Chapter Two

Simon tried to keep his composure as Lady Warren introduced a stunning dark-haired, young woman to him. He might have held her hand longer than was proper. Her name, Lady Warren said, was Miss Perdita Sanchez and she was visiting from a town in Northern California called Napa Valley. Her family-owned vineyards which produced some of the best wines in the world.

He couldn't look away from her upturned elliptical eyes, the color of milk chocolate. They surveyed his entirety as if she were taking a visual inventory of his features. He wasn't imagining things. Miss Sanchez regarded him through the veil of her long, inky-black lashes, but he could feel her gaze on his skin as surely as the sun warmed his face during his early bike ride along the Cam this morning.

Perdita, he mouthed the name to himself, but did not sound it out. He just enjoyed the way he had to work his mouth and tongue around the syllables. She must have realized that he was staring at her, too, because her cheeks flushed as red as a blooming rose and she dropped her gaze to the ground.

"Canon Darby!"

The sharp tone of his housekeeper and part-time secretary, Mrs. Malone, cut in through the fog in his mind and reminded him where and who he was. He blinked twice to give himself a mental reset.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Sanchez." He gave her hand one last squeeze before letting go. "I hope you enjoy the service."

"I'll see you inside, Canon Darby." Her smile held a secret promise just for him.

Lady Cosgrove, Miss Sanchez's aunt, was introduced to him earlier by Lady Warren. The two older women were bosom buddies at Girton College and had just gotten reacquainted when Lavinia Cosgrove moved back to England after living in Italy for so long. She looked at Simon as though he were a no-account scoundrel from London out to prey on her niece.

Lucas in the bell tower sounded the five-minute warning. The stragglers cut short their conversations and hurried inside to get into the chapel. Simon nodded and smiled at each of them and shook hands with those who offered theirs.

He'd been their vicar for seven years, but he was afraid he'd always be the "new vicar" to some of them. He was relatively young compared to the last vicar who died of old age in this position.

Plus there was that bit of scandal from last autumn that still hovered over him. He'd been engaged to marry Amelia Crosby, a woman he'd known since he was a green lad of twenty-two, but his parish and the Church did not approve of the betrothal. Amelia had recently gotten divorced and was the mother of a little girl. The CofE did not allow their clergy to marry divorced women and Simon had been prepared to leave the Church for the woman he loved.

Ultimately, Simon chose not to send his resignation letter to the archbishop because he realized his people needed him more. He had a Calling. That was the reason he entered seminary after the war. He couldn't leave the Church, not even for Amelia. Their parting was bitter and acrimonious on Amelia's part. She called him a coward. She moved to London to live with her parents shortly after.

Everything must be done for the good of the parish. But his parishioners haven't forgiven him for it.

Simon took out his Bible from the secret pocket that Mrs. M had sewn inside the sleeve of his sulpice and gripped it between his hands. Taking a deep breath, he stepped onto the burgundy carpet of the middle aisle. Halfway down, he genuflected then continued to the dais.

Facing his parishioners, he greeted them with a congenial smile. In the corner of his eyes, he spotted Miss Sanchez on the second pew on his left, sitting next to Lady Warren, and felt a bead of sweat roll down from his temple to the side of his face. He had performed this mass eleven hundred times before. What did he have to be nervous about?

She was watching him.

He cleared his throat before raising his hand to make the sign of the cross in the air. "In the name of the Father, the Son..."

+++++++

Thankfully, the service went off without a hitch and he was able to provide his sermon on fidelity and the sanctity of marriage. He heard some snickers from the middle pew, but that was where Mrs. Longbottom and her cronies usually sat. Simon knew Mrs. Eugenia Longbottom was the one who spread the malicious gossip that he was named as the adulterer in Amelia's divorce from her husband Marshall.

Though he and Amelia were close friends, they didn't get into a relationship until her divorce from her husband was finalized. Marshall had, in fact, done just one decent thing for Amelia throughout their marriage: he declared himself the adulterer and paid Amelia the damages before emigrating to Canada for good.

Simon looked for Miss Sanchez at the gathering after the service. She should be easy enough to spot, he thought. Her honey-colored skin set her apart from a sea of pale British faces and her dress, though probably fashionable in London, was quite bold for their little hamlet.

It was the first thing he'd noticed about her. He thought he knew everyone in Grantchester, but he'd never seen her before. Anywhere. Not around Cambridge or Cambridgeshire. He wondered if she were a university student who'd arrived early for the fall season and had taken to exploring the area.

When he first saw her, she was partially hidden by the blooming jacaranda tree, though her red cardigan sweater was hard to miss among the purple and white flowers. When his curate and housemate Winston Flick stood next to him to help greet parishioners, Simon asked him if he knew who the mystery girl was.

"Lady Cosgrove's niece from California," answered Winston from the side of his mouth. "She is unmarried and an heiress."

Simon scoffed. Things like that didn't matter to him; though for the sake of the vicarage, he did ask the archdiocese for funds to repair the roof some months ago and hadn't heard a word yet.

As he looked for her, he bumped into parishioners who stopped and implored him to have a slice of cake they brought from home, or pulled him aside and asked if they could confer with him on a private matter. He talked to all of them for a few moments before making excuses to leave, only to bump into another parishioner. He gritted his teeth in frustration. She could be gone by now.

Just as he was about to give up, he spotted her red cardigan near the church gate. His heart leapt. She was talking to a group of people: his good friend DCI Kenneth Grover, his wife Rosemary, and Thomas Roundtree, the young chaplain from Cambridge who sometimes substituted for him as vicar when he was out of town with the Archdeacon at church conferences.

At the beginning of spring, Simon accompanied both the Archdeacon and the Archbishop to Italy for a month-long sojourn. He was aware that the Archdeacon of Ely was planning on retiring within the next five years and had Simon in mind for his replacement. He was being groomed to take over for the Archdeacon and the mere idea of it made him break out in cold sweat on restless nights.

He was about to march toward Kenny's group when a thin, gloved hand grabbed his arm. With impatience, he whirled around more vigorously than he intended, surprising his middle-aged housekeeper, Mrs. Martha Malone. "Oh, hello there, Mrs. M, I've been looking all over the place for you."

The woman in the prim and pressed powder-blue skirt suit snorted and rolled her brown eyes behind her horn-rimmed glasses. She recognized by now when Simon was speaking malarkey. "I just wanted to let you know that along with Miss Adelaide Easton from the library and Lady Warren, I also invited her good friend Lady Lavinia Cosgrove and her niece from the colonies, Miss Sanchez."

Simon brought his knuckles to his mouth in the guise of clearing his throat, so Mrs. M wouldn't see his smile. "They're not the colonies anymore, Mrs. M. They've been united as a country for almost two hundred years now."

His housekeeper waved this off as a non-issue. "Such impertinence." She flapped her fan over her face. "A little balmy today, isn't it? Maybe you ought to wait till tomorrow to clear out the weeds from the graveyard. It ought to be cooler then."

Simon frowned as something his housekeeper said finally penetrated through the din of information processing within his mind. "Wait, you didn't say anything about inviting Adelaide Easton before."

Mrs. M leaned close to him and smacked his forearm gently with her fan. "She is a delicate young woman. And unmarried, besides. You know she's been solitary since her mother's death last year."

Simon counseled her for a few months to help her deal with the loss of her mother, but Adelaide fell in love with him. To avoid any hint of impropriety, he referred her to Thomas, instead. Hopefully, the young chaplain, who received a first in psychology from Jesus College in Cambridge, was more helpful to her than he was.

"Mrs. M, I really don't--"

Martha Malone put up her hand to cut off the rest of his words. "You need a wife, Mr. Darby. It's unseemly for a man your age to not be married. You're not getting any younger, you know."

Simon sputtered. "Woman, I'm only thirty-six!"

Winston Flick interceded between them. "Simon, did you just refer to Mrs. M as 'Woman'? I thought you said you read 'The Second Sex' by Simone de Beauvoir. Some feminist you're turning out to be!"

Simon looked at his housemate, then housekeeper, and whispered fiercely. "You two are the reason I drink."

Mrs. M scoffed. "As if you need a reason!"