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isn’t marrying anyone! We haven’t got a vicar!”
    Beyond them, a hush fell over the church. The organ had stopped playing for a moment, and Rebecca’s words seemed to echo from wall to wall. The organist quickly resumed, choosing “Crown with Love, Lord, This Glad Day.”
    â€œMercy,” Mrs. Townley-Young breathed.
    Sharp footsteps sounded against the stone floor beyond them and a gloved hand shoved the red curtain aside. Rebecca’s father ducked through the gate.
    â€œNowhere.” He slapped the snow from his coat and shook it from his hat. “Not in the village. Not at the river. Not on the common. Nowhere. I’ll have his job for this.”
    His wife reached out to him but didn’t make contact. “St. John, good Lord, what’ll we do? All these people. All that food at the house. And Rebecca’s condi—”
    â€œI know the bloody details. I don’t need reminding.” Townley-Young flipped the curtain to one side and gazed into the church. “We’re going to be the butt of every joke for the next decade.” He looked back at the women, at his daughter particularly. “You got yourself into this, Rebecca, and I damn well ought to let you get yourself out.”
    â€œDaddy!” She said his name as a wail.
    â€œReally, St. John…”
    Cecily decided this was the moment to be helpful. Her father would no doubt be rumbling down the aisle to join them at any time—emotional disturbances were a special source of delectation to him—and if that was the case, her own purposes would best be served by demonstrating her ability to be at the forefront of solving a family crisis. He was, after all, still temporising on her request to spend the spring in Crete.
    She said, “Perhaps we ought to phone someone, Uncle St. John. There must be another vicar not far.”
    â€œI’ve spoken to the constable,” Townley-Young said.
    â€œBut he can’t
marry
them, St. John,” his wife protested. “We need to get a vicar. We need to have the wedding. The food’s waiting to be eaten. The guests are getting hungry. The—”
    â€œI want Sage,” he said. “I want him here. I want him now. And if I have to drag that low church twit up to the altar myself, I’ll do it.”
    â€œBut if he’s been called out somewhere…” Mrs. Townley-Young was clearly trying to sound like the voice of perfect reason.
    â€œHe hasn’t. That Yarkin creature caught me up in the village. His bed hadn’t been slept in last night, she said. But his car’s in the garage. So he’s somewhere nearby. And I’ve no doubt at all as to what he’s been up to.”
    â€œThe
vicar?
” Cecily asked, achieving horror while feeling all the delight of an unfolding drama. A shotgun wedding performed by a fornicating vicar, featuring a reluctant bridegroom in love with the vicar’s housekeeper and a frothing bride hellbent on revenge. It was almost worth having to be chief bridesmaid just to be in the know. “No, Uncle St. John. Surely not the vicar. Heavens, what a scandal.”
    Her uncle glanced her way sharply. He pointed a finger at her and was beginning to speak when the curtain was drawn to one side once more. They turned as one to see the local constable, his heavy jacket flaked with snow, his tortoiseshell spectacles spotted with moisture. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his ginger hair wore a cap of white crystals. He shook them off, running a hand back over his head.
    â€œWell?” Townley-Young demanded. “Have you found him, Shepherd?”
    â€œI have,” the other man replied. “But he’s not going to be marrying anyone this morning.”



CHAPTER ONE
    W HAT DID THAT SIGN SAY? DID YOU SEE it, Simon? It was some sort of placard at the edge of the road.” Deborah St. James slowed the car and looked back. They’d already rounded a bend, and