop a budget for your sheep-breeding venture and make you forget what a sheep is. A calling can’t rely on you for help naming a pony. It can’t ask you to look in on the prodigal vicar because somebody needs to take the poor sod in hand.”
“Love one another,” Daniel murmured. Supposedly the answer to every conundrum posed by the bishops and dons on the way to ordination.
Except…Daniel loved Kirsten Haddonfield and suspected she loved him, which was no sort of answer to anything.
Olivia stood between Daniel and Kirsten in a legal sense, but the Church stood between them in a more practical way, for who would employ a vicar pickled in scandal?
“Alfrydd’s in a lather about something,” George said, setting his drink down as the head lad came pelting across the garden.
Daniel did not care about Alfrydd. One greedy pony had kicked another greedy pony, the boys had put toads in the feed room. Nothing of any moment.
Daniel tried to focus instead on the glimmer of insight creeping into his brain amid the brandied mists of regret. Something about loving one another and Olivia not being the true problem.
“Master George, Mr. Banks,” Alfrydd panted. “A rider has come down from Town, and he brought this missive for the vicar.” The stable master passed over a folded, sealed letter, the wax a dark blot against the vellum.
“I don’t recognize the seal,” Daniel said, though black wax was reserved for news of a death or serious illness.
“Thank you, Alfrydd. We’ll let you know if we need a rider,” George murmured, taking Daniel by the arm and steering him back into the library.
“Open it,” George said, gently prying Daniel’s drink from his fingers. “Unless you want me to read it?”
Daniel wanted Kirsten. That much clarity, he could muster. “Please, I haven’t my spectacles.” Nor his entire complement of wits, nor much of a sense of his calling.
That loss, however temporary, was perilously bearable.
George broke the seal on the missive. A silent moment went by while Daniel searched about for a vague stirring of interest. He was a vicar, after all. Somebody had died back in Little Weldon, or perhaps the bishop had fallen mortally ill.
He’d miss Bishop Reimer, a dear old soul full of merriment, tolerance, and the occasional colorful curse.
“Banks, I am so sorry,” George said, passing him the letter. “My condolences on the loss of your wife.”
The silence that ensued was at once empty of sound and full of conflicting emotions.
Daniel read the words, then read them again. Mrs. Olivia Banks, late of Little Weldon, had died in the home of her second cousin, Bertrand Carmichael, while journeying south from the West Riding. She had not suffered long and asked to be remembered to her husband.
Sunlight glinted on the glass Daniel had been intent on draining moments earlier. George Haddonfield, looking concerned, stood in the same place he had when he’d passed Daniel this epistle, and yet nothing was the same.
“Condolences, et cetera,” Daniel muttered. Not a word for the boy. Not a request for forgiveness or for a blessing, not a parting sentiment of any kind for the child Olivia had known since his birth and raised as her own.
Daniel might have found a firm hold on hatred for his departed spouse for her omission, but ignoring the child was simply consistent with her endless self-interest.
“Banks, shall you sit down?”
Daniel stared at the letter as he rummaged among his emotions, trying to find grief, loss, sorrow, any appropriate emotion at all.
No matter which sober, vicarly feeling he reached for, the only sentiment within his grasp was relief.
* * *
“I left our vicar in the library,” George said. “If Nicholas were about, I’d fetch him, but he’s off looking at a horse for Leah. I don’t want to leave Banks alone, and yet one doesn’t know what to say when a spouse has died under such circumstances.”
Kirsten had planned on removing to Ethan’s indefinitely. Had George not been so flustered, he might have remarked the disarray in her usually tidy room. She tossed a pale blue riding habit into a trunk already half-full.
Then realized she ought to have hung the damned thing back up.
“Mr. Banks will need to talk with his son,” Kirsten said. Daniel would need to hug the boy and explain this upset to the child in a manner that made sense. “Don’t say anything to the other children yet, but let Ralph, Susannah, and Della know.”
Daniel’s wardrobe would need black armbands.
“That’s a fetching ensemble,” George said, fingering the hem of the discarded habit. “The blue matches your eyes exactly, and yet I don’t believe I’ve seen you wearing this one.”
“Nor will you. Susannah had one much like it made up, and I didn’t want to appear to ape my sister’s good taste. Fetch Danny but give me a few minutes with his papa first.”
Who was sitting alone in the library.
“You didn’t want to outshine Suze,” George said, hanging the habit up on the open door of Kirsten’s wardrobe. “You are a complete fraud, Kirsten Haddonfield. Go fuss and cluck over the vicar, and for God’s sake, let yourself gloat a little. Divine Providence has for once turned up helpful.”
Kirsten was not gloating. She was worrying for a man abruptly bereaved of an indifferent spouse and a sustaining penance.
“George, don’t be awful. A woman has died, and however wrong some of her actions might have been, you mustn’t be uncharitable.”
Besides, gloating wasn’t the right word. Kirsten was relieved for Daniel that the ordeal of his marriage was over, but beyond that, she was simply sad and concerned.
“You mustn’t be a hypocrite,” George said, twitching the folds of the habit straight. “Dishonesty is not in your nature, and you deserve a fellow who values you for the treasure you are. Be off with you. I’ll fetch Danny by way of a cup of milk and a few chocolate biscuits in the kitchen.”
One of George’s favorite combinations.
“Thank you,” Kirsten said, hugging her brother. “Your kind heart is as lovely as the rest of you.”
“Elsie says much the same thing, though she also admires my—”
“Bother you.” Kirsten shoved him toward the door. “And thank you, George.”
Kirsten ought to call her maid to hang up her dresses; she ought to figure out what to say to Daniel; she ought to take the space of three breaths to find some composure and arrange her features to reflect sympathy, because Olivia Banks, who’d clearly been a troubled soul, was dea
d.
Daniel was a widower, something he could never, in his worst imagining or fondest dreams, have longed to be.
Because he was that good.
Kirsten, by contrast, was all in a muddle, but she’d spoken honestly to George. A death was regrettable. A light gone out, a life ended.
Nonetheless, she nearly flew down the steps to the library, failed to knock, and when she found Daniel sitting in Nicholas’s favorite reading chair, she stopped halfway across the carpet.
His expression was calm, his demeanor relaxed. He might have been waiting for the coach to be brought around for the trek to Sunday services, and that—that aloneness, that self-contained, stoic isolation—ripped at her.
“I’m sorry. Daniel, I’m so sorry.”
He rose—a lady had entered the room, and manners required him to rise. “Thank you. This is unexpected. Danny will have to be told, and her—her family.”
Daniel was the woman’s closest family, and to blazes with Danny. “George will bring the boy to you here.”
Daniel folded up a single page of vellum, and while his hands appeared steady, the paper betrayed a slight tremor.
“Carmichael wasn’t sure where to reach me. Olivia has been interred in his family’s plot in Oxfordshire. I left my direction with Bishop Reimer, but nobody in Little Weldon thought to forward—”
Kirsten pelted into him and lashed her arms around him. “Stop this. Stop being noble and rational. Stop thinking. Thinking won’t serve, Daniel. Think later. It’s awful of Olivia to die now, with matters unresolved and nothing forgiven. I nearly hate her for deserting the battle like this, and don’t you tell me I’m unchristian. She was a disgrace and deserving of pity, but you also have every right to be angry at her.”
Daniel’s arms stole around Kirsten gingerly, as if she were some prickly bush alight with thorns.
“You’re upset,” he said.
Grief made people stupid. Kirsten had grieved for the future she’d never have, the children she’d never love, the husband who’d never sleep by her side.
“Yes, Daniel, I’m upset.”
“I’m upset too, but of all the possibilities and eventualities and futures I’d prepared myself for, this wasn’t one of them. All I can think about is Danny, whose every waking hour for months was filled with dread that Olivia might come for him.”
Kirsten wanted to shake the man in her arms, but focusing on Danny was the act of a person drowning in bewilderment.
“Danny knows he’s safe here.” As was Daniel. “I gather Olivia was ill?”
Daniel’s hand stroked over Kirsten’s shoulder. Beneath her ear, his heartbeat was reassuringly steady and strong, though why Kirsten needed reassurance, she could not fathom.
“A virulent influenza. Carmichael summoned physicians, but some illnesses admit of no treatment. At least Olivia did not suffer long.”
Olivia would probably suffer for all eternity, the poor wretch.
“You should let Danny know that,” Kirsten said, stepping back. Daniel was still too skinny. All muscle and bone, no reserves such as even a fit man carried. “And you will need to write letters. Ralph and I will manage the boys tomorrow, and you will take your horse for a long gallop. I’ll send George with you, if you like.”
Kirsten had been having a tantrum earlier, flinging dresses into a trunk, cursing, crying, and railing against the Almighty. She probably resembled the hag of the bog now.
Daniel stroked the backs of his fingers over her cheek, which had grown damp somehow.
“You will not worry, my lady. All will be well. I’ll take Beelzebub out and visit my sister tomorrow.”
“You should take Danny to visit his pony after supper.”
Daniel passed her his handkerchief, a worn, plain square of white that was soft against her skin when she blotted her eyes.
“A visit to the stable is an excellent notion.” Daniel’s gaze lacked the distant, distracted quality of moments ago, and nothing about him seemed unsettled. “Please don’t fret, my lady. I did not love my wife as a husband ought, but neither did I hate her. Her passing is a mercy to me and to Danny, but most especially, perhaps, to her. She was bitterly unhappy and had been for most of her life.”
Kirsten tugged the knot of Daniel’s cravat back to center as relief coursed through her.
“You’ve worked it out, then. What to feel, that is.” And Daniel was not feeling guilty.
“For now, I’ve worked out what I do feel. I’m sorry Olivia fell ill, for her sake. I’m sorry matters between us reached the pass they did, but I hadn’t seen my wife nor corresponded with her about anything of any substance for nearly a year. I am glad to be alive and glad you are alive.”
Being glad to be alive was not gloating. Kirsten was casting around for a way to applaud Daniel’s sentiments when George ushered Danny into the library.
“Not a chocolate biscuit left in Christendom,” George announced. “Danny has a prodigious appetite.”
“He gets that from me,” Daniel said. “Danny, you and I have a few things to discuss. Will you visit Beelzebub with me?”
“Of course, Papa. Mr. Haddonfield gave me some sugar for Loki, but I’ll share with Beelzebub.”
“Good lad.” Daniel extended a hand to the boy, and when Danny clasped hands, he was lifted up and affixed to his papa’s back. “Mr. Haddonfield, Lady Kirsten, my thanks.”
Man and boy were out the French doors and off across the garden in the next moment.
“They’ll manage,” George said, passing Kirsten a drink. Brandy from the scent of it—her favorite tipple. “I seem to be in the business of dispensing the medicinal tot of late.”
“Join me?” Kirsten asked, settling into Nicholas’s reading chair.
“Don’t mind if I do.” George downed his at one swallow. “Banks enjoys the greatest moral clarity of any man I know, but this has to be difficult for him.”
“He’s not gloating, George, and he’s not wallowing in remorse. I’d say that’s the sanest course he could plot.” More than sane, Daniel had made a pass at saintly, recognizing that Olivia had been a suffering creature.
Kirsten downed another swallow of brandy. She had been miserable, and over what? A lack of ability to produce heirs for some titled, prancing ninny?
Odd, how hindsight could turn apparent disasters into a pair of near misses.
George appropriated Kirsten’s drink and took another sip. “The sanest course would be for Banks to propose to you before the month is out. Widowers often remarry immediately upon being bereaved, particularly widowers with small children.”
While widows were expected to wait a year, lest their late husband’s children be born bearing another man’s name.
“I don’t want Dan—Mr. Banks to marry me simply because he’s grieving.” For a wife he’d no longer loved? “I don’t want to become somebody’s wife merely because I’m an earl’s daughter, or convenient, or well-dowered.”
Kirsten wanted to marry a man who loved her, and whom she loved, a man with whom she could build something meaningful.
George threw himself onto the blue sofa. “You do want to marry Banks.”
Not a question. “Yes. I want to marry Mr. Banks. I think we could be happy together.” Having a small child to love as well only sweetened the bargain.
“Be a hell of a blow to a pair of buffoons up in Town,” George murmured. “You, an earl’s daughter, turning down an earl’s heir and a viscount to take up life in a vicarage. My, my.”
Sedgewick and Morton would know the truth of Kirsten’s “rejections,” but they would not utter a word of that truth for it reflected badly on them both.
“I don’t care about Sedgewick and Morton, George. I would have strangled either one of them within a sennight had I married them. Life in a vicarage has meaning.” That life would have love too, if Danny and
Daniel dwelled in the vicarage.
And maybe a half-dozen rotten boys could live in. Then too, vicars were also frequently called upon to rear foundlings.
Kirsten nearly saluted that notion with her half-full glass.
“You look more peaceful than I’ve seen you in ages,” George said. “I will take my leave on that encouraging development. I’ve left word Nicholas and Leah are to report to you upon their return from horse shopping. If Banks needs somebody to stand up with him, I’m available.”
“Shoo, Cupid,” Kirsten said. “Give Elsie my love, and mind you come around again next Tuesday, if not before.”
George kissed Kirsten’s cheek and left her with her brandy.
Also—after a short prayer for the soul of the departed—with dreams of a vicarage full of love and happy children.
* * *
Condolences from Little Weldon came by post for the next several weeks, more than Daniel could have anticipated had he read every name from the parish rolls.
Spring came as well, the entire earth relaxing into the business of growing new life, new crops, and new hopes. Daniel’s hopes grew too, an unfurling of his spirit that filled him with urgency and wonder every time his path crossed Lady Kirsten’s.
His position as vicar became more real to him when he baptized three dear, squalling little souls, each of whom had likely been conceived in the course of pagan rituals celebrated the previous summer.
Daniel presided over the final obsequies for Mr. Clackengeld’s aunt, who’d been so old that nobody was quite sure of her exact age, though she’d left her gouty nephew surprisingly well set up.
Daniel’s scholars settled into a routine, all of them making academic progress, except for Matthias, who remained quiet, surly, and at outs with his mare.
“Come along, Matthias,” Daniel said one fine Friday afternoon following another round of exams on which the boy had done poorly. “You’re riding well enough to hack out, and Beelzebub needs to stretch his legs.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll fetch my boots.” Matthias was never openly disrespectful, but neither was he happy.
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