Angelika felt a flip of energy in her stomach when he looked into her eyes, even as she felt guilty at the memory of Will behind at home, anxiously awaiting the news. But she had always wanted to go to the tavern, and life didn’t hold many chances for it. And frankly, if this baby was proof of Will’s former life, she’d want to drink every bottle they had.
She had no sooner said, “I should like that,” when the door opened and Clara came through, holding a tear-stained baby.
Without ceremony, she handed the baby to Angelika. “This is Edwin.”
“Exactly like his father,” Christopher remarked, his eyes crinkling as a stunned Angelika took the infant in her arms. “Even has the same bright red hair.”
Chapter Twelve
Angelika and Christopher rode back to Blackthorne Manor in the dark, and rather drunk.
“I’m highly suspicious of Father Porter,” Angelika told Christopher with a slur in her voice. She held her loose reins by the buckle and had not offered much input to her mount, Percy, who thankfully knew the path home. “I wonder what secrets he is hiding.”
As they had admired the baby’s milky skin, carrot-red hair, and periwinkle-blue eyes, Angelika had found herself repeating a reflexive prayer of thanks. To whom, she wasn’t sure. She was just grateful to the universe. Clara was not Will’s wife, nor Edwin his child, and she had enjoyed a surprisingly lovely afternoon. It was a respite from the tensions in Blackthorne Manor. To atone for that, she planned on ordering a crate of vegetables and meat, to be delivered to Clara on Mondays.
And apples. She would send her a bag of apples a week, saving them from their fate.
Drinking in the tavern had softened the wound of knowing that Will, deep down, completely believed he would never wed her. But now, under the rising moon, she was rallying her troops, to borrow an expression from Christopher.
She spoke to herself firmly.
Regroup, Angelika. You will not win Will by drooping and crying. Give him time. Think of the miracles you have already witnessed! A marriage proposal is hardly out of the realm of possibility.
Christopher brought her back to their conversation. “Father Porter is a man of God.” Then he grinned and pointed skyward. “His big secret is that he has no real employer at all.”
She nodded her approval. Another atheist. “If my own dear father had not been so manipulated by the church, we would have ten times the estate we have now. They bled him slowly over many years. And when Mama—” She broke off, emotion choking her.
Christopher wanted to know. “She died when you were young?”
“When I was thirteen, and Victor was sixteen. Papa was to bring a doctor to the house, because she had scarlet fever. Father Porter convinced him to pray for my mother’s soul instead. It did not work, of course, and Papa died of grief three months after her. There is nothing I despise more than a thief, and that is what I believe Father Porter is at heart. He stole that last chance to save her. And so that is why Victor and I do not attend on Sundays. We will not be taken for fools. Heathens and witches, yes. But not fools.”
“I have heard that he will be replaced soon. Hopefully by somebody younger and more progressive in their thinking.”
She snorted. “He was ancient when I was a child, so someone younger would not be difficult.”
“I’m sorry that happened. To lose your father to grief is especially tragic.” Christopher sounded like he was uncertain.
She shrugged. “It is part of the Frankenstein temperament. We are passionate people. When my beloved dies one day, I expect that I shall die, too.” She rode in silence for a few minutes.
If Henry Hoggett’s body had been sold to the morgue, as she deeply suspected, who else had the good father cashed in on? She would pull on this new thread for Will. “I’ve got to be a glutton for punishment,” she said out loud.
Christopher’s seat in the saddle had loosened considerably these last few miles, and Angelika thought she might be about to witness a rare crease upon his immaculate person. That must be why her eyes kept returning to him. It was an undeniable fact: he had wonderful thighs. Absolutely marvelous.
“Not much further now,” she said. “I can go on alone from here.”
“After the story you told me, about some oaf in your orchard, petting your hair? Not a chance.” His attention was completely on her. This had been the case from the time they sat down in the tavern, and the first and second ale mugs became the third and fourth. She’d gradually revealed more of herself to him; the parts that she knew were most unattractive.