Chapter 8
Chapter
THE LOCAL ADONIS RETURNS—AND WITH A brIDE WHO BEGS BELIEF!
Printed on Cheap Paper for the Dearly Interested
Dear Readers (and most of you are dearer for your discernment),
Dust off your smelling salts and clutch your pearls, for we at The Poisoned Quill bring tidings so astonishing, so positively cataclysmic in their implications, that the very rafters of Dorsetshire Society may yet come crashing down.
After a decade of whispered disgrace and pointed absences, Mr. Frederick Sedgewick, once dubbed the “Darling of Dorset” and the “Local Adonis,” now known as the Earl of Chester, has returned. Here. To the very county from which he once fled in infamy.
And not, as one might hope, to seek atonement at the graves of the departed. No, his Lordship has returned to announce his betrothal.
To whom, you ask?
Take a seat, gentle reader. And perhaps a small brandy.
To Miss Julianna Farrow, that’s who.
Yes, that Miss Farrow, now twenty-two. We have it on good authority that a wedding license has already been requested by the not-so-young couple.
And while we can’t know for sure if the young woman was educated in piano, French, or watercolors, she is apparently a prodigy in the art of forgetting.
To Miss Farrow, we extend cautious congratulations. To Lord Chester, welcome home, sir. We hope you find the ghosts friendly, the horses steady, and the whispers ever at your back.
Ever Yours in Disgust his visit yesterday by horseback told him all he needed to know.
“A cracked spire. A roof one storm away from collapse. Today’s might just be the one that does it.
” His gaze deliberately moved to the window where the hail was still coming down.
“Ice is awfully heavy, is it not? And no funds for repair. It is a shame, truly, that such a bastion of the community has fallen so far.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.”
“Isn’t it just?” He withdrew a folded parchment from his breast pocket and set it upon the desk. “A promise of funds. Unconditional, of course. Though not sufficient to meet all the need.” He met the Bishop’s stare. “There could be more to follow.”
Bishop Ellicott glared at the parchment for several long seconds as a thick, heavy silence settled between them. Until, at last, his resolve crumbled. Slowly, he reached into his desk, drew forth the license, and signed it.
He began to push it across the desk when Fred said, “The seal.”
Without a word, the Bishop applied the thin, red wafer seal below his name and stamped it. Fred took it without thanks and turned for the door.
“She will hate you forever, you know,” the Bishop called after him.
He only paused for a moment. “I know.”
NOTICE OF CLOSURE
Parish of St. Oswald’s, Dorset
Be it known unto the parishioners that the Church of St. Oswald shall be closed to the public on Thursday next, the 19th of April, 1860, between the hours of ten o’clock in the forenoon and two o’clock in the afternoon, for the Solemnisation of Matrimony between:
The Right Honourable Frederick Sedgewick, Earl of Chester
and
Miss Julianna Farrow of Dorset.
By order of the Bishop, Dr. Ellicott, Diocesan.