Chapter 4 #2
She had known Lord Peter was far above her, the orphaned daughter of a mere baronet, but she had not realized quite how far until now. Clearly, any romantic dreams or secret longings must be shut firmly away before they could develop, even without her disguise.
He was not for such as her.
Peter stifled a yawn as the local apothecary, Mr. Coverdale, droned on about their need to raise funds to repair the roof of the sacristy and the upcoming Harvest Festival.
The other men in the room nodded along, seemingly fascinated by Mr. Coverdale’s discourse.
Many of the villagers were familiar to Peter, as he was to them as one of the sons of the manor house, but he had rarely had close contact with them and their daily lives until Paul had asked him to fill in for the ailing rector.
All right, not asked. Required. Paul had been quite angry that Peter had inadvertently dragged his twin brother Philip into a dangerous situation that led to Philip being kidnapped.
In Peter's eyes, that had merely been an unfortunate side effect of catching a smuggling ring operating near the London church where he had been a curate, but Paul had taken a dimmer view of it in his own measured way.
"How could you let things go so far?" Paul had asked.
"My parishioner needed help," Peter had replied, and Paul had rubbed his forehead with a groan of frustration.
"The people of Kilbythorpe need your help much more than anyone in London. I have just received word that the rector for St. Alcuin’s is ill and needs to regain his strength in Brighton. His curate is far too young and inexperienced to run the parish by himself. I want you to do it."
"But— "
"It is not a request, Peter." Paul's eyes had blazed, and Peter had only then realized just how angry his even-tempered brother was. "If you cannot curb your impulsiveness, you must be removed from temptation. By force, it appears. Do this, or find yourself cut off."
Peter had opened his mouth and closed it again, dropping his eyes from his brother's glare. Gossip about the incident with the smugglers had made its way around England, and likely Wales and Ireland, too. Another scandal added to the family’s ledger.
The likelihood of being able to defy his brother and find another living to be appointed to so he could support himself was very low after this newest scandal.
And he had never trained for another career. Never even considered it.
So now here he was. Sitting in St. Alcuin’s, listening to middle-aged men bicker over how to repair a roof rather than tending to the souls of the poor in London who desperately needed his help.
"... isn't that right, Lord Peter?"
Peter looked up to see the whole group looking at him expectantly. "Er... yes. Yes, of course."
His response only seemed to set off another round of bickering, and he nodded along as he tried to follow what seemed to be several generations of a feud over the roof and who was to provide the materials to repair it.
“You see, my lord, Mr. Wynpenny’s family has always provided the slate for the roof,” said Mr. Coverdale, the local apothecary.
“But their descendants were forced to sell some of their shares in the local quarry, and the Dinsdales bought them up. It worked quite well for a time and the families cooperated with each other.”
Peter nodded.
“But then,” Coverdale said, “young Mr. James Wynpenny snubbed Miss Celeste Dinsdale at the Harvest Festival last year when everyone had thought they were to make a match of it and re-join the shares. He ran off to join the army, and Miss Dinsdale is a spinster yet. So now the Dinsdales are refusing to allow the Wynpennys access to the quarry to secure the needed slate.”
“Could we not purchase the slate elsewhere?” Peter asked. A general groan arose around the table.
“It would not be the same, Lord Peter,” said Mr. Horsley, the local physician. “The slate has always come from the Wynpenny quarry.”
“Of course,” Peter said, repressing an ironic comment. He thought for a moment. “So we must reconcile the Wynpennys to the Dinsdales in order to secure the slate needed to repair the roof of the church.”
“You have it exactly, my lord,” Mr. Coverdale said.
“Allow me to think on it, gentlemen,” Peter said. “Perhaps I can speak to each of them and see if I can reconcile both sides.”
The other men nodded happily, and the subject turned to the fall harvest, which was just beginning. Peter nodded and smiled and allowed his thoughts to drift again.
It would not be for much longer. Paul would find someone else to run the parish in Mr. Sloane’s absence once his temper cooled.
Then Peter could leave these petty family feuds behind and return to London to do some real good in the world with the desperately poor people who needed his assistance far more than these comfortable villagers.
Georgie located the local shop from where letters could be sent and pushed the door open, angling her hat low on her forehead.
Mr. Banner, the shopkeeper, turned to face her. To Georgie’s astonishment, his skin was a few shades darker than hers, with his graying black hair and carefully cultivated mustache signaling his origins in India. He was a welcome but most unexpected sight here in rural Yorkshire.
A delighted smile crossed his face as he saw her, and he bowed slightly. “How may I help you, young sir?”
Georgie took a deep breath and consciously lowered her voice. “I have a letter to post to… my cousin. In Bath.”
Banner held his hand out and, after a moment’s hesitation, Georgie placed the letter in it. He made the necessary notes and collected her shilling.
“It should be there in three days.”
She nodded and turned to glance around the shop. Like many villages, the shop seemed to carry a little of everything to save the villagers from having to travel to a larger town.
“Is there anything else you require? Shaving soap, bay rum, a new cravat?”
“I … no, thank you.” She cast a glance at the row of embroidery silks across the room and looked away.
She had been forced to abandon her projects when she left home, and she felt a bit at loose ends without something to keep her hands busy in the evening.
But her masquerade as a young gentleman would not hold up for long if she demonstrated her skills at embroidery.
She drifted closer to the silks and allowed her hand to float towards the bright colors. Color felt as though it had fled from her life months ago, and was only just beginning to return.
Then, on a shelf near the silks, she saw the boxes of watercolors stacked high, and she knew how she could fill her time as she waited for Caroline’s reply. Except…
Her hand went to the pocket of her coat, where the purse that held her coins lay.
It would be foolish for her to buy paints when she had so little money to sustain her.
If Lord Peter evicted her from the vicarage tomorrow, she would need that money to keep body and soul together until she could form a new plan.
Without her conscious volition, her hand crept forward and picked up the nearest box of watercolors. It was a small traveling kit with tiny dividers holding a dozen different cakes of paint, along with a small glass to hold her water and three paintbrushes.
It could not compare to what she had left behind at home, but it could certainly keep her occupied while she waited and worried.
She had squeezed her current sketchbook and a few pencils into her traveling bag, but her boxes of paints would not fit.
At least, not the ones her cousin’s children had not already ruined.
“You have a good eye, young sir,” Mr. Banner boomed from behind her, and Georgie flinched. “That came straight from Thomas Reeves and Son in London. It can be yours for only one pound.”
One pound! If Caroline wrote back that there was a position for Georgie in Bath, it would cost her at least two pounds to travel there by coach, if not three. To spend half the cost of her coach ticket on something as frivolous as a watercolor kit would be foolish in the extreme.
But the call of creativity was too strong to resist. Even if her otter illustrations and her father’s manuscript had been destroyed by her cousin, she could begin again.
“I’ll take it,” Georgie said.