Chapter Six
The following morning, in Turningstone House, the breakfast hustle and bustle wound down, and two maids had finished clearing the table. Verity was sitting beside the last cup of tea when Sprocket peered around the door of the parlour.
“Will you be ‘at home’ today, my Lady? I’m sure there’ll be callers after last night’s do...”
Verity had to laugh. “Calling the elegant and productive evening that was held last night, complete with just about all the top families from Arcvale, plenty of Flight Division officers to flirt with, and a very healthy total of donations? Well, honestly, Sprocket. You have to come up with a better description of it than ‘do’.”
“Did you flirt with any of the officers?”
“No.” Verity’s response was rapid and firm. “Firstly, you know very well that I don’t flirt. And secondly, an officer? Really, Sprocket.”
The tickerkin shook her head and sighed. “I worry about you, my Lady.”
A loud knock on the front door punctuated Sprocket’s comment. “Oh dear.” She trundled from the room, only to return in a few moments holding a small but beautiful bouquet, the scent of the flowers filling the air.
“For you, my Lady.”
“Ah.” Verity shook her head. “Are you sure they’re not for you?”
Sprocket rolled her eyes surprisingly well for a tickerkin. “There’s a note. Shall I read it for you?”
“Absolutely not,” answered Verity, voice firm. “I’ll take it.”
Sighing, Sprocket presented the bouquet and the note, then slowly made her way towards the hall.
“I have everything I need, thank you. Close the door behind you, would you?”
Sprocket grumbled, but obeyed, and the door shut with a thunk, leaving Verity alone with a bunch of lovely flowers and a sealed note.
There were already one or two vases of fresh blooms on the mantelpiece, tokens of gratitude she accepted as part of her world. Still, Verity couldn’t help wishing those kind folks had put their money into a donation rather than a bunch of roses.
Nevertheless, she had taken a brief count of last night’s proceeds and was extremely pleased to see that it was more than she’d anticipated.
Putting the flowers down beside her, she opened the small envelope.
“It was a pleasure renewing our acquaintance.” The fragrance was already permeating the atmosphere. Lily of the valley. A favorite.
She glanced at the signature. “Ashcombe”. The note fell from her nerveless fingers as she reached out to touch the blooms, now realising that there were delicate white and fragrant bells tucked carefully between an assortment of tiny roses and ferns.
He’d remembered. How could he remember when they’d had so little interaction so long ago? Of course her memory was clear as a bell when she thought of that day.
“Hello,” he’d said. “I thought you might like these.”
She recalled the sun shining on him, turning him into something god-like to her barely seventeen-year-old eyes.
She’d stuttered something, feeling the fire rise in her cheeks as he’d offered his arm politely.
It was almost impossible to believe that her parents wanted her to wed this amazing man.
The Lord knew they’d pushed her in front of more eligible bachelors than she could recall.
Most were indifferent, some were unpleasant, and none seemed inclined to any interest in a young girl her age.
She couldn’t blame them. She’d been innocent, gauche, shy, and unused to society events.
It had barely been a year since her father had come into an inheritance that had bought him respectability.
Her mother had believed that it would also buy Verity a husband, who would add to their coffers.
Lucas Ashcombe had been the only one to touch something inside her.
He’d conversed sensibly, quietly, treating her like a person, not a piece of property he was considering buying.
A shiver brought goosebumps to her skin, something she’d not experienced in a long time. Not since...
Oh dear.
They’d shared a few real conversations, oddly enough.
He’d been attentive, and didn’t change the subject when she’d asked questions that most men would have found both unexpected and uninteresting.
She’d plucked up enough courage to ask Sir Lucas Ashcombe about the financial system he had built, which was being tested and installed.
He’d looked surprised, then smiled, and taken the time to answer her questions.
Perhaps that was when she fell in love with him—a seventeen-year-old girl bewitched by a man who seemed to speak the same language she did.
A young woman developing her own interests that did not mesh with her parents’ expectations, but resounded with Lucas, who seemed to appreciate her fascination with the financial world.
And that was probably also the reason she was so shattered when word came that he’d shuttered his cottage, closed his office for good, and left Arcvale.
He was, she heard, never coming back. That day, she had packed her heart and her emotions away in a strong box and locked it tight. She’d not gone near it since.
Verity stood, squared her shoulders, and marched to the pile of donations. “Work. I need to work, not sit here and recall times long gone.” She glanced at the flowers. “He’s changed. I’ve changed. We’re different people than we were back then.”
Memories threatened to creep back into her mind, so she resolutely pushed them away, and took her donations with her to her study.
There, she could leave Lucas Ashcombe where he belonged—in her past. And there, at her desk, she could begin to sort out her current financial situation, and make some decisions as to where the proceeds from last night’s “do” should be assigned.
For an hour or so, she worked diligently, very pleased indeed with the amount she’d raised last night, and already budgeting out the funds for the most important projects.
Then there were the accounts to be checked, and she rose, heading for her PCE unit, and accessing the current market figures.
If she was completely honest, there would be justification for a great deal of pride and satisfaction.
She was still under thirty, and already commanded a portfolio many Arcvale businesses would have envied.
Her interest in finance had never diminished, and she’d taken advantage of her somewhat lackadaisical parents, spending time not at the library or the park hunting for a husband, but at the Exchange, listening, watching, reading the weekly newspapers when she could get hold of one.
She’d even bribed the newsboy with a few coins, telling him she’d be more than happy to take the leftover or misprinted papers off his hands.
Her passion expanded, her reading kept pace, and although she’d finally been married off, she never lost her passion.
Sadly, she never found any with her husband, a man more interested in his dinner, his brandy, and his racehorses, than his wife.
He wanted a son, of course, and the first year, made a point of trying over and over again.
Verity, while finding no pleasure in any of it, did her duty.
But no child appeared, and then, not too many years into her marriage, he fell while hunting and broke his neck.
A year of mourning followed; no hardship to the bereft Lady Turner-Yardley, who spent most of that time poring over investment prospectuses, and everything she could get her hands on that concerned the Ashcombe banking system.
Now, years later, Verity was in control of her life, extremely well-versed in the things she cared about, and quite happily independent.
At least she had been, up until last night, when Lucas Ashcombe walked back into her life.
And remembered she liked lilies of the valley.
A tap on the door interrupted her thoughts.
“Pardon me, my Lady. You have a visitor. Lady Beatrice Lockwood asks if you’re receiving this morning?”
“Oh lovely. Yes, I’d love to see Beatrice. Show her right in, Sprocket and we’ll have some tea and biscuits in an hour or so, shall we say?”
“Of course, my Lady.” The tickerkin trundled out.
Verity sighed in relief. Beatrice Lockwood was one of those women blessed with a rare gift—she always made those around her smile. And that’s just what was needed at this moment. Someone to take her mind off that damned Lucas Ashcombe.
*~~*~~*
The man himself was brooding. There was no other word for it, and Edgar made that quite plain.
“You’re brooding.”
“Men don’t brood.”
“Then kindly explain to me how you would describe a man sitting alone in a half-furnished room, staring at the fire? If that’s not the perfect definition of brooding, I don’t know what is.”
Lucas sighed. “I’m thinking, Edgar. I have some difficult decisions to make today. But they must be made, because they’re important.”
Edgar managed a shrug, although not a terribly effective one, since metal wings weren’t very flexible. “I could make you a cup of something then? Tea? I think there’s some coffee around as well? The grocer was very kind when he knew you were back, and pretty much filled the larder.”
Lucas shot his tickerkin an incredulous look. “Did he? Perhaps he ran out of eggs before he made his delivery, which would explain why I only had toast and marmalade for breakfast.”
“You like toast and marmalade.”
“It tastes even better with an omelette. Or scrambled eggs. And bacon. Let’s not forget bacon.”
A loud mechanical sigh greeted this somewhat acidic observation.
“Well, if you’d said something...told me what you wanted for breakfast..
.” Aggrieved, Edgar lifted his beak. “After ten years, Mr Lucas, there are things in my memory banks that aren’t as fresh as they used to be, and kitchen chores are amongst them.
I did, however,” he fluttered the tiny feathers on the tips of his wings, “remember that you liked very hot water in the mornings, for your shave. And I also remembered to warm your nightshirt last night.”
Sighing, Lucas nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Edgar. Yes, I suppose I am brooding.” He stretched his spine pushing his shoulders back as he did so.
“Can you tell me why you’re brooding, Mr Lucas?” The question was presented in quiet tones.
“Silas.”
That one word, a name, brought Edgar to attention.
“Lord Silas, Forge Master, hasn’t been up here for some time.
He and Lady Dorothea visit now and again, but they’re committed to the health and welfare of the Forge itself, and the people who live there.
” He paused. “He’s done good work, Mr Lucas.
He changed the entire Warden program, and most think it was for the better. ”
“I know. I don’t want to say I kept track of his doings, but I do hear news in Sectorvale.”
“So why the brooding?” Edgar paused. “Does it have anything to do with the reason you left?”
Lucas shot a glance at his tickerkin. “What would you know about any of that?”
“Enough.”
“Ahh.”
Silence fell for a few moments, as the fire crackled and burned in the hearth, throwing light on the man sitting in front of it.
“It wasn’t his fault.” Lucas spoke quietly, almost to himself. “I knew it then, and I know it now. But at the time?”
“Lady Ashcombe had just passed away, hadn’t she?”
“Yes. And that was a tragically brutal blow to the family. We all took it hard, but Silas most of all. He was devastated. She was the rock upon which our family had been built. With her gone...everything fractured. Ugly words were spoken, ones that could not be taken back.”
“Why did Lord Ashcombe attack you in particular, Mr Lucas?”
“I’d survived. Somehow, that had become an unforgivable sin. He looked at me that night as if I were both a ghost and a betrayal.” Lucas sighed. “I look very much like my mother, Edgar. I have her colouring, and her eyes.” He swallowed. “I still see her when I look in the mirror sometimes.”
“He threw you out?”
“God no,” Lucas shook his head. “But along with everything else? I knew there was nothing left for me in Arcvale anymore. Nothing other than a parade of young women thrust under my nose, idiotic questions about the PBIC financial system already finished—and a broken family.”
“So you left...”
“So I left.”
Once again, silence fell in the parlour as man and tickerkin pondered the inexplicable mysteries of life, death, and everything in between.
Finally Edgar broke the silence. “I shall prepare an omelette for tomorrow’s breakfast.” With that announcement, he trundled out the door.
Lucas managed a smile. Life had continued in unpredictable ways and led him down unpredictable paths. But here he was, almost a decade on from a painful farewell. Perhaps it was time to mend some fences. To rediscover Arcvale as it is now, rather than dwell on what it had been.
For some unfathomable reason, the image of a lovely face—and a pair of striking grey eyes—floated through his mind.