Verity was certain she’d gone wide-eyed. What did the queen mean by it? She could not guess, though Lady Pembroke had nodded approvingly.
“What is the next society gathering you attend?”
“Oh, that would be Lady Darlington’s masque, Your Majesty. If I am in spirits to attend.”
“Chin up, Lady Verity. It does nobody any good to weep in a corner, you may take my word for it. Lady Darlington’s masque is in two days from now, if I am not mistaken. Until then, you are to sequester yourself at home. Go nowhere, admit nobody, see nobody. Tell your father I will take you both to the masque. Now be off, you ridiculous girl. On no account invent one more story about what you are studying. No slow-moving animals, no fish, nor any other living creature. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Verity said, her thoughts racing ahead. Why was she to hide away? Why would the queen escort her to the masque? What in the world did the queen have in store for Lord Wembly? She burned to know all of it and could ask none of it.
“What costume do you intend on wearing?”
“Oh, as to that, I was only to wear a simple domino,” Verity said. Her older sisters had given much thought to their costumes, but there was something that had put her off it. Wearing a costume felt akin to being a fraud and she was already a fraud with a terrible secret. It seemed somehow wrong to don a costume—a fraud acting as a further fraud, she supposed.
Madame LaFray had been very put out over Verity not wishing for an elaborate costume made, but she felt almost repelled by the idea. It would have felt as if she were strutting around with her head held high when she had no right to do it.
“No, a domino will be entirely unacceptable,” the queen said. “I will send something to the duke’s house. Lady Pembroke will assist me in the effort.”
“Ah, we do like a project,” Lady Pembroke said.
She was to wear a costume from the queen. Should she say she was a fraud? Should she say she could not even read and had hidden it, lied about it really, all her life?
“Off with you,” the queen said. “Return to your father and follow my instructions.”
Lady Pembroke rose, and Verity hurriedly did too. They curtsied and were dismissed from the queen’s presence. She was on her way home. Verity supposed she should look toward the positive aspects of it. She was not being sent to prison, she was not banished from Town. What was to come next, she could not know.
However, she had come out of Buckingham House for the most part unscathed. It was a far better outcome than she’d imagined when she went into it.
