Page 30 of Lady Willa's Divinely Wicked Vicar
“Thank the Lord!” boomed the man. “We know he’s no Methodist because he drinks!”
Mama narrowed her eyes. “As do you!”
“He gives rousing sermons.”
“Awakening the parishioners!”
Dear God!
Her father put up a palm. “Next thing we know he’ll reveal himself to be that rabble rouser, Reverend Peoples!”
Wills put a hand to her forehead. Papa needed to read Reverend Peoples to learn how desperately people needed a kind church, a caring government. The good man her papa referred to was a source of inspiration to his readers…and to her. This past winter, Reverend Peoples had also published two novels. Both had sold thousands of copies. Ranting against workers laboring long hours in mines and factories, Charlie was so popular, he was oft referred to by those on the floor of the Commons. To many, Peoples was a beacon and a blessing. To those who favored the status quo—like her papa—a thorn in their sides.
Wills would procliam that good man’s value any day, any hour. “The good reverend tells tales we should all hear.”
“He’s teaching them to revolt!” He shook a finger at her and her mother.
“Bark.” The lady scowled at her husband of thirty-one years. “I would too if my vicar cried with me over my poverty, praised me for my fortitude, then took my bread as thank you for saying prayers over my bare cupboard and my skinny body!”
Done with this, Wills put up a hand. “Stop. I am going to this party. And yes, I will see the Reverend Charles Compton. I will!”
“Don’t you think,” said her father, “before you go that you should make decisions about your marriage?”
She fixed him with blank eyes. “I’ll tell you when I return.”
Two days later, on the way to the Courtlands’ party, Wills ordered the family coachman to stop at an inn on the main road. Wills had made her acquaintance with the owner of the Horse and Dog last year when she’d traveled to the May Day party.
Wills ran inside, leaving her maid Mary bewildered as to why she’d not allow her the duty of fetching whatever Wills wished from the innkeeper’s wife. Posting the newest letter from ‘Miss Edith Stanley’ to a lady in Brighton, Wills secured her future and rejoiced in her ingenuity.
Then she quickly returned to her carriage and squeezed Mary’s hand. “Tell no one we stopped, please.”
“But the coachman may have reason to tell your parents that you did.”
“I’ll take a chance on that. But you will know nothing. Only that I fetched a letter.”
“A love letter then?” Mary ventured, her expression troubled. All in the de Courcy household knew of the rift between father and daughter—and the cause.
“No. Far from that.”
Mary seemed to accept that and Wills settled into the squabs.
Four hours later, her traveling coach rounded the drive to Courtland Hall. She’d taken the opportunity of the quiet time in the family carriage to solidify her plans for ‘Miss Edith Stanley’. Truth was that Lady Willa Sheffield was about to vanish. She would not go to France in June with her irascible father. She would not marry one of his obnoxious candidates for her husband. Nor would she ever be able to marry her darling Reverend Charles Compton. She had committed herself to becoming Miss Edith Stanley before he’d arrived at her home and proposed marriage. Even if she no longer believed that she was a curse to men who wished to marry her, she had pledged to change her life. She would not go back on her promise to her new employer, nor to herself. She would change her life immediately after she enjoyed herself at this house party for the last time.
In three days, she would become someone else. Fashioned of her own efforts, Miss Edith Stanley would begin a new life. Without mother, father, friends. And without charming Charles Compton.
* * *
Charlie turned at the door of Eunice Billoughby’s cottage and prayed he might give her more than words of comfort and a few potatoes for soup. “You’ll need help peeling those vegetables, Mrs. Billoughby. I’ll send my housekeeper down to you.”
“No, sir!” The woman was just as proud and stubborn as her husband. But the broken arm she cradled in the sling the village doctor had made for her, would attack that pride with pain. Nor would she take aught for her anguish, save her husband’s jug of gin. Serve him right for her to drink up his lot. But two drunks in the family would bring disaster on the four little children who depended on both parents to survive. “I will not have her. I can do for us.”
“Vicar!” George hailed him with a hand weaving in the air as he stumbled to the door. “Send the woman. Ol’ ‘Unice here needs a hand.” He gave a rueful chuckle at his double meaning.
She gave her husband the evil eye. “You broke me arm, you fool.”
“And you must help your wife, Mr. Billoughby. Go to bed. Sober up!” George had become a mean drunk in the past few months. The worst kind. Robbed of the pride the man should have to feed and clothe his family in the right way of honest labor, George took to Blue Ruin to salve his wounds.
Charlie nodded. “Good day to you both.”
