“Your rotten boys put that heart back in you,” Kirsten said. “Of course telling them you’re leaving the church will be awful.”
More kissing followed, because in the ledger book that had become their new life—joy to one side, grief to the other—the pleasures of their shared affection brought much comfort.
Daniel’s tongue came calling, and Kirsten’s exhortations to uncooperative bishops flew out of her grasp. She tucked herself closer, body to body, marveling at the ever-evolving fit between them.
“My breasts—” she muttered into her husband’s smile.
“Are more glorious than ever,” Daniel said.
“I’m weepy,” Kirsten said, sliding a hand over Daniel’s falls and finding evidence of impending marital bliss. “I fall asleep in the pantry. I can’t think—”
Daniel’s hands, slow and knowing, were working Kirsten’s skirt up as he walked her back against their bed.
“Think later, my lady. Love now.”
“You’ll be late to the schoolroom,” she said, starting on the buttons of his falls. “You have so few days in the schoolroom left, so few sermons left to give.” Then Daniel was to become steward of one of Fairly’s smaller estates, while Kirsten was at risk of becoming a good Christian.
Marriage to Daniel had done that.
“You aren’t ashamed to become a steward’s wife,” Daniel said, sinking to his knees before Kirsten could get all of his buttons undone. “It’s a quiet life, but we won’t be far from family.”
“Stewarding an estate is not that different from shepherding a flock, Daniel. If I can be a vicar’s wife, I’ll learn to be a steward’s wife.” The simple, almost irrelevant truth. Of course, she’d turn her every ability to making a success of their new situation.
“What matters,” Kirsten went on, smoothing a hand over Daniel’s hair, “is that the boys will lose you, and you will lose them. That isn’t right, Daniel. That’s not fair, it’s not what—”
More kisses, and clothing strewn in all directions, and tickling, and then quiet, miraculous loving.
Daniel had become a fiend between the sheets. He brought a vicar’s endless self-restraint, a headmaster’s stamina, and a rotten boy’s wiliness to his lovemaking.
Also a husband’s devotion.
“I love this part,” Kirsten said as Daniel slowly, slowly joined his body to hers. The quiet of a beautiful morning surrounded them, the scent of lavender rose from thoroughly rumpled sheets. “I love the part where the two become as one flesh.”
Daniel’s thumbs brushed over her palms, a caress as tender as it was intimate. “I love you. I will always love you.”
He gave her the words often, he gave her the deeds now. Kirsten surrendered to the joy and the pleasure, even as she worried for her husband, who knew nothing about stewarding the land and everything about looking after the tender, vulnerable human heart.
* * *
“Don’t worry,” Daniel said when he could again form complete sentences. Telling his wife what to do was an exercise in wasted breath, though. Kirsten worried because she cared.
“I will try not to worry about you,” she said, smoothing a hand over Daniel’s naked chest. “But the boys, Daniel. I think of the boys losing you, and I want to weep.”
She did weep. A lot. Brusque, self-contained, pragmatic Kirsten Haddonfield Banks had become a watering pot who cried at the sight of kittens in the barn, Matthias’s first perfect examination, and Daniel’s letter of resignation, tidily penned and sitting on a corner of his desk down the corridor.
“We’ll live only a few hours away,” Daniel said, “and Digby is family. He and Danny will visit back and forth.”
Change was a part of life, in other words. Daniel understood the words his father had occasionally muttered, understood much about the old man he hadn’t when Papa had been alive.
Kirsten’s hand moved lower, over Daniel’s middle, and he spared a glance at the clock on the mantel.
“You’re late,” Kirsten said, her hand pausing. “Ralph can entertain the boys for only so long. Let’s get you dressed.”
Ralph’s forced cheer was another trial, for he’d become attached to the boys, and to the notion of being part of a vicar’s boisterous, unpretentious household with his Annie.
“I’ve had a revelation,” Daniel said, tying Kirsten’s sash a few minutes later. They’d become proficient at dressing each other—also undressing each other.
“What’s your revelation?” Kirsten asked, passing him his hairbrush when he’d finished with the sash. She had a positive genius for disarranging his hair in certain situations.
“Faith is not a matter of sticking to the rules, reciting the Commandments or the small talk by turns, and staying on the well-lit path,” Daniel said, “but neither is it a matter of adhering to selfish impulses in the face of opposition and calling that bravery.”
They never referred to Olivia by name. Fairly had confirmed that she was now Mrs. Bertrand Carmichael, late of Rural Obscurity, Cumbria. Daniel hadn’t asked for details and probably never would.
Kirsten took the brush from him and gave his hair the last wifely touches. “So what is faith to you now?”
“Faith is love. Faith is waking up beside a steward’s wife when I’d thought always to wake up beside a vicar’s wife, possibly even a dean’s or a bishop’s. Faith is saying good-bye to the boys, telling them I’m proud of them, and knowing a few months here, a few Latin verbs, will stand them in good stead.”
Kirsten wanted to protest—Daniel knew the look in her eye—but her kind heart got the better of her logic.
“Mattie can see now,” she said. “Thomas no longer sits on anyone. Danny has friends and plays as noisily as a normal boy. They can all manage their ponies, the Blumenthals haven’t put a toad anywhere but the terrarium in weeks.”
“Exactly. No stirring sermons, no great ecclesiastical brilliance, just a handful of boys a little happier for living in here. I cannot change water into wine, can’t pretend I didn’t marry disastrously the first time, but I can be happy with you, and with a life outside the church. That’s what faith requires of me. Joy and courage, not misery over a past that can’t be changed or a future that can’t be controlled.”
The clock ticked; the morning breeze brought country air through the bedroom.
“You worked this out with Beelzebub, didn’t you?” Kirsten asked. “All those mad dashes you went for after the wedding.”
“No, actually. I went for those mad dashes because I love to gallop my pony. I worked this out when I was faced with the choice of a life with the woman I love or a life with the church. Even my father—maybe especially my father—would have wanted me to choose love.”
Kirsten’s kiss was a benediction. Her smack on Daniel’s bum was pure Kirsten.
“Go inflict Latin on the innocents. Even if you must end their school year early, Daniel, you owe them that pony race.”
Kirsten had a natural talent for cheering him up. The pony race was half of what the boys talked about, and even their fathers had apparently started offering strategy and advice.
“See you at luncheon,” Daniel said, kissing his wife’s brow. “Ask Cook if we can picnic in the garden.”
Kirsten thrived on activity, and picnics took planning. Daniel parted from her at the head of the stairs, he turning to the schoolroom, Kirsten toward the kitchen. He exercised a besotted husband’s prerogative and admired her retreating form until she turned, shook her finger at him, and blew him a kiss.
He blew her a kiss in return and headed off for a day in the schoolroom, one of his last.
And that hurt. All vicarly blathering about faith and courage aside, leaving the boys was breaking Daniel’s heart. They were such good boys, good boys as only rotten boys could be. Full of fun and curiosity, given to laughter and honesty at the oddest, most touch
ing moments.
Daniel paused outside the schoolroom, letting the heartache have its due, because that was part of faith too. A man whose first marriage had been annulled could remain at his pulpit—Reimer knew of two such fellows, though they were in very obscure, poor parishes—but what sort of example would Daniel be?
An odd thought came to him: a man who’d stumbled badly might be a very good inspiration to the faithful. Moral perfection wasn’t the subject of any scriptural passage Daniel could recall, but forgiveness, compassion, and self-acceptance were often mentioned.
“To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God,” Daniel paraphrased old Micah. Perfect marks weren’t required on that exam, but parting from some dear, impressionable, rotten, perfect boys remained unavoidable.
* * *
“I never thought I could hate Vicar,” Fred observed as the most recent William of the Week croaked softly in Digby’s pocket.
“I don’t hate him,” Frank said as they trooped along toward the stream running through the mares’ pasture. “But I wish he wasn’t leaving. The third declension looks beastly hard, and Vicar would have made it understandable.”
“It’s not so bad,” Mattie said from Fred’s other side.
To Digby, every Latin declension and every conjugation was hard, and no wonder the language had died out long ago. French and English didn’t bother with all that folderol and they were still doing a brisk business. Papa had laughed when Digby had trotted out that observation.
Digby and his friends weren’t laughing much at all lately.
“Vicar can go if he must,” Thomas said, “but why can’t Lady Kirsten stay here? Haddondale is her home. I’m going to ask the earl to make her stay, and then maybe Vicar will stay too.”
Danny wasn’t with them, having been whisked off early to his titled relations. Already the cracks were forming in their little school, and Digby hated that.
“What I can’t figure out,” Digby said, “is why Vicar would rather spend his days counting sheep and goats when he could be with us here. What does hiring the shearing crew or rotating the crops offer that could be more fun than Roman battles, Mattie’s French jokes, or picnics in the garden?”
They’d picnicked earlier that week, exactly the sort of unplanned enjoyment that made the history of Hanoverian Germany bearable. Lady Kirsten had told them about making her bow before the Regent, whom she said was quite stout.
He probably needed to hunt toads more often, for Vicar said a healthy body contributed to a—
“Mattie,” Digby said, “are you thinking up another French joke?” For Mattie had come to a stop several yards before the stream. William, who could probably smell his home nearby, had fallen silent.
“Vicar likes solving problems,” Mattie said.
“Like he figured out your stupid specs?” Fred asked. Among the boys, they were never anything but the stupid spectacles, the infernal glasses, the diabolically dumb eyepieces.
“Like that,” Mattie said, gaze on the stream, which was rushing happily along, “but also like Thomas’s penmanship, which Lady Kirsten helped him tidy up. Like Fred’s mixing up the royal succession. Like Danny isn’t so good at maths.”
“Nobody’s good at everything,” Digby said. William stirred in his pocket, probably anxious to see his family.
“I like solving problems too,” Mattie said. “Vicar leaving is a problem. We’ll go back to birch rods and boring lectures in cold schoolrooms. No more William of the Week, no more picnics, no more great battles in the stable yard, no more pony races.”
Sorrow passed through the group. The pony race was to be held next Saturday. Classes would finish up Tuesday, the boys would go home, and then a pony race and a picnic would be held on Saturday to celebrate a school year that ought not to be ending so soon.
“We have to do something,” Thomas said. “We can’t be Vicar’s best boys, his scholars, if we don’t solve his problems the way he solves ours. Lady Kirsten would agree.”
Digby agreed. The Blumenthals nodded. William croaked. Mattie smiled.
“I have a plan,” he said. “It will take a lot of work, and we must be prepared to sacrifice, to endure beatings and scolds, and to go without our pudding.”
“That’s exactly what we endured before Vicar started teaching us,” Thomas said, absently rubbing his backside. “And exactly what we’ll have if he leaves us for some sheep farm.”
“William can’t go home just yet,” Mattie said. “And we’ve a lot of work to do. First thing we’ll need is two buckets each.”
* * *
“Greymoor doesn’t steward just any race, you know,” Fairly said, swinging up on his mare. “The result of today’s mischief will be a tribe of horse-mad young men—in addition to a lot of broken bones.”
“Which is why,” Daniel said, from Beelzebub’s saddle, “a trained physician is on hand, to ensure the best medical care for any scrapes and bumps. These boys are good riders, Fairly, and they’re on sound, sensible ponies.”
“There is no such thing as a sensible pony,” Fairly retorted. “Demon spawn, the devil’s handmaidens, Lucifer’s boot boys, dastardly apprentices to the Fiend, the model of how not to create a horse, worse than—”
Fairly’s jaw snapped shut. Kirsten, Elsie, and Letty pulled up in an open barouche, Kirsten at the ribbons.
“Ladies, good day,” Daniel said, though the smile Kirsten gave him confirmed that for her, too, the day held some grief. “The boys will be along shortly. Fairly was just telling me how much fun he had as a boy, racing his pony all over the shire.”
“Indeed I was,” Fairly said, patting his mare and producing a fond smile. “Nothing a boy likes better. Ah, here come the jockeys now.”
Fairly cantered off, for it fell to him and his mare to lead Loki to the starting line. Bellefonte and Buttercup were doing the honors for Frank Blumenthal, while Squire Blumenthal had a fractious exchange with Fred’s pony.
“Shouting is never a good idea at the starting line,” Daniel said. “I do believe the third Commandment is imperiled. Ladies, you’ll excuse me.”
No less personage than Andrew, Earl of Greymoor, one of Fairly’s in-laws, was in charge of the start. He rode a black about the same size as Beelzebub, though somewhat calmer for having hacked over from Surrey the previous day.
Daniel sorted out the Blumenthals, though the squire managed a muttered, “A word with you later, Mr. Banks,” before he trotted off and left Daniel to deal with Fred’s rambunctious little gelding.
The ponies lined up—George had practiced this with the boys many times—and the boys and ponies all settled.
The scholars would recall this moment, and it would be a fine memory. Daniel lifted his gaze past the neighbors who’d come out to cheer on the boys, past the row of carriages and carts sitting well behind the finish line. Off to the southwest, the Downs were clad in benevolent green, summer beckoning the sun closer.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills…
Kirsten met Daniel’s gaze, blew him a kiss, and waved her handkerchief. She would recall this day too, when their little scholars had galloped off to meet life’s next challenge.
Daniel would miss these boys for the rest of his life. They’d sorted him out and given him a shove toward his own next challenges. He’d worry over them, pray for them, write to them when they were older, even visit them when he called upon the earl.
If their parents allowed such familiarity. At any point, the situation with Olivia could become common knowledge, and scandal might erupt. A steward could endure scandal more easily than a vicar could, which was to say, a steward could endure scandal while a vicar could not.
Daniel had shared the facts with his pastoral committee, and despite their protestations, as soon as Reimer identified a successor to St. Jude’s pulpit, Daniel would step down.
If Dani
el loved his rotten boys, and he did, then he’d go gratefully to the post Fairly offered.
Greymoor walked before the six ponies, nominally inspecting bridles and saddles, patting a pony here, admiring a shiny stirrup iron there. Freya stamped her foot, which Matthias, like the budding equestrian he was, ignored.
“Gentlemen, on your marks,” Greymoor said calmly. “Get set, and GO!”
* * *
Kirsten had never been so proud, nor so sad, as when she beheld six perfect little gentlemen in their saddles, trying so hard to pay attention to the strutting earl, when each boy, to the marrow of his sturdy bones, wanted nothing more than to send his steed tearing across the countryside.
And Daniel, sitting calm and smiling on Beelzebub, a little apart from Nicholas, Fairly, George, and the other papas.
Her heart broke for Daniel, who’d taken a pack of rotten boys and turned them into scholars and gentlemen.
“We need to talk to you.”
Elsie recovered before Kirsten or Letty. “Sally, May, and Nancy. Hello,” Elsie said. “A pleasure to see you.”
The three oldest Blumenthal sisters were looking quite fetching—and quite furious—in spring bonnets and shawls.
“Might we talk after the race?” Kirsten said. “The boys will be coming back around the woods in about ten minutes.” Unless somebody was injured, somebody went astray, somebody’s pony bolted from the pack, or somebody came off and couldn’t catch his pony to climb back on.
Many things could go wrong in a boy’s first race.
“What we have to say won’t take long,” Sally said. “But if you don’t listen to us, we’ll commit murder by sundown. Two murders, and Mama will help us.”
“Papa might too,” May added.
“And the servants,” Nancy muttered. “The Webbers too. I don’t know what Vicar has been doing with our brothers these past months. They seemed to be making such progress, until they came home on Tuesday. Mr. Banks has apparently taken reasonably decent little boys and turned them into demons.”
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