“The rubbishing snake made an impression, like the first time you taste sour milk. A vile experience that teaches you a caution you never forget. I hate that you were under his thumb for years, Michael.”
Michael studied cold eyes and a nearly convincing smile. “I wasn’t under his thumb. I learned to maneuver around him, to avoid his notice, to accomplish what I needed to when his back was turned. I hope the congregation learned from my example.”
“And now you must confront him.”
“Now I choose to confront him.” Michael had made that decision for his children, but also for Psyche. He’d admonished her to shed her Henderson persona, to take her talent into the light. Michael could do no less where his love for his children was concerned.
“I want to be with you tomorrow, Michael.”
Drat her loyalty. He wanted her with him tomorrow, too—badly. “Arbuckle is vindictive and determined. He has waited years to move against me, and he won’t quibble at casting aspersion on your good name.”
Psyche rose and scuffed her feet into a pair of slippers. “Aspersion for standing with you in a difficult moment? He’ll have Helmsley there, and should anything go amiss, you should have a witness in your corner too. If you asked your father to come as well, nobody would take it amiss. It’s Vicar Tom’s church.”
She had… a point. “Coming with me is not wise, Psyche, and I hope to spare Papa the embarrassment of such an encounter too.”
Psyche sat at the vanity and unplaited what remained of her braid. “You have several seriously misguided notions rattling around in your handsome head, Mr. Delancey. Your father would be embarrassed for the hypocrites masquerading as churchmen, never for you.”
Michael pushed to the side of the bed, rose, and stretched. “I want you with me, Psyche, but Arbuckle is dangerous. If he’ll menace a small child, he’ll think nothing of wrecking your artistic aspirations.”
Michael picked up her sketchbook from the bedside table, turned the page, and found an image of himself, sprawled among the covers.
“You are quick,” he said, marveling at the accuracy with which she’d drawn even his hand.
“Turn to the next one.” Psyche picked up a brush and began tidying her hair with brisk strokes. “I want you to have it.”
She’d done a sketch of Bea in the park with Miss Feathers. The little drawing caught all the glee Bea was capable of and the mundane splendor of a family picnic. Michael sank to the bed, goggling at the sketch.
“I hope you like it,” Psyche said, turning on the vanity stool. “Bea is an easy subject, a joyful subject, and I didn’t know if you had any… Michael, have I presumed?”
He set the sketch aside carefully and held out his hand. “You have not presumed. You could never presume. I haven’t any sketches of Bea. Nothing but a lock of her baby hair. I didn’t want to ask, but…”
Psyche rose and enfolded him in a hug. “She is your daughter. Whatever happens tomorrow, she is your daughter, and you should have all the likenesses of her you please.”
Michael stood, the better to embrace the woman he loved with his whole heart. “Come tomorrow, then. Come and keep me from doing something truly stupid.”
“Trying to keep me away would be truly stupid. You risk your life for the babies of faceless strangers. What do you think the people who love you would risk for you?”
Michael had no idea what flight of logic had prompted Psyche’s question. He simply held on to her and thanked the heavenly powers that she was his to love, if only for one more day.
“Delancey says he’ll meet you at St. Mildred’s tomorrow at two of the clock, and he wants me present.” Helmsley passed the little note across his desk to Arbuckle. “Read it yourself.”
Arbuckle took Delancey’s epistle and set it aside. “You need not come, Helmsley, and I advise you not to. You don’t answer to a failed curate you never sought to hire.”
Helmsley had thrived as an administrator in part because he had a keen sense for who held authority and who held rank. The two were not always synonymous. A bishop’s wife might run his see, and many an experienced curate took the reins while the vicar grew dotty.
Arbuckle had the rank of a mere rural vicar, and whatever authority he’d earned by being two years ahead of Helmsley at university had faded to nothing.
“I don’t answer to you either,” Helmsley said, retrieving the note. “Delancey says there will be a child present, and he wants me on hand to guarantee the good behavior of the adults.”
Arbuckle sat back, making the chair creak. “He wants you on hand so I won’t have him arrested for kidnapping.”
Unease began to roil in Helmsley’s belly. Not dread—yet. If the church fathers hated one thing even worse than the seven deadly sins, it was scandal in the clerical ranks.
“You think to arrest an employee of the palace?”
“Delancey hasn’t come to work the past two days, has he? Can you still say he’s laboring in the archbishop’s vineyard? I wonder if he’ll even show up at St. Mildred’s when he knows he’s guilty of kidnapping.”
Delancey had resigned his post in a separate missive—shrewd of him—with decorous apologies for the lack of notice. Family matters had abruptly arisen that demanded his complete devotion. The official record, if there was one, would reflect poorly on him, but not disastrously.
“Who is this child he refers to?” A bastard was dealt with easily enough. A youthful indiscretion, or a lady who might have played her suitor false and a swain too noble to turn his back on the evidence of her perfidy. Delancey’s sheer probity could make such a story credible.
“That child is my ward, Letitia Ann Crowley. Her parents perished of influenza, and her father’s will named me—me and no other—as the child’s guardian. I bid Delancey to take the infant to a wet nurse of good repute, and he instead secreted the girl someplace of his own choosing. I was subsequently told my Letitia had died, not yet a year old.”
Arbuckle rose and produced an embroidered handkerchief. “I grieved, Helmsley. My wife and I were not blessed with children, and we were so looking forward to doting on the girl. Mrs. Arbuckle was devastated, while I… Never have I prayed so hard for one blameless little soul.”
He turned away, and some manly sniffling ensued.
Helmsley had served for a few years as curate to an old curmudgeon whose gruff manners had nonetheless hidden a kind heart. Old Vicar Edwards had never owned an embroidered handkerchief, and he’d never put on performances such as Arbuckle was attempting now.
“Delancey has been in London for the better part of a year, but you wait until now to call him to account?” Then too, how could a vicar be hoodwinked into thinking one of his own parishioners, a child he’d likely baptized, had perished? Who had presided over the funeral?
Where exactly had the wet nurse of good repute lived? A successful administrator kept sight of the details.
“Why now?” Arbuckle gazed at the fire in the hearth as if gathering his composure. “You, Helmsley, inquired into Delancey’s fitness for a vicar’s post, and my conscience prompted me to investigate the situation more closely.” Arbuckle lowered himself back into his chair as wearily as if he’d trudged the whole distance down from York on foot. “I could find no record of a funeral, which for an infant isn’t unusual, but no coroner for fifty miles about had documented the child’s death. My wife begged me to come forth, and I know my duty to the truth, no matter what it might cost me.”