Chapter Five
Aunt Josephine took charge of everything with alarming speed.
Walter might have been relieved to have the burden of arranging a wedding removed from his grasp, but Verity was not.
Her newly discovered aunt was a veritable force of nature.
She might be small and soft in appearance, but it became obvious within a very short space of time that she was as determined as it was possible to be and not about to take no for an answer from anyone.
Especially not from the niece she had just taken under her wing.
Having shooed Walter out of the parlor to go back to Lord Dunster’s house and inform him that his mother had taken over the wedding arrangements, she turned her attention to what she called “matters in hand.” Verity could only sit in stunned silence and observe in mounting trepidation the alarming efficiency of her aunt.
“Firstly, we must inform your papa of your safety and your changed circumstances,” her aunt decreed. “For that I will need his address so I can send a footman round with this letter for him. He must surely be worried about his only child.”
Thinking Papa was probably still snoring and not worrying about her in the least, Verity meekly wrote the address of their rooms on the outside of the letter, and her aunt sealed it with a blob of red sealing wax that looked a lot like congealed blood.
Why she was thinking like this, she had no idea, but the sight of it made her stomach churn.
Or perhaps that was because she felt she was being coerced by circumstance, and her own inability to prevent this, into doing something she didn’t think she wanted to do.
Her aunt seemed to be under the impression she’d not only already agreed to all of this, but also that she was pleased about it, and for some reason Verity didn’t have the energy to fight.
It would be easier to do that later. Let her aunt have her way for a while.
And perhaps a lonely, love-starved part of her liked being this small whirlwind’s center of attention.
She’d never had that before from a woman in a maternal position, and she had to admit that she liked it.
Plus, just being with her aunt was giving her a sense of belonging, of being part of something she hadn’t known she’d missed, and of a certain degree of security.
If she told her aunt she had no intention of marrying Lord Dunster it would all vanish away and she’d be back with Papa, lurching from one game of cards to the next and one city to another, further one.
And she found she didn’t want that either.
Aunt Josephine hadn’t shown her the contents of her letter, but before he left to go back to Lord Dunster’s house, Walter had confided in her that he was sure it would be putting her papa in his place and telling him off for what he’d done to his only child.
“The mater is nothing if not outspoken,” he confided in her in the hallway as he retrieved his hat and sword stick from a footman.
“My advice is never to cross her. Do as she says and you’ll be fine, and she’ll be happy.
Best for everyone when the mater’s happy.
” He pulled a rueful expression. “I speak from thirty-two years of experience.”
“She seems very kind to me,” Verity ventured, glancing over her shoulder towards the parlor as the footman opened the front door.
“I quite thought when she heard my story she would be shocked and want to turn me away. I know nothing of the history between my papa and his family, but to hear him speak, I always thought they hated him and threw him out.”
Walter shrugged. “I don’t know about that myself, Coz. I don’t remember your papa at all.” He frowned. “To be honest, don’t recall much before I went away to school when I was thirteen. All sort of a blur. I’m not so good at remembering anything from that long ago.”
He did indeed seem the sort of young man for whom a childhood on an estate as lovely as Somerton would not have been appreciated nor remembered with clarity.
A young man who lived for the moment, and did not dwell on his past over much.
What a shame. Verity recalled her own time spent there, at the Dower House, with pleasure, perhaps because of the uncertainty of her life after her grandmother had died and her parents had come to take her away to France with them.
In her life, that time glowed like a beacon of security and happiness.
Not that she’d missed out on happy moments while with Papa, because of course she hadn’t.
But she wasn’t about to disclose any of this to Walter.
He fidgeted, stick in hand. “I’d best be off now, Coz, or the mater will be hot on my trail. If she tells you to do something, you have to do it or risk her wrath. And I’m not about to do that. Learnt that lesson a long time ago.”
Verity nodded. “I won’t keep you, Cousin Walter.
I shall be fine here now.” Perhaps more was called for as he seemed to be hesitating.
“And thank you very much for bringing me to the safety of your mother’s care.
I appreciate your kindness.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, mainly because he was looking so flustered and she thought he needed reassurance.
The kiss didn’t work. His whole face suffused in color and he backed hurriedly out of the door.
The impassive footman closed it behind him, and Verity wandered back into the parlor her aunt had vacated in order to set about her new quest with alacrity.
She went to look out of the window. The road was busy, but she caught a glimpse of Walter’s tall form as he hurried around the corner, purpose in his stride.
Perhaps marriage to his friend would enable her to regain the security she’d had with Grandmama.
If she was honest with herself, her need for security was probably the only thing preventing her from turning tail right now and bolting back to Papa.
Whom she really needed to go and see so she could explain to him in person how everything had turned out.
Perhaps she could do that tomorrow, when hopefully he might not be quite so foxed.
Lately, he’d taken to breaking his fast with more of what he’d imbibed the night before.
Odd how he could afford to buy brandy but not food nor better lodgings.
The footman bearing the letter was going to turn his nose up at their meager rooms and then the servants would gossip about her below stairs. She wouldn’t think about that.
She sighed. What did she care if they did? She would do what Papa had always done—she would live for the moment. And right now the moment was this.
She would make the best of what life had thrown at her, as she had done so many times before.
And perhaps she would go ahead and marry this man.
At least if she was married to an earl, even one as conceited and dissolute as this one, she wouldn’t have to worry about where their next meal was coming from, nor where she would lay her head at night.
Everything that marriage entailed was a small price to pay for that, and perhaps, if she was lucky, she might be able to help Papa as well.
In fact, she would insist on helping him.
She let her thoughts wander back to her meeting with Lord Dunster.
Her husband-to-be. How odd it was to think of him like that.
If Walter had not arrived in time to recognize her and save her virtue, what would have happened?
The earl had clearly cherished the notion that she would perform better on her back than in an office with his accounts or with a mop in his kitchens.
Would she even now be lying in bed with that scoundrel who had fleeced Papa last night at cards?
Hiring her as a maid had not been in his mind as he’d looked her up and down so acquisitively.
Would she have given herself to him in the way he had so obviously wanted her to? Until Walter arrived, that was.
Yes, she would have done, horrible as the thought was.
To save Papa. But had it been right of him to expect that of her?
He must have known, even as he’d suggested she could perform some menial task for the man who’d won her at cards, that what a man like Lord Dunster would want of her would not involve books or mops. And yet he’d sent her.
Until this moment, she would have done anything for Papa.
He’d been her sole family, her sole friend, her sole support, and he’d taught her well how to make the best of things.
And if the best of things had been to surrender her virtue to a stranger to repay a debt and keep Papa out of the debtors’ prison, then she would have done that.
Against her will, teeth gritted. Only now she’d met her aunt and seen her horrified reaction to this, she had to ask herself if Papa had done the right thing.
She’d never questioned his actions before, but in the raw light of the daylight her aunt had cast upon him, she began to doubt.