Chapter 17
One moment, Verity was encouraging her guests to offer a more generous gift to the Children’s Foundling Hospital to aid in repairs, and the next, Lady Greetham was spilling her champagne down the front of Verity’s ball gown.
“Oh, dear heavens!” Lady Greetham pressed a hand to her heart, looking horrified by her actions, if a trifle soused. “I am so very sorry, Your Grace. Pray forgive me my clumsiness.”
Too much champagne for Lady Greetham, it would seem.
And although Verity’s gown was a dark purple, the splash of the champagne was quite notable, beginning at her bodice and traveling down her skirts. She gazed at herself, dismayed, before pinning on a smile and turning back to Lady Greetham as if she were completely unperturbed.
“You needn’t apologize,” she reassured the marchioness. “I shall go to the withdrawing room and blot it off, and it won’t even be noticeable.”
“I don’t know what I was doing,” Lady Greetham lamented. “I must have tripped on my hems.”
“Think nothing of it,” she said gently, reminding herself that the marchioness and her husband had provided a sizable pledge to the orphanage and that she would gladly bathe in champagne if it meant the children could soon have a home restored to them.
“If you will excuse me, my lady, I will be back in a trice.”
Verity made her way through the throng of revelers, pleased at both the crush of guests and the funds that had been raised for her cause. It was, she didn’t doubt, a success. The champagne would dry. She had wanted to dance with King, but that would have to wait until she tended to her gown.
Movement was slow. The ballroom was overly warm, the blazing chandeliers and the sheer number of people in attendance making perspiration trickle down her spine.
The champagne on her front was beginning to seep through her layers, and her feet had begun to ache long ago in her impractical slippers.
They were hours away from supper. Perhaps a small sojourn to the withdrawing room wasn’t as irritating a task as she had initially thought.
At long last, and only after working her way through the crowd whilst covered in champagne and smiling brightly and exchanging pleasantries with all who crossed her path, she emerged from the ballroom to the cooler and quieter air of the hall.
But her hopes for the withdrawing room were dashed by the line of ladies preceding her.
Better yet, she decided, she would slip up the staircase and say goodnight to Emma while her gown dried.
Perhaps she could even find some towels to blot the damp silk velvet whilst she was en route to the nursery.
Whirling away from the crowded line of ladies, she ascended the curved staircase, stopping at her chamber along the way.
Within, her room was hushed and chilly. Thank heavens no one had lit a fire in the grate.
Verity found a towel and began to blot the liquid from her soaked gown.
She wouldn’t have long to linger here, she thought, but then, it was so lovely to be away from all the noise and bodies below. She hadn’t liked balls since…
Verity stilled, a strange feeling overwhelming her.
She hadn’t liked balls since what? Since when? The answers were there, at the edge of her mind, whispering their secrets to her. The last ball she’d attended had been the one she and Maman arranged for Sybil. She had been on her own then as well, hiding…
And suddenly, as if the mists that had been fogging her mind abruptly lifted, everything returned to her.
She remembered.
Yes. Verity remembered being alone in the alcove at the ball she and Maman had planned for Sybil’s introduction. She’d been thinking about how much she hated balls. About how much they reminded her of Leo and all she had lost when he had died.
She’d been weeping when a low, mellifluous voice had startled her…
“Handkerchief?” a voice asked.
Verity spun about with a squeak, having not taken note of anyone else’s presence.
King was there, dressed elegantly, looking diabolically handsome as ever, and bored. He held out a hand, offering her an embroidered square.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Did my brother send you to find me?”
“Riverdale is too busy growling at every gentleman below who so much as glances in Her Grace’s direction to take note of anyone else,” Kingham said wryly. “Here. Take the handkerchief.”
“That is quite kind of you to offer, Your Grace, but I don’t require one.”
He gave her one of those considering looks of his. “Your nose is dripping.”
Embarrassment instantly suffused her. How dreadful she must appear, so very ragged in contrast to his debonair perfection. She accepted the offering, dabbing at her eyes and nose.
“Give me a name, Lady Verity.”
She was confused at his request, jolted from her thoughts and misery so unexpectedly.
“Do you mean you wish for me to grant you a nickname?” she asked.
“No, but you have my permission to do so should it amuse you. I was referring to the cad who is responsible for your current state. Only tell me who he is, and I’ll be more than happy to thrash him for making you weep.”
“It is kind of you to offer,” she said gently. “However, I do believe that the task of defending my honor is reserved for my brother, should it be required. It would be most unseemly for you to thrash anyone on my behalf.”
“Are you defending him, my lady?” he demanded.
“No,” she told him, voice quavering, “I cannot, for he is dead.”
“How surprising, you’ve resorted to murder. I confess, I didn’t think you had it in you. What was your weapon? A blade? A pistol, perhaps?”
A hysterical laugh escaped her, and she covered her mouth with her hand to stifle it.
“No?” Kingham continued. “Something far more Machiavellian, then. Poison?”
She removed her hand. “He died ten years ago.”
“Ten years,” she whispered, returning to the present with a jolt.
That was the significance of ten years—a death. Ten years ago, she had lost Leo.
King wasn’t the man she loved.
Or, at least, he hadn’t been. But now, that had changed. She couldn’t deny the feelings she had developed for him during their marriage. However, had those feelings been real when they’d been built upon a foundation of lies?
The room swirled around her, and perspiration beaded on her brow. She felt hot and cold at once, dizzied and confused. More pieces of that night at the ball returned to her.
“Ah.” Kingham clasped his hands behind his back and considered her as if she were newly placed before him. “These are old tears.”
She struggled to maintain her composure, still feeling bereft. “Yes.”
“The insult he paid you must have been tremendous, for you to be weeping all this time later—and at a ball, no less.”
She dabbed at her eyes with his handkerchief again. “He never insulted me. He was my betrothed.”
“Did he have a name?”
“Leo.” She sniffed. “Lord Leopold Douglas. He was the second son of the—”
“Duke of Morgan. Yes, I did know him,” Kingham intervened, frowning. “A pleasant fellow if I recall correctly, though quite a bit younger than I, given my ancient years.”
He had known. King had known who she was crying for that night. He had even been acquainted with Leo.
That was why King had such an odd reaction to her locket, she realized suddenly.
The locket hadn’t been a gift from him. It had been from Leo.
But King had allowed her to persist in the mistaken belief that it came from him.
That the forget-me-not pressed inside had been his gift to her on a walk they’d taken together.
Or had he even known what was inside the locket?
She doubted very much that he did. It certainly explained his request that she remove it when they were alone and his insistence upon lavishing her with new, replacement jewelry. He hadn’t wanted the reminder of Leo.
She pressed a hand to her aching heart as the rest of that night rained through her mind in a torrent unleashed…
“How old are you?” she asked King, curious.
He was handsome and elegant, tall and strong. She had once witnessed him punting on the lake at Riverdale Abbey and had admired his muscled form despite herself. He was decidedly not ancient as he had claimed.
“Four-and-thirty.” He brushed at his coat sleeve lightly. “You see? Terribly old.”
“You are only six years older than I am,” she pointed out. “I don’t think myself particularly wizened just yet.”
Kingham studied her somberly. “And so you aren’t, Lady Verity. Which is why hiding yourself in this alcove is such a crime.”
“In such a crush, I scarcely think I shall be missed,” she demurred, grateful for the distraction he presented.
“But how am I to leave you here, now that I know it’s where you’ve chosen to roost?”
“You make me sound as if I am a nesting hen.”
“Forgive me for my lack of polish.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, for Kingham’s polish was quite legendary, and he no doubt knew it.
“You are forgiven, of course,” she allowed. “Would you like your handkerchief back, Your Grace?”
“I think it should be yours now. Only think of how easy it shall be, should you need one again.”
“Thank you.”
She tucked the handkerchief into her bodice in quite indiscreet fashion, but what else was she to do, cornered in this alcove with him?
“My pleasure,” he said gallantly, his eyes falling briefly to her decolletage before rising back to hers.
“Now that the matter of the handkerchief is settled, our next conundrum is that you are still tucked away in this damnable alcove when you ought to be in the ballroom, flitting about like a butterfly.”
“First a hen and now a butterfly? I cannot decide if you pay me insult or compliment, Kingham.”
His lips twitched, and for the first time, she noticed how finely formed they were, sculpted and full. “The latter, of course. I would never dream of paying you insult, Lady Verity.”
“I suppose not. You’re far too much of a gentleman.”