Chapter 1
TWO MONTHS LATER
The preparation for her wedding had taken far longer than Verity would have preferred.
Indeed, if she’d had her way, she would have been the Duchess of Kingham weeks ago.
But Maman had managed to involve herself.
And Maman adored fêtes of all sorts, playing hostess, and paying attention to every detail, regardless of how minute and obscure.
At last, the day Verity had waited for would arrive on the morrow.
And in what had become a long-standing, if unconventional, tradition between them, she joined her brother in the library after the rest of the house was abed.
As usual, Riverdale had a glass of whisky poured and awaiting her.
Sometimes, her sister-in-law, Sybil, joined them.
On this evening, however, it was only Everett standing by the crackling fire, staring into the grate in contemplative silence as if it might surrender all the mysteries of the universe.
“You are somber,” Verity commented lightly as she closed the door behind her and started across the Axminster, unable to keep the happiness from her voice.
To say Verity was excited to wed the man she loved tomorrow morning would be a vast understatement.
She was thrilled.
Overjoyed.
She didn’t recall a time in her life when she had been happier. It was as if she had waited an eternity for the moment she would become King’s wife. Everything she had ever wanted was finally, at long last, within her grasp.
Everett turned to her, his countenance as serious as his voice. “And you seem to be bubbling over with excitement, rather like a kettle set to boil.”
“That is because I am.” She grinned and took up the whisky tumbler he had left for her in the customary place. “I am going to be married in the morning.”
“To Kingham.”
Her brother said the name with distaste.
“You like King,” she reminded him, disliking the discord that seemed to have arisen between Riverdale and her betrothed.
“I liked him,” Everett corrected succinctly before taking a hearty drink from his tumbler.
“I note your use of the past tense,” she pointed out, raising a brow. “It’s badly done of you.”
“It’s badly done of Kingham to run away with my sister,” Everett grumbled, every bit as grim.
“We are hardly running away.” She took her own small sip of the whisky, savoring the burn. “We are marrying before half of London tomorrow, if the flurry of invitations Maman extended is any indication.”
“I don’t want you to marry him,” Everett said with a sigh.
Verity issued an answering sigh of her own, for they had engaged in this argument before on many occasions. “He is your friend.”
“He was my friend—he is no longer. And you are my sister.”
“I love him, Everett.”
“What of Lord Leopold?” he asked quietly.
Verity furrowed her brow, struggling as she always did whenever her brother mentioned the supposed former suitor of her past, a man whose name left her mind curiously blank, a man she couldn’t seem to remember, no matter how hard she tried.
“We have discussed this before. I cannot recall him. All I remember of him is what you have told me. I can only suppose that my feelings for him pale in comparison to what I feel for King.”
Her brother clenched his jaw, remaining silent for a few moments as he took in her words, disappointment etched on his countenance. “Are you certain you remember nothing of him? Try, Verity. Try now, before it is too late.”
She shook her head at Everett’s urgency. “I have already done so. There is simply nothing. Ever since I suffered the blow to my head in the fire, parts of my mind have become a blank sheet of paper, waiting to be rewritten. I assume Lord Leopold was once among the missing pages.”
“He was an important part of your life for many years. It is difficult for me to accept that you cannot dredge even the smallest speck of memory from the ether.”
Sadness swept over her. “No one is more frustrated than I am that some parts of my past are shrouded in mystery. But I cannot change what has already happened. All I can do is live for the present and the future. That is why I am so eager to marry Kingham tomorrow. It shall be like beginning anew, in a sense.”
Although she had no memory of what had happened in the fire, it had made its mark upon her, nonetheless.
Not just in the scars on her body—the burns on her forearms and wrists, the scar at her hairline, the singed locks that had begun to grow again—but in the nightmares she suffered.
It would do her constitution immeasurable good, she did not doubt, to start her new life with King.
She was also bringing young Emma, a girl from the Children’s Foundling Hospital, along with her to her new household.
In a way, it would be like starting a family.
Not that she had persuaded King that Emma was meant to be their daughter.
Yet.
King, it seemed, harbored a healthy dislike of children, which made little sense, given his generosity to the orphanage.
He claimed he preferred children to remain in households other than his own, but he had been willing to make an exception for Emma out of deference to Verity.
Verity was certain that she and Emma could change his opinion, given time and opportunity.
After all, there was a reason she loved him.
Many reasons.
“I am not as confident as you are that beginning anew with Kingham is the right decision for you,” her brother said, intruding upon her thoughts.
Verity sipped at her whisky to keep the churlish response forming to herself.
She had no wish to quarrel with her brother on the day before her wedding.
Or ever, in truth. She and Everett were very close.
They always had been. Their fond relationship had not been lost to the abyss, unlike some of her other memories, thank heavens.
“You did not seek my counsel at all before you married Sybil,” Verity pointed out instead, for her brother’s secrecy concerning his marriage to her sister-in-law was still something of a source of irritation for her.
She understood why he had done it. His anguished explanation that he believed he had witnessed his wife embracing another man on their wedding day had done much to elucidate why he had kept his marriage from Verity.
The pain had been too much for him, given his past heartache at the hands of a woman he’d believed himself in love with, only to discover her treachery.
But none of that entirely ameliorated Verity’s hurt feelings, especially now that her brother had spent the last two months attempting to interfere in her decisions at every turn.
“That was different,” he said, frowning. “I’m your elder brother, the head of the family.”
“You are older than I am, but not wiser, to be sure. Because you may be the head of the family, as you say, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t made quite a mess of things with Sybil, at least initially.”
He inclined his head and raised his glass in mock toast. “I do not argue the point, sister.”
Whilst some of her memories remained murky or absent, she did recall her brother’s grievous blunders where his sweet wife was concerned. She remembered all.
“Good,” she told him cheekily. “Because you would be wrong.”
He gave an indelicate snort. “You are fortunate indeed that I dote upon you as I do.”
She grinned. “And you are equally lucky that I do the same with you.”
“I am, dearest sister.” He sighed again. “Come and have a seat by the fire, won’t you? My feet are beginning to ache.”
“Perhaps you’re developing gout at your tender age,” she suggested pointedly as they crossed the library and settled into the pair of wingback chairs positioned at the hearth.
“How amusing you are, sister dearest,” Everett drawled, folding himself into his seat with graceful ease.
She cast a grin in his direction, relieved that the closeness between them—so recently strained—had returned. “I consider myself so. Thank you for noticing.”
He laughed, looking as if he couldn’t help himself. “You are too good for him, Verity.”
“I am nothing of the sort.”
“You know his reputation.”
“I know he is a fine man,” she countered.
Yes, it was true that Kingham was a rake.
That he had been one for as long as he had been friends with her brother.
But she had no doubt that her love had changed him.
For the last two months, he had been the perfect suitor.
Not even Everett had found a proper complaint. King was nothing short of a paragon.
“He is a jaded sybarite,” her brother said, a bitter edge to his voice. “I still cannot countenance the two of you. It makes no sense.”
“We are in love,” she said simply, not wanting to have a row with Everett on her last evening in his home.
“Truly?” Her brother raised an imperious brow. “Has he spoken of love to you?”
“Of course he has.” She was sure of it.
True, King had not professed his love to her since she had arisen after the fire.
But he was taking care with her, ever the gentleman.
Too much the gentleman for her liking, in fact.
He had yet to kiss her, an omission she intended to rectify on their wedding day.
It had been too long since she’d last had his lips on hers.
“Kingham has told you he loves you?” Everett pressed, disbelief coloring his words.
As had become habit in the weeks following her injury, Verity scoured her mind for a hint of memory. A scent, a sound, anything that would jolt free the hidden recollections that had been locked away. A brief image of forget-me-nots by a stream rose. Hands holding hers. Words.
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.