Chapter Twenty-Five
St. Crispin’s Church, Duke’s Head,
May 7, 1815
A buzz of whispered conversation bought Sophie out of her contemplation of the hymnal on her lap. She always flipped through the pages when she arrived in church. It saved her from making conversation with anyone if she feigned absorption in the book. Reverend Carson entered, splendid in his robes, but rather than the parishioners quieting down in preparation for his sermon, they craned their necks and turned in their seats to stare at the door behind them. What on earth for? The Mercers did the same. Sophie twisted to see around the stone column between her and the door. Her stomach dropped a mile.
Lord Banallt had just come in.
That could mean only one thing. He was having the banns read for his marriage to Fidelia. The earls of Banallt were parish residents, after all. He’d had the banns read here for his first marriage, as had all the earls before him. Her fingers tightened around the hymnal. She remembered the jolt she’d felt all those years ago when she’d heard the banns called for Banallt’s first marriage.
She saw him nod in the direction of Reverend Carson then walk along the center aisle, his hat in hand. His destination was the pew reserved in perpetuity for the master and mistress of Castle Darmead. Sophie faced front and kept her head down. Banallt. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Banallt was here. He came even with the pew where she sat with the Mercers. She looked because she could not help but do so. He nodded in her direction, barely a recognition. His eyes were cold and his posture haughty to the core. Every living soul in the church knew that here was a man who would never be swayed from his purpose.
Sophie, sitting with the Mercers on one side of her and the Misses Quinn on the other, was trapped. There was no way for her to slip out without being noticed.
St. Crispin’s wasn’t large; at most seventy people could comfortably sit inside. The population of Duke’s Head had long outgrown the church, hence the second, larger church on the other side of town. But Mercers had always attended services at St. Crispin’s, as did most of the landowners. To her knowledge there hadn’t been an Earl of Banallt in the church since Banallt’s father, and that was well before she was born.
Banallt sat in the front pew. Sophie wondered if he knew the statues flanking the Gothic entrance to the church were the viscount and viscountess who had built Darmead. The present Earl of Banallt hadn’t come to church when he was here before, which occasioned a great deal of gossip about the state of his soul.
Beside her, Mrs. Mercer clutched Sophie’s arm. “The Earl of Banallt? Here, at St. Crispin’s!”
“Yes, Mrs. Mercer,” she said with a calm she didn’t feel. “That is the earl.” How could such a proud man be anyone else? Mrs. Mercer knew he’d written to her, a correspondence Sophie had explained as related to Drake’s trial. She dreamed of him often. Ever since Tallboys’s call, she’d begun to dream he was married to Fidelia. And why would he not be? He’d told her himself his relatives hoped for the union.
“Handsome as the very devil, isn’t he?” Mrs. Mercer whispered. She snapped open her fan and waved it vigorously under her chin.
Reverend Carson mounted the pulpit and greeted the congregation. Sophie registered barely a word he said. From where she sat, if she tipped her head just so, she could watch Banallt’s profile. He looked every inch the aristocrat. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, back straight. His hair gleamed black in the light coming through the stained glass window commissioned by one of his ancestors. He wore dark blue today, and though she couldn’t see his eyes from this distance, she knew the color made his eyes gleam unnaturally. He kept his prayer book open, one hand holding the spine. She saw his mouth move whenever the congregation was exhorted to reply.
Well. He’d not yet been struck dead. She smiled to herself. Lord Banallt in church and no lightning. Nor angels singing hallelujah, either.
Mrs. Mercer openly stared at Banallt, and the Misses Quinn sitting to Sophie’s right kept up a constant whispered conversation. “Why do you think he’s here? I heard Mama say he’s in want of a wife. Papa says he’s wicked.” And then they’d giggle and their mother would hush them and five minutes later they’d start all over again. “Perhaps you’ll be a countess, Alice. What if he chooses you?” More giggles. “Papa would never allow it.”
The time came for the reading of the banns, and Sophie slipped into a state of dread as Reverend Carson began to read them off. Her palms sweated in her gloves. Miss Moore and Mr. Allen, for the third and final time; Miss Baker and Mr. Roberts for the first. But no more. As the services concluded, Sophie wondered if she’d deliberately blanked out the reading of Banallt and Miss Llewellyn’s names.
She looked in the direction of his pew, but he wasn’t there. She didn’t see him anywhere in the church. As the parishioners filed out, the Misses Quinn bombarded everyone with the same question: Was that really the Earl of Banallt? Why ever was he here? When the questions were directed at her, Sophie answered with either a nod or something banal.
Her chest felt tight, and the longer she stayed inside the church, the more aware she became that six of the eleven stained glassed windows had been endowed by the earls of Banallt, and that Banallt himself had just ten minutes ago been sitting in the ornate pew near the nave. Mr. and Mrs. Mercer had gone outside already, expecting, one imagined, that Sophie would follow. She extricated herself from the young ladies—and it was mostly young ladies, dizzyingly eager for any morsel of information about the Earl of Banallt—and went outside.
By the time she came out into the morning sun and had given Reverend Carson her hand, she didn’t see Banallt anywhere. Nor the Mercers, for that matter.
“Mrs. Evans,” the reverend said. He clasped her hand between his. “Good morning to you, my dear.”
“Reverend.” The sun was in her face, and she had to shade her eyes to see him. “Good morning to you, too.”
He pressed her hand once more then released her. Sophie walked down the flagstone path to where she expected the Mercers would be waiting for her, impatient at her delay. Another crowd gathered at the gate, young men this time, all of them admiring the phaeton in the street. A man in a home-spun wool suit held the head of the gray gelding in the traces.
Banallt stood there on the street side of the gate. He’d just shaken the hand of silver-haired Mr. Jenkins, who raised horses and owned the land abutting Darmead to the north. There was no other exit to the street. The Mercers were nowhere to be seen. She fancied herself Catherine Parr, walking her final steps at Windsor.
The earl’s attention left Mr. Jenkins, and his eyes found hers, and for one exquisite moment, Sophie believed everything would come right. Foolish, foolish woman, she thought. She continued to the gate. Today, for some reason, it was harder to stop herself from feeling. Banallt turned his back to the crowd of young men and held out a hand. Mr. Jenkins beamed at her.
“Mrs. Evans,” Banallt said.
“My lord.” She put her hand in his and curtseyed. The shock of their contact traveled from her hand to a deep place in her body.
“Mrs. Evans,” said Mr. Jenkins. “How lovely you are today.”
She removed her hand from Banallt’s, certain he’d felt her trembling. Why had he come? “Thank you, Mr. Jenkins. You are kind as always.”
“I remember when you were just a little thing, just half as tall as you are now.” Jenkins turned to Banallt. “Did you know, my lord, that Mrs. Evans, she was Miss Sophie in those days of course, used to tell the most magnificent tales of how she’d one day be mistress of Darmead?”
“Mr. Jenkins,” Sophie said. Her heart sank. “I was a girl. Anything was possible then. Magic and fairy tales, that’s all it was.” She refused to look at Banallt, but the back of her ears itched with the knowledge that he was staring.
“When you weren’t convincing my girls the castle was haunted by the ghost of a crusading knight, indeed you did, my girl.”
“I believe,” Banallt said, “that one of my ancestors did march on the Crusades.” He leaned against the stone fence post, arms crossed over the top of the carved granite.
“Edmund,” Sophie said automatically. “Edmund Llewellyn, the third viscount.”
Jenkins beamed at Banallt. “I’ll warrant she knows the history of your family better than anyone in Duke’s Head, my lord. You’ll not be surprised to learn her mother used to tell us she couldn’t but think Miss Sophie would have her way.” He laughed again. “I for one never doubted her.”
“I was telling tales,” Sophie said. “Children do, you know.” How mortifying. What must Banallt think to have a country esquire matchmaking in so painful a manner? Why was he here? “What girl doesn’t dream of growing up to marry the prince and live in a castle, Mr. Jenkins?”
Mr. Jenkins chuckled. “Not many, I daresay.”
“A good tale requires enough truth to make it believable, and so I acquainted myself with as much truth about Castle Darmead as I could.” The crowd around the phaeton was thinning. “How else would I balance out the rest of my inventions?” At last she looked at Banallt. “Your ancestor, my lord, was one of my more convincing ghosts. I terrified dozens of children, including my brother, though he never would admit it afterward.” Her heart turned over at the thought of John. But for once the reaction was bittersweet.
“I should love to hear the tale,” Banallt said. The perfect curve of his mouth sent a shiver through her with the recollection of who and what he had been to her. He reached out and tapped the tip of her nose. “I adore a terrifying ghost.”
Jenkins reached for her hand. “Ah, Miss Sophie. Sometimes you look so much like your mother it breaks my heart.”
“My mother was beautiful,” she said. “I look nothing like her.”
“You have her eyes.”
“Hers were green.”
“Just so. But the shape, my dear, the shape. You’re a beauty in your own way, Mrs. Evans. Do not doubt that for a moment.” He ended with a stern look at Banallt.
“She is, of course, a most lovely woman,” Banallt said. He uncrossed his arms and touched the brim of his hat. In the light, his eyes looked darker than usual. “She does not seem to believe it.”
“I look like my father,” Sophie said. Panic rose up, making her light-headed and shaky limbed. She looked around for the Mercers and did not see them anywhere. Enough of this, she thought. She’d had more than enough of pretending everything was all right. If Banallt had something to say to her, then let him speak and have this over. She took a step through the gate and peered down the street in both directions. “Do you know where my cousins have gone, Mr. Jenkins?” she asked. She adjusted her shawl around her shoulders. The black shawl Banallt had given her.
“They have gone home,” Banallt said.
“Home?” She faced him. “Without me?”
“I told them I’d drive you back to Havenwood.” Banallt looked at the sky. “It’s a lovely day to drive out. Don’t you agree, Mr. Jenkins?”
“It is indeed,” Jenkins said. He pumped Banallt’s hand again. “Come by the Grange, my lord, and I’ll show you my yearlings. I’ve a pair who’d be excellent in front of a phaeton one day.”
“I will.” Banallt held out his arm to Sophie. “Come, Sophie.”