Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
The bells of the village church chimed across the parkland, summoning the faithful from the estate. Isabel stood in the hall, pulling on her gloves. As she reached for her bonnet, held out by her maid, a clattering on the staircase made them both look up.
Sebastian had not been at breakfast and she wondered if he had slept late.
He had, no doubt, left his bedroom immaculately dressed by Pierce, but in the short distance to the bottom of the stairs, his neckcloth had come askew.
Isabel wondered if he ever looked tidy and decided his charm lay in his insouciance.
She hoped he would never learn how to wear a neckcloth with the same dash as Anthony.
‘Am I late?’ he enquired as he reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘I heard the bells...’
‘No, you’re not late. The rector will not start without you.’
He carried his hat, cane, and a small book, which he laid on the table as he tugged at the recalcitrant neckcloth. The effort only worsened it.
Isabel shook her head.
‘Let me,’ she said.
He obligingly stood still as she reached up and tucked the wayward ends of the cloth back where Pierce had intended.
He smelled of fresh soap with a faint spicy tang to it.
Her fingers brushed the freshly shaven skin of his neck, and the muscles in his throat contracted.
A warm flush rose to her face and she withdrew her hand, hastily pulling on her gloves.
He ran a finger around the edge of the neckcloth.
‘You don’t tie it as tightly as Pierce. Thank you, Lady Somerton. Where did I put my hat? Oh, thank you, Johnson.’
As the footman collected Sebastian’s hat and cane from the table and handed them to him, Isabel picked up the small, battered book, a copy of the Book of Common Prayer.
‘Your prayer book looks well worn,’ she remarked as she gave it to him.
He looked down at the book in his hand. ‘It was my father’s... my stepfather’s,’ he corrected himself. ‘I have nothing of my father’s except this.’ He raised his eyes to the painted dome. ‘The Reverend Alder gave the prayer book to me when I joined the army.’
‘Can I see it?’ Isabel asked, holding out her hand.
He shrugged and held it out for her. She flicked through the dog-eared pages, covered in annotations written in pencil in a crabbed hand that she suspected had been that of the Reverend Alder.
On the end pages and crammed into the margins were tiny drawings, mostly caricatures or hasty sketches of people, a curious anomaly to find in such a book.
She doubted the Reverend Alder had turned his prayer book into a sketchbook.
She looked up at Sebastian and noticed a flush of colour in his face.
‘Did you do these sketches?’
‘Just something to pass a tedious sermon,’ Sebastian responded with a croak.
Isabel traced the caricature of a chaplain’s ruddy, self-satisfied face with her finger.
‘But it’s so good. I can almost hear him pontificating.’
Sebastian held out his hand, and she gave the book back to him. He stuffed it unceremoniously into his pocket.
‘Connie’s the artist in the family. I just scribble.’ He glanced up at the stairs. ‘I take it we will not be joined by the Lynchs?’
Isabel shook her head. ‘I don’t think either of them has set foot in the church, except for funerals, in all the time they’ve been here.’
As they stepped out into the light of another glorious day, he swung his cane and turned his face to the sun. ‘I love this time of year.’
Isabel drew her shawl around her shoulders and tried to match her stride to his. He slowed with a rueful apology.
As they walked, he said, ‘I have written to my brother and sister and told them I will send the coach for them as soon as they are ready to leave.’
Isabel glanced up at him in time to see a flicker of yearning cross his eyes.
‘That’s good news. I look forward to meeting them. I am sure they will love their new home.’
He gave a rueful smile. ‘I don’t think I could restrain them from coming. I suspect Connie is already packed.’ He clasped his hands behind his back and said in a wistful tone, ‘I still have trouble thinking of anywhere except Little Benning as home. It will be strange to have them here.’
‘I am sure they will accustom themselves quickly enough,’ Isabel said with certainty. Surely, the two young people would have no difficulty in accustoming themselves to such a comfortable life.
She had turned down a path that ran away from the driveway, a well-trodden shortcut that took them through the woods.
‘This is a much more pleasant route to the village,’ Sebastian remarked. ‘I took the road yesterday. Tell me about the incumbent of the parish. Is it my living?’
‘It is. Your grandfather only died four years ago, after forty years in the parish. Poor Reverend Dunn is still referred to as the “new vicar”.’
‘And he will probably always be referred to that way,’ Sebastian observed, correctly.
Isabel glanced at him. ‘I forget you are, after all, the grandson and indeed the son of a parson.’
He squinted into the trees above them. ‘God and I have not always been on the best of terms. Indeed, there was a time when I stood on the precipice of hell and considered it quite a viable alternative.’
She checked her stride and looked at him in consternation. It went against everything she thought she knew about this man.
‘No. I cannot credit that,’ she said.
‘There was a time in Spain—’ He stopped himself abruptly and began again. ‘I was wounded at Talavera, and they sent me back to England. I... had seen some terrible things, Isabel. I stopped having hope.’
She looked up at him. ‘To lose hope is surely to lose the will to live, Sebastian. What changed?’
He looked down at her, and his mouth quirked into a self-deprecating smile. ‘My father reminded me that there is still great goodness in this world.’
‘The Reverend Alder sounds a remarkable man,’ Isabel observed.
‘He was, and I could do with his wise counsel now.’
They had reached the village, and a sizeable crowd, all dressed in their Sunday best, gathered at the door of the church.
‘I see the church attracts quite a congregation.’ Sebastian straightened, his hand going to the knot of his cravat.
‘I don’t think the Reverend Dunn can claim any credit, my lord. You are the attraction today,’ Isabel observed.
They encountered Sebastian’s Aunt Peggy at the lychgate. Seeing Sebastian, she coloured and dropped into a wobbly curtsey.
Sebastian tipped his hat. ‘Good morning, Aunt. How is your mother today?’
‘She is too frail to attend the service anymore,’ Peggy said. ‘The Reverend will call in later.’
Sebastian held out his arm. ‘May I escort you into church?’
Peggy’s eyes widened and darted to the right and left. The colour in her cheek deepened.
‘Oh, I couldn’t…’
‘I insist,’ he said.
Peggy took his arm. Isabel put her hand to her mouth to conceal the smile that crept onto her lips as Peggy’s social elevation provoked a murmuring from the gathering crowd.
As they walked up the path towards the door of the church, Sebastian tipped his hat in response to the greetings, the rustle of petticoats from the curtseying ladies accompanying their progress into the church.
‘The Somerton pew is at the front,’ Isabel whispered, indicating the pew at the left-hand side of the church aisle, beneath the pulpit.
‘After you, Lady Somerton,’ Sebastian smiled, removing his hat. ‘Aunt ...’
‘Oh, my lord, I can’t,’ Peggy whispered, her fingers plucking at his sleeve. ‘Not the lord’s pew.’
‘Of course you can. You are my family and this is my family pew,’ he whispered back.
‘Beg pardon, my lady,’ Peggy said as Isabel made room for her. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but his lordship insisted.’
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Isabel responded with a welcoming smile.
A rustle stirred the congregation and Isabel glanced around to see the cause of the disquiet.
Isabel caught her breath as a woman wearing a fashionable dress and pelisse of Sherwood green, with a matching green hat topped with a jaunty feather, walked confidently down the aisle to take her place across from the Somerton pew.
As she seated herself, the woman glanced sideways, catching Sebastian’s eye, and inclined her head, causing the curls of chestnut hair that clustered beneath the bonnet to bounce.
Despite the veil Isabel did not miss the tantalising smile and the inclination of her head directed at Sebastian.
Sebastian acknowledged her with a nod and the woman’s glance moved to Isabel. Isabel pretended not to have noticed the woman’s attention.
‘Who is that?’ Isabel heard Sebastian whisper to his aunt.
‘That’s Lady Kendall,’ Peggy replied. ‘We don’t often see her in church. She lives at Fairchild Hall, about two miles over towards Grantham.’
Isabel looked down at the prayer book in her hand and drew a steadying breath. Nobody present could be under any illusion as to what had drawn Lady Georgiana Kendall to the service of divine worship, and it had nothing to do with God or Reverend Dunn’s sermon.
The Reverend, pink with pleasure, publicly acknowledged Sebastian’s presence, welcoming him to the parish.
Isabel cast a glance at Sebastian. He sat quite still, his back arrow straight, his profile carved from the same stone as those of his ancestors, whose tombs filled the corners of the old church.
He looked as if he had been born to the role.
The weight of the expectations that pressed in on him did not seem to bother him in the least, but she suspected that the still waters that were Sebastian Alder ran very deep.
Isabel bowed her head and said her familiar silent prayer for the soul of her dead child.