This meeting of the scholars was taking place in the graveyard of St. Jude’s as the service let out and the serious gossiping in the churchyard began. Before the service, Vicar had asked to speak to his scholars—that’s what he’d called them—alone in the church office, and he’d explained that the banns would be cried for the first time that day for him and Lady Kirsten.
He had not explained what would happen to his scholars after the wedding.
“Mama and Papa tease each other sometimes,” Frank said. “Papa kisses Mama’s cheek.”
“Then Mama says he’s not to,” Fred retorted. “I like Lady Kirsten, but I like the way things are too.”
“You like her tea biscuits,” Thomas said, hiking himself onto the oldest headstone in the graveyard. Nobody knew who was buried there, some Viking fellow, probably. The Vikings were a grand lot for causing mischief, rather like the Romans and the Visigoths.
“My mama and step-papa tease each other all the time,” Digby said. “They kiss a lot and Mama giggles.”
“Blowing the ground-sills,” Fred muttered.
“You wouldn’t know a ground-sill if it kicked you in the arse,” Thomas said.
Thomas hadn’t sat on anybody in a long time, but he who said bad things about Lady Kirsten might still find himself facedown in the grass.
“I don’t think anything will change,” Danny said, picking at the moss on the headstone. “My papa was married before, and he taught boys at the vicarage. Last night, when he told me about marrying Lady Kirsten, he didn’t say anything about you lot leaving the dower house.”
“But he doesn’t need to be married to teach us,” Thomas said. “We were going along fine without Vicar having a Mrs. Vicar.”
Danny had nothing to say to that, though Digby felt a pang for Thomas. Thomas was jealous of the vicar, which they all were from time to time. Vicar was good, smart, handsome, kind, and occasionally prone to mischief, to the extent a grown-up could be prone to mischief.
“Vicar and Lady Kirsten are in love,” Matthias said, keeping his voice down as if love should not be spoken of in a place of death.
Matthias wasn’t the brash schemer he’d been weeks ago, and Digby missed that other, more mischievous boy. Digby did not miss falling asleep to the sound of croaking toads.
“What does ‘in love’ have to do with anything?” Frank asked.
“It has to do with getting babies,” Fred retorted. “I’m telling you lot, they’re getting married so they can—”
Thomas kicked Fred in the arse, leaving a muddy boot print.
“Shut up, Fred,” Matthias said, speaking up with some of his old authority. “I saw them in the orchard. Vicar put me up on Buttercup, because she needs exercise, but my glasses were slipping, so I gave them to Vicar.”
“You were on Buttercup?” three boys howled at once, and Matthias paused to enjoy the moment, a rare grin lighting his thin face.
“We hopped several logs, but you mustn’t tell anybody. Buttercup’s a prime goer too.”
Danny, who could gallop circles around them all, shot Digby a patient smile.
“What did you see?” Digby asked, because the business of Vicar taking a wife was important. Digby’s mother had remarried, and within weeks, he’d been sent off to live in at the dower house.
Which, so far, had been more pleasure than work.
“I wanted to get my glasses back from Vicar, because I’m never supposed to take them off, and yet when Alfrydd and I rode up to the orchard, Alfrydd told me I would get my specs on Monday. We turned around then, back toward the home farm, but I saw Vicar and Lady Kirsten kissing.”
Matthias was apparently not repulsed by what he’d seen; he was respectful of it.
Thomas looked like he wanted to sit on a certain handsome vicar.
“You can barely see past your own nose, but you can see halfway across an orchard?” Danny asked.
“I can see well far away. I can’t see up close,” Matthias said.
“Marrying Lady Kirsten doesn’t mean things have to change,” Frank observed. “Lady Kirsten can live across the garden, and we’ll have tea and play cricket, and she can watch our riding lessons. We’ll stay away from the orchard is all.”
“She won’t live across the garden. Married people sleep in the same bed.” Digby’s mama had explained that with the gentle implacability she’d used when explaining Digby would live in with the new vicar at the dower house.
“Why do they sleep in the same bed?” Thomas asked.
“Because there are fewer sheets to wash,” Digby said, though Step-Papa had another explanation, having to do with little brothers and sisters. Digby wasn’t to bring up that topic with his mother. “Because then the lady can help with the gentleman’s cravats, and he can tie her laces.”
Thomas clearly hated that notion. He jumped down from the headstone, turned around, and kicked it. Danny threw a chunk of moss at Fred, who caught it and pitched it at Frank.
“Mattie, tell us about Buttercup,” Thomas demanded. “Was she wild over the logs?”
“She was a perfect lady for me,” Matthias said. “Vicar told the earl we boys could help keep her in work while his lordship’s in London. One of you will probably take her out next.”
The worrisome fact of Vicar’s upcoming marriage was forgotten amid the wonder of that pronouncement. Perhaps riding Buttercup would even inspire Matthias to share his treats when next it was his turn to be blessed with a basket.
* * *
“Thank you,” Daniel murmured to George Haddonfield as the last of the parishioners climbed into buggies and gigs or started their homeward journey on foot.
“For the bed?” George asked. “That was Elsie’s doing. Your vicarage will be furnished largely from the Belle Maison’s attics. Elsie said that monstrosity needed a home.”
Over in the graveyard, Danny and Digby were playing a loud version of hide-and-seek, or Norse invaders, or Visigoths, a particularly popular segment of their history lessons. The sound of Danny shrieking and disrespecting the dead like a normal boy made Daniel’s perfect day even better.
“I would not have made mention of the bed, Mr. Haddonfield, though that’s a lovely specimen as beds go.”
The day was sunny and warm out of the breeze. Elsie Haddonfield was at the organ, playing through music for her choir, and Kirsten was with her, turning pages or simply being lovely and mischievous.
“Banks, you’ll have to adjust,” George said, sitting on the church steps. “When you marry Kirsten, you’re marrying the entire Haddonfield family in a sense.”
“The earl said as much in his letter.” Daniel took a place beside George, though church steps were a hard seat. “I thank you for sending him my message yesterday. His answer came back to me by moonrise, and he welcomed me to the family.”
Short and to the point. Well done, welcome to the family. Best of luck. You’ll need it. Love, Nicholas.
Not Bellefonte. To his family, the earl was simply Nicholas.
“Hence the banns being called this morning,” George mused. “Half the female populace of the parish will go into a decline, to have Kirsten of all people steal the prize from them. Well done, Banks.”
“Don’t do that,” Daniel said, because he and George were to be family. “Don’t denigrate your sister’s value even in passing. Kirsten of all people deserves a prince, a duke’s son at least. She’s kind, intelligent, honest, honorable—you can’t know how much her integrity alone appeals to me, Mr. Haddonfield.”
Her passion was equally precious. Oh, to be engaged to a woman who turned into a Visigoth princess between the sheets!
George leaned back, bracing his elbows on the step behind him. In the morning sun, he graced the church front, a leonine son of privilege who adorned any place he took his ease.
“One forgets that you’re fierce,” G
eorge said. “Unless one sees you upon the back of that gelding. I suspect the horse has kept you sane.”
“Guardian angels come in many guises, apparently.” Sometimes, they came bearing beds too.
“Shall I give you the dispassionate assessment of your new in-laws?” George asked. “Elsie said that’s Kirsten’s job, but Kirsten’s perspective and mine aren’t entirely congruent.”
“You’ll tell me even if I ask you not to.” Daniel knew this because George was already becoming something like a brother. Marvelous notion. Perhaps they’d chase each other shrieking through the graveyard next.
Love made a man so blessedly daft.
“There will be holy jokes,” George said, “from Adolphus, who’s a quirky lad. He’s very bright in some ways and an utter buffoon in others. Kirsten dotes on him, and he hasn’t decided whether he dreads that or adores her for it.”
“Probably both.” Daniel knew scholars as well or better than he knew sinners.
George crossed one booted foot over the other. How a man could look elegant lounging on stone steps was surely a mystery, for Daniel’s backside was going to sleep.
“Our firstborn is Ethan,” George went on, “but on the wrong side of the blankets, which I gather was a regular occurrence in my parents’ generation. Ethan has struggled. We’ve all struggled.”
George fell silent as the Visigoths came scrambling around the corner of the church.
“You take that back!” Danny hollered.
“I won’t take it back because it’s the truth,” Digby bellowed, hands on his hips.
Danny’s hands were fisted, a sure sign of serious upset. “I get good marks because I earn them!”
“You get good marks because your papa is the vicar.”
“Gentlemen,” Daniel said, rising and dusting off his backside, “if you must air a difference of opinion, please do so in reasonable tones. What is the problem?”
George remained on the steps, the blighter.
“He says I get good marks because you’re my papa,” Danny howled, finger pointed at his accuser.
“It’s the truth,” Digby retorted. “You grew up in a vicarage, and your papa teaches you because he’s smart. My papa is dead, so nobody taught me.”
Abruptly, Danny’s fists uncurled. “You didn’t have a tutor or governess or anything?”
“I had Mama, and a governess before Papa died, when I was very little.”
Danny trotted off in the direction of the graveyard. “That’s awful, but you’re a scholar now, just like me. C’mon. We haven’t played Romans yet.”
And thus a lifelong friendship set down roots.
His Royal Lounging Blighterness finally bestirred himself. “That’s what it’s like in our family, Banks. Mama and Papa were often absorbed in their own dramas, and we learned to pretty much sort ourselves out. We look after each other too. Remember that.”
Daniel accepted the lecture, because it was well intended, but as the shepherd of the local flock, the looking after would fall to him.
Kirsten emerged from the church, Elsie Haddonfield with her.
“Have we solved the problems of modern civilization?” Kirsten asked, taking Daniel’s arm.
Simply by slipping her arm through his and patting his hand, Kirsten solved all manner of problems. She announced to anybody looking on that Daniel was hers, that she enjoyed touching him, that she preferred his company.
“If you’d like to walk back to Belle Maison,” Elsie said, “we can take Danny up with us and meet you there.”
“Daniel, may I have your escort?” Kirsten asked.
“Of course, my lady.” For the rest of his life.
George rounded up the various pillaging armies from the graveyard, Elsie shooed them into a waiting coach, and Kirsten tugged Daniel toward the green.
“Belle Maison is that way,” Daniel said, gesturing at the departing coach.
“The vicarage is this way,” Kirsten replied.
Daniel wrapped his hand over hers and accompanied his lady in the direction of their first home, while the words my cup runneth over took on new meaning.
* * *
All of the giddy, silly, brave words made sense to Kirsten. Happy as a lark. Overcome with joy. A fool in love.
Fortunately for her, she was also a fool frequently in bed with her beloved. As the banns had been cried in church on successive Sundays, the vicarage had become their… Mentally she shied away from the term trysting place. One had to maintain some dignity even if one’s clothes had been strewn about the room more than an hour ago.
“You’re awake,” Daniel said, stroking her hair back. “You don’t want to leave this bed, and neither do I.”
Another man would have kissed her cheek and started muttering about time flying.
“I love you,” Kirsten said. Daniel liked to hear the words, so she gave them to him often. She liked his hands on her, and he obliged without stinting.
“I love you too,” he replied. “Deliriously, which ought to feel awkward, but it doesn’t.”
For Kirsten, it did, a little, while making love had become a mutual adventure in creativity.
“You’re thinking of something weighty,” Kirsten said, rolling to her side and tucking her derriere against Daniel’s hip. He spooned around her loosely, the day being nearly warm and their exertions having been considerable.
“I’m dwelling on my future happiness,” Daniel said, “which weighs a great deal indeed. Bishop Reimer has written to wish us well on our nuptials and confirm his willingness to officiate.”
Bishops should matter to a vicar’s wife, so Kirsten left off kissing Daniel’s hand.
“He’s the fellow who knew your father?”
“And knows me. Reimer is a friend. Doubtless, he thinks of himself as a father figure. I should probably pop into Town and visit him.”
“One ought not to neglect one’s bishops.” In Daniel’s absence, Kirsten might get the outfitting of the vicarage finished. Larders didn’t stock themselves; flowers didn’t plant themselves; the boys’ dormitory wouldn’t arrange itself.
Though of course, Kirsten did not want to be parted from her intended for even a few days.
“One ought not to neglect one’s beloved fiancée,” Daniel said, nuzzling her ear.
He was a big man, and yet he had the knack of delicacy. He wasn’t outright asking Kirsten to go with him to London, but he was investigating the possibility.
“Perhaps you ought to jaunt out to Little Weldon, Daniel. Look up your old friends and pay your respects.”
They didn’t mention Olivia by name if they could help it. She’d been laid to rest not in the cemetery of her old parish, but in the larger town five miles closer to London. The cousin had seen to it, for which he ought to be thanked heartily.
Daniel settled onto his back. “I don’t want to go anywhere near Oxfordshire.”
Which meant, in the dutiful and virtuous logic with which Daniel cleaved every moral Gordian knot, he’d go.
“The boys and I will miss you,” Kirsten said, shifting to plaster herself to Daniel’s side. She never tired of his warmth or his touch. “Have Alfrydd send a rider to Nicholas to warn him of your visit. If you want company on your jaunt out to Little Weldon, he’ll happily go. He has good memories of Oxfordshire and friends in the vicinity.”
Daniel’s arm came around her, as naturally as spring rain falling on flowers. “I’m to bide with the earl when in London?”
Daniel would stay at some mean inn or take a cot in a humble manse if she allowed it.
“Mr. Banks, you have family now. I realize the concept requires some getting used to, but just as I get to love Danny, my family gets to love you. You’d best accommodate yourself to the notion. You will stay with Nicholas, and you will allow him to introduce you as my prospective spouse.”
Oh, the delight, the sheer, small-minded delight of contemplating the looks Daniel would earn in his evening finery. The ladies would flirt themselves into a swoon and make utter cakes of themselves. The gentlemen would be stupefied at Daniel’s quiet self-assurance and contented air.
“That is an interesting smile, Lady Kirsten.” Daniel kissed that smile, which turned it into a grin.
“You’re about George’s size, and he’ll have clothes at the town house. Leah will insist you borrow freely from them for social occasions.” Particularly if Kirsten dashed off a note to that effect.
“I’ll leave Monday and be back before the week’s end.”
The banns would be cried for the third time this Sunday, and the following Saturday, Daniel’s bishop would preside at their wedding.
“Write to me,” Kirsten said. “We haven’t corresponded yet. I want a love letter, Daniel. You needn’t draw hearts in the margin, but a few tender sentiments to tease you with forty years from now would be nice.”
The letter would turn to dust long before forty years went by, for Kirsten would read it often.
“I shall exert myself to the utmost,” Daniel said, while exerting himself to nuzzle Kirsten’s ear, “and I’ll write to the boys too.”
“Excellent notion. I’m worried about Matthias.” They both worried about Matthias, who was looking positively peaked and still struggling academically.
“He’s making progress,” Daniel said, though that progress required a lot of extra time with his instructor.
“Not enough for how bright he is, Daniel. He not only shares his basket these days, he practically takes no interest in it himself.”
Daniel shifted, so he was crouching over her. Kirsten loved the sense of being sheltered by his sheer masculine physicality.
“We aren’t all destined for Oxford,” he said. “We can’t all be bishops. Matthias has aptitude in many areas, and we’ll build on those.”
“Matthias is lucky to have you,” Kirsten said, kissing Daniel’s shoulder. “I’m lucky to have you.”
Daniel moved again, pressing against Kirsten where their bodies had joined so often and so well.
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