Chapter 5
When she had accepted Lord Peter’s invitation to stay with him, Georgie had not realized what a center of activity the rectory was for the whole village and the farms nearby.
There always seemed to be another person coming or going to confer with him, to ask his advice or request his presence for an ailing relative.
A guarded question to Mrs. Barwick had cleared up the mystery.
“Well, he’s no stranger here, for all he’s only been acting as rector for a few weeks,” Mrs. Barwick said as she continued shelling peas for that evening’s supper, Georgie gathering up the discarded pods as a treat for the otters.
“The duke his brother’s estate is only five miles away, and Lord Peter would visit with his family once or twice a year, usually for the Harvest Festival.
Folk were that relieved when it was Lord Peter taking over for Mr. Sloane and not a stranger.
” The older woman sighed. “Though he’s only temporary, a’ course, and then we’ll have to start all over again with someone new. ”
“Does everyone here want him to stay?” Georgie asked, and Mrs. Barwick shrugged. The careless gesture did not seem to match her next words.
“We’d always wanted one of us here. Mr. Sloane was a fine man, but he’s not bred to Yorkshire. Not like Lord Peter was.”
Georgie privately thought that might be a bit of an exaggeration Lord Peter had only been in residence once or twice a year while he was growing up.
“And, o’ course,” Mrs. Barwick said more practically, “having a son of the manor house as the rector would benefit the village. We always thought he was to come to us after he had been ordained, but he went to London to do good works instead.” Something about speaking of village matters made the housekeeper’s Yorkshire accent more prominent, to Georgie’s fascination.
Mrs. Barwick finished with the last peapod, set the basket on the table, and looked at Georgie.
“Now, if you don’t mind me saying, young sir, tha’d best allow me to do that trim. Can’t have tha disgracing us at services on Sunday.”
“Yes, Mrs. Barwick,” Georgie said meekly. “Thank you.”
Even with her newly-trimmed hair, Georgie did her best to stay out of the way of the visitors, fearing her masquerade could be revealed if she was in too long a conversation with any one person.
That afternoon, however, she lingered in the main drawing room longer than usual, sitting at the writing table to make notes from one of the books on animal anatomy Mr. Sloane had left behind.
It could not compare to her father’s library, but she must make do with what she had.
She heard them before she saw them, but Georgie knew immediately what was coming just from the sound.
It was the Ladies’ Committee of St. Alcuin’s.
Springing to her feet, she ran to the door so she could slip away, only to have Mrs. Barwick open it. They nearly collided on the doorstep, and Georgie instinctively took hold of the tea tray as it tipped dangerously.
“There you are, Mr. Morley! The vicar was looking for you.”
“Afraid I can’t stay, Mrs. Barwick. The otters need their midmorning meal.”
“Put the tray on that table.”
Georgie meekly obeyed, and turned back to the door to see it was already too late. The ladies had begun to enter the room, with Lord Peter bringing up the rear, a pretty young blonde woman on his arm.
Georgie dropped into a chair, and then sprang to her feet, belatedly remembering she was a young gentleman. The woman at the front of the group gave her a peculiar look, and Georgie bowed.
There were five of them, led by a tall, gray-haired lady with a hawkish nose whose need to walk with a cane did not seem to impair her much.
“Ah, there you are, Morley,” Lord Peter said. “Ladies, may I present Mr. George Morley?” He nodded to indicate each woman as he spoke. “Mrs. Kilvington, Mrs. Dinsdale, Mrs. Moxon, Miss Welburn, Miss Dinsdale.”
Georgie bowed to each of them in turn, her head already whirling at the onslaught of names.
She would never be able to keep them all straight.
The ladies nodded in return, with calculating expressions.
Clearly, they were already trying to decide if Georgie would be an eligible husband for one of their daughters.
“Charmed, Mr. Morley,” one of the ladies—Mrs. Moxon?—said. “Are you staying long?”
“Only a few more weeks,” Lord Peter said. “Morley must return to Oxford at Michaelmas when the new term begins.”
A little astonished at how easily lies slid from the tongue of a man of the cloth, Georgie bowed again and murmured something even she didn’t find coherent.
The ladies settled themselves on the settee and chairs, and Georgie found herself taking the gentleman’s position of propping up the mantle of the fireplace, unlit on this warm August day. A breeze blew through the open French doors, bringing the very particular scent of Lutra cinerea with it.
Mrs. Dinsdale wrinkled her nose. “What on earth is that smell?”
Georgie looked to Lord Peter, whose smile was only slightly strained. “Mr. Morley brought some scientific specimens with him. A trio of otters.”
“Oh! How charming!” Miss Dinsdale had been batting her eyes at a seemingly oblivious Lord Peter, and turned her attention to Georgie instead. “Papa bought me a muff of otter fur last Christmas and it kept my hands ever so warm all winter.”
“How nice,” Georgie said, repressing her wince as best she could.
“Do you mean to say, Lord Peter,” Mrs. Kilvington said, “that you are keeping wild animals at the rectory?”
“Oh, no, not wild, Mrs. Kilvington.” Georgie said. She stood up straight as she began to speak with enthusiasm. “They are quite tame. My father and I raised them from small pups. And they are locked away in the chicken coop, at any rate, not living in the house.”
With a start, Georgie realized she was gesturing in a way that was not very masculine, and had forgotten to drop her voice to a lower register into the bargain. The back of her neck grew hot, and she subsided, twisting her hands in front of herself before shoving them into her coat pockets.
“Poor things,” Miss Dinsdale said wistfully, and turned to Lord Peter. “Do you suppose we might see them?”
“I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” Georgie said, just as Lord Peter said, “I don’t see why not.”
They each stopped, and Georgie glared at him. “They can be quite boisterous when they play. I should dislike for you to be scratched or bitten, Miss Dinsdale.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Morley,” Miss Dinsdale sighed, and batted her eyelashes again. “I very much appreciate you looking out for my safety.”
Uncertain how to respond, Georgie finally produced a rather stiff bow, and Mrs. Dinsdale beamed at her.
“Shall we begin the meeting?” Mrs. Kilvington intoned, clearly done with the otter discussion. Georgie took two steps towards the drawing room door before being speared by a glare from the older woman.
“Please do us the courtesy of remaining, Mr. Morley,” she said. “We should like to hear what activities the younger generation would enjoy at the Harvest Festival.”
Georgie looked at Lord Peter, who barely concealed his horror, then met Mrs. Kilvington’s stern eye again and wilted. “Of course, ma’am. Pleased to be of assistance.”
“Kindly be seated, Mr. Morley.”
Resigned, Georgie settled herself onto the settee beside Miss Dinsdale, who shifted her skirts to make room.
Lord Peter took Georgie’s spot at the mantle and gave her an ironic grin.
Miss Dinsdale was clearly the village flirt, if a harmless one, and Georgie was hard-pressed to keep a straight face at her cooing and fluttering eyelashes.
That is, until she realized that Miss Dinsdale’s objective was to make Lord Peter jealous.
Without conscious volition, her spine stiffened with unwarranted anger.
She should have realized earlier that every unmarried girl and woman in the village—no, in the county—would have her eye on Lord Peter.
The well-connected brother of a duke who happened to be handsome and charming into the bargain, clearly devoted to his duty as a clergyman?
He must have women throwing themselves at him constantly.
He likely could barely cross the street without another one fainting to gain his attention.
Perhaps he was already courting one of them. The thought had never occurred to her until now. What if he was already betrothed? Her presence here would be even more awkward if he brought his bride home.
Georgie assured herself that the burning in her chest was mere concern for the position she would find herself in should Lord Peter already be promised to another. She would… she would…
“Is something wrong, Mr. Morley?” Lord Peter was staring at her, clearly trying to signal that her inattention was upsetting his guests.
Her face grew hot. He was not her suitor or lover. He didn’t even know she was a woman. What right did she have to feel possessive of him?
She stood abruptly and bowed. “I apologize, ladies, but I am feeling unwell. Perhaps I should lie down.”
The ladies all murmured sympathetically, with only Mrs. Kilvington giving her a skeptical look, and Georgie made a hasty exit.
Instead of languishing in her room, she retrieved her sketchbook and pencils and made her way to the chicken coop with a bucket of meat and fish scraps in hand, going through the far side of the kitchen garden and skirting around behind the stable to avoid being spotted from the drawing room.
The otters were thrilled to see her and insisted on swarming onto and off her lap as she fed them, Bonny pausing every few minutes to scan for danger before demanding her share again.
Georgie rinsed her hands and replenished their drinking water from the pump in the stableyard before returning to settle in a corner of the fenced yard to observe and draw. She was fully absorbed until she heard footsteps and looked up to see Lord Peter walking towards the coop.
Peter could not entirely blame Morley for abandoning ship once the Ladies’ Committee had arrived.
He sometimes wished to do that himself, but he knew he needed to be present to keep Mrs. Moxon's extravagant flights of fancy in check and Mrs. Dinsdale and Mrs. Kilvington from each other’s throats.
He was learning that the village feuds could influence much more than mere social interactions.
There was no doubt in his mind where Morley would be, but he was a little surprised to see the young man with a sketchbook in hand. The otters had exhausted themselves and formed a pile in Morley’s lap as he continued to sketch, notebook balanced on his knees.
Peter lifted the latch on the gate of the fence and one of the otters lifted its head to regard him suspiciously before settling back to her nap.
Morley looked up at him. “I’m sorry I left so abruptly. I really did need to feed the otters.”
“Yes, of course.”
A few loose drawings lay on Morley’s other side, and Peter picked up one of them. “Is this your work?”
A flush warmed Morley’s cheeks. “Er… yes.”
The drawing showed two of the otters—Peter still could not tell them apart—wrestling in what appeared to be a clump of grass.
The third stood on a small outcropping just above the others, watchful for any danger while her sisters played.
It was half colored in with watercolors, as though Morley had been interrupted, but the lines conveyed the charming scene in a few strokes, even incomplete.
Peter was not much of a connoisseur of art, but even he knew quality when he saw it. Scientific illustration required a very specific set of skills, and Morley clearly had them. The otters seemed almost ready to roll off the page in their antics.
“You are a talented illustrator.”
“Thank you.” Morley snatched the drawing from Peter’s hand and shoved it back into the notebook. “Did you want something?”
“Only company on a stroll, but I won’t disturb you if you’re working.”
“Oh. Yes. I wouldn’t mind a stroll, actually. Thank you.”
Morley removed the otters from his lap to a nearby pile of straw and stood cautiously. The otters rearranged themselves more comfortably without opening their eyes. “We should go before they wake up.”
Peter could not help but agree. The otters slept often but in short bursts, clearly marshaling their strength for the mischief they would get into later.
Morley briefly returned to the kitchen to leave his notebook, and then they set out. Once outside the fence, they both took a deep breath of the evening air, and Morley let out a sigh.
“I’ve heard many speak disparagingly of Yorkshire,” Morley said, “but I have grown quite fond of it.”
“I suppose so,” Peter said. “It’s quite different from London.”
In truth, he rather liked the change. The quiet rhythms of the countryside soothed him in a way he had not expected, and he found himself with an unexpected feeling of inner peace at the end of each day.
Not that his personal preferences should have anything to do with his duty to the poor in London.
They began to walk, striking out across the nearby meadow towards the stream that meandered through it.
“Autumn is coming,” Morley said, his voice unusually dreamy. “I can smell it in the air.”
“A few leaves have already started to turn, but I think we will have at least a few more weeks of summer before Michaelmas and the Harvest Festival.”
Morley turned his head and gave Peter what he could only call a calculating look. “Papa and I were used to giving the otters the run of his library in colder weather.”
“No.”
“The coop will be far too chilly for them in the winter. They are tropical animals, after all.”
“What about their, er, defecation habits?”
“Papa installed a cat door for them, and they did their business in a corner of the garden.”
“And how did your gardener feel about that?”
Morley chuckled. “He was not best pleased at first, but he discovered mixing it with manure from the stables kept the rabbits and deer away from his roses, so he became accustomed.” A shadow dropped over the younger man’s face. “Until they were moved to the stables, it worked out very well.”
“Who moved them to the stables?”
“My cousin. I do not wish to speak of it.”
They continued walking, but Morley’s mood was clearly far darker than when they had set out.
“Was your cousin appointed your guardian?”
“I said I do not wish to speak of it. But I am of age, so I had no need of a guardian.”
Given that Morley appeared to still be too young to shave, Peter was doubtful of the claim, but he held his peace for the moment.
Morley would need to trust him before he would confide in him, but Peter was confident that, given time, the boy would open up.
And in the meantime, it was pleasant to have a companion at the vicarage, someone to discuss his day with at supper and keep him company afterwards.
It already felt as though they had known each other for years when less than a week had passed.
It would be a shame when it was time for Morley to move on, but Peter would cherish their time together while he could.