Chapter 12
They arrived so early that Matthew answered the parish doors still in his pajamas, bleary-eyed and with one pink cheek lined from the creases of his pillow.
“It’s still dark outside,” he’d said, stifling a yawn as he already turned around to retreat back to his bed, leaving the door to the sanctuary open and Vix to do as she pleased with her little coterie of mischief.
“Goodness,” said Rosalind quietly, blinking and craning to watch him go. “Was that the vicar? He’s so young!”
“He looks exactly that rumpled in full vestments too,” Vix told her. “Careful, don’t let the dress drag.”
“Have you not met Father Matthew?” Hannah whispered, blinking at Rosalind with a worrying glint in her eye that made Vix immediately glare at her. “Rosalind, he married me to Thaddeus. You were there.”
“Yes, but so were so many other people,” the other woman protested. “And my brother sat in front of me. He’s so tall.”
Mae yawned. Loudly. And shook her head with a bit of force in an attempt to scatter the sleep off her skin.
“Up late last night?” Vix asked her, leading them down the hall and into the little bridal chamber with the vanity tables. “Spending time with Zofloya?”
Mae tittered. “Not as much as I’d like. I do enjoy when the seductive demons are men. Mixes things up a bit, but don’t think I’ve overlooked the excessive mentions of how dark his skin is.”
“You’re onto another scandalous book?” Hannah demanded with a frown. “I still haven’t finished The Monk!”
“Oh, you must,” whispered Rosalind. “Ambrosio is so tragic.”
“And broad,” Mae added with a little sigh. “Very broad.”
There was a collection of stifled giggling as Rosalind draped the wedding dress over one of Matthew’s many chairs and started opening the curtains, though there was not much sunlight to speak of to let into the room.
“Have you mistakenly called your intended Ambrosio yet in a moment of passion?” Mae asked, tilting her head with a curling grin. “I would have by now.”
Vix choked a little, turning to gape at the other woman. “No! Good Lord, and now I might. Thank you for that, Mae. You continue to enchant my life.”
“Well, his name is very close,” Rosalind said reasonably, collapsing into yet another chair in a puff of ribbons and ruffles. “Ambrose. Ambrosio. It would be an honest mistake.”
“And the heroine of Zofloya,” Mae said, tapping her chin. “What is her name again?”
“Silence, both of you,” Vix instructed, whipping her little leather valise around and dropping it on the vanity stool. “We’ve much to do.”
“What is her name?” Hannah whispered to Mae. “Is it Victoria?”
“Mae, I swear on the sanctity of this church,” Vix said, turning back to find the other woman grinning and nodding. “Why did I invite you?”
“Because you wanted me to remind you of all the useful parts of Zofloya and The Monk and so on before you get home tonight,” Mae told her soothingly. “Right?”
“You are the most anatomically trained of us,” Rosalind said earnestly, blinking like she didn’t know she was doing mischief.
“Rosalind!” the other three exclaimed, making her give a tiny, curving smile, as though she’d finally scored the first point in a game no one realized they were playing.
“Those books are never useful anyway,” Rosalind continued, tilting her ringlet-covered head to the side. “They embrace. They gasp. Then the chapter ends with nothing but implication. It is maddening, isn’t it?”
“Not all of them,” said Mae in a tone of dark promise.
“Oh?” Rosalind asked, her voice barely a squeak.
“I still haven’t finished The Monk!” Hannah exclaimed. “And I can tell you whatever it is you want to know. I am the married one, aren’t I?”
“No,” Vix said, recoiling in visceral horror at Hannah’s deflating frown. “Not you. Not my brother’s lover. Don’t taint my wedding day.”
“Or night,” Mae added helpfully.
“Ugh,” said Vix, tossing open the valise and rummaging through it for her curling wand. “Someone start a kettle.”
As though she hadn’t been thinking about her damned wedding night enough! Vix steadied her hands on the contents of her bag, blinking away the memory of sitting on the foot of Ambrose’s neatly made bed, staring at the closed door in numb, vibrating disbelief.
That door had been haunting her. The way it hadn’t opened again. The way he hadn’t come back and made good on all his sharp little threats.
Don’t touch me, she had said.
And he hadn’t. The scoundrel.
Had it been so easy for him as it had seemed? To just walk away like that? She had been so very curious what it would feel like to be toyed with by Ambrose Aster, and now she knew. Now she felt how it burned.
She shivered, that kiss from the night of the knighting flashing in her mind, the slow, patient brush of his lips.
What did he want?
And once she learned the rules of all of this, this game of beds and bodies, how long would it take to master it? Would she ever learn to toy with him right back?
Vix was not a woman who tolerated an imbalance of power. She did not like it. She did not …
Did she?
And in the time it took to learn such mastery, would she have ceased to be a novelty to him? Would the spark she brought to his persistent, bored malaise have already been dulled to familiarity?
Was there time?
She set her jaw. She would make time. She would create a novelty and diversion for herself too, if she must. And if he grew bored, then so be it.
She would have already become Lady Aster.
Why should his boredom bother her? Why should it terrify her so? Especially when there was still yet so much to achieve, so much justice to pursue from the true wrongs that had been done to her.
She had wanted a husband. Not a romance.
“Hannah,” she said suddenly, pulling her comb out and moving to the stool to begin brushing out her long, curling tresses while the wand heated. “When you were raising money for the clinic, did you throw any events to solicit donations? A charity banquet or some such?”
Hannah glanced at her from where she was hanging up and brushing out the wedding dress, the fluffy, floating layers of aubergine tulle catching the first lights of sunrise. “No, but that is a good idea. The clinic will always need funds. Perhaps we should consider it next Season.”
“I want to throw one this Season,” she said firmly. “In lieu of a celebration of my marriage. Remember, we spoke of a ball? Of your connection to an earl and countess who might assist?”
Hannah blinked. “Yes, of course. There is still time for that. You wish to raise money for the clinic?”
Vix shook her head. “No. For my school, the one I attended as a girl. I wish to raise a fund for the scholarship girls. And control it. That part will be important. Will you help me?”
“Of course,” said Hannah, with immediate and unwavering enthusiasm. “I have gotten very good at this type of thing.”
“She has,” said Mae, though she herself looked a little concerned, watching Vix from the kettle with a little frown on her lips.
“Excellent,” said Vix, turning her back to Mae to continue her combing. “We shall start planning immediately after the wedding. I want to ensure there is enough time to obligate my old headmistress to attend.”
“How lovely of you,” said Rosalind absently, distracted by the cosmetics she was setting out in neat rows on top of the valise. “Very lovely.”
“That’s our Vix,” said Mae, her voice gone cool. “Lady Bountiful at heart.”
Vix shot her a look and got a raise of the chin in response.
Perfect. She imagined she’d be interrogated later, and cringed in response.
“Come curl my hair, you harpy,” she said, and immediately noted that her voice lacked its customary bite.
Mae still came anyway.
As the sun continued to rise, the parish began to knock to life. Matthew could be heard milling about in the halls, setting up the sanctuary for the reception of guests and presumably pulling his wrinkled cassock on backwards for half an hour before realizing it needed to be turned.
Vix chuckled to herself at the image, reminding herself to ask him how accurate it was later.
“Thaddeus and I were at odds about whether or not to bring your wedding gift to the church with us,” Hannah told her, watching as Vix stepped into the gown and let Rosalind assist her in pulling it up over her arms. “I won, of course.”
“Oh?” said Vix, turning with curiosity as the laces began to be woven into place. “Do you have it with you?”
“No, he will bring it,” the other woman said with a grin. “I’m afraid it will need to be sequestered in the vicarage office until after the vows.”
“Sequestered?” Mae repeated, dimpling. “Did you bring them something volatile and disruptive?”
“Of course,” said Hannah, blinking her big blue eyes.
“If it is Dinah,” Vix said immediately, “I shall not keep her. I already told you I’m not a governess anymore.”
Hannah giggled. “My parents will be devastated to hear that.”
“I imagine they’re devastated upon waking every day and seeing her at the table again,” Vix replied fondly. “What a gift that girl is.”
“A gift like whatever is in the vicarage office, I suppose,” Mae added.
All the while Rosalind made little huffing noises at them. “I got you a very lovely tea set,” she said, when they were quiet enough for her to put in the contribution. “I hope you like it.”
“I will,” said Vix, and Rosalind looked mollified. To Mae, she cut her eyes and said, “Well? What about you?”
“Me?” Mae asked, blinking her big, honey-brown eyes. “I showed up.”
“Insolent,” Vix commented, and then shook her hair out as the final laces were secured at the top of her dress.
She sat down again to have the bottom bits of her hair braided into a band, dotted with silver lace and baby’s breath and pinned into place by Mae’s steady hands, which evidently were good for things other than setting bones and lancing boils.
“You are wasted on horror, I think,” Vix commented, admiring the work. “You’d likely get paid better as a hairdresser.”
“Yes, but there would be so much less blood,” Mae returned, simpering. “And then how would I feel alive?”
“A good question,” Vix replied, batting her lashes as her lips were dabbed with plum-hued oil. “Perhaps we should ask Mr. Reed.”
“Have you spoken to him, Mae?” Hannah asked, latching on immediately like a fish on a baited hook. “Since that day you met? Did you even speak to him at my wedding?”
“Oh, look at how high the sun has gotten,” Mae said airily, using Vix’s shoulders to push herself to standing with significantly more force than was necessary. “We ought to go ready the aisle.”
Vix bit down on the grunt that almost escaped from the assault, glaring at them as they all bustled out to see to whatever nonsense Mae had just fabricated. She stood and walked to the window, peering out at the fig tree on the lawn.
The sun was higher than she’d realized, she acknowledged, if only to herself.
It would be time soon.
She turned and looked in the mirror, half expecting to see herself at eleven staring back, dressed in a borrowed gown with pomade-slicked hair. Instead, she saw Victoria Beck, on her last day.
And Lady Aster on her first.