Page 14 of Miss Ashbury and the Anatomy of Mending a Heart

“What precisely is your point?” She stopped again, met his eyes again. She was tired, and if he had some charge against her, she’d rather he just spit it out and be done with it.

“Why aren’t you staying with her, if she’s such a close friend?”

“She’s newly married.”

“So?”

Vera’s cheeks flushed. How to explain that Candace had been so distracted with her whirlwind engagement, with all that had transpired, and then her new marriage, that she’d simply forgotten Vera, left her behind in her brother’s house like a forgotten shoe?

Vera hadn’t so much as seen her for more than a fortnight. They hadn’t had a falling out or anything of the sort—Candace simply had different priorities now. She had a new husband, a new household, a new son. Of course she was busy. Of course Vera had slid far down the list of Candace’s concerns.

Vera didn’t blame her for that; there was nothing wrong or unseemly about it. But the way the baron said the words implied there was. The way the baron said the words, it sounded like he thought Vera was a liar of the finest order.

“The duchess is busy with her new household,” Vera said, with all the patience she could muster—which wasn’t much. “A houseguest wouldn’t be welcome at the moment. I’d be in the way.”

“Montclare is mammoth.” He gestured wildly in the vague direction of the house, even though it was well out of sight.

“Perhaps once you are a newlywed, you’ll understand. I have heard that congratulations are in order. Where is your bride-to-be?”

His expression iced over faster than a shallow puddle in winter. “You’ve heard wrong, madam. I am not betrothed.”

Vera frowned. The baroness had been quite clear about one of his recent letters. How could she have misunderstood so completely?

“My apologies.”

“No need.”

There didn’t seem to be much to say after that. Vera set off again, the baron following at her side, frowning down at her every few moments.

Their footsteps were crunching across the gravel drive of Bertforth House when he said, “Why don’t you return to London, if that’s where your family lives?”

Drat—she had almost made it in the front door without another question. “Perhaps you’ve been so long away from England that you’ve lost all your manners. Is that it?”

“Pardon me?”

She gave him a dazzling smile. “You are pardoned. Thank you for asking.”

Then she darted through the front door and up the stairs toward her bedroom without so much as a backwards glance.

CHAPTER 4- STEPHEN

Stephen wandered listlessly around the property of Bertforth House and found himself in the large greenhouse. It was mostly abandoned, save for the far section that the gardener used for kitchen produce.

The beds closest to the door were the ones Stephen had once used to grow the more common ingredients for his medicinal tinctures. Though the medical community had largely eschewed herbal remedies in favor of more precise compounds, Stephen still saw the value in having certain plants on hand. He didn’t see the need to throw away two hundred years of herbal remedies because other things were easier.

He set to putting the beds to rights—pulling the dead plants, amending the soil with the dark loam in the bin near the door. All the while, he thought about his conversation with Miss Ashbury.

Regrettable—that’s what it was. He’d acted like a lumbering beast. Yet there was something about her that provoked him—he’d found himself barking questions at her before he even knew what he was about.

She hadn’t answered any of his inquiries to his satisfaction. Both his mother and Miss Ashbury had been remarkably cagey about the young lady’s past and family. Which meant there was almost certainly something untoward that Stephen needed to discover.

Stephen didn’t think his mother was intentionally keeping things from him; she was a remarkably straightforward, blunt kind of woman. The fault for the concealment lay squarely with Miss Ashbury herself.

What was the lady trying to accomplish? Who was she?

Stephen yanked at the stout stump of a rosemary bush and grunted. It seemed he had arrived home just in time. Vera had his mother’s confidence—so much so that the baroness took her side over his.

Unacceptable.