Page 57 of War of the Wedding Wagers
“Quick!” Sir Frederick grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the church’s side entrance. The small door, typically used by the vicar, opened to his touch. They stumbled inside just as another thunderclap shook the windows.
The vestry was dim and close, filled with the musty scent of old prayer books and well-worn cassocks. Amelia was acutely aware of Sir Frederick’s presence beside her, of how his wet shirt clung to his shoulders, of the way water dripped from his dark hair.
“You’re shivering,” he said softly, shrugging out of his coat despite its dampness and draping it over her shoulders.
“I’m quite all right,” she protested. “But your leg—you should sit.”
He didn’t argue, lowering himself onto a wooden bench with a barely suppressed grimace.
Amelia contemplated his pained expression. “Where did you say you received the injury?”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh.” Amelia wrestled with her next question, then asked, “Bullet or sword?”
“Bayonet.”
“Bayonet?” she asked, her voice sharp and high to her own ears. “But bayonets are only used during…”
She trailed off and he finished for her, “During war. Yes, it’s an old war wound, and it troubles me particularly when the weather turns cold and damp.”
“You fought in the war?” Amelia sat beside him, careful to maintain a proper distance despite the bench’s narrow width.“But I thought—that is, Thomas said you spent the war years on the Continent, enjoying yourself.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “Did he? And you believed him?”
“I—” Amelia stopped, suddenly uncertain. How much had she accepted without question? “Where were you wounded?”
“In France.” His voice was quiet.
The shock of this revelation left her momentarily speechless. Word was that Sir Frederick had gone carousing on the Continent far from the battlefield. “Thomas never mentioned—”
“No, I don’t suppose he would have.” Sir Frederick’s smile held no humor. “My work was done behind enemy lines. I heard Thomas died bravely.”
She stared at him, seeing him anew and thought of all her incorrect assumptions. The limp she’d attributed to some mishap during his supposedly dissolute years abroad. The shadows that sometimes crossed his face. The way he’d tensed when someone at dinner had made a careless joke about the war.
“Why did you never say anything?”
“Would you have believed me?” He met her gaze steadily. “You had formed your opinion of me long ago. The rakish baronet who fled to the Continent rather than serve his country. Who spent his time in pursuit of pleasure while better men died.”
“I was wrong,” she whispered. The admission cost her pride, but truth mattered more. “About so many things, it seems.”
Thunder rolled again, but more distantly now. In the vestry’s dim light, she could see raindrops clinging to his eyelashes.
“Not about everything,” he said. “I did pursue pleasure on the Continent—after the war. I needed…something to drive away the memories. The nightmares.” His hand moved as if to touch her face, then dropped. “But I am not that man anymore. Just as you are not the same girl who pledged her troth to Thomas.”
“No,” she agreed softly. “I’m not.”
A shaft of watery sunlight suddenly pierced the vestry’s high window, illuminating a row of leather-bound books on a nearby shelf. Amelia rose, drawn by their promise, and Sir Frederick followed more slowly.
“Parish records,” she breathed, running her finger along the spines. “Dating back to… yes! Here’s 1719.”
Together they lifted down the heavy volume, laying it carefully on the vestry’s small desk. The pages were yellowed but well-preserved, the clerk’s careful handwriting still clearly legible. Amelia’s heart beat faster as she turned to August’s entries.
And there it was. Not in the book itself but written separately on a loose piece of paper.
“August 8th, 1719,” she read aloud. “William Greene and Pernilla Pendleton, joined in holy matrimony.” Her finger traced the line below. “Witnessed by…”
“The curate and his wife,” Sir Frederick finished. “The very day before she supposedly died.”
