A Christmas Secret

It was not a good night. He knew that after supper he would have to go see John Boscombe and ask him if what he had been told was the truth, because he felt sure that was what the Reverend Wynter was doing before he died. He had racked his brains to find another alternative, all the time knowing that there was none. Clarice had offered to come with him, and he had refused. She had no part in it, and no chaperone was necessary. She would worry, he knew that, imagining all kinds of anger and distress, but that was the burden of a priest’s wife, and she did not ask to be relieved of it.

It was a hard walk to the Boscombes’ house. He did not dare take the shortcut through the woods, even if the stream was frozen. His arm ached from carrying the lantern and trying to hold it against the wind. He was welcomed in. The house was warm, although not as warm as the vicarage where they could afford to burn a little more coal.

“How nice to see you, Reverend Corde,” Boscombe said immediately. “It’s a terrible night for visiting. What brings you? No one ill or needing help?”

Dominic almost changed his mind. Maybe this was something the bishop should deal with, or whoever was given this living permanently. But if he evaded it, Clarice would despise him. Even now he could imagine her disappointment in him.

He followed Boscombe inside to the parlor, where Genevieve was sitting sewing. She was patching the sleeves of a jacket. She put it away quickly as if to welcome him, but he saw from the quick flush in her face that she was ashamed. Were they really paying blackmail to someone? The vicar? Please God, no.

Or to anyone else, perhaps from Boscombe’s home village? Even Mrs. Paget? But it was the Reverend Wynter who was dead. Mrs. Paget was very much alive.

“Genny, please get the vicar a cup of tea, or soup,” Boscombe requested. “Which would you like?”

How could Dominic accept the man’s hospitality, given out of their little, with what he had come to say? Guilt almost choked him. And who was he to blame a man for doing what he might so easily have done himself, had the temptation been there? Sarah was dead, however, and he was free to love Clarice as he wished, but due to luck, not virtue.

“No thank you, not yet,” he prevaricated. “But I would like to speak to you confidentially, Mr. Boscombe. I beg your pardon for that, on such an evening.”

“Don’t worry, Vicar,” Genevieve said quickly. “I have jobs to do in the kitchen. You just call when you’d like the soup.”

“What is it?” Boscombe asked as soon as the door was closed and they were alone. “You look very grave, Vicar. Not more money gone, is it? Or did you find out who took it? I think the Reverend Wynter was inclined to let it go, you know. He could always see the greater picture, the one that mattered.”

“Yes, I imagine he could,” Dominic answered. “It seems to me he thought past today’s embarrassment and saw the grief that could come in the future if present sins, however easy to understand, or even to sympathize with, were not put right.”

Boscombe’s face paled. His eyes were steady on Dominic’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Dominic said gently. “There is no record of your marriage in this parish. If I ask the bishop, will he find it in some other place?”

Boscombe’s voice was husky, his eyes wretched. “No, Vicar. Genevieve is the wife of my heart, but not of the law. The Reverend Wynter knew that, and he wanted to find a way for us to make it right, but I couldn’t stay on in office in the church once he knew.”

“But you could stay until then?” The moment the words were out of his lips, Dominic wished he had not said them. It was a criticism Boscombe did not need, however justified.

Boscombe blushed and looked down at his big hands. “I wasn’t the one who told him. I couldn’t bring myself to. I wanted to be happy,” he said softly. “That was the coward’s way, I suppose, but he asked me to help with the money and other tasks in the church. I couldn’t refuse without telling him why.” He twisted his fingers together, crushing the flesh till they were white. “I didn’t think you’d find out so quick.”

“Did you kill the Reverend Wynter?”

Boscombe’s head jerked up, his eyes wide. “No! God in heaven, man, how can you ask such a thing? He was my friend! He wanted us to put it right, and I told him I wasn’t leaving Genevieve for anything, church or no church. And I wasn’t going back to my first wife, either. If God sent me to hell, at least I’d have a life first. But go back and it would be hell now. And who would support Genny and my children?”

“Who supports your first wife?” Dominic asked.

“She had money of her own and no need of mine,” Boscombe said bitterly. “As she often reminded me.”

“If she divorced you for your adultery and desertion, you would be free to marry Genevieve and make your children legitimate,” Dominic pointed out. “In the law, if not in the church. Wouldn’t it still be better?”

Boscombe gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Do you think I didn’t ask her to? She’s not a woman to forgive, Reverend Corde. Not ever. As long as she lives she’ll hold me to bondage. My only choice is to live in sin with Genevieve, the best and gentlest, most loyal woman I know, or live in virtue cold as ice with a woman who hates me, and will make me pay every day and night of my life, because I don’t love her. The Reverend Wynter wanted me to make it right, for Genevieve’s sake, and my children’s. He told me they’d get nothing if I die, and I know that’s true.” He blinked several times. “I’ll just have to pray I don’t die. He was looking for a way for me to make it right with God, but he never found it before he died. I don’t know who killed him, but I swear to you before the Lord who made the earth and everything in it, it was not me. I loved the Reverend Wynter, and I’ve got enough on my soul as it is without adding violence to it.”

Dominic believed him. It fit with what Mrs. Paget had told him, and what he had come to know of Wynter. Boscombe might have thought, in a moment’s desperation, that if Wynter were dead he could continue to live in peace. But he must have known that it would only be a matter of time before he was exposed. With murder on his hands and his heart, there would be no happiness ahead for him, or for the woman and the children he loved so deeply. Could Dominic find an answer for him? If Wynter, with a lifetime in the church, could not, then how could he, a novice? “I’ll try to find a way for you to sort it out,” he promised rashly. “Thank you for your honesty.”

“If there were, we’d have found it by now,” Boscombe said miserably. “What are you going to say to the bishop?”

“Nothing,” Dominic replied, again rashly. He stood up. “I’m concerned with finding who killed the Reverend Wynter. Anything else is between you and God. Living with a woman to whom you are not married may be a sin, but it is not against the law. We will address that problem later. Perhaps after Christmas they will move me somewhere else. I hope not, but I cannot choose.” He heard the roughness of grief in his own voice and was angry with himself. What had he to grieve over, when he was returning to the woman he loved, with no shadow over them or between them, except whatever he might create himself by being less than she believed of him? “First let us celebrate the birth of Christ, and leave other things until after that.”

Boscombe held out his hand, blinking rapidly again. “Thank you.”

Dominic gripped him hard. “But if I stay here, we will have to seek an answer one day.”

“I know,” Boscombe replied. “I know.”