Chapter 32 - Vera #2
“You must be Baron Winthrop.” Vera felt Bertrand offer his hand to Stephen, even while the other still held Vera to his chest. “Very sorry to arrive unannounced, but it’s a bit of an emergency.”
She pushed back from her brother on a gasp. “What is it?”
“It’s Mother. She’s…she’s dying, Vera.”
It all happened so quickly after that. Bertrand had already rousted the household, so Vera’s trunks were being loaded as they made the drive.
The baroness had instructed her own horses hitched to the front of Bertrand’s carriage—a couple of her footmen would follow to bring them back the next time they changed horses.
Before Vera could quite reconcile what was happening, she hugged the members of the household in turn, uttered hasty goodbyes, flung one last, longing look at Stephen, and loaded into Bertrand’s carriage.
“I hate to say it,” Bertrand said a bit later, his mouth full of one of the sandwiches that Mrs. Portence had packed for their journey. “But Mother’s gone mad as a hatter.”
Vera tsked. Despite how her mother had treated her, she was still their mother, and politeness and respect had been ingrained early and often.
“No, Vera. Truly. She doesn’t know who she is most the time. Other times, she knows us all. It’s so strange. Doctors say it happens sometimes, but they don’t know why.”
Something like hope lifted in her chest. “How long has this been going on?”
“In earnest? A few months. It came on quickly with her, doctor says.”
A few months—not long enough to absolve her for the letter she’d sent Vera. Or was it?
“That’s the hard thing—we don’t know what was the illness and what was her. Because Mother has always been a bit off, hasn’t she? That’s why Father ignored it as long as he did, but then…” Bertrand bit his lip, shook his head.
“What? What happened?”
“Well.” His belly shook with a laugh. “I’m sorry, Vera. It’s not funny. I know that. Except that parts of it kind of are.”
“Oh, dear. What?”
“Father and Mother went to dine with Lord and Lady Lewis. And…” He pressed his lips together, his eyes full of mirth.
“Laugh if you have to, Bertie, just tell me already.”
“Mother made advances on the man. She kissed him.”
“What?” Vera clasped her throat.
“Sat right on his lap during pre-dinner cocktails and planted one on him!” He slapped his knee, then glimpsed her horrified expression and tried to tame himself once more.
“It’s only funny to me because I’ve had time to sit with the information.
Give it a week and you’ll be laughing, too.
Besides, that’s nothing in comparison to what she gets up to now. ”
“What is that? Is she dangerous?”
“Only if you’re a man. She pinched Harold’s bottom last time I was there.”
“She didn’t.” Vera leaned forward, eyes wide. “Their butler must be sixty!”
“Sixty-two, and I think he was secretly pleased. She’d already got all the footmen; I think it was starting to hurt his pride. Fellow walked taller for three days after that.”
“Oh dear.”
“But I swear to you, Vera,” he said, sobering. “None of us knew what Mother had done. I only just found out, when Canterbury and his wife got to me.”
“You say that as if they were cruel, and I know very well that they could never be so.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Not cruel, per se. More menacing than anything. Have you seen their dog? Canterbury called it in and it growled at me!”
Vera waved his concerns off. “Arthur’s been teaching Seamus to growl on cue. For cheese.”
“I did wonder why it started drooling immediately afterward. Thought it wanted to eat me.”
“Only if you’re made of Stilton.”
Bertrand ignored her. “Of course both of them are too genteel to come out and threaten me directly, but I think it was a narrow thing for a moment.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Threaten you, indeed.”
“It was very nearly the Spanish Inquisition over there.” Betrand’s eyes were wide. “At one point, I thought Canterbury was going to produce a rack and instruct me to heft myself upon it.”
She shook her head, smiling. Bertrand had always been gregarious, bordering on ridiculous. It was one of the things she’d missed most about him.
“Those people care about you very much, Vera. But I was so confused as to why they were keeping me from you. Until it became abundantly clear that I had no idea what Mother had done. Surely you know we would never disown you. Don’t you?”
There was hurt there, in Bertrand’s gaze.
And suddenly, Vera wondered why she had believed it of them so readily.
Why hadn’t she challenged it in her own mind?
Why hadn’t she even written a letter to ask?
Certainly that said something about how she’d viewed herself at the time. Now, it felt properly idiotic.
Vera shook her head. “I’m sorry, Bertie. I don’t know. Mother was…difficult. I know now that I should have doubted her more, but at the time it seemed real. I believed her.”
His expression was serious. “Campton and I would never do that. And certainly Father had no clue of the truth—Mother had told him you were travelling with Lady Waldrey—er, the duchess—but he never even knew you ran off. He thought Mother gave you permission. She certainly kept up the charade—told him you sent letters, were having a lovely time. Of course, that was before the er…pinching started.”
Vera shook her head, looked out the window. So the lie had just been her mother being herself.
Bertrand cleared his throat. “You look different. Better. That dress suits you. Did someone, um…help you pick it out?”
Vera’s mouth dropped open on a sudden suspicion. “Bertie—surely you know that I had no hand in those terrible dresses I used to wear. That was all Mother’s doing.”
He reared back. “What?”
“She didn’t want me to marry! Not when she had you and Campton settled and making families. I was to stay home and take care of Father and Mother in their old age.”
“That certainly explains a lot. I kept sending letters asking you to visit—told her I had a few gents all picked up for you to meet. Agatha was going to take you to the dress shop, get you sorted. Mother kept saying you were far too busy at home.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shifted in his seat. “Well, I didn’t want to embarrass you—make you think you couldn’t find your own chap.”
“But I couldn’t.” She slapped the seat next to her in emphasis, half laughing. “Not with Mother dressing me in cast-off upholstery and chasing away every man who looked at me.”
Bertrand considered that for several moments, then grinned. “Look on the bright side—it could have been worse. Now she scares them off for a whole other reason.” He brought his thumb and forefinger together in a pinching motion.