Chapter 6 - Vera
Sometime during the dinner last night, Vera’s wariness of the baron had solidified into firm dislike. And she could pinpoint exactly when that happened.
One might think you have naught but charity to live on. His words stung her more than she wanted to admit. Perhaps it was because there was truth to them.
The animosity was clearly mutual, though Stephen didn’t seem the type to be able to leave well enough alone—he insisted on pestering her with insipid questions that he’d already asked and she’d already answered. Vera wondered if the man was trying to catch her in a falsehood.
She’d answered his questions as politely as possible—a difficulty, as the scowling man could try a saint’s patience—and exited the conversations quickly. Vera tried to remember that she was a guest of the baroness and that Stephen was her son.
The following morning, she did her utmost to avoid the odious man altogether.
Vera had tucked herself into an alcove in the library, an encyclopedia of flora and fauna open on her knees.
It was a very convenient spot, as it was nearly hidden behind the open door.
If one glanced into the room, it would appear empty.
The pedantic tread of Stephen’s boots had passed the door several times already. Each time, Vera’s shoulders twitched toward her ears and she hoped her hiding place would hold.
This time, the boots stopped. They entered. Vera sighed and turned the page. By now, she knew what to expect.
“What are you reading?”
Why hello, Vera, she mentally amended. Lovely weather, isn’t it? I confess I’m looking for a distraction—what’s caught your interest?
It was a game she’d taken up—trying to see if she could rewrite his words into some semblance of politeness. So far, she’d met with middling success. Vera couldn’t even quite bring herself to like the pretend version of the man, let alone the real one.
“A collection of flora and fauna,” she answered, then turned the page as if she were still focused on the book.
Every time he entered a room, she felt hunted, harangued. Vera suddenly had great compassion for a rabbit shivering in its den while a wolf dug at the entrance to the burrow.
He grunted to indicate he’d heard her. For one shimmering moment, Vera thought that might be the end of it.
“What of your parents?”
The momentary hope that he’d leave her alone popped like a soap bubble on the air.
“What do you mean?” she asked politely, turning the page once more.
Mushrooms. Vera enjoyed the taste of them, though she’d been a little fearful of them ever since someone had told her that there were poisonous varieties that looked just like benign ones.
Now, whenever mushroom soup was served at a dinner party, Vera made sure she was the last one to taste it.
She couldn’t help but envision twelve guests keeling head-first into their tureens because someone had made a mistake at the market.
“Where are your parents?” he said, tearing her attention from creminis and death caps.
“London.”
He knew this. She’d answered this question several times. Despite her determination to be nothing but kind and patient, to never show how much her host vexed her, she was very tired of answering the same blunt questions.
“So you say. Yet, you aren’t in London with them.”
Vera snapped the book shut abruptly. “What is it exactly that you think I’ve done wrong?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps nothing, yet.”
“Then why do you insist on asking me the same questions over and over?”
“I’m allowed to be curious about my mother’s close friend.”
“Perhaps if you paid the same close attention to your own affairs as to mine, your estate wouldn’t be in the situation it is.”
He reared back. “Excuse me?”
“No, sir. I will not. For while you were off gallivanting across the globe, your mother has been left to tend to your holdings, your inheritance. She’s independent and capable, I’ll give you that. But just because a woman can doesn’t mean she wants to.”
“My mother—”
“Is busy raising your brothers while doing your job as lord of these lands. Have you even tried to take back that burden since you’ve returned, or do you not care that the back fields lay barren and the eastern fence has a hole in it large enough for all the king’s soldiers to pass through?
These things are your responsibility, but you’ve been off playing martyr to all the desolate of India, romancing women along the way without bothering to marry them, and your mother has been left to keep everything afloat without you. These lands need a lord, sir.”
His jaw worked for several moments, as if he were chewing on her words. “Are you insinuating that a lady isn’t capable—”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be daft. I wouldn’t be so stupid, even prior to meeting your mother.
But everything is much harder for her, as a lady.
She can’t even keep her own stewards from arguing with her—she has to tell them three times what to do, where they’d listen to you directly.
If you’d bother to put your efforts toward anything but hounding me, you’d know that. ”
“That’s quite enough,” he snapped.
“Ah, my life must be a book open on a table or I’m hiding something, but heaven forbid anyone turn the magnifying glass upon you.”
He rounded on her. “Your life is open to inquisition because you’re living beneath my roof, madam.”
“It is your roof, isn’t it?” Vera stood and reshelved the book. “Yet you know so little about it, content to abscond from the actual responsibility of the thing while still claiming all the benefits of lordship.”
“That’s enough.”
“Very well. Then please excuse me, Baron.” She gave a low, mocking curtsy and departed the room without looking back.