All eyes turned to Winsome, who in turn peered at Verity. “Should I say? Really?” she asked.
Verity took a rather large swig of wine and said, “Why not? I cannot hide it forever, can I? I do not even care anymore.”
That was coming very close to the truth. Her mind was drained of strength. It was tiring to always be on guard, as any moment somebody might thrust a paper into her hands and ask that she read it. It was wearying to sit with her bible everySunday and pretend to read. Most of all, it was exhausting to always have a secret that somebody might find out. It was akin to acting as a spy in a foreign land, always looking over one’s shoulder and waiting to be caught out. She was just so tired from all of it.
“Gracious, what is it we do not already know?” Patience asked.
Winsome looked at Verity once more. She nodded to her sister. She would like to get it over with and stop hiding who she really was. She could not go on with the pretense that she was just like everybody else. She was not. Everybody could know it, and see it, and do what they liked with it.
“Well,” Winsome said, “you see, Verity cannot read. Her eyes make the words all jumbled.”
“And my mind jumbles it too,” Verity said. “I cannot read and Lord Wembly is an intellectual. You see the problem. There. Now everybody knows that Verity Nicolet is the stupid sister.”
“I do not think you are stupid,” Felicity said. “It is just what you have, and we all have something. Poor Stratton here has been introduced to my temper once or twice.”
Mr. Stratton laughed. “I show her my scars and then she remembers I saved her from being eaten by a tiger and she cheers up.”
Felicity nodded. “And then Grace has flung herself on the floor more than anybody in England, and Serenity collects dead bees, and Patience is forever toe-tapping, and Winsome is suspicious of everybody. You see? We all have our crosses to bear.”
Verity gave Felicity a weak smile, but really, she did not think her sisters’ minor peccadilloes rose to the level of her own faults.
“Papa,” Valor said, “I am the only one who is perfect, it seems.”
“Is that right?” the duke said with a snort.
“Valor,” Felicity said, “you have not even managed to get your pony up to a trot and do not tell me it is because she likes going slow.”
Valor shrugged to have her fearfulness pointed out.
“Now, Verity, I am not entirely sure why you never mentioned that you have word swimming?” the duke asked.
“Word swimming?” There was a name for it? “I did not want to disappoint anybody, I suppose. But Papa, do you mean to say that other people have it? There are other people who cannot read, even when they’ve tried very hard to do it?”
“Your mother had it,” the duke said. He laughed. “She always said the words got up and went swimming on her so that’s what we called it—word swimming. For all I know, there is some other term for it I’ve not heard.”
“That is exactly what happens,” Verity said. “The words swim around and then they don’t make sense.”
“You would have been too young to remember, but Felicity and Grace might,” the duke said. “Girls, do you not recall that Mrs. Right used to read everything to the duchess?”
Felicity laid down her fork. “Yes, I do remember. She would read all of Mama’s letters aloud and then she would write out the responses. Goodness, I suppose I just thought it was part of Mrs. Right’s duties.”
“It was,” the duke said. “See that, Verity, the whole thing is easily managed. We might have been managing it all along if you’d mentioned it. What a thing to keep to yourself.”
Verity drained her wine glass and Thomas hurried over to refill it. It felt a great relief to have everything in the open. Though, she also felt a bit stupid to not have mentioned it before now, as it seemed it was not so unusual, and it might have been managed. She looked like her mother, and it turned out she was more like her than she’d known.
“Well, look at that,” Serenity said, “things are coming right already.”
Verity stared at her sister. “Serenity, there are four prints going round, entertaining all of society. One of me and three of Lord Wembly. Also, I have not mentioned to him, an intellectual and member of The Royal Society, that I cannot read. That I have word swimming.”
“Oh yes, all that,” Serenity said. “That is quite a lot.”
“Not insurmountable, though,” Lord Thorpe said. “What I would like to know is why is the queen escorting you to the masque?”
Nobody had an answer to that. It had been a very informative evening. But nobody had an answer to that.
“What do you wear to the masque, Verity?” Patience asked.
As the queen was sending over a costume, nobody had an answer to that either.
