Page 69 of Snowy and the Seven Doves
Ned surreptitiously wiped away a tear, and Snowy had to swallow hard.It would have been worse if she had been abused, he told himself. All the lost years! All the years stolen from the three of them, him, Ned, and his mother. But at least she had been safe, and she died among friends. Grief clawed at his heart, and his gaze turned unerringly to his heart’s peace, where she sat, talking to Chapman.
“I want to stay with my family,” Dickon announced. “To get to know them.” He turned his glower on Chapman, but his voice was both humble and pleading. “May I, sir?”
Chapman exchanged a glance with his wife. “We have to make that trip,” he reminded her. “Itisurgent.”
“Hal and I are to be wed tomorrow,” Margaret commented. “We applied for a common license.” The others appeared as nonplussed as Snowy, but Snowy caught on when Margaret added, “It allowed us to be wed after seven days, without the banns being read.”
The Chapman’s important errand was obvious when Snowy thought about it, as was Margaret’s purpose in introducing the topic of their license. The pair had been eloping to Scotland to regularize their union out of sight of local gossip.
Snowy added his mite. “One can apply for a common license to a local bishop, to the archdeacons of some parishes, or to the vicar of a Royal Peculiar,” he informed the group.
“Our bishop lives in Oxford,” Mrs. Chapman commented. “Dearest?”
“Would you excuse us for a moment?” Chapman said politely to the company. A hurried consultation with Mrs. Chapman and then with her eldest son, had him firmly stating his intention to use his post chaise after all. “I will be able to return by evening,” he declared.
So, when Snowy’s party walked back to the inn, Chapman went too. They left Dickon Deffew with his mother and newly-discovered sisters and brother. “I will stay here at least long enough to go with mother and her husband next week,” he said, his jaw jutted as if he expected someone to deny him. Nobody did.
While Margaret’s carriage and the post-chaise Chapman was going to use after all were being readied, he showed Ned and Snowy their mother’s grave in the little churchyard. They stood over it in silence for several minutes. Ned gripped Snowy’s shoulder hard, and Snowy returned the grip.
“Rest in peace, Mama,” Snowy said, and Ned’s voice shook on theAmen.
Wakefield must have guessed Chapman’s secret, for when he heard that the doctor was now making a day trip, he mentioned he knew the vicar at Dorchester Abbey, just out of Oxford, and that the parish was a Royal Peculiar—beholden to the Crown and not in any diocese.
Dorchester was closer—less than two hours. Wakefield offered to go with Chapman to talk to the Dorchester Abbey vicar. “I’ll catch the mail coach from there and still be home in London tonight,” he said.
Then Chapman and Wakefield departed for Dorchester Abbey, and Snowy, Margaret, the Ashbys and their parties for London.
Snowy, Margaret and Ned arrived back at Margaret’s townhouse in the twilight, weary and stiff after the journey. “No need to tell me anything tonight,” Pauline said, when she greeted them. “I’ve had water on the boil for the past hour, and the footmen are carrying it upstairs to pour into your baths even as we speak.”
“I need to see Ned settled,” Margaret told her.
“If someone will just point me at that bath and then bed,” Ned said, “I will be more than happy.”
“I can do that,” Pauline assured him. “A little supper as well, Mr. Snowden? I’ve arranged trays for Lady Charmain, Lord Snowden, and Miss Trent.”
“Miss Turner, you are an angel,” Ned declared, and followed her and the maids she summoned up the stairs to the guest chambers.
Margaret was nearly asleep in the bath when Hal let himself in through the connecting door, still damp from his own bath and carrying his tray.
He held her towel for her, then used it to dab her dry, managing a few caresses and kisses before Margaret’s maid walked into the dressing room without knocking and shrieked in shock.
“Her ladyship will not need you,” Hal told the maid. “I will serve as my lady’s maid tonight.”
The servant blushed and giggled.
“Shall we go through to your sitting room for supper, my love?” Hal asked. “So the footmen can empty your bath?”
Margaret managed a few bites but gave up after a particularly jaw-cracking yawn.
“Time for bed,” Snowy decided, and Margaret agreed.
She stumbled through the necessary pre-bedtime routines in a haze of fatigue, and when her head was on the pillow, she barely had the energy to mumble, “I don’t think I can manage to stay awake for… Hal?”
His eyes were closed and his breathing had slowed.
“Hal? Are you asleep?”
No response.I’ll take that as a yes.It was her last thought of the night.
