A Winter Scandal by Candace Camp

I’ll go over later and decorate.”
    “Mm.” Daniel turned his attention back to the letter.
    “Have you gotten the mail already?” Thea nodded toward the paper in his hands as she loaded her plate and began to eat.
    “Yes. I took a little stroll before breakfast, so I picked it up. There’s a note from Veronica.”
    “Oh, really?” Thea glanced up at him. “Did she say when she would be arriving?”
    “That’s the thing. Apparently she’s not.”
    “What?” Disappointment formed in Thea’s stomach like a rock, and she set down her fork. “What do you mean? She’s supposed to be here any day now.”
    Her brother shrugged. “She wrote to say she won’t be able to make it after all. Her husband came home unexpectedly. Apparently his ship had to return for repairs or some such thing.” He continued to read the rest of the letter. “She says the Commander is well, as are the rest of them, and, of course, they are delighted to have him home. Then there is something about a dress she’s going to wear to a Twelfth Night ball. She sounds quite excited about it.”
    “The dress or Commander Stanton coming home?”
    “I’m not entirely certain.” Daniel handed the letter across the table to Thea. “I have to say, I am disappointed not to see Veronica. Although it will certainly be more peaceful without the children here.”
    “Yes, I suppose so.” Thea skimmed through the note and handed it back to her brother. The days ahead seemed suddenly much emptier.
    “Well …” Daniel took a final drink from his cup and rose to his feet. “I should go work on my sermon.”
    Thea nodded. “I made some notes about your topic, if you’d like to see them.” It was their polite fiction regarding the sermons she wrote for him.
    “Of course, of course. I’ll be in my study.” Daniel nodded pleasantly and walked off.
    Thea pushed away her plate, no longer hungry. The silence that her brother would treasure this holiday seemed to her an echoing emptiness. With a sigh, she left the room and started up the stairs. A cold loneliness was centered in her chest. She retrieved the sermon she had written from the small oak secretary in her bedroom and laid it on Daniel’s desk. Work, she knew, was the best cure for unhappiness, so she put on her cloak and gloves and went out to the laden wagon she had left behind the house. Picking up its handle, she started toward the church.
    St. Margaret’s was an old building, built of the same native stone as much of the town. It was plain and squat, yet had a beauty in its simplicity. It did not strive to be anything it was not. Centuries ago, in the heyday of the wool trade, there had been talk of tearing it down and building a grander edifice, but the citizens of Chesley, ever a practical lot, had decided not to do so.
    The church building had once been the chapel of Astwold Abbey, a convent established by Eleanor of Aquitaine. During the Dissolution, the abbey had been given to an ancestor of Lord Fenstone’s. Most of the buildings had been torn down, leaving only two complete structures standing: the chapel and the priory. The priory, which stood at the opposite end of the abbey premises from the church, had been restored and added onto, becoming a residence for the earls of Fenstone. The chapel had been given to the village to use as its church almost three hundred years ago. The ruins of the rest of the abbey lay between the two buildings. If Thea looked in that direction, she could see the fallen stones and half walls that remained.
    She did not spare a glance for the familiar sight today, however, as she pulled the wagon to the church door and carried a load of evergreen branches into the nave of the church. Walking down the main aisle past the intersecting arms that formed the cross of the church, she laid the branches on the steps leading up to the altar. She turned and skirted the raised sanctuary to open the door at the back of the church, which led into a short