“Dean of the Chapel Royal,” Charlie said, before backing out the door.
“Your Grace,” the bishop said in a sonorous voice, “I thank you for admittance to your house. I would request a word in private on a very serious matter.”
“What? Come to scold us for not attending church, have you? Well, Lady Misery here knows well enough that I only attend my own church in my own neighborhood in the Dales. Having one vicar in my life is quite sufficient!”
The bishop looked positively horrified. “You do not attend church?”
Serenity got the idea that was not why the bishop had come but was rather new information.
“Did I not tell you the state of this household, Bishop,” Lady Marchfield said.
The bishop nodded gravely.
“I am sure she told you quite a lot, Bishop,” the duke said. “She tells everybody quite a lot. Perhaps what she did not mention was that she goes round acting all pious without a sympathetic bone in her body! Not very Christian in my view. What about that?”
The bishop did not seem to know anything about Lady Marchfield’s unsympathetic bones. “Your Grace, if we might have a word privately?”
“Nonsense,” the duke said. “Anything you have to say can be said in hearing of my family and my housekeeper.”
This seemed to pull the bishop up short. Serenity was feeling pulled up short herself. Why had he come? What were they supposed to do? Could they sit down? She did not know—she’d never been visited by a bishop before.
“Very well,” the bishop said. “Lady Marchfield and the curate of the Grosvenor Church have given me a full accounting of what has transpired here with Mr. Cremble. Including the unfortunate, and may I say alarming, involvement of your housekeeper.”
If the bishop had thought those ideas would strike the duke hard, he was to be disappointed. The duke laughed uproariously. “An amusing tale, is it not?”
The bishop pulled himself up straighter. “Amusing? Your Grace, there is every indication that something is spiritually amiss in this house!”
“Oh, is there?” the duke asked. “From my view, I would think a bishop would be a little concerned that a fellow churchman would fall for such ridiculous stories! A meeting with the devil on the moors and now my housekeeper cannot be anywhere near a cross? Preposterous.”
Lady Marchfield stepped forward. “Then how do you explain that this housekeeper of yours fell back at a moment when a cross was nearby though she could not even see it? It was lodged under a table and she could not have even known it was there! Roland, this woman has had you under her thrall for years and I have never understood why. But now, I believe the truth is beginning to show itself!”
The bishop turned to Mrs. Right. “Madame, howdoyou explain that point, as that really is the crux of the matter. Why did you fall back from a cross you could not see?”
“Because Cook saw him put it there,” Mrs. Right said, raising her eyes defiantly. “I was instantly informed of it, as my staff are loyal to me. Since your Mr. Cremble decided he was to act as a Spanish Inquisitor, I decided to play along.” The housekeeper took that moment to pull the cross around her neck from under her fichu. “I am a god-fearing woman, Bishop Porteus. But I am not a butler-fearing woman.”
“You see? Gullible is what that fellow Crumble or Bumble or whatever his name is. They all are, in my experience,” the duke said. “My sister throws them into the house and my housekeeper throws them out. It’s become a family tradition!”
Serenity did her best not to laugh. It really had become a tradition. They all knew well enough that their father could put a stop to it, but he was always too amused to discover how the situation would play out.
The bishop seemed to take in Mrs. Right’s words and the cross around her neck. “Lady Marchfield, perhaps we have been precipitous in a leap to judgment. There is the possibility that Mr. Cremble misinterpreted events.”
“Do not let them fool you,” Lady Marchfield said. “That woman is evil in one way or another, even if we cannot see exactly how.”
“Bishop,” the duke said from his place lounging on the sofa, “my advice is to drop Lady Misery at home and be done with her. Her lord won’t be happy to see her, he never is, but that’s his problem, is it not?”
“Roland!” Lady Marchfield exclaimed.
Serenity was not certain why her aunt looked so shocked. Her father had said the same or something like it a hundred times.
The bishop seemed to think for a moment. Then he said, “I will take my leave. Though, before I do, I must point out, Your Grace, that attendance at church is not to be at your convenience. Not even a duke can put the Sunday service aside. I highly suggest you begin attending while you are in Town, to protect your immortal soul. As well, I suggest you carefully monitor your household for any suggestion that all is not as it should be in a God-fearing house.”
With that, the bishop bowed and took his leave. Lady Marchfield hurried after him, but not before casting a last glare at her brother.
After the doors shut and Lady Marchfield’s carriage departed the square, Valor said, “What do you think, Papa? Should we go to church to protect our immortal souls?”
“Go if you like, somebody will take you,” the duke said. “However, I think our quiet reading of the bible for an hour on a Sunday morning and attending service in the Dales is quite sufficient. The bishop and his ilk would like us all to thinkthat God is at every church doorstep taking attendance. Very convenient of them to think it, too, but I do not see it that way.”
Valor seemed well satisfied with that answer, as did they all, Serenity supposed. Perhaps Verity did not look wholly convinced but she was likely only searching her mind for facts on the subject.
