Chapter Seventeen #2
The shade cooled her by-now-warm cheeks, for the day was fast becoming hot, and she strolled along, in no hurry, enjoying the sound of sheep bleating in the distance and birdsong in the trees.
This lack of haste might also have been because now she was drawing nearer to her destination, she was experiencing a desire to put off what increasingly felt as though it would be a moment of confrontation.
The meeting face-to-face with the striking woman from that painting in the haunted hall, who was one and the same with the woman in the portrait in the parlor in Cavendish Square.
The turning to the Dower House lay a bare two hundred yards down the avenue, unfortunately for Verity, who now found she had reached the point where she could no longer put off this encounter.
Turning off the main drive, she found herself passing through a small wood which, after a few minutes’ walk, led to high walls and a gateway flanked by tall stone pillars.
She stopped, aware of her heart hammering within her ribs at a ridiculous speed.
If only Kitty, and Bessie too, had not implied this woman was a dragon.
If only the old Dowager had not referred to her as a French hussy in such derogatory terms. If only one didn’t have to be polite and introduce oneself to one’s new relations but could pretend they didn’t exist. But if she left it any longer, or worse, ran away now and didn’t bother, Lady Dunster would be sure to know and consider it an insult.
And she was not about to be thought rude.
She pushed one half of the gates open just enough to squeeze through, and, with reluctance, let it close behind her.
Now she felt truly trapped, as though that click of its shutting had been the springing of a trap.
But she was made of stern stuff and she was not about to allow the tales told by others to put her off.
The dowager might turn out to be much nicer than she thought.
Surreptitiously, she crossed her fingers.
She had faced far worse things than a disdainful mother-in-law.
With a bravado that was anything but genuine, she marched up to the door and gave the bell rope a vigorous tug.
The sound echoed inside as though the whole house might be empty.
That would be the best possible outcome.
No one would answer the door, and she could go home and claim she’d tried and failed.
No such luck. After a full minute, just when she was thinking of beating a hasty retreat, the door opened to reveal a liveried footman, his wig slightly lopsided as though he’d had to don it in a hurry.
Perhaps the Dower House had as few visitors as the main house and he’d been slacking somewhere in deshabille.
“Good afternoon,” Verity said with asperity. “I am here to call on the dowager countess.”
By the look on the young man’s face, this came as a big surprise.
Perhaps her first surmise had been correct, and the French Dowager did indeed have as few visitors as the main house.
The footman managed to remember himself enough to bow as he held the door open for her to enter.
“Who shall I inform Her Ladyship is calling?” Clearly he had no idea who she might be.
Or did he? Was he just checking so he didn’t make a mistake?
Verity took off her gloves and risked a quick glance about the hallway she’d just stepped into. “You may tell Her Ladyship that her daughter-in-law has come to visit her.”
There’d be no doubt about her identity now.
The young footman fought a losing battle as he struggled to control his expression and maintain a calm front.
As surely everyone must know of her presence at the main house by now, the fact she was calling at all must be what was so shocking.
Was there more to this than met the eye?
Perhaps her mother-in-law hadn’t thought she would be so bold as to visit. Which was odd in the extreme.
“If you would care to wait in the drawing room,” the young man said and opened a door into a comfortably but flamboyantly furnished room.
To oblige him, Verity went in, and he closed the door behind her with what felt suspiciously like relief.
Determined not to be put off, as, after all, she’d braved worse situations than this in her life with Papa, and met plenty of supercilious European aristocrats in her time. This one was not going to intimidate her.
She stepped further into the room, taking in the opulence of the furnishings, which was extensive, although not quite so impressive as the main house. Perhaps some of the items of furniture had indeed come from there. One never knew.
Above the fireplace hung another portrait of the occupant, easily recognisable even though a good twenty years must have passed since she sat for the likeness Verity had seen of her in the haunted hall.
In this new portrait she must have been in her early forties and what had been the allure of youth had matured into full-blown beauty.
Her dark eyes, so strangely like Kitty’s, seemed to follow Verity as she approached the portrait, gazing out from beneath flaring black brows that in turn resembled Jonnie’s.
Only a few strands of gray showed on her dark head, although that might have been artistic license on the part of the painter to give light to the mass of black curls.
Or the other way around, of course. The painter might have minimized the effects of age out of politeness. So many did.
On the far wall another painting caught Verity’s eye.
A young boy of perhaps nine or ten years old stood beneath a tree beside a pair of black spaniels.
Easily recognizable as Jonnie, older than in the Cavendish Square portrait and with his features more formed and less baby soft.
He wore knee breeches, a tan coat, and stockings.
Behind him, the parkland she’d just walked through rolled away, the sparkle of the lake recognizable in the distance.
His inky hair hung in loose curls to his shoulders and his mother’s, and Kitty’s, dark eyes stared back at Verity reaching down the years to recreate the awkward way he’d made her feel on the first morning they met.
He had his mother’s sensuously curving lips, as well as those dark brows and seemed more like his mother than his father.
How odd that Kitty was superficially like her as well.
The opening of the door disturbed her contemplation and she swung around.
A woman stood framed in the doorway, one hand on the lintel and the other gripping an ebony stick.
She was still beautiful, but her black hair had vanished to be replaced with pure white.
Only the still smooth skin of her face gave the hint that she was not yet an elderly woman.
Verity sank into a curtsey. “Lady Dunster.”
The French Dowager came into the room, her stick, on which she leaned as though in need of support, tapping on the floor with every step.
She halted in front of the cold fireplace.
“So,” she said, with some relish and only the slightest of French accents, “you are the chit upon whom my wayward son has chosen to bestow his choice.” She tutted and settled herself, with more than a hint of discomfort, into an upright chair.
“Come closer and let me have a good look at you, child.”
Verity stepped closer and was immediately struck by the deformities in both of her mother-in-law’s hands.
She suffered from advanced rheumatics. Her knuckles were knobbly and reddened, her fingers bent, and, if anything, more claw-like than her own ancient mother-in-law’s.
And although her gown was beautiful, it couldn’t disguise the stoop of her shoulders nor the curvature of her back.
This was a woman whose body had grown old before its time, leaving her with joints as stiff and gnarled as those of a much older person, while still possessing the lovely, unblemished face she’d always had.
Who could blame someone who must be in constant pain for being fractious?
Verity vowed to approach her with compassion.
Lady Dunster, the younger dowager, looked Verity up and down for a moment or two in silence before giving her a curt nod. “You may be seated.”
Verity chose a chair as close to the old lady as she could, out of politeness.
Lady Dunster’s sharp brows furrowed in a frown.
“Now, you might be surprised to know that I am well aware of who you are.” She chuckled to herself.
“I have my spies everywhere since my body confined me to this house. I would die of boredom here if I didn’t hear all the gossip from both here and Town.
And I knew your father when I was a young bride myself, new to this bedeviled, rain-sodden country.
So different from where I grew up in the valley of the River Loire.
A very charming young man he was. Most amusing.
I heard he ran off with a tavern keeper’s daughter he met in France.
I was not surprised. He had the heart of an adventurer, even then. ”
Good heavens. Verity had not expected anyone to know so much about Papa.
The old lady chuckled again with more than a hint of satisfaction.
“I see I surprise you. I should also tell you that I know you’ve been brought up since you were nine on the Continent, so you have had a different experience of life to the milksop young ladies here in England.
More like a French girl. A good thing, I would say.
Insipid is the only word I could use to describe most English girls.
Insipid and featherbrained.” She chuckled yet again.
“If you are anything like your father, then you must be a girl without a feather in her brain at all, just real intelligence.” She paused.
“Am I right?” This last came out as a bark.