“A treasure you most certainly did find,” he smirked.
She kissed his cheek fondly. “You’re not going to smirk at me like that the entire time, are you?
“Allow me some vindication, my dear.”
They managed a few minutes of polite conversation before he drifted over to the crate again. “Oh, what a beauty,” he crooned. “Straight from Egypt. Persephone sent me a crate of presents.” He held up a figurine of a woman with wings and feathers in her hair.
“That’s the goddess Ma’at, isn’t it?” Tamsin asked, crowding by his elbow. “She weighs the hearts of the dead against a feather,” she explained to the others. “And if your heart is light, you move on to Paradise.”
“And if it’s not?” Dougal asked, not having yet learned that to ask questions was to invite hours of lecturing and an obligatory tour of several collections.
“If it’s heavy with dark deeds,” Tamsin continued, brightly. “It gets devoured by a crocodile.” She sounded utterly thrilled by the prospect.
“I don’t remember that from church.”
“Isn’t it delightfully gruesome?”
“We cannot ascribe our own modern values to an ancient culture,” Pendleton chided gently.
Tamsin laughed. “Eating a man’s heart is gruesome no matter where you are.”
“On the Appian Way they—”
“No,” Priya interrupted firmly. “Absolutely not.”
Pendleton and Tamsin looked at her blankly.
“We are not spending the evening talking about bones and broken bobs and the eating of hearts. We are taking Meg away and you two can do what you like.”
“But what about dinner?”
“We will have a tray sent up to my room,” Priya insisted.
“Two dukes in the house and neither of us are in charge,” Pendleton grumbled.
Meg, Tamsin and Priya sank into identical, perfectly synchronized, very deep curtsies, usually reserved for royalty.
“And now they mock us,” Pendleton said with feigned sadness. “Off with you, termagants.”
Dougal caught Meg’s hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. It was chaste, polite. It definitely should not have reminded her of what they were doing in the carriage less than an hour ago.
But it absolutely did.
They found LadyBlackwell in the family chapel, cheerfully bossing around a battalion of maids and footmen. Built from fieldstone in the fifteenth century, it was small and drafty but charming in its own way. It was also full to bursting with the last of the autumn flowers and every rose and lily Lady Blackwell could steal from the hothouse. Which was a considerable amount. There was even a lemon tree in one corner, already incongruous, even without the spools of pink ribbons dangling from the branches. More ribbons festooned every pew and window, as expected. The local vicar was currently being scandalized by Lady Blackwell’s determination to add orange ribbons to the altar. For a touch of “cheer”.
“Since we can’t be in London at St. George’s cathedral, I’m sure you’ll agree, dear vicar, that we must do all we can to prepare the chapel.”
“Lady Blackwell, this is a place of God. I assure you, it is already prepared.”
Chartreuse was asleep on his back on one of the church pews, snoring softly.
“Who wants to wager she’ll make him cry before the end of the day?” Tamsin whispered.
“What fool would take that bet?” Priya whispered back. “She’s wearing her ‘dotty old grandmother’ smile. He hasn’t a chance. Satan himself could not stand against her.”
“Lady Blackwell,” Meg hurried forward, smiling fondly. The vicar hid a sigh of relief, looking baffled. After decades in the village, he ought to have a stouter disposition. This was hardly the first time Lady Blackwell had suggested some scheme. Or the Duke of Pendleton. Or Persephone for that matter, who had once snuck a jar of beetles into the village church one Sunday morning to have them blessed. She’d read that dung beetles were sacred in ancient Egypt and thought plain old English garden beetles might suffice. No one had pressed her on to what they might “suffice” for. Meg wished her friend could join them, though she was grateful to have Priya and Tamsin at the wedding. For such short notice, it was lucky indeed.
“Meg,” Lady Blackwell fluttered. “There you are.”