Page 49 of The Case of the Curate

“I’m sure he would have been there if he could.”

“He’s a good sort of fellow. He listens and never judges. I hear things, even in my sickbed, and a man with his vocation, however young, does not abandon his duties to God or to the world.”

Kate found herself having to make that mind-boggling adjustment once again, from the Rupert she remembered and the Rupert that Amelia had described, to the Rupert he’d apparently become. Face to face it was easier, for he was still Rupert. Hearing about him, however, was like discussing a total stranger.

“Did Lord Chadbon say he had abandoned his duties?” she asked, inclined to indignation.

“No, just that he’d been called away and had asked His Lordship to convey the message to me.” He turned his head toward the opening door. “Ah, my dear, have you met Lady Ambrose?”

The vicar’s wife was, at first glance, the complete opposite of her husband. Her style of hair, her dress, and her expression were all severe. And she was clearly not pleased by the visitor.

Kate rose and offered her hand. “Mrs. Bancroft, do forgive the intrusion.”

The vicar’s wife blinked with surprise—or perhaps suspicion—before she touched Kate’s hand. “You were not to know that the vicar has been so very ill. Although what Mrs. Dale was thinking about to show you in here, I do not know. It is past time for the vicar to return to bed now.”

Something very like annoyance flickered in Mr. Bancroft’s mild eyes before he said, “I am not a child, my dear, and I am still the vicar of Chadleigh. I will have another five minutes with Lady Ambrose.”

For a gentle man, he was oddly firm. And Kate, who had been about to depart with profound apologies, found herself staying put as much in support of the vicar as for her own ends. Mrs. Bancroft’s face flushed. Her eyes narrowed, but without an unseemly quarrel, there was nothing she could do.

“Please, no longer, Lady Ambrose. I will not have my husband placed at risk.”

“Indeed not,” Kate replied seriously.

But the door was already closing with a loud click behind the vicar’s angry—or perhaps just very anxious—wife.

“Forgive us,” he said. “She worries for me, and I fret at my current uselessness. What is it about young Grande that troubles you?”

It almost took her breath away. It was certainly a timely warning about trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes.

She met the vicar’s gaze.

“Is he in trouble?” Mr. Bancroft asked quietly.

Kate nodded, appalled to feel her throat closing up. “Yes, but I am trying to help him. We are old friends, he and I. And I wanted to be sure you did not think badly of him. He hasn’t deserted you, or the parish.”

“I know. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“There might be,” Kate said. “I understand Lady Chadbon often invited you to dine.”

“We clergymen are useful when hostesses are short of a gentleman.”

“Then your wife is not invited with you?” Kate asked, shocked by such rudeness.

“Not on those occasions, when he has political friends staying. I regard it as more duty than social occasion. And so I warned young Grande the other evening.”

“Oh, every gathering is fun for him. Tell me, sir, when you dine there, is it often with the same guest?”

“I have grown used to certain familiar faces.”

“Marcus Otteridge, perhaps? Sir Colin Nye?”

“Actually, I never met Nye at such affairs, though I know him well enough. We all grew up around here, Chadbon, Nye, and I.”

Kate’s eyebrows flew up without permission. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yes. The Nyes had Tetley Hall, where the Gibbs now reside. Colin sold up and moved to London when his father died.”

Was that important? She couldn’t see how. “What of Mr. Otteridge?”