Chapter 8
“When will the new orphanage be completed?” King asked over dinner that evening.
Verity faltered in the act of spearing a bite of chicken on her fork, dismayed.
It was the same inquiry he had made before Emma had arrived. Given the interaction between the two of them earlier upon his ignominious arrival, she had a feeling she knew why he wanted to know.
“Not for another few months, I should think,” she replied.
“Such an undertaking requires a great deal of time. To say nothing of the cost. After losing everything in the fire, the Children’s Foundling Hospital has desperately needed to raise funds.
We are doing everything we can to aid them, but as you can imagine, that amount of largesse does not simply appear with the snap of one’s fingers. ”
“Naturally not,” he agreed, once more his smooth and elegant self. “I would be more than happy to donate a tidy sum to the worthy cause.”
They had left the subject of his daughter behind them for the moment, along with the intensity of his grief. She believed him when he said he had spent the night alone. The haunted look in his dark eyes this afternoon had been undeniable.
“That would be incredibly generous of you,” she said cautiously, “and so very much appreciated.”
“Selfish of me too.” He flashed her a smile that reminded her just how potently charming he could be. “The sooner the orphanage is rebuilt, the sooner I shall have my peace restored.”
“Your peace,” she repeated with misgiving. “Whatever do you mean? Surely you don’t wish for Emma to return to the orphanage when it is rebuilt. Not after what happened yesterday.”
King sliced a bite of chicken with measured, elegant motions. “Of course that is what I want. That was the plan all along, was it not?”
That had been his plan. It had never been hers.
Verity had hoped that in time, he would grow fond of Emma, and he would realize that having a child in the household would be a cause for joy.
But now, she wasn’t so certain if he would alter his opinion, especially knowing what little she did about the daughter he had lost.
She felt a bit selfish even asking for Emma to stay with them. But Verity also couldn’t shake the feeling that she was responsible for the girl. She loved her as if she were her own. King must have loved his daughter as well to have suffered such pain after her death. To be suffering still.
Not that his distress could be presently seen. He was dressed impeccably, once more his suave, dapper self. Seeing him earlier in his unguarded state had been a shock. She’d never witnessed King without so much as a lock of hair out of place. At least, not that she could recall.
“Was it not the plan?” King pressed, jolting her from her thoughts and making her realize that she had been silent for too long.
“Perhaps that was the plan before she ran away,” she allowed hesitantly. “But surely you must agree that this is the best place for her. What if she were to run away from the Children’s Foundling Hospital?”
“She is fortunate enough to have survived her last adventure. She would be foolish indeed to attempt another.”
She set down her fork entirely. “But we can give her a home. She can be happy here.”
“No,” he said instantly. “Her home here is a temporary one until she can return to the orphanage.”
“She has no future there.”
“Nor has she one here.”
Verity tried again. “I can well understand your grief. Emma isn’t meant to take Daphne’s place.”
His expression became shuttered, as if a door had closed and he had sealed himself behind it, out of reach. “I don’t wish to speak of it.”
Verity tried to quell the disappointment that rose within her. It was likely too soon for her to broach the subject with him.
“Forgive me,” she told King. “I didn’t mean to cause you further injury.”
“Then perhaps we ought to let this discussion rest and enjoy the meal,” he suggested, his voice tight.
“Yes, of course,” Verity agreed, trying to tamp down the emotions that threatened to rise.
The day had been a disaster, so it came as no surprise that dinner was as well. They finished in stilted silence, and she couldn’t help but feel she had displeased him. However, she was equally unhappy with King for the way he continued to keep her at a distance.
By the dessert course, she was struggling not to allow the tears burning in her eyes to fall.
She didn’t know why she was being so excessively maudlin.
Perhaps it was the culmination of all that had happened over the past few days.
She’d married the man she loved, experienced the dizzying heights of pleasure, and then she had plummeted to the depths of despondency, fearing something had happened to Emma.
Then there had been King’s revelation about his own child and his subsequent defection.
It was almost impossible to believe that, where everything had seemed right in her world and filled with endless possibilities and promise, she now found herself so swiftly facing an uncertain future.
If King never entrusted this part of himself to her, how would their marriage succeed? Did he return her love? Why could she not remember him saying the words?
Did the words matter? Surely he had shown her.
Yes, of course he had.
Hadn’t he?
Why could she not remember? And why had her lack of memory in regard to those three words not bothered her before?
Frustration built inside her, along with a new, bitter resentment.
What had she done to deserve this painful lack of memory?
It was as if half of her was missing. As if she were a stranger to herself.
“You look as if you are about to send your cream ice to the guillotine,” King drawled wryly, shaking her from her thoughts.
“Monsieur Barreau would never forgive me if I did something so outrageous to his cream ice, I have no doubt,” she parried, trying to cling to a lightness that she didn’t feel.
Her husband regarded her with an inscrutable expression, using his spoon to scoop up a bite. “Do you like it?”
She watched as he ate the dessert sinfully, his tongue flicking out against the spoon. “Yes, of course. It’s delicious.”
“You haven’t taken a bite,” he pointed out.
And to her dismay, she realized that he wasn’t wrong. She hadn’t. It was delightfully plated, laden with chopped pistachios and chocolate. But her stomach was too unsettled.
She was too unsettled.
Verity lifted a spoonful of cream ice to her lips and froze. A memory seized her, jolting her as suddenly as when she woke from a dream to the feeling she was falling. The flavor and coldness on her tongue triggered a reminder.
A summer afternoon at Riverdale Abbey. A picnic. Laughter. Sitting on a blanket that had been spread on rough ground, her skirts draping over the long leg of the man seated next to her. The brim of his hat shaded his face.
I thought you might enjoy a treat from Mrs. Hockenhall, he had said.
“Verity?” King prodded. “Is something amiss?”
“Have you ever had a cook named Mrs. Hockenhall?” she asked, trying to place the name, to understand why the fragmented shards returning to her seemed not to fit together.
It was as if she had been handed the pages of a book, but they had been cast about a room and, in the absence of page numbers, she was left to assemble them into their proper order by inference and guesswork alone.
King considered her, his expression inscrutable. “No. I have not. Why do you ask?”
“It’s nothing,” she answered, shaking her head as she attempted to consume her dessert with renewed vigor.
Or was it truly nothing? The traces of the memory remained, persistent yet incomplete.
“Do you remember something?”
Her husband’s perceptive query sliced through Verity’s thoughts. She glanced up to find his dark, probing gaze upon her. He was unsmiling yet elegant, a careful shave from his valet, a change of clothes, and a bath having rendered him every bit as perfect as she was accustomed to seeing him.
Why did it suddenly feel as if she didn’t know King? Why did she experience a mysterious, aching pang in her chest?
“I don’t know if I do or not,” she struggled to answer. “Everything in my mind is a confused hodgepodge at the moment.”
“Perhaps we should finish our meal for the evening,” he suggested. “The night air isn’t as chilled and damp as it has been of late. We could take a turn in the garden if you like.”
Yes, that was just what she needed. A change of scenery. Some air. Anything to dash away the frustration and the nagging sense that she was missing something important from her troubled mind. The cream ice, however delectable it may have been, no longer held any appeal.
“That would be lovely,” she agreed.
A few minutes later, she clung to his muscled arm as they ventured slowly into the shadowy gardens. King had been correct—the night was warm and the pervasive damp had lifted. The scent of him curled around her, and the heat emanating from his form was every bit as potent a temptation.
“I must beg your forgiveness for my absence last night,” he said, his voice smooth and calming.
“You need not,” she countered. “I am only sorry to have caused you such pain.”
“Think of it no longer. Let us leave our pasts where they belong, firmly mired.”
The moon was a sliver overhead, casting scarcely any illumination as she glanced up at him, trying to read his expression.
She understood what he was indirectly telling her, that he would not broach the painful subject of his daughter again.
Mayhap not ever. And although she yearned for her husband to open himself to her completely, she also understood he didn’t owe her his pain.
His memories were his to claim, his to share or keep to himself.
But Verity felt differently about her own.
They danced at the edges of her mind, always out of reach.