“It is such a shame your mother won’t be joining us.” Olivia daintily spread jam on her triangle of toast. “I do hope she feels better soon.”
She was also being very polite about the root cause of Lucretia DeVere’s absence at breakfast—the impressive consumption of almost an entire decanter full of sherry in a scandalously short period. It had taken all three of them to get her up the stairs. By the time they had dragged her to her bedchamber, she was singing again, and they had needed the help of both Payne and a maid to lift her bulk onto the bed.
This morning, she had been much as they had left her last night. Fully clothed and snoring.
“I wonder where my idiot son is?” Olivia had also been hideously polite about Minerva’s cringeworthy performance last night, taking her to one side before they reached the breakfast room and apologizing for her son’s warped sense of humor and for unconsciously embarrassing her by insisting she sing.
“If he’s not quick, he will have to leave for church without having any breakfast. Which will serve the scoundrel right. That reminds me, I need to speak to Cook before we depart for church. I want white soup served at every meal. Including breakfast. And there is to be absolutely no seasoning added to Hugh’s. My son needs to learn I will not be trifled with.”
“Payne—are you sure you checked everywhere for Hugh?” He was probably still waiting patiently for Minerva in the portrait gallery for their early morning rendezvous, unaware she had been intercepted by his mother on the landing.
“He is not in his rooms or study and the stable hasn’t seen hide nor hair of him, Miss Minerva.”
“Perhaps he’s wandered to one of the lesser-used parts of the house.” She was willing the butler to understand, although to be fair to him, he probably had no idea the pair of them were supposed to meet in the gallery covertly. “Maybe he has gone somewhere quiet to think?”
“My idiot son doesn’t think. Or if he does, he thinks only of his own amusement.”
“But it was funny last night.” Diana’s lips had been twitching all morning. “Especially when Minerva delighted us.” Next to her, Vee sniggered, which set Jeremiah off, too, causing Olivia to scowl at him.
“And do not think I have forgiven your part in last night’s debacle either, Husband. You plied poor Mrs. Landridge with drink and embarrassed all her daughters in the process.”
“I hardly plied her, Olivia. Don’t you recall her summoning me over? And did you not hear her add the words ‘Mr. Peabody, don’t be stingy’ to the opening bars of Una Donna A Quindici Anni?”
“Still—you should have applied some common sense! Especially when poor Mrs. Landridge is unused to alcohol.”
“She didn’t drink it like a stranger to the sport.” Jeremiah snapped open his paper just as Hugh strode in, looking a little flustered but as effortlessly handsome as usual.
“Sorry for my tardiness.” His eyes darted to Miverva’s in question, confirming he had been waiting for her upstairs.
“Did you forget today was Sunday, too, Hugh?” Minerva smiled at him over the rim of her teacup. “Honestly, if I hadn’t collided with your mother on the landing this morning, I would be late, too.”
“Ah yes … I had forgotten. I had also forgotten my mother’s zealous observance in attending the Sunday sermon.”
“I might have known you would forget church this morning.” Olivia pointedly turned away from him and rolled her eyes. “Hugh requires near constant nagging, Minerva.”
“She never nags me, Mother.”
“Whyever not?”
Minerva hadn’t expected that question, which meant she told the truth rather than parry with a pithy setdown. “Because he is normally no trouble at all.” Aside from being the charming conundrum who occupied far more of her thoughts than he should. The conundrum blew her a kiss down the table, and she couldn’t help but smile at his nerve. “If one ignores his flirtatious tendencies, of course. I shall need to knock that out of him.”
“I must say, Minerva, in view of his outrageous behavior yesterday, I am surprised you would even deign to speak to him today. You owe your dear fiancée a groveling apology, Hugh.”
He sat in his chair at the head of the table and tried to look contrite. “Please forgive me, Minerva. As my mother was at great pains to tell me last night, I shouldn’t have used you, your mother, or my own dear mother’s deep hatred for Mozart for my own shallow amusement.” The mischievous twinkle in his deep blue eyes called him a liar. “Do you forgive me?”
“I shall give it some thought.” She took a casual sip of her tea. “Although forgiveness hangs on your actions rather than your words and shouldn’t be rushed into. I shall expect some proper groveling today and will come back to you with my decision after dinner.”
Olivia nodded in approval. “Very sensible, my dear. It is always best to start a marriage stingy on the forgiveness, as it encourages the husband to improve those aspects of his character which need the most work early on.” Jeremiah’s withering sigh behind his newspaper earned a glare. “My own husband is still a work in progress, of course, because he was old and too set in his ways when we married. But Hugh is young enough to train properly. So long as you are diligent, Minerva. Don’t allow that boyish charm to distract you from his wicked ways.”
Before Hugh could offer a rebuttal, Olivia shivered dramatically. “Is anyone else chilly?” The room was the perfect temperature. “Payne, could you throw another log on the fire, please?” A look passed between Hugh’s mother and his faithful servant. Then he produced the log from under a cloth on the sideboard. It was the sheet music from yesterday, the entire works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, tied in a roll with string and lying ceremoniously on a silver platter that he carried slowly around the table so he could parade it past Hugh before it was tossed on the fire. The paper instantly crackled and curled as it burned. “What a lovely sound! I cannot say I have ever enjoyed Mozart more.”
Hugh toasted her with his teacup. “Touché, Mother.”
“Do not think I am done with you yet, darling.” Olivia smiled with mock innocence as a footman placed a loaded plate in front of her son. “Unlike your charitable and forgiving fiancée, I shall have no qualms about seeking further revenge. Sweet, swift, unexpected revenge…”
He stared down at the plate warily. “Have you poisoned my eggs?”
“As if I would do something so predictable, dear.”
“Run, Minerva,” Jeremiah’s stage whisper came loudly from behind his newspaper. “Run like the wind back to the sanity of Chipping Norton. Save yourself before it’s too late.”
Twenty minutes later and Minerva found herself squeezed into the same carriage as Hugh, his mother, and her husband, while her sisters had the one behind all to themselves. She was seated next to Olivia, the two gentlemen opposite, Hugh’s long legs encroaching in the space needed for hers as they pulled up outside Saint Mary’s.
“My lady … Mr. Peabody…” The vicar beamed. “How delighted I was to learn of your unexpected return. It has been too long. And you have brought Lord Fareham, too, I see. Saint Mary’s has missed him.”
This statement earned Hugh another glare from his mother as she took the reverend’s proffered hand to exit the carriage. “I had hoped now that he was finally settling down, he would be more diligent in caring for his rotten soul in my absence—but alas, he is a terminal disappointment. Which leads me to assume you have not yet been introduced to my soon-to-be daughter-in-law either, which is very remiss of him, too. Miss Minerva Landridge, allow me to introduce Reverend Cranham.”
The older gentleman took her hand, too, bowing over it as he helped her down. “Miss Minerva, I have long despaired of His Lordship ever abandoning his carefree bachelor ways and I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to know he has finally found a bride.”
“Thank you, Reverend.” There was something about the white-haired vicar’s cheerful smiling face that instinctively made her like him. “Hugh always speaks very fondly of you.” Or at least he had on the one occasion he had mentioned him—when he had promised to invite the man to tea for the sake of her lying soul.
“Does he indeed? That is very gracious of him. Although I must confess that until this week, I knew nothing but hearsay about you, Miss Minerva. His Lordship has been very closemouthed about his lovely fiancée, which in turn has set the entire village abuzz, now that you are finally here in the flesh. The pews are filled today, and I suspect that is more to do with their desire to glimpse the woman who has finally stolen this rapscallion’s heart rather than the scintillating nature of my sermons.” He glanced toward Hugh and grinned. “I have had the family pews freshly dusted, my lord, in honor of your presence here today. They had accumulated quite a thick layer.”
“Thank you, Reverend.” The two men shook hands like old friends. “And might I congratulate you on the splendid job you have done of efficiently alerting both my mother and my fiancée to my laxness in attending. You seem to take great pleasure in maligning my good character.”
“The more people I have praying for your soul, the better.”
“I fear it is much too late but I appreciate the sentiment nevertheless.” Hugh waggled his arm at Minerva. “Let’s get this over with, then, shall we?”
She waited while Jeremiah and the reverend escorted Olivia through the ancient doors before asking the question that had kept her up most of the night. “Do you think we got away with it?”
“Thanks to your quick thinking, yes.”
“Entirely?”
“She is too busy with her outrage at her menfolk to give Lucretia much thought. She’s furious at Jeremiah for plying Lucretia with drink and she’s more furious at me for the Mozart and for lying to her about your musical abilities simply to make her look stupid.”
“I am so sorry about that.” She squeezed his arm and quashed the urge to run her hands up and down his biceps. “I’ve never had an ear for music—but in my defense, I did try to warn you.” Music, like the sound of the church organ wafting toward them as they sauntered down the path, all sounded like noise to her. Noise that simply varied according to the tempo. Pleasant but instantly forgettable. She could hear the different instruments, appreciate the skill it took to create, but could rarely identify the difference between the melody of the verse and the chorus.
“Which explains why you were the only one not wincing at Lucretia’s caterwauling. And there I was thinking you were the consummate actress…”
“I feel most sorry for your poor mother. But bless her, she carried on regardless.”
“As did you … and you did it for me.”
“Well—you are paying me.”
He shook his head. “You did it because I asked you to and I am humbled by your generosity. You are a very nice person, Minerva.”
“‘Nice’? I thought you considered that word an insult. An insipid and uninspiring word.”
“I believe I am coming to see one can be thoroughly nice without being either.” He paused beneath the archway. “Are you braced for the curious stares and whispers?”
“Of course. How bad can it be?”
“Spoken like a true daughter of the city, used to the faceless thronging masses. But this isn’t the capital, my darling Minerva, and the country folk really do have nothing better to do than speculate on the naughty Earl of Fareham’s elusive fiancée.” He patted her hand as if she were old and senile. “It is going to be torture. Hold your head up high. Smile. Try not to take anything you overhear personally. If we are lucky, the next hour will only feel like three interminable weeks.”
He led her through the doors, and instantly she felt like a scientific specimen under a magnifying glass. The Reverend Cranham hadn’t lied when he had said the entire village had turned out. Every pew, bar the family seats at the side, was stuffed full of people squashed together. In the aisles more were standing, and every face and pair of eyes were instantly glued to hers as Hugh led her toward the altar. Then, almost by tacit agreement, the whole congregation began to whisper, the noise not dissimilar to that of an enormous, agitated hornet’s nest and, exactly as he had intimated, not the least bit subtle in their curiosity or their judgment.
She’s tall …
Not how I pictured her …
Unfashionably dark …
Old … best get her skates on if the mistress is to get grandchildren …
Unusual … pretty … sickly … consumption … He could do better … I heard they have to get married …
Minerva had never felt so exposed and self-conscious in her entire life. When they reached their pew at the front, conveniently in full view of everyone behind them, Hugh opened the little gate that separated the Standishes from the masses, helped her sit in the seats behind his family and her sisters, then sat next to her, the ever-present twinkle in his eyes suddenly gone.
He reached out and took her hand, doubtless as a show of support or to show the curious onlookers he was suitably besotted, but the innocent contact instantly set her pulse jumping as the Reverend Cranham took his place at the lectern and smiled at his flock while he waited for silence.
“Today is the first Sunday of Advent. A time when we eagerly anticipate the celebration of the birth of Christ our Lord and pray for him to once again walk amongst us as he promised. The term ‘Advent’ comes from the Latin word adventus—meaning ‘beginning, commencement … or arrival.’ Arrival … A fitting word for us all here today, I think. Although not being cynical by nature, I choose to believe you are all here in such unusual abundance to celebrate the true meaning and spirit of Advent—and not to shamelessly scrutinize the newest member of our flock.”
The vicar stared pointedly at Minerva for a moment, then back out to the subtly chastised congregation. “But before we commence our celebration of the birth of Christ, let us celebrate another eagerly anticipated joyous occasion.” He picked up a piece of parchment and positively beamed.
“Today I am delighted to publish the banns of marriage between Lord Hugh Peregrine Standish, the Earl of Fareham…” She felt Hugh’s fingers tighten around her hand as all the air whooshed out of her lungs. Surely Olivia hadn’t been able to orchestrate this so fast? “And Miss Minerva … Concordia … Merriwell”—her own hand gripped back at the sound of her real surname included alongside the alias—“Landridge.” By his sharp intake of breath, Hugh also expected the Almighty to smite them at any moment, but being a gentleman he still held her hand so they would go to hell together.
Merriwell!
What a disaster!
Directly in front, both Diana and Vee also stiffened, but there was something about the way her baby sister’s body immediately shrank in the seat that suggested she knew how this new, terrifying state of affairs had come to pass.
“This is the first time of asking.” The vicar’s voice was like the clanging chimes of doom. “If any of you know cause of just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it now.”
Both the Reverend Cranham and Hugh’s mother smiled as the long silence stretched, so intense, not a soul seemed to breathe. All Minerva could hear was the rapid beating of her own heart in panic. She didn’t need to hear Hugh’s to know he was feeling exactly the same. They were gripping one another’s fingers now for grim death.
After what seemed like forever, the reverend finally spoke. “Then as there are no objections, let us commence our Advent celebrations with an uplifting carol which also fittingly celebrates an arrival and a joyous new beginning. Hymn one hundred and sixty-six—‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’…”