“You have a lovely daughter, vicar,” Rory said, sweeping off his beaver hat and bowing, a complicated process when he had to make sure Daisy didn’t get away from him.
“Lovely, yes.” The vicar smiled with beatific approval that could mean anything. Rory only realized the vicar had heard and understood when he went on. “Just like her mamma. Her mother was the prettiest girl I ever saw. She could have married anyone. I’m frightfully glad she married me.”
“She always said you had the purest heart in the world, Papa,” Bess said, her voice warm with affection.
“My lord, welcome to Penton Wyck.” The vicar bowed in Rory’s general direction. “I don’t suppose you have an interest in Byzantium? If you have, I’m writing a paper on Anna Porphyrogenita and the negotiations for her marriage to Vladimir the Great. I flatter myself I’ve found a few interesting nuggets in the chronicles that haven’t been given their full due.”
“Not my area of expertise, sir, but I’ve been to Constantinople.”
The cloudiness faded from the vicar’s eyes, and he settled an unexpectedly acute regard on Rory. “Have you indeed? I’d love to hear what you saw. I visited as a young man before I took holy orders.”
“I’d be pleased to tell you about my time there,” Rory said.
The vicar gestured to the door of the vicarage, only a few feet away . “No time like the present.”
“Papa, people are waiting for us. Perhaps his lordship could call another day.”
At the change of focus from Byzantium to Christmas celebrations, the vicar’s vagueness returned. “Another day. Yes, certainly. Look forward to that. Nativity play and all.” He shuffled off, muttering over his shoulder, “Do what you think best, Bess. You always make the right decision. Such a blessing to have you. Such a blessing.”
“Good day, sir,” Rory said to the retreating back, but the vicar didn’t respond.
Bess’s expression conveyed a tolerant fondness for her father’s eccentricity. “He only hears half of what you say. There’s nothing wrong with his mind—he was one of the cleverest graduates from his year at Oxford—but he has difficulty bending his attention to practical matters. He’s lost in his books most of the time.”
“I’d be happy to talk to him about my travels.”
“He’d like that. When he finds a subject interesting, he’s a good conversationalist.” She paused. “There just aren’t many subjects he finds interesti
ng.”
Rory watched Bess’s father drift across the vicarage’s threshold and out of sight. So much became clear that had puzzled him. Dr. Simpson’s strange reaction when he’d asked about the vicar. Even more, Bess’s position of authority in the village. With the late earl an invalid and the vicar wandering among the ghosts of ancient empires, no wonder she’d found herself overseeing Penton Wyck’s welfare.
“Daisy! Daisy!”
Bess’s urgent shouts pierced his reflections. “Oh, hell.”
The donkey had taken advantage of Rory’s distraction to stretch out her neck and attack the pretty Christmas frippery decorating the vicarage’s porch. What had once been an elaborate arrangement of holly and red and silver ribbons was now a ragged circlet fit for the bonfire.
Chapter 5
For Bess, the next four days rushed by in a flurry of activity—and a disappointing absence of kisses.
Apart from the bailiff, the butler and the housekeeper, the Abbey was now staffed inside and out. Through all the bustle, Lord Channing proved himself a man of easy manners and quick humor. He’d even turned up at church on Sunday and managed to stay awake through her father’s deadly dull sermon about some abstruse point of translation from the Greek New Testament. The villagers already referred to the pirate lord of the manor with pride instead of suspicion.
Bess was less pleased with the way the earl had so swiftly become vitally important to her. Her day only started when he welcomed her to Penton Abbey, and the glow dimmed when they parted in the evening. Even more frightening, she then spent each night longing to bask in his presence again.
Nobody should become so…necessary so quickly. After all, what did she know of him?
Except the hours working together taught her quite a lot about Lord Channing. Her early attraction soon warmed to respect and admiration, and something that might ripen into friendship.
He wasn’t at all high in the instep. He was always ready to share a friendly word with the villagers. His brother had been a good man, but he’d lacked the earl’s ability to find common ground. Already Bess could tell that the new regime at Penton Abbey would be considerably more democratic than the previous one. If Channing carried his libertarian ideals down to London when he took his seat in the House of Lords, he’d horrify those reactionary old lizards in Parliament.
Not that she approved of all the changes. His lordship might be prepared to listen to advice, but she soon learned that he possessed strong opinions. On some issues she couldn’t sway him, the way, curse him, he’d accused her of swaying his brother. Luckily, he had the charm and intelligence to achieve his ends without creating undue resentment in the villagers—or in her.
Perhaps he wouldn’t be such a misfit maneuvering his way through Parliament after all.
He must have been a remarkable captain, all steely will cloaked in velvet persuasion. It was a lesson in leadership, watching him turn once wary villagers into allies. She had a nasty suspicion that he managed her just as skillfully.
He’d somehow made his interest in the vicar’s daughter generally known. Interest that apparently met the approval of everyone except, perhaps, the vicar’s daughter. Bess had soon noticed sidelong glances and sly smiles, not to mention the conspiracy to leave her alone with his lordship whenever possible.