As the sun continued to rise, the parish began to knock to life. Matthew could be heard milling about in the halls, setting up thesanctuary for the reception of guests and presumably pulling his wrinkled cassock on backwards for half an hour before realizing it needed to be turned.
Vix chuckled to herself at the image, reminding herself to ask him how accurate it was later.
“Thaddeus and I were at odds about whether or not to bring your wedding gift to the church with us,” Hannah told her, watching as Vix stepped into the gown and let Rosalind assist her in pulling it up over her arms. “I won, of course.”
“Oh?” said Vix, turning with curiosity as the laces began to be woven into place. “Do you have it with you?”
“No, he will bring it,” the other woman said with a grin. “I’m afraid it will need to be sequestered in the vicarage office until after the vows.”
“Sequestered?” Mae repeated, dimpling. “Did you bring them something volatile and disruptive?”
“Of course,” said Hannah, blinking her big blue eyes.
“If it is Dinah,” Vix said immediately, “I shall not keep her. I already told you I’m not a governess anymore.”
Hannah giggled. “My parents will be devastated to hear that.”
“I imagine they’re devastated upon waking every day and seeing her at the table again,” Vix replied fondly. “What a gift that girl is.”
“A gift like whatever is in the vicarage office, I suppose,” Mae added.
All the while Rosalind made little huffing noises at them. “I got you a very lovely tea set,” she said, when they were quiet enough for her to put in the contribution. “I hope you like it.”
“I will,” said Vix, and Rosalind looked mollified. To Mae, she cut her eyes and said, “Well? What about you?”
“Me?” Mae asked, blinking her big, honey-brown eyes. “I showed up.”
“Insolent,” Vix commented, and then shook her hair out as the final laces were secured at the top of her dress.
She sat down again to have the bottom bits of her hair braided into a band, dotted with silver lace and baby’s breath and pinned into place by Mae’s steady hands, which evidently were good for things other than setting bones and lancing boils.
“You are wasted on horror, I think,” Vix commented, admiring the work. “You’d likely get paid better as a hairdresser.”
“Yes, but there would be so much less blood,” Mae returned, simpering. “And then how would I feel alive?”
“A good question,” Vix replied, batting her lashes as her lips were dabbed with plum-hued oil. “Perhaps we should ask Mr. Reed.”
“Have you spoken to him, Mae?” Hannah asked, latching on immediately like a fish on a baited hook. “Since that day you met? Did you even speak to him at my wedding?”
“Oh, look at how high the sun has gotten,” Mae said airily, using Vix’s shoulders to push herself to standing with significantly more force than was necessary. “We ought to go ready the aisle.”
Vix bit down on the grunt that almost escaped from the assault, glaring at them as they all bustled out to see to whatever nonsense Mae had just fabricated. She stood and walked to the window, peering out at the fig tree on the lawn.
The sun was higher than she’d realized, she acknowledged, if only to herself.
It would be time soon.
She turned and looked in the mirror, half expecting to see herself at eleven staring back, dressed in a borrowed gown with pomade-slicked hair. Instead, she saw Victoria Beck, on her last day.
And Lady Aster on her first.
CHAPTER 13
Ambrose was not entirely convinced he hadn’t swallowed a wasp’s nest at some point in the night. It was the only reasonable explanation for how he was feeling.
It was as though the entirety of his inner body was experiencing that dreadful sensation of a thousand needles that one gets after a foot or arm falls asleep from misuse. That wasn’t possible, was it? It wasn’t as though he’d tangled up his insides awkwardly for too long or elsewise left them under something heavy, only to whip away the obstacle on the morning of his wedding.
No, wasps were the only reasonable explanation.
