Page 48 of Otters and Obstacles
He cleared his throat as he stepped onto the small stage where the musicians were beginning to tune their instruments to start the dancing. Georgie stood at the front and a little off to the side so she could watch him speak. She could not help a little surge of pride as he faced the villagers with a smile on his face, knowing this was her husband that so many watched with respect and even affection.
He raised his hands for quiet before he began to speak.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I do apologize, but I come with disappointing news. The Harvest Supper that was to have taken place tomorrow has been delayed by a few more days.”
As a murmur spread through the crowd, Peter held up his hand. “I understand how unwelcome this news is. The duke—my brother—is on his way with the rest of the household, and the foodstuffs will arrive with them. The supper will take place two days after they arrive, to give the cooks enough time to prepare.”
Even as Peter took a deep breath to continue his speech, a voice cut through the gathering.
"Are we not to denounce sinners, vicar?"
To Georgie's horror, her cousin pushed his way through the crowd, walking towards them. Peter bent to help Georgie step onto the stage out of her cousin’s reach. The villagers crowded closer, clearly eager to hear any breath of scandal.
Peter laced his fingers with Georgie's and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before he spoke. "Do you have something to say, Sir John?"
"Oho! The sinner speaks! How do you face your congregation every week, sir? They should be booing you every time you step up to the pulpit." His words were a little slurred, and his high color and rumpled appearance made Georgie fear he had been drinking.
Even worse, Georgie saw the crowd part as the Ladies' Auxiliary made their way to the stage, headed by Mrs.Kilvington. She felt suddenly cold. If the ladies believed John's story, she and Peter would both be outcasts in the village. They would have no choice but to decamp to London and hope the scandal did not follow them. If it did follow them, their situation would be even more desperate, forcing Peter out of the Church altogether. Even the poorest parish would be unwilling to have him lead them.
"Say what you have to say and be done with it," Peter said in a bored tone, but his hand was going icy in hers.
Sir John looked around the crowd, making sure all eyes were on him. "Did you or did you not live together under the same roof before your marriage?"
"We did," Peter said steadily, and the crowd gasped. "But many of those here already knows that my wife first came to the village in disguise."
Whispers shot through the crowd but, to Georgie's astonishment, some of the men began to nod in reply to the others. Who had Peter told, and how fast had that gossip traveled through the village?
"I doubt anyone here did not realize my wife first came to Kilbythorpe claiming to be a young man calling himself Mr. Morley."
"I didn't," someone said from the back of the crowd, but he was quickly hushed by his friends eager to hear the rest of the developing scandal.
Peter took a deep breath and turned to face the crowd instead of Sir John, his hand still in Georgie’s.
"I realize that, as your spiritual leader, I ought to have avoided the appearance of sin even when no sin had occurred, but I was fooled as well. And when I realized the situation and that Georgie—Lady Peter—had been driven from her home by this man, who as her cousin ought to have protected her, I of course asked her to marry me."
Peter paused to smile down at her, and Georgie could not help being warmed despite her fear. "I am a fortunate man that such an intrepid woman was willing to say yes to me."
Georgie looked back at the crowd to see that many of them were softening, but Mrs. Kilvington still stood at the front of it, face stern, hands folded on the handle of her cane.
With a nervous glance at Mrs. Kilvington, Peter continued. "We were wed by the Archbishop of York himself, who absolved us of sin for the poor start to our betrothal."
Whispers shot through the crowd again, but Georgie could see the mood had shifted towards herself and Peter, and away from her cousin.
John could see the same, and raised his voice again. "When my cousin ran from her home—a home where I had fed and clothed her—she took valuable property with her that does not belong to her."
"Neither do they belong to you, cousin," Georgie snapped before she could stop herself. Peter squeezed her hand in warning and she subsided again.
"The otters remain the property of the crown," Peter said, "since they came from the Royal Menagerie. We are only the guardians of them."
"My uncle was their guardian, and now that has passed to me."
With one last squeeze, Peter let go of her hand and reached into an inner pocket of his jacket. "From what little Georgie had told me of you, sir, I suspected you might attempt to shame her like this to force her to give you the otters." He unfolded a closely-written sheet of paper and held it up to show the crowd. "That is why I made sure to bring the letter Sir Anthony Hoult sent that transfers custody of the otters to my wife, and therefore to me."
Stunned, Georgie turned to look at Peter, who smiled down at her with a rather irritating look of smugness.
"Why did you not tell me?” she hissed. “I have been desperately worried about them."
"I was planning to tell you this evening once the Harvest Festival was over."
