Chapter Seven
Staying with Aunt Josephine proved to be the most enjoyable thing Verity had ever done.
Not since she’d lived with Grandmama had she experienced being waited on hand and foot in the way her aunt’s cheerful servants did.
She was given the bedroom her aunt said had once belonged to her older cousin Emily.
This was the cousin she couldn’t remember at all, as she’d left home to marry when Verity had been only six years old, and before that had been mostly in London as she participated in all the events of the London Season.
In the dining room a portrait of Emily, painted just before her wedding, showed a petite and pretty young lady, very much a younger version of her mother.
She was wearing the fashion of twenty years ago and standing in a curtained alcove holding a small bouquet of white violets.
“For her purity, candor, and modesty,” Aunt Josephine said, with more than a hint of pride.
“It would be a good idea for you to learn the language of flowers, I think. Far more use to you than being able to speak Russian.” Walter had informed his mother of Verity’s linguistic prowess and she’d been unimpressed.
Conversational French, she’d opined, was quite sufficient for any young lady to know.
She’d have been most surprised at her niece’s fluency in the patois of France.
“Where is Cousin Emily now?” Verity asked.
“She married Sir Richard Hughes when she was nineteen,” her aunt replied, a hint of sadness in her eyes.
“Dear Dickie, such a charming man. I miss my lovely Emily still, though. She was such a good companion to me. Such a breath of fresh air compared with the two boys and their rumbustious play. Even Robert’s, for he’s never allowed his health to hold him back.
But I’m glad to be able to inform you that she has a very happy marriage, so I’m happy for her.
” She cheered up. “She and her husband live at Liston House, near Winchester, with her family. She has four beautiful daughters and is at this moment anticipating a fifth arrival.” She sighed.
“She and her husband are hopeful of a boy, this time. Dickie is most keen for her to provide him with an heir.” She looked sideways at Verity.
“Something your husband will no doubt be hoping you will be able to do. Every title needs an heir in order to provide for its continuity.”
Verity bit her lip but the heat still climbed up from her neck to her cheeks.
She didn’t want to think about what being married entailed, even if she might have been prepared to give herself up to Lord Dunster before.
Somehow, as the days had passed and she’d settled in to her aunt’s town house, the specter of the marriage and in particular the marriage bed had seemed to grow out of all proportion.
Three days had passed during which Aunt Josephine, aided by Walter, had acquired the necessary Common License and arranged for the vicar of St James’s church in Piccadilly to conduct the wedding four days from now.
Those four days seemed a very short barrier between Verity and the joys, or more likely the perils, of marriage.
With only those four days to go, Hesketh, her aunt’s butler, sought her out to inform her that she had a caller.
He found her sitting in a shady arbor in the verdant garden reading a book, a pleasure she’d never been able to indulge in before.
Her absent uncle, who was due to arrive from the country on the morrow, possessed a formidable library, no doubt full of history and dull tomes, but her aunt had a small collection of her own—of romantic tales.
And it was these Verity was devouring, perhaps in the hope that reading about romance might render her readier for marriage than she felt. It wasn’t working.
Hoping her visitor was Papa come to enquire about her health and perhaps mend the broken bridges that existed between him and his estranged family, she hurried inside, the book forgotten.
It was indeed high time he made an appearance and she had a mind to give him a telling off for leaving it so long.
Her caller was awaiting her in the parlor where she’d first encountered her aunt, standing with his back to the door and staring out of one of the long windows. Tall and powerfully built, it was not Papa.
Even though she couldn’t see his face, she knew without a doubt that it was Lord Dunster. And quite a different Lord Dunster to the one she’d encountered four days since.
Hearing the door close behind her, he turned around.
She stared. She couldn’t help it. If she hadn’t already known who he was, she would not have recognized him. However, she kept her face expressionless, a must for anyone who liked to gamble.
He wore an immaculately cut coat that hugged his broad shoulders like a second skin, over a brocade waistcoat, and figure revealing breeches.
His top boots had been polished to such an extent she was sure she might be able to see her reflection in them.
His mane of black hair had been brushed back from his face and arranged in an artless disarray that was most certainly not artless.
Heavy eyelids drooped over those black eyes in the manner of a panther, a creature she had seen in a zoological garden in Hanover, eyeing up his prey.
Gone was the pasty-faced drunkard she’d first encountered, and in its place stood a man supremely confident of his animal attraction, of his success with women, of his place in society that was so much higher than hers. None of this made her like him any more.
She hesitated, caught by that mesmerising and disturbingly hypnotic stare. And all she could think was that he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen, and also the most dangerous.
But she was a girl who’d escaped Venice in the middle of the night in a gondola, who’d ridden helter-skelter over the Pyrenees to get out of Spain while pursued by a furious Spanish don eager to kill her father, and who’d once tricked a prince out of his golden crown.
She was not afraid of a mere earl, even if he was a rake who had his eyes set on getting her into bed.
She’d met men like him before, including that prince, and fought them off with great success. She could do it again.
She sank into a modest curtsey, dropping her gaze, wary of allowing him any insight into her thoughts. He had about him the appearance of someone for whom reading minds would not be a chore. “Good afternoon, my lord.”
He bowed with a definite flourish. “Miss Farrington.”
What a show off.
Now what? Perhaps they’d better sit down.
They could hardly stand here staring at one another for the entirety of his visit.
Although she had to admit that he warranted being stared at a lot.
Not that she was going to let him know that.
She’d met handsome men before, that prince, for instance, and she was not going to be swayed in any way by this one.
“Won’t you be seated?” she asked, gesturing to the array of choice provided by her aunt.
He took a seat on an upright, high-backed chair, one leg tucked under it, the other extending into the room like some dominating, male intrusion.
How could one leg do that? It drew her eyes and made her want to look at it rather than anything else in the room.
Most annoying. However, it was a very shapely, muscular leg…
She tore her eyes away and took a seat as far away as she could from him, perching herself on the edge of an over-stuffed settee, her back ramrod straight, and looked at him expectantly. He would have to make the first move.
It seemed he was doing the same thing. Expecting her to speak first.
She waited, well aware of his gaze resting on her in an almost accusatory fashion, his black brows slanting as though in annoyance.
The silence grew.
She could wait forever. She hadn’t grown up with a father who gambled without learning the efficacy of both waiting in silence until the other person had to speak, and of keeping a face so still it betrayed nothing of her inner thoughts.
It worked. It almost always did. She had, as her father had often said, the patience of a saint.
He cleared his throat. “I thought I had better call on you,” he said, his voice a little gruff, but pleasingly deep. “As we are to become husband and wife in a few days’ time.”
She bowed her head a fraction in acknowledgment. “Thank you. You are most welcome.” And wondered why he’d not called sooner. Three days was a long time to ignore your affianced bride.
He gave a slight nod. “I trust you are comfortable here, with your aunt?”
She nodded. “Most comfortable. My aunt has been nothing but kind to me. She has even taken me to her dressmaker and ordered me a number of new gowns.” She paused. “You have no need to fear that I will show you up on the day of our marriage by appearing in a less than respectable gown.”
Two red spots showed on his cheeks. “I didn’t think that for a moment.
I’m sure your aunt will be proud of your appearance.
And I’m sure between you, you will have chosen a suitable gown for a wedding.
” A hint of tension had made itself known in his voice.
He probably, no, certainly, had been thinking she would have nothing to wear that was suitable. Touché.
But these spots of color proved to be a revelation.
He was nervous! The realization hit Verity in the face.
He was more nervous about this than she was, despite his facade of not caring, of hardened rake, of man about town whom nothing could trouble.
For the first time, she felt a small pang of sympathy for him instead of the contempt she’d been feeling since her father had told her what he’d done.
“You will have to wait and see,” she said, bestowing a gentle smile on him.