When I expressed my worry about him giving up his profession, he shook his head.
“I feel my relationship to God in other things,” he said, looking at Adeline and then at me. “And I have other endeavors which mean more to me than the role I was trained for.”
This decision put an end to all hostility between Trescott Abbey and the village. When we first returned, the village had already softened considerably to me. The gifts that I planned before our departure to London did their work. The men who were angry with me, who menaced me, would not do so now. Not when their wives would scold them for it and remind them of the food sent by the Abbey. And when they are no longer supposed to look up to a man who gave into his passions as their vicar, many are even willing to be happy for us.
But even though Trescott has become a different place to me, I still long for London. And after an exquisite fall under the trees at the Abbey, I could wait no longer to see it again. I missed the counting house—which I had not seen since a brief trip to town a few months after Addy’s birth—and the lively streets and the sense that, even we, the notorious and powerful de Laceys, can have something like anonymity.
Thus, now, we are back in London, and we have just come from a Christmas Eve party hosted by the Honourable Mr. Henry Bertram and his new wife, the Honourable Mrs. Henry Bertram. What happened between those two who seemed so differentwas quite the surprise to everyone when it came to light. But now their marriage is already a year old.
And as it so happened, Alfred’s new endeavor, the one that he forfeited being a vicar to pursue, involves the newlyweds.
It is all because of an accident.
When I was still pregnant with Adeline and we were still in London, Alfred finished his first manuscript, the first he ever wrote, and which told the story of our love.
He titled it and presented it to me when he was done.
The Seduction of Mr. Alfred Saintsbury,it read across the top.
And a thick manuscript it was too.
I read the entire thing in an afternoon. And declared it sinful and wonderful.
“You should publish it,” I told my husband. “It is as good as anything in the bookstores here. Even the backroom at Willoughby’s.”
He shook his head.
“No,” he said. “This book is only for us. But the next one perhaps—well, we will see.”
I objected, but he insisted. And I thought no one would ever read it.
But I had forgotten that Evie Colley does not always knock.
One day, I came into my study—or lumbered, as I had become quite with child—and saw Evie sitting at my desk.
She was reading Alfred’s manuscript.
I opened my mouth to scold her, but when she looked up at me she was weeping.
“Evie!” I exclaimed.
“I am sorry, Annabelle,” she said. “I shouldn’t have read it.”
Many things happened soon after that conversation—but it was months before she spoke to Alfred about it. It was after, in fact, she became the Honourable Mrs. Henry Bertram.
Evie, as usual, had a scheme.
She wanted Alfred to write the love story of her and Henry. In the same style in which he wrote ours.
To my shock, Alfred agreed.
And now he has finished it.
“It is done,” he says, bringing the manuscript to where I lie in bed. “I gave Evie her copy tonight.”
“The Corruption of the Honourable Henry Bertram,” I say, reading the title across the top. “And Evie wants to sell it?”
“Yes. She wants to split the profits. Of course we don’t need the money, so I convinced her to take a larger cut. They want the money for their campaign next year and I can’t think of a better cause. And I think that she has hopes that the publicity will help too. She reasons they are already scandalous. And that people love a love story.”
