Chapter 5
Zeller had insisted on the good hat today, though Ambrose thought it was a bit of overkill. It was possible, of course, that this was Zeller’s revenge for Ambrose getting engaged so suddenly: making him go out in public in a hat that was too fancy for the daytime.
He couldn’t be sure.
But he wore it anyway. It was very tedious to argue overly long with a German accent.
It seemed that Prussian sensibilities were very firm when it came to matters of headwear, mustaches, and chocolate.
At least insofar as Ambrose had observed, since Zeller had come into his employ some two years prior.
He enjoyed the chocolate part, at the very least.
“You don’t have to come with me like a bloody chaperone, Zeller!” he’d exclaimed, batting away the attempt the older man had made to take his elbow and promenade him directly to Holy Comfort Parish like a blushing bride. “I’m the man!”
“Of course you are,” said Zeller dispassionately, “Herr Ambrose.”
Still, he suspected the man might have followed at a distance anyhow, if only to ensure the damned hat remained where it was meant to be.
He arrived early and found a nice bench near a flowering tree on which to await his bride and her gigantic brother rather than entering the church on his own steam.
He thought it would be awkward, attempting to explain his impending marriage to a member of the congregation, if she were not there to confirm it was true.
Unfortunately, when she did arrive, she was not on the arm of Thaddeus Beck.
Instead, the lovely Vix approached from the eastern street alongside a different companion entirely.
She looked perfect, of course, dressed in lilac again with a velvet pelisse over the simple lines of her gown. That glossy brown hair was coiled over her shoulder in a neat triplet of ringlets that bounced as she walked.
It was the company that was the issue. On Vix’s arm was a tall, deceptively lanky man with shoulder-length golden curls and a face with altogether too many freckles.
He was smiling down at Ambrose’s bride-to-be like he had any right to enjoy her company, whispering something to her that actually made her smile in return.
He frowned and stood as they drew near, both of them trailing off their conversation to turn and face him.
Yes, there was no mistaking it. He knew those freckles.
“Good morning, Mr. Aster,” Vix said. “This is Mr. Reed.”
“Oh, no.” He sighed, looking at the man. “Not you.”
Mr. Reed, Beck’s smug and meddling enforcer, grinned at him like an old friend. “Look at you, Ambrose. What a handsome hat.”
His frown deepened. “Why are you here? Where’s Mr. Beck?”
Vix blinked, looking from one man to the other and back again. “Oh,” she said, “I didn’t realize you were acquainted. I thought Roland only worked at the Vixen.”
“Usually,” said Mr. Reed, smiling down at her and patting her gloved hand, “but it was closed for a bit last year after that ceiling leak, so Tod lent me out to the Fox for a while. Now I visit from time to time.”
“Tod? Your brother?” Ambrose asked, enjoying this encounter less by the word. “I thought you called him Teddy.”
“I do,” she said with a shrug. “The boys call him Tod. Hannah calls him Thaddeus. I can’t account for it.”
“Vix!” came a voice from the church doors, drawing their attention around as the vicar emerged, much younger and bouncier than Ambrose had anticipated, running a hand over a mop of messy brown curls. “And Reed! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
He felt a little flutter of trepidation, glancing back around at the grinning enforcer warily.
Why was this vicar so fresh-faced and familiar with these two? What the devil was actually going on here?
“Are you a churchgoing man, Mr. Reed?” Ambrose asked, scratching at his chin and trying not to shift his weight around too much.
He got only a smug twinkle out of the corner of the other man’s eye in answer.
The vicar arrived, throwing his arms around Vix in a tight embrace, dropping a wet kiss on her cheek, and then gripping Mr. Reed’s forearm like an old comrade-in-arms before he even deigned to look over and notice Ambrose standing on his parish lawn, awaiting acknowledgement.
“Ah, hullo,” the vicar said, flashing a lopsided smile. “I don’t believe we’ve met?”
“Matthew, this is Ambrose Aster,” Vix said, stepping away from Mr. Reed to take Ambrose’s arm instead—a moment that immediately made Ambrose glance in triumph at the freckle-faced menace. “My fiancé.”
“Fiancé! Oh, it finally happened,” the vicar exclaimed, his easy smile spreading into a wide, slightly menacing grin. “Let me have a look here.”
“Look away,” Ambrose said with a raise of his brows. “Shall I remove my hat for it?”
It made Mr. Reed snicker, which was not at all the intended effect.
“Ambrose, this is Matthew Everly, our vicar and a childhood friend. I have known both of these men since I was a little girl, if that was not evident,” she said, giving his bicep a little squeeze. “Do be kind.”
He was uncertain if that last command was directed at him or the other two.
“Come in, we’ll get your intent registered for the banns,” Matthew Everly said without missing a beat. “Mr. Aster, I assume you have sent notice to your own parish?”
Vix glanced at him, sidelong and expectant.
“Certainly,” he said thinly. “I’ve sent urgent post to Kent.”
He would, of course. When he got home.
“You’re still registered in Kent?” Vix asked, with a purse of her lips. “We ought to change that, once the wedding’s over. Unless you want to return there?”
“My dear, I most assuredly do not want to return there,” he said to her as they moved to go inside the little church. “And you seem to me a woman who thrives best in the center of things, anyhow.”
“Is that a fact?” she replied, a wryness in her tone that might have been taken a great number of ways.
“I’m sure you’re both fully aware, but the banns will need to be read for three consecutive Sundays in both parishes,” Matthew was saying as they wove their way through the sanctuary and beyond a little hallway that led to the rear rooms, where his vicarage office was.
“That will, of course, depend on how quickly your post arrives in Kent, Mr. Aster. Here in London, we will start straightaway if that is amenable to the two of you.”
Reed trailed along after them, not commenting, but listening very insolently to the entire affair. Ambrose did his level best not to spin around and glare at him or otherwise demand he wait in the nave.
“It will depend upon the other event,” Vix said, looking up at Ambrose. “Did you bring the missive you mentioned, regarding your knighting? I should like the wedding to take place after it, for the sake of my sanity in planning both events.”
“Your sanity?” Reed commented, choosing to pipe up just as Ambrose had begun to feel comfort in his silence, “or your eventual title, Lady Aster?”
“Hush, you,” she said in a bored little voice.
Ambrose fished around in his jacket for the monogrammed envelope as they were led into the office, and in his distraction almost immediately stumbled directly over one of the many chairs in varying materials stacked in a tight arc between the entry and the desk.
He paused, bending his stubbed toe underfoot as he took in the chaos of seating sprawled out in front of him.
“Sit anywhere,” Matthew Everly said as he hopped easily between the furniture to find his place behind the desk. “There’s plenty of room.”
“Oh, Matthew,” Vix said with a disapproving little frown.
Ambrose tightened his jaw against his throbbing toe and picked his way around a pair of wicker stools to take the nearest leather offering, handing the envelope over the melee to his bride-to-be, who accepted it without commentary.
He looked back at the vicar with a newfound curiosity.
How exactly did one become a seating enthusiast? A chair collector? A stool sav—
“Four weeks,” Vix said briskly, from his left. “That is perfect, actually. It will give time for your banns to be read in Canterbury while we prepare for the knighting here, and the wedding can take place the following week.”
“Oh,” he said, blinking at her. “All right.”
The vicar was hoisting open a big, dusty tome full to the brim with slanted, inky entries in a variety of blue and black ink hues. “Do you want to choose a date now?” he asked, licking his finger and thumbing through the pages to find what he was looking for.
“No,” she said. “I will let you know soon, though. Let’s just register the banns. Once I have a list of invitees, we can settle a date.”
“Am I invited?” Reed asked from the rear of the room.
“No,” she said, then paused and turned back. “Of course you are.”
Ambrose frowned.
“Excellent,” said Reed, grinning. “I’ve never been to a knighting.”
Vix rolled her eyes, and Ambrose wondered if perhaps something in his eye might burst from sheer annoyance.
“That does actually make me think,” she said, glancing back over the summons, “are you allowed your own list of personal attendants at such a thing? I shall find out.”
“Personal attendants?” he asked, wrinkling his brow. “Other than you, you mean?”
She nodded, a worrying little smirk working its way onto her generous mouth as she reread the words on the heavy linen page once more. “Yes, people affiliated with your family, I might think. Stewards, for example.”
Ambrose blinked. “My father’s steward, you mean? Mr. Sedgwick?”
“I knew his daughter, in fact,” Vix said, blinking at him. “At school. She is here in London this Season. It might be nice to have some representation from the duchy in the room when you are elevated.”
He grimaced. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
Matthew was suddenly watching Vix with his brow a bit lower than it had been before, hooding over his eyes. “Caroline Sedgewick,” he recited. “Wasn’t it?”
“Oh, it was,” she replied, batting her lashes at him. “How wonderful that you actually read my letters all those years ago, Matthew.”
“Hm,” he said, and lowered his eyes back to the ledger. “Here we are. I’ll just require your signatures, if you please.”
Vix stood and took half a step forward before looking back at Ambrose with a lift of her dark brows. “Well, Mr. Aster,” she said. “Ambrose. Last chance to change your mind.”
“Mine?” he answered, his heart thundering as he came to his feet, so light-headed he thought the ridiculous hat might be the only thing keeping him from toppling over. “Or yours?”
She gave him that little ghost of a smile again and gestured to the desk, where the quill awaited him.
It was an odd feeling, he thought. Panic, nausea, something like giddy anticipation.
It was more than he’d felt in a very, very long time.
And while it wasn’t exactly pleasant, it was a damn sight better than feeling nothing at all, even if it did impact the elegance of his signature in that big, dusty book.
She removed her glove, one finger at a time, as she watched the path the quill tip took over the paper in the passage of his name, and tossed it delicately onto the desk next to the book as soon as he lifted the thing away.
When he handed the quill to her, their fingers brushed. Warm. Vital. Terrifying.
She bent at the hips and cut her name across the paper in three swift, exacting strokes, leaving nothing behind but the thin, gleaming lines that made up her name.
Her maiden name. The one he was going to change.
He looked down at his name next to hers and marveled at the little lurch his stomach gave.
There it was, he thought.
His fate.
In ink.