Page 64 of Better Love Next Time
Introductions dispensed with, he settled in a straight-backed chair. “I suspect my sister has regaled you with her famous two dances with the infamous Mr. St. Clair?”
“He is not infamous, brother,” his sister said.
Kitty thought, oh yes he is.
The conversation turned to current events in the town and widened to England and the colonies. Althea touched upon a charity Madame was eager to start, and when Kitty fixed her with a silencing look, Althea shifted to her own upbringing near Manchester as a parson’s daughter.
“You must play the organ,” the vicar said to Althea.
“I can say, sir, I know the hymns as well as the good book.”
“Miss Dixley, I have just come from the home of our organist, Mrs. Dudley, who has taken ill with her rheumatism. Might you grace us with your play tomorrow?”
Miss Carleton admitted she had two left hands as Althea shook her head.
“Don’t be modest, Althea.” Kitty patted her knee. “Of course you must play.”
All settled, Althea gulped her tea.
Miss Carleton asked in the lull, “And Mr. St. Clair is here to stay?”
“Yes, he is,” Kitty replied.
“Madame, you will excuse my sister’s enthusiasm. Mr. St. Clair was the most eligible bachelor from here to London before his departure. You are remaining as well, yes?”
Pinking, Miss Carleton fumbled with her cross pendant.
“I am, thank you.” Kitty was tired and embarrassed that a vicar’s sister had stirred her into a sulk. “My husband has reopened our shipyard. And though we offer four pence more per day, it has been difficult to recruit men. They do not trust he will remain, you see. Though the circumstances of his departure were entirely my fault.”
“I see,” the vicar said with a boyish frown.
“We do expect our men and their families to attend service every Sunday. And to fill the twelve vacant cottages on our property.” Cottages within Holyrood’s parish and therefore families whose tithes belonged to Vicar Carleton’s church.
Finally, after an hour-long visit which threatened to turn longer, Kitty thanked them for their hospitality and promised to see them before service in order for Althea to practice the organ.
As they walked the block to the Dolphin, Kitty looped her arm in Althea’s. “I believe Miss Carleton just a little in love with my husband.”
Althea’s expression was long. “And I suspect, Madame, your husband brought it on through a fault of his own.”
“Yes, it is certain he did. I wonder what else we will discover on the six parish visits remaining.”
“Madame, I do not know the hymns well enough to play them for the congregation.”
Kitty halted in the middle of the Dolphin’s central arch leading to the court. Why was she surprised and yet, not? Julian had voiced his doubts about Althea, a serving wench with a prayer book. And when Althea had knocked on her door the night she had taken the laudanum, Kitty had noted her educated speech as out of place.
“Your father is not a parson,” Kitty said.
“No.”
“I will not ask.”
Althea’s grey eyes watered behind her spectacles in the sunlight. “Please do not.”
Who was she? Was her name even Althea Dixley? Did it even matter?
Althea was her friend. And she was tired from her tongue to her feet. “It seems you will also have to take to your bed tomorrow like Mrs. Dudley, and I will have to play.”
Kitty knew the hymns, having attended the Anglican service regardless of her family’s Catholic faith. All English were required. Titles and lands were stripped from professed Catholics and the two things her father, a baronet, had loved more than his faith was his hunting and hounds.
