Vicar's Daughter

by Kimberley Comeaux

  “Interested in what?” a deep voice spoke behind them.

  Christina slowly turned to Lord Thornton, searching his face for clues to how much he’d heard of their conversation. Pierce saved the day.

  “Ah. I see you’ve decided to come down for breakfast, my lord. I’ll send word to Cook that you’ll be joining Miss Wakelin,” he said in his usual emotionless manner as he headed toward the kitchens.

  “But I didn’t want breakfast,” the earl said, but by that time, Pierce was already out of the room.

  He turned his irate gaze to Christina, who put up a hand, shaking her head. “Don’t look at me. I’ve already had my breakfast!”

  Thornton sighed in frustration. “I’ve become convinced I should fire my whole household and hire new servants. It seems lately they all do the opposite of what I want at every turn!”

  Christina had to smile at his exasperated tone. Despite his words, he actually seemed happier than she’d ever seen him. His countenance wasn’t dark and brooding as it was when she’d first met him. Just the fact that he was walking about and not hibernating in his chambers proved that a slight change was happening inside him.

  “Most of them have been here at Kenswick since you were a young boy. Perhaps they are just trying to look after you the best they know how.”

  He brought his gaze back to her. “I don’t need or want to be looked after.”

  Christina let her eyes roam over Nicholas Thornton’s incredibly handsome features. It was true he presented a picture of a man who needed no one, but she could feel the sadness and loneliness radiating from him. He needed someone to look after him worse than anybody she’d ever known. He just didn’t know it.

  She would need God’s guidance in how to help him realize it.

  “Breakfast is served!” Pierce announced from the doorway and just as quickly disappeared again.

  “It would seem the matter of wanting or needing to be looked after has been taken out of your hands,” she told the earl with a grin.

  The brooding Earl of Kenswick actually returned her smile, although sheepishly. “You could be right. Or Pierce could be using breakfast as an excuse to check up on you, since you seem to be alone in my presence without your chaperone about.”

  He held out his arm and with a raised eyebrow asked with mock formality, “Miss Wakelin, will you be so kind as to allow me to escort you to the morning room?”

  Christina laughed softly as she put her hand on his arm. She knew she needed to see about the puppies, but she could not turn down his offer. He was in such a different mood that she felt drawn to him like never before. “Indeed, I shall,” she answered, matching his tone, and together they went into the morning room.

  He stayed in that pleasant mood all through breakfast, even after he noticed Pierce standing just inside the room to act as a chaperone. He merely nodded to the man, then took a big bite of the sticky bun on his plate. Only once did Lord Thornton mention hearing a strange noise in the night that sounded like animal cries. Christina offered him some more marmalade to distract him, and that seemed to do the trick. He mentioned the cries no more.

  In fact, Christina realized it was surprisingly easy to get the earl to forget he’d asked a question. If she thought it a little odd, she dismissed the thought as soon as it entered her mind. Why worry over nothing?

  Seven

  Of course, Nicholas was not so easily distracted, nor was he a simpleton. He knew when something was being pulled over his eyes; he just didn’t know what, exactly, that something was.

  He spent all day thinking about it and finally came to the conclusion that Christina must have brought some sort of animal into the house. Pierce was evidently in on it since he’d been avoiding him all day.

  Whatever it was, he hoped it wouldn’t eat his cat.

  But that was not the only thing preying on his mind. Right before Christina left in the afternoon, she’d casually invited him to church the next day.

  He’d acted like a stiff-necked buffoon! He’d grown defensive, and instead of declining like a gentleman, he’d answered with a cold no and quickly left the room. He didn’t know how to explain that going to church scared him. People expected things out of you when they saw you in church. They expected you to act more like a Christian should, being kind and giving to others.

  Nicholas knew he had not been a kind man in many years, and the only thing he’d given to anybody was a lot of grief and pain.

  No. Going to church would make everyone expect him to change, and he just didn’t know how to do that.

  No matter how much he wished it were so.

  No matter how much he wanted to show Christina he could.

  ❧

  Christina had no appetite as she sat down to dinner with her father that evening. If only she could have waited before blurting out such an invitation. The earl was just beginning to open up to her, and she had to go and ruin it by issuing an invitation to church too soon.

  It was obvious he wasn’t ready to discuss God yet, and she’d pushed too hard. If only she had her father’s way of speaking to people. He had such a soothing manner even the angriest man could be calmed with just a few spoken words from the vicar.

  “You’ve hardly touched your stew, Daughter, and you know how Cook gets offended if you leave too much uneaten,” her father teased, pulling her from her melancholy mood.

  Christina managed to give him a small smile. “I’m sorry, Father. It’s just that I think I made the earl upset today when I invited him to church, and I feel awful about it.” She absently pushed the vegetables around in her bowl.

  She looked up to find her father’s worried eyes studying her carefully. “You have not taken a fancy to the earl, have you, Christina? You do spend quite a bit of time at Kenswick Hall these days.”

  Christina knew she could not lie to her father, but neither could she tell him the truth. “I only see the earl a couple of times a day, Papa. Most of the time I am with Helen, Mrs. Sanborne, and Ty,” she carefully evaded. “It’s just that I know if he could hear one of your sermons, he would feel so much better.”

  The vicar shook his head. “Christina, one sermon is not going to fix what ails the Earl of Kenswick. God can change him, yes, but only if he allows Him to.”

  An idea began to form in Christina’s mind. “What if you go and speak to him, Papa? From what I’ve gathered from the things he’s said and what I’ve been told from the servants, he blames himself for his father’s death. I also think he feels guilty for his behavior after he returned from the war.” She pushed her bowl back and reached for her father’s hand. “If you could speak to him, it might help him.”

  The vicar studied his daughter a moment before nodding his head reluctantly. “I will go, but I cannot promise anything. My concern, however, is more for you than for him. You must promise me you will not fill your head with any silly notions of romance between you and Lord Thornton. Even if he did not have the reputation he had or the problems surrounding him, he would still be completely out of our class. Earls do not marry vicars’ daughters, Christina. You must remember that.”

  Christina knew all this, of course. Hadn’t she told herself the very same thing from the moment she’d fallen into his arms? Yet hearing her father say it so bluntly hurt just the same. “I harbor no such aspirations of being the Earl of Kenswick’s wife, Papa. I am twenty-three and already past the age of desirability for a bride from even a man of my own station. Your fears are completely unjustified.”

  Her words, meant to calm, had just the opposite effect on her father. “You speak as though you have resigned to being an old maid! That is ridiculous, Christina. There are many young men in our acquaintance who have shown interest in you. You are much too lovely to be put on the shelf, and I will not have you speak so!”

  Christina smiled at his disgruntled expression. “I am lovely only to you, Papa. To those young men you speak of, I’m merely the strange vicar’s daughter who spends too much time with animals and spea
ks her own mind too often.”

  “Then you must learn to control your tongue and spend more time indoors!” he declared, but Christina saw that he looked a little sheepish at the ridiculous statement. “What I mean is, you must show them the part of you I love so much—the loving, caring girl who would give away her own food before seeing even her enemy starve.”

  Christina rose from her seat and bent to kiss her father’s bald, shiny head. “I will endeavor to appear more loveable in the future, Papa. I promise. Before you know it, all of Derbyshire will be lined up at our door asking for my hand!”

  The vicar chuckled and playfully swatted her away. “Perhaps it’s the earl I should be concerned about! You may end up causing the chap more problems than he already has.”

  ❧

  The next morning, Nicholas knew right off it was not going to be a pleasant day. He had leftover guilt for turning down Christina’s invitation, and he’d berated himself half the night for allowing himself to feel the guilt. What was wrong with him that her downcast expression would bother him so?

  But that wasn’t his only aggravation.

  It was Sunday. Everyone in his household knew on Sunday he slept late, had his breakfast late, and then spent the entire day in his workshop, working on his carvings. Why his servants collectively forgot about this schedule was beyond his understanding.

  He wondered if a mutiny were afoot, and if so, who was the leader?

  It certainly wasn’t his unwanted, yet still employed, valet, although he did a good job of beginning his Sunday on the wrong foot.

  Smith had awakened him at seven and all but shoved him into a dark blue coat, dove gray vest, and britches. He was tugging on his black Hessians before he had the wits to inquire why he was wearing one of his finer suits.

  “You’ll want to look your best when you attend the service this morning, my lord,” Smith answered as if his going was a foregone conclusion.

  A vessel started to pulse in his temple. “I beg your pardon, but in the very short time you’ve been here, have you ever known me to get up and attend church?” he barked while running a hand through his hair in frustration.

  Smith seemed oblivious to his disgruntled attitude, however, as he rummaged about the room, picking up Nicholas’s bedclothes. “Ah, but Miss Wakelin had never invited you before yesterday, my lord.”

  “But I told her I would—” He stopped as something occurred to him. “How could you possibly know she even asked me? I don’t remember you being there, Smith!”

  Smith threw Nicholas an absent smile as he continued to busy himself about the room. “Oh, I wasn’t, Sir, but although it’s not something you like to acknowledge, we servants do talk, my lord.”

  He knew Christina would never say anything, and, besides, she wasn’t a servant. Young Ty could do nothing but emit baby sounds, so that left only one person. “Mrs. Sanborne! I’ll fire her, posthaste!”

  “That wouldn’t be wise, my lord. You’d be left with a baby you have no idea how to care for. Miss Wakelin would probably stop coming by because she’d be upset you dismissed a lady she’s grown quite fond of, and the solitude you crave so mightily would be turned topsy-turvy.”

  Nicholas stared in amazement at the man who had insinuated himself into his life and household. “I’m all agog at your reasoning, Smith. It almost sounds a little like blackmail.”

  Smith bowed to Nicholas. “I would never presume to resort to blackmailing, your lordship.” With that he turned and walked to the bedroom door. “I’ll inform Cook you’ll be down in a moment.” He offered another brief bow before leaving the room.

  Stunned that he’d been hoodwinked yet again by his wily valet, it took a few seconds for Nicholas to respond. “I will eat breakfast, but I will not be attending church!” he shouted at the closed door, knowing Smith would probably not hear him.

  He managed to get through breakfast without mishap and conveyed to Smith, Pierce, and any other servant within earshot that he was definitely not leaving the house.

  But the moment he finished breakfast, Mrs. Sanborne breezed into the dining room and pushed his nephew into his arms. “I’m terribly sorry, my lord, but I fear I cannot look after Master Ty today. I just received a terribly frightening note from my daughter’s husband. She’s gone into labor with her first child, and she’s terribly afraid and needs me there with her. I’m sure you understand, do you not, my lord?”

  Nicholas opened his mouth to say he very much did not understand, when she rushed ahead of him. “That’s terribly good of you, Lord Thornton. Terribly good.”

  Nicholas looked down at his nephew with dismay. “But, Mrs. Sanborne, you cannot leave me. . . .” He stopped when he looked up and realized she’d already left the room.

  He ran to catch her, but no amount of pleading or threats of termination would induce her to stay.

  Nicholas was so perplexed that he stood out on the front steps of the hall for ten minutes after her carriage pulled away.

  How was a person to know what babies wanted or needed? Were there instructions written down somewhere he could follow? His housekeeper had left the estate for some purpose or another. Not knowing what else to do, he went to the nursery and sat in the high-backed rocking chair.

  So there he was, the sixth Earl of Kenswick, doing something he was sure none of his forebears had ever done—rocking an infant. For five minutes or so, he fumed about the circumstances he found himself in. As he rocked back and forth, he promised himself he would add more servants to his small staff. With that settled in his mind, he calmed down a little and for the first time really noticed the baby in his arms.

  He did look so much like his brother. So much so it hurt a little to hold him, knowing his brother never would. And then he thought of something else: What would it be like to hold his own son?

  Of course, that wasn’t a possibility for him, and it irritated him that he would even entertain such thoughts.

  Christina. Christina Wakelin was the reason his priorities were so confused. His was a well-ordered solitary world until she came into his life.

  The baby made a noise. Nicholas looked down at him, panicked that he was about to cry. What would he do then? There was no one to hand him to! But little Ty didn’t cry. Instead, he looked up at Nicholas with a full gaze. A warm feeling spread throughout the earl’s body, and an unfamiliar emotion squeezed at his heart as he studied the child. He might have determined never to marry and have children, but someone (God?) had seen fit to give him a child anyway.

  What was next, a wife? Immediately, Christina Wakelin’s teasing smile and shiny auburn hair flashed into his mind’s eye. That shook him up more than any thought of children did.

  She was the kind of woman who would brighten a man’s life and fill his home with laughter and love. It would certainly not be a boring life with her in it!

  If only he were a different man. If only. . .

  “My lord, Reverend Wakelin is here to see you,” Pierce announced at the nursery’s door. “I’ve shown him to the parlor.”

  Nicholas opened his mouth to reply that he was not receiving visitors, but changed his mind when the baby started to make fussing noises. Seizing the opportunity, he quickly got up from the rocker and placed the baby into Pierce’s arms.

  “You don’t mind seeing to the baby while I greet the vicar, do you, Pierce?” He gave the surprised man a triumphant smile. “Of course, you don’t,” he answered for him as he slipped out of the room.

  As Nicholas entered the parlor, he made a quick study of Christina’s father. He’d aged, of course, since the last time he’d seen him, but he still was the tall, stately looking man he’d always been. There was a kindness in the vicar’s eyes that had always warmed him as a child, listening to the Sunday sermons.

  The vicar stood with a welcoming smile as he gave a brief bow to Nicholas. “Lord Thornton,” he greeted. “It’s been quite a few years since we last met.”

  Nicholas returned the smile, though a bit warily. W
hat could the vicar possibly want, and did Christina have anything to do with it?

  “It has indeed, Reverend. Please have a seat,” he directed, indicating the brocade-covered chairs near the massive marble fireplace. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” he asked once they were seated.

  “There’s no need to pretend you are overjoyed to have me intrude on your time,” the vicar stated dryly, though a kind grin lit his face. “Christina has spoken to me a little of what you’ve gone through these last few weeks, and may I start off by saying I am truly sorry for the loss of both your father and your brother. Your father was one of my dearest friends, and I still miss him terribly.”

  Nicholas nodded. “As do I, Reverend.” He hesitated but found he had to ask, “So Christina asked you to come speak to me? I know she must be upset that I did not attend the services, but I—”

  Reverend Wakelin held up his hand to stop the explanation. “Yes, she did ask me to come, but that is not why I agreed.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and looking seriously into Nicholas’s eyes. “She wanted me to come and speak to you as your vicar, but I’m afraid I came as someone else. Christina’s father.”

  Nicholas took a deep breath as he absorbed the vicar’s words. Of course, he should have seen this coming. “I see,” Nicholas said. “You think I might have had ulterior motives in asking Christina to help me.”

  Reverend Wakelin wasn’t a man to beat around the bush. “That is it exactly.”

  “Then let me set your mind at ease, Reverend. Christina is completely safe in this household. I would never do anything to jeopardize her reputation.”

  “I’m afraid you already have,” the vicar answered.

  Eight

  That got Nicholas’s attention. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You have jeopardized Christina’s reputation, and if it weren’t for the fact they all know Christina well and love her as their own kin, it wouldn’t just be jeopardized, it would be ruined.” Reverend Wakelin took a deep breath and continued. “She is a young, unmarried woman, and you, Sir, do not have the best reputation. Now, I am not one to listen to or believe gossip, but there is so much scandal attached to your name that I fear it can’t all be just speculation. My parishioners are afraid you might have the power to lead her astray.”