‘Because I am the man of the house.’
‘For the moment,’ Thomas added quietly. But he smiled as he said it. And when the time came for a ring, he removed an enormous ruby from his own hand and slipped it on to her finger.
When, at last, the vicar pronounced them man and wife, Generva breathed a sigh of relief. There would be no more looking back. Now that she had grown accustomed to the idea, a life with the man beside her was all that she could have wanted.
And they could begin that future whenever Mr Allcot came to the end of the ceremony. She did not remember her last wedding being quite so sombre. That had been a hurried affair, in a chapel by the London docks that many sailors claimed as their home parish.
Perhaps Mr Allcot meant to impress the visiting peer. Or was he attempting to make up for the lack of formal licence with extra prayers? He said not one psalm, but two. He delivered the blessing that they might be ‘fruitful in procreation’ with a look that discouraged any joy in the attempts at breeding.
And then he began to quote, at length, from Saint Paul.
It was not necessary. With three previous marriages between them, she and Thomas were well aware of their duties to each other. They were certainly better schooled than Mr Allcot, who was as yet unmarried. As the ceremony dragged on, she could feel Ben shifting from foot to foot as his patience wore thin. There was no telling what might happen when he could no longer contain himself.
Her son was not the only male bored to mischief by Mr Allcot. Next to her, Thomas still wore a benign smile. But his foot had begun to tap. It did not seem to be a sign of impatience. There was a rhythm to it, as though he kept time to a song.
Oh, dear.
As Mr Allcot exhorted her to obedience and submission for what seemed like the hundredth time, Thomas began to hum.
There were murmurs of disapproval from the congregation, but the vicar pretended not to notice, although it was clear he did. A warning to reverence her husband was delivered in a louder voice and at a faster pace, as though he meant to race the groom to the end of the service.
It was a race he was destined to lose. As he extolled the merits of a meek and quiet spirit over ornaments of gold, Thomas burst into song.
‘In a manger laid, and wrapped I was
So very poor, this was my chance
Between an ox and a silly poor ass
To call my true love to my dance.’
At the mention of the silly ass, Ben burst into laughter and Mr Allcot dropped his prayer book.
And then, to prove that she had been listening to the vicar’s sermon, Generva demonstrated that she was willing to follow her new husband, no matter where he might lead. She joined him on the chorus in perfect harmony.
‘Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love,
This have I done for my true love.’
* * * * *
Linda Skye
LINDA SKYE is a travel addict and a self-proclaimed food critic with an insatiable appetite for the written word. She first developed her love for reading and writing by browsing her grandfather’s dictionaries and etymology books—a habit she has yet to abandon!
Born to Filipino parents in the United States and raised in Canada, Linda is a modern-day nomad, moving across country and ocean with her military husband. She currently lives in the United Kingdom and spends her free time writing, practising digital photography, updating her food blog and dreaming of adventures at home and abroad. She has travelled throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Linda holds a master’s of education and specialises in teaching languages and literature. She has been teaching English as a Second Language, English literature and literacy courses since 2001. Though she is currently teaching part-time at a local technical college, Linda is a full-time daydreamer with a passion for the strange, mysterious and exotic.
Ekaterina Romanova, the eldest, most beautiful daughter of Baron Dimitri, and the niece of the reigning Empress of Russia, was standing amongst the clucking chickens outside the palace kitchens, dressed in a plain peasant smock and woollen overcoat. Her thick dark curls were unbound and tumbled carelessly down her back. Her smooth complexion was free of fashionable white powder.
If her ageing father could see her in her current unadorned state, as she stood in a place reserved for the common folk, he would probably die of a heart attack. Her mother would swoon. Her younger sisters would tut their disapproval and hide their faces in shame.
But Ekaterina simply could not care less about what they all might think of her.
‘Come, children,’ she called in her sweet, chime-like voice. ‘Come have some bread!’
A flock of hungry children surrounded the young noblewoman, their grubby hands reaching out and their sweet, high voices calling out excitedly. For Ekaterina was passing out large steaming loaves of freshly baked bread for the children to take home to their nearly starving families.
‘Bread! Bread!’ the children cried, and whistled excitedly.
‘Yes!’ Ekaterina laughed. ‘Bread! But don’t push—there’s enough for everyone!’
Within just a few minutes Ekaterina had nothing left in her wicker basket but crumbs. She smiled, satisfied, as thick wet snowflakes drifted down around her.
It was nearly Christmas, and the bread she had just distributed would be a boon to the families of the palace servants. She could imagine them smiling around their bland pots of stew with hot slices of crusty bread to warm their bellies, when normally they would be carefully rationing out tiny portions of grain in a desperate bid to save up enough food for the endless winter, when frost would make life nearly unbearable for most.
Hardly a happy Christmas, she mused silently.
Ekaterina resisted the urge to frown. In the North, her father tried to treat his serfs fairly, and because of the example she saw in his policies she had always campaigned for the rights of the peasants, who were the working backbone of their livelihood. But here, at Catherine Palace, the lavish rococo residence of Russian emperors and empresses, the peasant servants were treated little better than donkeys and dogs. They were reduced to scrounging the most minimal of sustenance, accepting the crumbs that the Empress tossed their way because—simply put—there was no other choice available to them.
Ekaterina grimaced at the thought of her aunt, Empress Anna of Russia. She was a gargantuan woman, her pudgy features swollen from years of consuming the very tastiest and fattiest of foods. Ekaterina was surprised that her aunt could still breathe in her tightly laced corset.
But what was
