Page 99 of Miss Ashbury and the Anatomy of Mending a Heart

It all happened so quickly after that. Bertrand had already rousted the household, so Vera’s trunks were being loaded as they made the drive. The baroness had instructed her own horses hitched to the front of Bertrand’s carriage—a couple of her footmen would follow to bring them back the next time they changed horses.

Before Vera could quite reconcile what was happening, she hugged the members of the household in turn, uttered hasty goodbyes, flung one last, longing look at Stephen, and loaded into Bertrand’s carriage.

“I hate to say it,” Bertrand said a bit later, his mouth full of one of the sandwiches that Mrs. Portence had packed for their journey. “But Mother’s gone mad as a hatter.”

Vera tsked. Despite how her mother had treated her, she was still their mother, and politeness and respect had been ingrained early and often.

“No, Vera. Truly. She doesn’t know who she is most the time. Other times, she knows us all. It’s so strange. Doctors say it happens sometimes, but they don’t know why.”

Something like hope lifted in her chest. “How long has this been going on?”

“In earnest? A few months. It came on quickly with her, doctor says.”

A few months—not long enough to absolve her for the letter she’d sent Vera. Or was it?

“That’s the hard thing—we don’t know what was the illness and what was her. Because Mother has always been a bit off, hasn’t she? That’s why Father ignored it as long as he did, but then…” Bertrand bit his lip, shook his head.

“What? What happened?”

“Well.” His belly shook with a laugh. “I’m sorry, Vera. It’s not funny. I know that. Except that parts of it kind of are.”

“Oh, dear. What?”

“Father and Mother went to dine with Lord and Lady Lewis. And…” He pressed his lips together, his eyes full of mirth.

“Laugh if you have to, Bertie, just tell me already.”

“Mother made advances on the man. She kissed him.”

“What?” Vera clasped her throat.

“Sat right on his lap during pre-dinner cocktails and planted one on him!” He slapped his knee, then glimpsed her horrified expression and tried to tame himself once more. “It’s only funny to me because I’ve had time to sit with the information. Give it a week and you’ll be laughing, too. Besides, that’s nothing in comparison to what she gets up to now.”

“What is that? Is she dangerous?”

“Only if you’re a man. She pinched Harold’s bottom last time I was there.”

“She didn’t.” Vera leaned forward, eyes wide. “Their butler must be sixty!”

“Sixty-two, and I think he was secretly pleased. She’d already got all the footmen; I think it was starting to hurt his pride. Fellow walked taller for three days after that.”

“Oh dear.”

“But I swear to you, Vera,” he said, sobering. “None of us knew what Mother had done. I only just found out, when Canterbury and his wife got to me.”

“You say that as if they were cruel, and I know very well that they could never be so.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Not cruel, per se. More menacing than anything. Have you seen their dog? Canterbury called it in and it growled at me!”

Vera waved his concerns off. “Arthur’s been teaching Seamus to growl on cue. For cheese.”

“I did wonder why it started drooling immediately afterward. Thought it wanted to eat me.”

“Only if you’re made of Stilton.”

Bertrand ignored her. “Of course both of them are too genteel to come out and threaten me directly, but I think it was a narrow thing for a moment.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Threaten you, indeed.”