Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

21 years and 2 months ago

It was putridly hot in the small Haventry chapel for the Sunday service and Amy wiggled against the hard pew irritably. The seat was stiff and the pitch too broad for her small legs to fit comfortably; if she rested her back against the wooden rest behind her, her knees and calves stuck out like one of the porcelain dolls on her shelf and if she sat on the edge, her legs dangled in the air and quickly made her bottom tingle.

She slouched, lurching her shoulders back so that at least they could find a reprieve and some comfort, but then her mother pinched her for her unladylike misdemeanour, making her jolt upright once more.

If there weren't so many people about, and if she didn't fear her mother's sly fingers, Amy would have whined petulantly until someone noticed her enough to dismiss her from this ordeal. She hated Sunday services with Mr Bickens, even though she knew she was not supposed to. But did he really have to talk so long? Surely God did not want His parishioners to perish of boredom?

She kicked her legs agitatedly and squirmed once more, fidgeting with the frills of her white skirts before pressing her fingers under her bottom. It served as some sort of cushion, lessening the hardened rigidity of the pew somewhat, though certainly not her boredom.

Her eyes drifted again to the thick shock of carrot-coloured hair sitting in the pew in front of her, slightly to the left. The locks clearly belonged to another child, a boy, if his short stature was anything to go by as he sat wedged between two towering sets of finely dressed shoulders. He had glanced back at her once during the pontificating sermon and Amy had noted a set of huge green eyes set in a face decidedly moon-shaped and peppered with dark freckles.

She knew him- everyone did. He was the Gravewood heir, lord of Haventry and its people, and that included her. It rubbed her the wrong way- the notion that this carrot topped little nostril thought he was the boss of her. And, if his lofty clothes and smug expression were anything to go by, he rather thought so too.

Amy could not remember ever seeing Lord and Lady Hollingsworth attend church with the parish before though she rather thought that they should do so more often considering that their son was in dire need of some divine intervention. Her thoughts were rife with all sorts of nasty slurs she would call him the moment she was not in the house of God and the Lord Jesus was not watching over her every action from the crucifix behind Mr Bickens, and then the copper-crowned boy craned his neck back to pin her directly with a look.

For a tiny moment Amy was caught off-guard and thought that maybe he would give her a friendly smile, that maybe she had been wrong about him at first and she hadn't seen the odd look on his face the first time he had glanced at her.

But then he stuck out his tongue and pulled his eyes inwards against the bridge of his nose.

She gasped, indignantly outraged, and before she could retaliate in kind, he had turned quickly away and riveted his attention on the vicar spouting the word of God from the pulpit. Well, she could hardly abide that! Did Mr Bickens not always tell her to be kind to her neighbour and that God would reward her for it? Perhaps he should be telling young Lord Hollingsworth just such a thing because that gesture had certainly not been very nice at all.

"Mamaaaa," Amy whinged with a high-pitched whisper, tugging on her mother's shawl and pointing in the boy's direction.

"Hush, child," her mother reprimanded stiffly, gently removing her fingers from the fabric and gesturing to the vicar meaningfully. "A few more minutes, Amy, is all you need to sit before we may go outside. Please do try to show us what a good girl you are."