Page 93 of Miss Delightful
“We should retrieve Papa from his office,” she said. “He’s not to walk back to the vicarage on his own.”
Mr. Delancey senior had retired to his office at the end of the evening with his sexton and curate, toreview a few matters relating to the grounds.
“I’ll fetch him.” Alasdhair found the vicar sitting alone in a comfortably stuffy office, beeswax candles burning low, an empty glass in his hand.
“So you will never be a bishop,” Alasdhair said. “You also won’t have to watch your daughter go slowly mad married to Mornebeth. The hall has been put to rights, and Dorcas doesn’t want you walking home alone.”
Delancey rose and set his glass on the sideboard. “Her mother used to fuss at me for the same thing. Walking half the length of the street on my own.”
“How much of that brandy have you had, sir?”
“Not nearly enough.” He used a brass snuffer to douse the candles. “I have questions for you, MacKay.”
“I know those ladies because they occasionally come to me for aid. I gather Dorcas met Big Nan in jail, and when I explained what was afoot, the ladies were eager to see justice done. They will swear out affidavits, testify in the church court, or send letters to Lambeth if called upon to do so.”
Delancey shuffled from the office and closed the door. “Is that what happened? Justice was done?”
“You will have to take that up with your daughter. I thought she was wonderful.”
Delancey’s progress down the corridor was slow. “So did I. I always have.”
“You might tell her that.” More than that, Alasdhair would not say.
Michael Delancey was not simply a son to be proud of, he was spectacularly attractive, with a churchman’s gravitas added to dark good looks and a shrewd, nimble intellect. The seriousness and intelligence that gave him depth served only to obscure Dorcas’s equally impressive attributes.
She was every bit as smart, formidable, and attractive as her brother, but rather than respect, she reaped committee meetings, a reputation for eccentricity, and an ironic nickname.
Alasdhair was about to point out that particular injustice as the vicar sallied into the hall ahead of him. “Children, do we conclude the evening was a success?”
Alasdhair hung back, sensing that Mr. Delancey’s question was an opening salvo of some sort.
“I do,” Michael replied. “A good time was had by all, excepting perhaps the man who made my years in the north an exercise in self-imposed penury.”
Dorcas occupied herself arranging several chairs before the hearth. “Michael, you need not revisit ancient history.”
“Mayhap he does need to,” Alasdhair replied from near the door. “Sometimes a fellow needs to unburden himself, and you will still love him dearly when he’s had his say. Let’s sit, shall we?”
She sent him a brooding, uncertain look. He took her hand and led her to a chair.
Michael ambled over to take a seat before the fire as well. “Come, Papa. You’d best hear this now, because Mornebeth will doubtless put about his own version of events.”
The vicar perched on the edge of a chair, looking as if he’d rather be in darkest Peru without a canteen or compass.
“I was foolish,” Michael said. “I came down from university too eager to acquire my Town bronze. I let Mornebeth lead me into one gaming hell after another. I lost my shirt, my sense, and my honor. Mornebeth bought up my vowels and kindly offered to hold them for me at five percent interest. He had me sign a promissory note. I did not realize at the time that by signing the note, I arguably converted unenforceable debts of honor into a contractual obligation.”
Michael glanced at his father and sister. Neither said a word.
“I further did not realize,” he went on, “that by asking me to sign such a note, Mornebeth offered me a grave insult. And finally, until I consulted Papa’s solicitors last week, I did not know that a minor’s signature on such a document is worthless—unless the minor continues to pay on the obligation into his majority, in which case the transaction can become legally binding. I did not realize much.”
“He’s why you went north?” the vicar asked. “So far from home and from temptation?”
“Mornebeth did not give me much of a choice,” Michael said. “He strongly hinted, he implied, he did not quite threaten, but my options were clear. If I tarried around London, word of my intemperate behavior would become known. The last place I wanted to be was far from my family, but off I went, to where my wages would barely suffice for necessities. Mornebeth knew that would be the case.”
Beside Alasdhair, Dorcas was sitting very still, her grip on his hand tight.
“Lady Phoebe alerted me to that parish in Yorkshire,” the vicar said. “She allowed as how a newly ordained young man might want to try out his wings away from the paternal eye. She was sending Isaiah north and probably wanted you to serve as her spy.”
Michael’s brows drew down. “She wrote to me from time to time, always mentioning some sighting of you or Dorcas. I wrote back the usual platitudes. The weather, the church calendar. The Mornebeth apple did not fall far from the tree.”
