Chapter 23
“Would you believe,” said Joe Cresson, “that the most complicated part was getting the approval to hold the ceremony after twelve noon?”
“No,” his wife answered, cutting her eyes to him and making him grin. “No one would believe that, Joe.”
Hannah pressed her lips together over a smile, gripping her glass of champagne close to her chest as the line of dancers passed near them through the cramped little assembly hall on the end of the parish.
Her husband was standing behind her, a hand draped over her shoulder, and seemed to be chuckling along as well.
“I believe it,” he said to Joe. “The law is prickly about the stupid things, I find.”
“See?” said Joe to his wife. “Mr. Beck understands. Do you want another glass?”
“Thank you, my own,” she said, handing him her empty one and watching him walk away with a little sigh. She turned back to them and tilted her curly-haired head, her eyes darting from bride to groom and back again.
“What?” asked Hannah. “What is it?”
“Do you know, a stóirín,” she said with a little sigh, “that I love you very dearly? Do you know that?”
Hannah blinked, a little flash of emotion heating her face. “I …” she began, then stopped when her voice caught, choosing only to nod instead. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “Yes, I know that.”
“That’s good,” Ember said with a little smile. To Thaddeus, she simply sighed and said, “We will talk later, Teddy,” before she wandered off to find her husband and join the dancers.
Thaddeus chuckled and turned toward Hannah with a little tilt of his head. “Does she ever frighten you?”
“Ember?” Hannah asked, blinking up at him. “Of course not. Why?”
He pressed his lips together, drawing her hands up to his lips to kiss them. “No reason at all.”
“Ah! The happy couple. Sorry to interrupt!” came another voice, the latest in a long line as both of them exchanged a little smile of mutual exasperation.
They turned to receive the harried-looking vicar, who was running a nervous hand over his curls.
“Mrs. Beck,” he said to Hannah, “I hate to bother, but I’m afraid your sister has discovered Mr. Reed. ”
“My sister?” Hannah repeated, frowning. “Which one?”
“The mean one,” said Matthew with an apologetic grimace.
Hannah blinked. She waited.
He cleared his throat. “The funny mean one.”
“Right,” she said, turning and handing her glass to her husband as she immediately started scanning the crowd for Dinah. “I will handle it.”
Behind her, she heard her husband say to Matthew, “No, don’t apologize. I know,” and smiled to herself.
She had to stick to the walls, scanning through the dancers until she caught the scrap of her sister’s green dress.
She was, surprisingly, not orbiting Mr. Reed, who had found his way to the punch bowl, but instead deep in conversation with Victoria Beck, her elegant dark curls glinting in the candlelight.
Dinah looked utterly transfixed with whatever Vix was saying to her.
Hannah drew a sharp little breath and trudged forward. “Dinah!” she called, putting a smile on. “And Victoria! Hello.”
“And he framed it as a kiss from a ghost maiden,” Vix was saying softly, her lips curved in amusement, “truly an overwrought effort to be dashing. It is a jagged scar from a man’s dirty teeth!”
“Yes,” Dinah said, wide-eyed and nodding. “Trying very hard.”
“Dinah,” Hannah said again, waiting for them to look at her. “Mama was searching for you. And Esther is trying to eat a plum covered in pink sugar without getting it on her frock.”
“Is she?” Dinah said, suddenly alert. She cast an apologetic look to Vix and said, “I’m sorry. Duty calls.”
“Of course,” Vix replied with a little laugh, waving her away. To Hannah, she said, “Charming. I am so glad I am not a governess anymore.”
Hannah stared at her, a little surprised she was being spoken to directly by this creature, and then nodded. “Yes,” she said with a shrug. “She is a terror. Mine, though.”
“I like her very well,” Vix replied with a curve of her lips. “I’m afraid you’ve missed my little tour of contrition. It took me an hour to speak to your healer friend. She was frosty. I respect that. The country mouse was easier. I think I shall keep her.”
“Rosalind?” Hannah said, a little baffled as she looked around the party for blonde curls. “Really? I would have thought …”
“Me a terrible snob?” Vix finished, raising her dark brows.
“Oh, I am. But I am also terribly lonely. Will you forgive me for being an awful priss to you that day in Clerkenwell? I haven’t a good excuse for it.
If I did, I would have sought you out sooner.
If you say yes, I shall reveal to you my wedding gift. ”
Hannah laughed despite herself, a little dazzled by the onslaught of words. “Of course,” she said with a shrug. “What woman doesn’t feel generous on her wedding day?”
“One who marries my brother, I’d imagine,” Vix replied with a wicked little flash of her teeth. “But you have my appreciation, all the same.”
“I love your brother,” Hannah replied with a soft little tilt of her head. “More than life.”
“Yes, I think you do,” Vix replied with a curious lilt in her voice, like a naturalist spotting a strange bird. “I’ve never seen him smile so much. I wasn’t even sure he had all his teeth, to tell you the truth. Thank goodness he does.”
“Indeed. Thank goodness for that,” Hannah agreed, and laughed again, this time with the other woman instead of in reaction to her.
Vix sighed and shook her shoulders out. “My gift,” she said, brightening. “I booked an inn. I will make myself scarce for a few days so that you may enjoy the apartments without me haunting the room next door. It is only a happy coincidence that they are the finest lodgings in Mayfair, of course.”
“Of course,” Hannah responded somberly. “A very lucky thing indeed.”
“I am a lucky woman, you will find,” Vix said with a raise of her brows. “It is perhaps the one thing I’ve ever learned to craft reliably.”
“Thank you for deterring Dinah, by the by,” Hannah said, leaning back against the paneling of the wall with a little sigh and lifting one tired foot and then the other. “I thought I would have to grab her by the shoulders and steer her outside.”
Vix tittered. “Girls are always like that with Roland. It passes. Besides, I think he is rather taken with someone else.”
Hannah raised her brows. “Oh?”
Vix nodded, pointing across the room to where Mr. Reed stood, half in shadow near the banquet table, his shoulder-length hair glinting an odd pinkish gold in the candlelight. He was watching with quiet intensity a spot in the center of the banquet hall, a cup of punch clutched close to his chest.
Hannah followed his line of vision and was startled to find Mae Casper at its end, wedged between her grandparents with a golden ribbon glinting in the braid around the crown of her head.
As though she felt the observation, she glanced up for the briefest moment, her eyes darting to the side to catch Mr. Reed in the act.
She dimpled almost imperceptively, and turned her back, ushering the grandparents away onto the dance floor, swinging her hips as she went.
“Well,” Vix said in a low, impressed voice. “Would you look at that?”
Hannah was too flabbergasted to reply, blinking at the empty space where her friend had stood and then looking back for Mr. Reed’s reaction only to find he had vanished too.
Vix laughed. “Oh,” she said. “He definitely does not like that. Not accustomed to it, is he?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah replied sincerely. “Is he?”
“He is not,” Vix supplied patiently, then tittered again. “Not in the least. Let us not tell him we know yet, though. It will spoil the fun.”
“I didn’t even know they’d met,” Hannah mumbled to herself, still feeling a little adrift as Vix patted her arm, already making her exit.
“I will see you in a few days, sister mine,” she said with a sniff and a shake of her hair. “I’m rather looking forward to the eiderdown in Mayfair, and I’m going to retire early. Just need to bid Teddy goodnight. Congratulations, and so on.”
“Yes,” Hannah said absently as the other woman passed her in a flurry of floral scent and regality. “All right then.”
She watched Vix make her way over to her brother and, not wishing to interrupt, looked around for where she herself might land next.
She chose Millie and Abraham Murphy, who were standing with their arms looped around one another’s waists, talking to Rabbi Hirsch in the corner of the room.
“And then my wife says to my sister,” Abe was saying, lowering his voice for dramatic effect, “what is a kirk!”
“Oh, no!” the rabbi said with an appropriate gasp, chuckling into his hands. “And the game was up, was it?”
“Completely,” Abe agreed with a sad shake of his head. “There’s no recovering from a reveal like that. Your whole family knows you’ve lapsed in the space of four words.”
“Well, I didn’t know!” Millie protested, sounding completely unbothered by the issue in the wake of her enjoyment of the glass of champagne in her hand. “And you are lapsed. Aren’t you?”
“Oh, entirely,” Abe said with a nod. “But a man is precious about his shortfallings in the face of his own mother, you know.”
“Your mother didn’t care at all,” Hannah reminded him, stepping into their little circle. “It was your sister who was scandalized.”
He turned to her with a quirk of his lips. “There now, how dare you go ruining my good points? Come here, Mrs. Beck, let us have a look at you.”
Hannah giggled, presenting herself with her arms wide, and did a little spin for good measure to a light smattering of tipsy applause.
“You know,” said Abe conspiratorially. “The first time I ever saw you, you were heartbroken that some dunce at a ball forgot to dance with you. I bet he’s still alone in a pub somewhere, while you’re glowing in your bridal finery, having snatched a much better beau.”
Hannah frowned, tilting her head. “You weren’t there that night,” she said, blinking. “At the Wharton ball?”
Millie began to giggle, cupping a hand over her mouth.
“I was there,” Abe said, blushing but attempting to hold his dignified tone. “I was in the hedges.”
“I hid in the hedges once,” Rabbi Hirsch said with a wistful sigh.
“More than once, really. When I was courting my wife. Not because I had to hide from anyone, but because it made her laugh so. I would pop out with leaves and twigs in my hair and offer her flowers, and she could never refuse when she was doubled over with glee.”
“You always say such lovely things about her,” Hannah said with a little smile. “I wish I could remember her.”
“I wish you could too, my dear,” said the rabbi with a sigh. “She held you when you were a baby, though. You knew her, even if you do not remember. And she knew you.”
Thaddeus arrived then, sliding a warm hand around Hannah’s waist as he slotted easily into her side, reminding her how very much she was ready to be off toward her new home and all the rest that awaited behind its doors.
She smiled up at him, seeing the fatigue in his own returned glance, and said, “I am just saying good night to the Murphys and Rabbi Hirsch. He was telling us a story about his late wife, as a final parting gift.”
“Ah, yes,” said Thaddeus softly. “I have heard of the lady and her fondness for a good camembert.”
The rabbi chuckled, nodding. “Yes, yes. Perhaps fonder of the cheese than of me, at times. Well, I can see you are anxious to bid us good night, so allow me to say mazel tov one last time. I am truly so very happy for you both.”
“As are we,” Millie added, reaching out to squeeze Hannah’s hand.
Just before they turned to go, something gave her a little beat of pause, and she turned over her shoulder, touching the rabbi’s sleeve. “What was her name?” she asked, as he turned to her with a lift of his bushy gray brows. “Your wife’s.”
“Oh,” he said, grinning. “Have I never said? Her name was Hannah, my girl. Just like yours.”