Verity was to go as a swan. The dress was white satin with an overlay of white feathers all positioned to mimic a swan’s wings folded. The mask itself was white sequin with a rim of black sequins around the eyes and a dab of orange silk on the nose. It came with white satin slippers and long white kid gloves. The slippers were just the tiniest bit too big, but Mrs. Right had balled up small bits of paper and stuffed them into the toes to solve the problem.
It was not a dress she would have ever dreamed of wearing. Not when she’d considered herself a fraud. Not when she’d harbored a secret.
She felt a little differently now. She was not stupid; she simply had a case of word swimming. It was a condition, not a comment on her intelligence. An odd condition, to be sure, but a condition all the same.
The duke had a long talk with Verity in his library, explaining how her mother was one of the most intelligent people he’dknown in his lifetime. Who really cared that words swam in front of her eyes? He had not.
Verity had asked him how and when he’d found it out. It had been early on, during their wedding trip. He’d asked her to read something or other and she’d said, “By the by, I cannot read. The words swim.” Then he’d said, “We’d best hire somebody for that then.” She’d said, “I suppose that’s right.”
That had been the entire thing! There had been no grand reveal of a terrible secret. There had been no recriminations or regrets. It had just been an offhand, ‘by the by, did I mention?’
Naturally, she did not know if Lord Wembly would be so casual about it, nor how the prints going round would have affected him. She supposed she would get a further hint tonight. Would he be there? Would he approach her? If he did, what in the world would he say?
And then, of course, what would the queen say about it all? Verity had almost expected some sort of note to come from the palace, alerting them that the queen would not attend them after all.
No note had come, though.
“Winsome, Valor?” Mrs. Right said. “Be off with you now. I want a few words with Verity before she goes downstairs.”
Winsome laid down the remarkable swan dress. “Come on, Val. We’ll take Sir Galahad downstairs so he can see Papa’s domino.”
Valor giggled. “The one with the red flames at the bottom because he’s set curtains on fire two times.” She scrambled off the bed and swept up Sir Galahad, that dog perfectly satisfied to be carried everywhere. They left and closed the door behind them.
“Now, my love,” Mrs. Right said, “I just wanted to say one little thing about the word swimming. I should have noted it. I read everything to your mother and I should have had a sharpereye out for it. I didn’t realize it could be passed down as it has been. If I’d known it could be, I would have had a sharp eye out for it, as you are the picture of her.”
“How could anybody know it?” Verity asked. “In any case, I did work very hard to hide it from everybody.”
“That you did. Still, when Miss Pynchon complained to me that you were not working at your studies, I should have seen it then.”
“I’m glad everybody knows now,” Verity said. “Except for Lord Wembly, he does not know.”
“If he’s got feelings for you, he won’t give a toss about it. When the duke came home with your mother, he just said I’d have to read her all her letters as she’d got some sort of eye problem. After that, I do not believe he ever gave it another thought.”
“And so you did?”
“Aye, every letter she received, and I wrote the letters going out too. Sometimes she had me read her a novel. I came to know her very well through those exercises. Now, when you go forward to your own household, hire a woman you can trust to do just the same and you should get on very well.”
Verity was cheered by the idea, but then she also knew her father to be a particularly superior sort of person and his loyalty to his own could not be questioned. She did not know Lord Wembly so well. Was he as superior a person? What would he think? What would he think about any of it?
“Come now, let’s get you into this dress. Your father says you both must be downstairs and ready well ahead of time. Nobody can expect the queen to wait on a latecomer.”
*
Lilith had scrapedtogether enough funds to compose some sortof costume for Lady Darlington’s masque. She would present herself as an innocent milkmaid and hope that perceptions of her stayed innocent. She had begun with a caricature to drive Lord Wembly away from Lady Verity, but the entire thing had got completely out of hand.
The Town seemed to be papered with prints mocking Lord Wembly. At a card party last evening, it was all anybody talked about.
There were two problems with that. One, Lord Wembly was likely outraged. And two, the talking had made it far more important than it was ever meant to be. When something became important, more and more people started looking into it, inquiring about it, wanting to know who was at the bottom of it. They could not discover that she’d started it all.
She’d never had the wish to do something underhanded, it was not particularly in her nature, but she was desperate. Lady Verity could have anybody. She was undeniably pretty, despite Lilith’s claim to her maid that she did not care for the lady’s coloring. Lilith did not know the precise details of Lady Verity’s dowry, but it was said she was well-funded. She was a duke’s daughter. What didn’t she have?
Lady Verity might be in the habit of making ridiculous claims, but a well-funded and pretty duke’s daughter had that sort of latitude.
Why must she set her cap on Lord Wembly? He was the one person who might give Lilith what she wanted. What she needed, really.
As the carriage rumbled along, on the way to Lady Darlington’s masque, her father said, “You’ll need to settle on someone soon. We cannot afford to forever come to Town husband hunting. If necessary, you’ll have to consider Mr. Grantley after all.”
Lilith did not answer. She could not bear to answer.
