Lady in Rags

Chapter Nineteen: An Arrangement

Verity sipped at it, cautiously. Her grandmother always made it unpleasantly weak and never used sugar. It was too hot yet, and she put it down gratefully, and nibbled at a biscuit.

"You look well," Lady Duvalle remarked. "You've gained weight. Are you pregnant?"

Verity, having picked up her tea again, spilled it sloppily over her fingers and skirt.

"I- I don't think so!"

"Ah," Lady Duvalle said meaningfully. "Then you have consummated the marriage. Good."

Verity flushed red to the roots of her hair. Too late she realized Lady Duvalle had trapped her into revealing that intimate secret. She pressed at her skirts with a handkerchief, to cover her confusion.

"The sooner you do have a child, the better," Lady Duvalle continued. "You will need to supply him with heirs, of course, and a child will tie both our families together nicely."

"Our families?"

"The Armigers, and the Duvalles."

Verity shook her head and tossed the soiled handkerchief on the table. "No."

The flatness of her reply surprised her grandmother. "No?"

"I married Neil. Families have nothing to do with it. I don't care if I never meet Neil's family. I probably won't. I gather that they hate him, and he certainly hates them. And you can't say I'm a Duvalle anyway. I'm not proud of being a Baker, but my mother was a Duvalle and ran away from it, so I don't think there's much to be proud of in that either."

It was the first time Verity had directly contradicted her grandmother like that. She watched the stain of colour rise on her grandmother's cheeks with a mix of exaltation and trepidation, like a schoolboy who has just smashed a window with a really well hit cricket ball, and knows he will soon receive punishment for it.

"I supported you when you needed it most," her grandmother said slowly.

"You abandoned me as a seven year old child with a dead mother and a father who was worse than dead." Verity drank her weak tea. Her new position, as a married woman, gave her a power she was now aware of. She was no longer dependent upon her grandmother – no longer dependent on her grandmother's opinion of her. No. Now she could give her own opinion.

"I don't think you ever hated me, or my father. You always said you hated him, but I don't think that's true. You just didn't give a damn about either of us. It was mother you hated. You hated her for defying you. You planned for her to marry someone important, and she didn't. I can't say I approve her marriage either, but I'm not your next chance to rearrange the social register. I'm going to live quietly and peacefully with my husband, and we're going to ignore all such snobbish nonsense."

Lady Duvalle pursed her lips. "Next time you need my help, I'll make you beg for it on your knees," she said icily.

"Last time I did, you refused me. So where does that leave the both of us?"

It wasn't a pleasant visit, but family is family, and neither Lady Duvalle nor Verity were as eager to burn the bridges as they appeared, only to test them. An hour later, after reluctant, half-made apologies on both sides, Verity left, and went home. When the butler came to answer the front door to her, he pointed to the drawing room.

"A gentleman awaits you."

"His name?"

"He did not give one."

"And you let him in without it?"

The butler pressed a finger to his lips. "He is a gentleman."

That was a mystery that Verity could not solve. She went to the drawing room cautiously, thinking it might be her father again, despite the strict orders for no staff member to allow him in. But it wasn't. It was a stranger. As she entered, he arose, clumsily, leaning heavily on his thick walnut stick, with the copper-head, in the shape of a boar.