Page 5 of The Derbyshire Dance (Kendall House #3)

Chapter three

Church

I t was raining again the next day, and despite that, Bel and Aunt Lucy rode to church in the open wagon.

Bel held the ribbons, trying to avoid the largest puddles.

Aunt Lucy clutched the side of the vehicle, alternately begging her to go slower or faster, depending on whether the rough road or the driving rain was currently providing her greater distress.

“I do not know why we could not invest in a carriage, my dear. There is a veritable deluge coming down on my head. We are practically swimming our way to church.”

Behind them Jenny, Jeremiah, and Tam sat on the bench, wrapped in thick woollen cloaks made from their own flock’s shearing.

Jeremiah—normally called Jer—was Jenny’s brother, a large lad who was handy with a whittling knife and a pitchfork.

Tam, a few years older than him, was a quiet fellow who performed his chores with silent precision.

Tam had offered to drive that morning, but Bel preferred holding the reins, particularly in a downpour.

She supposed she would have let Charlie drive, had he been there, but aside from him, she had a hard time trusting anyone to keep the horses on the road as well as herself.

“I don’t want the expense of a carriage,” she explained to her aunt. “If Charlie chooses to buy one when he returns, that’s his affair. But for now, we’ll save our guineas.”

“Hmph!” said Aunt Lucy, trying to shield her head in the open conveyance with a cap, a bonnet, a cape, and an umbrella.

It was so windy that her words carried only to Bel and not to the servants behind them.

“I do hope Mr. Townsend will not mention you in the sermon. It’s a dangerous thing to embarrass a vicar, for the whole parish might hear of it.

But let us hope that he has forgotten your impertinence. ”

“I don’t know why he would have,” said Bel, “as I have not forgotten his. ” She reflected that she had met two impertinent gentlemen in the last two days, but somehow Mr. Townsend’s inquisitive presumption was less endearing than Mr. Lymington’s highhanded teasing.

She had recapitulated her annoyance with the vicar more than once to Aunt Lucy, while at the same time, inexplicably, failing to mention Mr. Lymington’s existence.

After all, it was not likely that she would meet Mr. Lymington again—he had made his views on attending church quite clear.

“Upon my word! It was not presumptuous of the vicar to make conversation. You like talking about your estate just as much as I like talking about porcelain shepherdesses and pearl necklaces.”

“Yes, but I don’t like being told it’s too much for me to handle. And I don’t like strange gentlemen casting an eye on how much acreage I own. And besides, if Mr. Townsend had asked Mr. Brownlee a few more questions, he would have discovered that the estate does not belong to me but to Charlie. ”

“I daresay he would have discovered nothing of the kind,” said Aunt Lucy, too miffed to remember that she was treading on sacred ground.

“Charlie’s been gone for nearly seven years now.

There’s no likelihood of him ever returning, so I think Mr. Brownlee and the rest of the neighbourhood have safely concluded that—”

“No!” Bel pulled on the reins and slowed the horse to a walk as they approached the churchyard.

“There is no proof that Charlie is dead. You know what a terrible correspondent he is—it’s no surprise that he’s never written.

India is a long way away, but I’m certain that someday we’ll hear news of him.

Or maybe he’ll turn up on our doorstep without warning, a wealthy nabob who will be surprised to learn how many sheep he now owns in Derbyshire—”

“Oh, my dear girl, no one can fault you for wishing as much, but the reality is—” Aunt Lucy’s words broke off, confronted by the bright glitter in Bel’s grey eyes and the firm set of her chin.

“Never mind. We shall argue no further and simply get through this Sunday as best we can, no matter how much my cape smells like wet sheep. Oh, look! There is Mrs. Brownlee as dry as can be after her carriage ride. And she is wearing another new gown.”

Bel looked at the stone porch of the church and saw their pretty, plump neighbour dressed in green velvet beneath a holly red cloak.

It was the perfect attire for a dreary December.

Bel would never think of purchasing such an ostentatious ensemble herself, but she could admit that Mrs. Brownlee looked very fine in it.

She suspected Mr. Brownlee must give his wife a great deal of pin money, to distract her from the fact that she had never been able to bear a child—and to distract her from his frequent absences from home .

The church bell was ringing as Bel steered the wagon over to the right side of the building where carriages were parked.

Jeremiah jumped down and took the horse’s head.

Tam handed down Aunt Lucy from the wooden step beside the front wheel and escorted her to the porch of the church.

Were the wagon parked at home, Bel would have climbed down without assistance, but here in the churchyard, she had enough presence of mind to remain seated and wait for Tam to help her descend.

“Allow me, Miss Morrison.”

Surprised, Bel turned to the right and saw Mr. Lymington dressed in a many-caped greatcoat and crowned with a stylish top hat. There were no waterfalls pouring over the brim of his beaver, so he must have arrived in the Audeleys’ closed carriage rather than an open conveyance like their own.

“I thought you did not attend divine services,” said Bel without any pleasantries or preamble.

“I had no choice. A certain lady made me feel guilty for avoiding them.”

Bel lifted an eyebrow.

His hand stretched out. Waiting.

With unusual self-consciousness, Bel placed her gloved hand in his.

He helped her down onto the squelching ground and offered her an arm.

It was a different sensation than holding on to the forearm of one of her farm labourers, and Bel supposed it must be because this fellow had taken her by surprise with his presence.

On the porch of the church, Bel could see Aunt Lucy ogling them, hands fixed into a primitive telescope, trying to ascertain who Bel’s companion might be.

“Ye all right, Miss Bel?” asked Tam, jogging back to retrieve her.

He did not recognise the stranger either, and his concern had overcome his taciturn nature enough for him to inquire.

Across the churchyard, the wealthy Mrs. White turned her bonnet in their direction, and half a dozen lowlier members of the parish stood behind her gawping.

Bel disliked being such a spectacle for the neighbourhood simply because she was walking on the arm of a strange gentleman. “Yes, I’m fine, Tam. See to Jenny, if you please.” Tam nodded and helped Jenny dismount from the back of the wagon.

Bel quickened her stride so that Mr. Lymington would not have to shorten his own to accommodate her.

They reached the porch steps. The organ had already begun to play.

Aunt Lucy looked at the gentleman guiding Bel through the church doors, opened her mouth, and shut it again.

Bel could sense that her aunt’s flood of curiosity was barely dammed, held back only by the organ prelude that precluded all possibility of conversation.

The Morrison ladies and the stranger proceeded through the church toward the box pews by the choir. “I daresay you would like to sit in the Audeleys’ pew,” said Bel nodding to the high-backed pew directly in front of their own.

“I daresay you would like me to,” said Mr. Lymington.

He released her arm without further comment and slid into the open bench directly below the Morrison ladies.

Bel was relieved that he was not in her pew.

It was bad enough that she had entered the church on his arm, creating a spectacle for the whole parish of Upper Cross.

“Belinda May Morrison,” hissed Aunt Lucy as the organ reached the final cadence. “Who is that ?”

“Hush, Aunt,” said Bel. “He can hear you.”

“Yes, I can,” he said, turning halfway in his seat and flashing Bel’s companion a charming smile. Aunt Lucy’s wrinkled face began to glow, and Bel almost shook her head in disgust. Why did her aunt have to be so susceptible to every handsome countenance?

“ That is Mr. Lymington,” said Bel in low tones. “He is staying at Audeley House.”

“I didn’t realise the Audeleys had returned from London—”

“They haven’t,” whispered Bel, trying to silence her aunt as the vicar walked in front of the altar to begin the service. “Mr. Lymington is merely utilising their house for free lodging.”

“What a delightful construction to put on my presence,” whispered Mr. Lymington. “I’m pleased to meet you, Auntie.”

Aunt Lucy began to giggle.

“Almighty God,” said Mr. Townsend, beginning the prayer with far too exuberant a tone, “give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility….”

Bel straightened her back and looked forward between the narrow confines of her bonnet brim, willing herself to ignore the man in the pew in front of her.

But every time she succeeded in freeing her mind from considering Mr. Lymington, it veered off into an inner criticism of the vicar’s method of reading the liturgy.

Did not this “Shropshire lad” understand that there should be a certain reverent gravity to his cadence?

One did not read the litany as if announcing the next act at a circus.

The vicar’s enthusiasm for the service was excessive—the exact opposite of Mr. Lymington’s, as he sat inspecting the fingers of his gloves rather than giving the readings his full attention.