Chapter Fourteen #2
Never had she seen such splendor, even at Versailles.
Every wall was covered in paintings of people in old-fashioned clothing who had to be past earls and their families, and she had to do her best not to stare like some kind of country bumpkin.
The trouble was, though, that she was a country bumpkin, no matter the family she’d been born into.
In the long hours she’d had since leaving London behind, she’d had time to speculate as to what Luxborough House would be like, and her imagination had never furnished her with such a spectacle.
Without doubt, she would never fit in, even if she were to live here forever, quite alone and never bothered by her new husband.
This was not somewhere she could ever call home.
Not somewhere, she feared, that could ever be a home for anyone.
She began to have an inkling as to why Jonathan was the way he was.
Running footsteps echoed from above in the gallery.
A slight figure appeared at the head of the stairs, leaning precariously over the wrought iron bannisters.
A girl, long dark hair streaming over her shoulders and framing a pert, elfin face.
With a squeal of delight, she straightened and hurled herself down the stairs at a run.
At the foot, she skidded to a halt in front of Verity and stared up at her.
She was short, but, from her blossoming figure, perhaps fifteen years of age, with large, dark eyes, that seemed somehow familiar to Verity, brimming with excitement.
“Are you she?” she asked, a trifle breathlessly.
“Tell me you are.” An abrupt introduction if ever there was one, but Verity was not taken aback.
She had experience in meeting young girls such as this one.
Having no idea who this girl was, though, nor what she was talking about, she could think of nothing to say in answer to her question.
The girl reached out and caught hold of her hand.
“You must be my new sister, I am sure. Jonathan wrote to Grandmama several days since to inform us of his coming marriage, but I had no hope that he would come down here to see us at last, and bring you with him.” She peered past Verity.
“Where is he? At the carriage still? Did he perhaps ride one of his horses down? I cannot wait to see him.” She released Verity’s hand and ran to the door.
But the carriage had gone, presumably round to the stables.
And of course, there was no sign of Jonathan.
The girl turned back, her expression abject. “He is not here, is he?” Her shoulders sagged in eloquent despondence. “I thought it too good to be true that he would come.” She met Verity’s curious gaze. “And it seems he has condemned you also to exile here at Luxborough.”
Exile. Was that what he’d sent her here for? Did she even care?
Those eyes. Of course. They were Lord Dunster’s eyes. “Might you be His Lordship’s sister?” she asked.
The girl nodded in delight. “His half sister, if we are to be honest with one another. And as we are to be friends, a matter I have already decided, then honesty is by far the best option. I am certain you will agree with me on this.”
“Half sister?”
The girl nodded. “And in the interest of complete honesty, I must inform you that my mother was not married to my father, so I am not precisely legitimate.”
She had such an air of confidence about her that Verity could not possibly have held this against her. Besides which, she very much wanted a friend herself. She smiled. “But what is your name, if we are to be friends? Mine, as you perhaps already know, is Verity.”
The girl laughed, a joyous peal that echoed round the lofty hallway, managing to sound very much out of place.
“And mine is Katherine. Although of course, you may call me Kitty, as almost everyone does. Even Grandmama, when she can remember who I am.” She wrinkled her nose. “Which is not all that often nowadays.”
“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Kitty.” The sensation that she was going to need a friend loomed large, and this frank and open girl seemed an ideal candidate.
“And yours.” Kitty shook her hand with vigor. “And delighted to at last have someone young living here apart from the maids. This place is like a mausoleum. Everyone here is so old.”
Verity took a glance at the butler, who fulfilled this description admirably, and the footman, who did not. Perhaps if you were only fifteen everyone over twenty looked old. Did Kitty think her new friend was also old? A disturbing thought.
“Now,” Kitty declared, as though she’d just reached a momentous decision.
“I will take you up to your room. As countess, it will be the best bedroom, of course, beside Jonnie’s when he is home…
” Her voice trailed off. “Not that he ever is. But we won’t think about that.
Come along. Send Bessie off to retrieve your luggage and I’ll take you up.
” She seized Verity’s hand again and hurried her up the stairs.
The best bedroom was, in keeping with the rest of the house, large and splendid.
A velvet-canopied bed stood halfway along one picture-hung, paneled wall and a Chinese rug covered the floor almost to the edges of the room.
Every exquisite piece of furniture, from the chaise longue in the window to the footstools and dressing table, must be both old and valuable.
Would she even dare to use such beautiful objects?
Never had she slept in a room such as this, not even when Papa had been flush with money after a particularly successful ruse.
“You like it?” Kitty asked. “It is my favorite bedroom of all. In fact, I have on occasion sneaked in here to spend the night. My governess, Miss Bligh, has no idea I do that, or she would be most annoyed.”
“You have a governess?” Not something Verity had ever had. Everything she knew she’d learned either from her own grandmother or from Papa.
Kitty wrinkled her nose and nodded. “She attempts to teach me French and reckoning and music and how to write a polite letter, but she says my head is always in the clouds and I don’t listen.
” She beamed. “I fear she may be correct in that. Luckily for her, and me, of course, she’s only expected to teach me in the mornings.
She is the unmarried sister of our local vicar, so she returns after luncheon to the vicarage to assist her brother in doing things like writing sermons and visiting the sick and elderly.
Which is why she is not here, keeping an eye on me. ” She dimpled. “To my utmost relief.”
Verity went to the window and looked out. Wherever they were in the house, this window gave onto a sweeping slope down to a long lake. “Who else lives here then? Just you and your grandmother?” Who must be Lord Dunster’s grandmother as well.
“Just us,” Kitty said with a deep sigh. “And I suppose you could say all the servants, too. Shocking how many we require just for two of us. But I’m not allowed to associate with them.
” Did the twinkle in her eye betray the fact that this was not a rule she followed?
She chuckled. “Which is why it’s so boring.
Of course, there’s also Jonnie’s mama, but she lives in the Dower House, and we never see her and someone told me she’s a witch.
” Her smile widened. “She is not all that fond of me, you see, which I consider a witch-like thing.”
Verity ignored the fact that Kitty thought Jonnie’s mother a witch.
But her dislike of her husband’s illegitimate offspring made sense.
But what was she doing being brought up in this house as though she was one of the family?
Verity had come across more than a few illegitimate offspring in her adventures, and none had been provided for as this girl had been.
Best not to enquire about that though. Not yet, at any rate.
Kitty seemed the sort of girl given to confidences, so no doubt she would find out soon enough.
She scanned the extensive parkland. “Where abouts is the Dower House?” Where her mother-in-law, who didn’t like this vivacious girl, lurked. Possibly a place to be avoided. She could foresee no scenario where this woman would like her any more than little Kitty.
Kitty pointed to the right. “Off over there. I never walk or ride in that direction, and Lady Dunster never comes to the house. I’ve heard she can’t.
And she doesn’t get on with Grandmama, which might be because Grandmama supported Jonnie in letting me be brought up here in the house.
Or it might just be because she’s a mean old witch, as I said.
One of the maids told me that because she’s friends with a maid at the Dower House.
” She gave an expansive shrug. “Although, of course, you are now Lady Dunster so she is now just the Dowager Lady Dunster. The second of that name, as Grandmama is also the Dowager Lady Dunster still, I suppose.” She beamed.
“I find I like it that Jonnie’s mama has been demoted somewhat. ”
Three Lady Dunsters within a very short area. And she, Verity Farrington, was one of them. Only she was Verity Wintringham now. She mustn’t forget.
Even though she’d not met the younger dowager, Verity found herself agreeing with her new friend.
Meeting her mother-in-law might well be something to be put off indefinitely.
Although she had a sinking feeling it would be bad manners to do so.
She’d think about it. “I think I will be keeping to the house and this part of the park, in that case. Thank you for the warning.”
Kitty shrugged. “She may take to you, I suppose, as you have married her precious son. Last time Jonnie was here, I heard him telling his friend Walter how angry he was with his mother because she kept asking when he was to be married. He laughed and said he’d far rather seduce young ladies than marry them.
” She frowned. “Which means, in that case, that you are going to have to reveal to me how it is that he chose to marry you rather than just seduce you. I need to know everything, you know, or I shall not be satisfied.”
Her ingenuous smile removed the import of her words, and Verity discovered that she had a burning urge to unburden herself to another human being who might not be so biased as Aunt Josephine or Papa or Walter.
Someone who might put her own happiness before the perceived benefit of marrying an earl and all that entailed.
Her family probably hadn’t foreseen her exile to Jonathan’s country estate when they’d been doing their plotting.