Page 38 of An Unusual Wager

Determined not to be put off, as, after all, she’d braved worse situations than this in her life with Papa, and met plenty of supercilious European aristocrats in her time. This one was not going to intimidate her.

She stepped further into the room, taking in the opulence of the furnishings, which was extensive, although not quite so impressive as the main house. Perhaps some of the items of furniture had indeed come from there. One never knew.

Above the fireplace hung another portrait of the occupant, easily recognisable even though a good twenty years must have passed since she sat for the likeness Verity had seen of her in the haunted hall. In this new portrait she must have been in her early forties and what had been the allure of youth had matured into full-blown beauty. Her dark eyes, so strangely like Kitty’s, seemed to follow Verity as she approached the portrait, gazing out from beneath flaring black brows that in turn resembled Jonnie’s. Only a few strands of gray showed on her dark head, although that might have been artistic license on the part of the painter to give light to the mass of black curls. Or the other way around, of course. The painter might have minimized the effects of age out of politeness. So many did.

On the far wall another painting caught Verity’s eye. A young boy of perhaps nine or ten years old stood beneath a tree beside a pair of black spaniels. Easily recognizable as Jonnie, older than in the Cavendish Square portrait and with his features more formed and less baby soft. He wore knee breeches, a tan coat, and stockings. Behind him, the parkland she’d just walked through rolled away, the sparkle of the lake recognizable in the distance. His inky hair hung in loose curls to his shoulders and his mother’s, and Kitty’s, dark eyes stared back at Verity reaching down the years to recreate the awkward way he’d made her feel on the first morning they met. He had his mother’s sensuously curving lips, as well as those dark brows and seemed more like his mother than his father. How odd that Kitty was superficially like her as well.

The opening of the door disturbed her contemplation and she swung around. A woman stood framed in the doorway, one hand on the lintel and the other gripping an ebony stick. She was still beautiful, but her black hair had vanished to be replaced with pure white. Only the still smooth skin of her face gave the hint that she was not yet an elderly woman.

Verity sank into a curtsey. “Lady Dunster.”

The French Dowager came into the room, her stick, on which she leaned as though in need of support, tapping on the floor with every step. She halted in front of the cold fireplace. “So,” she said, with some relish and only the slightest of French accents, “you are the chit upon whom my wayward son has chosen to bestow his choice.” She tutted and settled herself, with more than a hint of discomfort, into an upright chair. “Come closer and let me have a good look at you, child.”

Verity stepped closer and was immediately struck by the deformities in both of her mother-in-law’s hands. She suffered from advanced rheumatics. Her knuckles were knobbly and reddened, her fingers bent, and, if anything, more claw-like than her own ancient mother-in-law’s. And although her gown was beautiful, it couldn’t disguise the stoop of her shoulders nor the curvature of her back. This was a woman whose body had grown old before its time, leaving her with joints as stiff and gnarled as those of a much older person, while still possessing the lovely, unblemished face she’d always had. Who could blame someone who must be in constant pain for being fractious?

Verity vowed to approach her with compassion.

Lady Dunster, the younger dowager, looked Verity up and down for a moment or two in silence before giving her a curt nod. “You may be seated.”

Verity chose a chair as close to the old lady as she could, out of politeness.

Lady Dunster’s sharp brows furrowed in a frown. “Now, you might be surprised to know that I am well aware of who you are.” She chuckled to herself. “I have my spies everywhere since my body confined me to this house. I would die of boredom here if I didn’t hear all the gossip from both here and Town. And I knew your father when I was a young bride myself, new to this bedeviled, rain-sodden country. So different from where I grew up in the valley of the River Loire. A very charming young man he was. Most amusing. I heard he ran off with a tavern keeper’s daughter he met in France. I was not surprised. He had the heart of an adventurer, even then.”

Good heavens. Verity had not expected anyone to know so much about Papa.

The old lady chuckled again with more than a hint of satisfaction. “I see I surprise you. I should also tell you that I know you’ve been brought up since you were nine on the Continent, so you have had a different experience of life to the milksop young ladies here in England. More like a French girl. A good thing, I would say. Insipid is the only word I could use to describe most English girls. Insipid and featherbrained.” She chuckled yet again. “If you are anything like your father, then you must be a girl without a feather in her brain at all, just real intelligence.” She paused. “Am I right?” This last came out as a bark.

Taken aback by the ferocity of this question, Verity managed a nod. “No one has ever called me insipid or featherbrained, but I would not like to claim high intelligence. My father taught me to be modest about myself.”

Her interlocutor snorted in amusement. “Well spoken. Only a fool would claim intelligence. Those with it have no need to blow their own trumpets.”

Verity, who was having a hard time equating this lady, every bit as acerbic as the older Dowager, with the ravishing portraits she’d seen of her, could only nod. “I think perhaps you are correct.”

The old lady chortled in appreciation, which made her cough. “I see you looking at me and pitying me trapped as I am in this prison of a body. You’ve seen my old portraits, no doubt.”

She must possess psychic powers.

The dowager nodded. “Yes, I was young and beautiful once, and as I aged and my disease threatened to overtake me and rob me of most of my movement, the portrait painters have had to make adjustments. I do not care to be preserved on canvas as I am now. I give them liberty to make me young again. And beautiful.”

Understandable. “You are still a beautiful woman,” Verity said, as it was true.

Another snort. “My face, perhaps, but my body betrays me. But I can appreciate beauty in others when I see it. I was going to ask you how it is that my rake of a son has decided to marry, but looking at you, I think I can see why.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Verity said, the impulse to reveal all to this woman, whom she wasn’t meant to like but was beginning to feel an admiration for, loomed large. “I think it must be this lovely gown my aunt had made for me.”

The old lady chuckled. “Now don’t come all modest with me. You know perfectly well you’re pretty. What girl doesn’t? I certainly did when I was young and used it to best effect. I met Edward, my boy’s father, in Paris when I was nineteen. Handsome devil he was, just like his son is now.” Her eyes clouded. “I knew I wanted him the moment I laid eyes on him, but he was a rake and my father disapproved. Like father like son, I suppose, as Jonnie seems to have inherited his penchant for women from his father.” She frowned. “My Edward was much the same age as Jonnie is now. He had no intention of marrying anyone, but I caught him. Despite indulging in all the excesses of a rake, he fell in love with me.” Her eyes took on a faraway expression as though seeing her Edward as he’d been then. Verity wondered if a portrait of him at that age existed. It would be interesting to see how much Jonnie resembled him.

The old lady returned to the present. “And I see you’ve managed to do the same. Sensible girl. A wife is what Jonnie needs, to settle him down. He’s sown his oats.” She laughed, but it was a bitter laugh. “Been sowing them since he was a boy of fifteen.” A frown marred her brow. “No harm in that, you’d think, but you might well not be right.” She didn’t sound as though she entirely believed what she was saying. “And now I suppose he needs to get himself a legal heir and turn away from his excesses.” Another frown. “Or my sainted brother-in-law will get what he’s always wanted. Luxborough. A man less suitable to preach to others I’ve yet to meet.” She shook her head in what looked like anger. “Over my dead body, I swear it. Zut alors!”

“Your brother-in-law?” This presented a line of conversation she might find easier.

The dowager nodded. “Sylvester Wintringham. The man is a priest—an Anglican one so not a true man of God. He holds the living of St Mary-in-the-Vale, which is where my husband’s family have always worshipped.” She snorted. “Not me. I am of the old faith and have my own priest who comes here to give me communion.” She shook her head. “But that is not what I wish to say to you. I will tell you about Sylvester, my husband’s snake of a brother. Never would Edward believe me when I told him Sylvester wished for his title and the estate…and the money. Never. He was a fool and he thought nothing but good of the man who wanted to steal everything from him. Zut!” She spat into the cold hearth. “Un salopard.”

Good heavens. This was quite an outpouring. So Jonnie possessed an uncle who had nurtured designs upon his father’s title and estate, and now presumably upon his. Verity, with her extensive education in foreign cities, had more than once come across such envy from a younger son and was not surprised by this revelation. Did Jonnie know of his uncle’s envy? She had a feeling he might be as dismissive of it as his father had been before him.

The old lady shook her head. “I am sorry, child. I have nothing to do here but sit and remember and think. I find myself, more and more, dwelling on what happened in the past and letting it make me fear the future. I must not burden you with my thoughts.”

Verity once again experienced the desire for honesty with this clearly hot-headed old lady, but pushed it away, even though she hated having to keep secrets. The fewer people who knew the truth, the better.