Page 51 of Courting the Vicar’s Daughter

Eventually, she had to rise from bed. Her father would not hear of her skipping church, not unless she was ill. Would Harry be there to glare at all the congregants for their harsh judgment of him? Or would he stay away, his true character revealed?

Personally, she hoped he would not come. She had no wish to see him.

Her heart cracked, and her eyes ached. She would most certainly not cry about the situation. She’d kept dry eyes all night. Morning would see her just as resolved to put Harry—Mr. Devon—from her mind completely. He was nothing to her. Not anymore.

She washed her face and prepared for the Sabbath. The house was quiet, as it often was on Sundays. Her father was in a contemplative mood and did not notice her own silence.

They had the dogcart brought around for the short walk to the church. The vicarage was on the Earl of Annesbury’s property, the church nearer the village, and her father’s health made the walk difficult for him.

When they arrived, one of the deacons helped her father step down, and then assisted her. She entered the church on her father’s arm, too caught up in her thoughts to give heed to her neighbors. Except to notice one thing.

Harry hadn’t come.

She and her father settled on the front pew, as they always did. Daisy adjusted her cloak and tucked both hands in her muff. Though the church was warmed by a stove, it was still too cold for her comfort. All rose and sang a hymn she knew by heart, then sat and waited for Mr. Haskett to read from a text.

“‘Judge not, lest ye be judged.’” The words, spoken in Mr. Haskett’s deep voice, reverberated through the church and forced Daisy to look up, in some surprise.

Mr. Haskett wore a solemn look, his shoulders were hunched, and he appeared rather pale. Sorrowful, almost.

“The people of this parish, myself included, have made a sore mistake. We leapt to conclusions about one of our own. We judged harshly, and with little evidence before us. Dear people, I speak of what I have learned only this morning. The tenant cottages on the Devon land are to be demolished.”

Daisy ducked her head, her stomach tightening uncomfortably.

“But only after new cottages are built and the tenants moved into the safer, more appropriate housing.”

There was an audible gasp from several in the room, including Daisy herself. She covered her mouth with her hand after the sound escaped and her attention focused more fully on Mr. Haskett than it ever had on his sermons in the past.

“The tenants received word of this last evening, and have given me the evidence of a letter written by Mr. Devon. As I was one of the first to spread word of what I thought was a cruel deed, I wished to admit my fault to all of you. I attempted to seek out Mr. Devon this very morning, but he has gone again from home.” Mr. Haskett lowered his head a moment.

Despite the upset from that piece of news, Daisy could not help but respect Mr. Haskett’s humility in admitting his wrong. Before an entire church full of his parishioners. The bravery it took spoke well of his character and condemned her further for her previous silence.

Her father leaned closer to her and murmured quietly in her ear, “The curate would be a good match for you, Augusta.”

That was what her father took from Mr. Haskett’s announcement? Even now, with Harry’s innocence and good intentions made clear, her father’s first words were spoken in favor of the curate’s suit?

Daisy stood. People shifted and turned to look at her. She could feel the eyes of every person in the room turned onto her back. Mr. Haskett stopped speaking—she had not even realized he’d continued to discourse on the subject of withholding judgment—and stared at her too. Though she knew her actions would cause speculation, and gossip, Daisy stepped out of the pew and walked down the aisle to the back of the church. She met no one’s eyes. She simply left. Sitting still and quiet in the church, the curate’s words added to the voice in her head to reprimand her, made the guilt roil until she felt certain it would burst from her.

She walked faster and faster toward home, the skirts of her gown flying up behind her. Her eyes stung, but Daisy did not realize she was crying until the icy wind hit the wet tracks upon her cheeks. While her dreams of opening a school were finally coming true, another dream had died before she had even given it a chance. Before she had given Harry a real chance.

She’d been so caught up in being better than he, showing him all the ways in which he lacked, how he had ignored his responsibilities. She’d lost herself in her own piousness, in her position as the vicar’s daughter, that she had only thought to protect herself when the village turned against him.

Daisy had once told Harry, with some pride and some amusement, that as a vicar’s daughter she had long since memorized many passages of scripture. That unfortunate truth haunted her now with words far wiser than hers echoing in her mind.

Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

How wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Ye hypocrite.

She knew them all. Had been forced to write them out as a consequence to poor behavior when she was a girl. Her father and mother never wished her to forget those lessons, and it seemed making her write them out had done the job. But she remembered them too late.

Daisy made it home, went up to her room, and then shut the world out.

She had held her heart back from him since the beginning, even treating his friendship with skepticism.

Harry’s expression, the pain evident in his eyes and voice, arose from her memory and further condemned her. A sob tore from her throat. I’ve lost him. And I never deserved him.

Chapter Twenty-one

One of the best ways to console oneself after a terrible disappointment, Harry had learned, was to play with his nephews and nieces. Luckily for Harry, his sister Rebecca had provided him with four such people to ease his troubles. Rebecca and her husband Christian had an eight-year-old daughter, twin sons of five years, and a three-year-old girl. Harry was spread out on the floor in the parlor of their home, constructing a block city with the twins.