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“How do you know?”
“He told me.” She sighed. “Right as the third course came he confessed that his heart was already with another and thus his parents’ efforts were for naught.”
That gained my attention and I lay beside her. “He seeks to marry someone else?”
“Apparently he cannot marry her.”
“Why?”
“He did not say. He told me so I would not have expectations of him and I am quite grateful for his honesty.” She smiled brightly. “His character is charming enough that I might have gotten distracted from my true goal of a duke.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed at her steadfastness, then paused, wondering. “What would have happened if he confessed to caring for you?”
“What could happen but either I reciprocate or reject him?”
“How would you know to do either?”
She looked at me strangely. “Would it not be by how his words made me feel? If he liked me and that brought me joy, I would reciprocate. Why do you seem so lost?”
Was that the sensation I felt? Joy?
“Why are you so certain of these things?” I asked back. “You have no greater experience than I and yet this whole process, selecting a husband, liking or not liking, feels as foreign to me as the depths of the sea.”
“You do not make sense to me.” She sighed. “Why would your own feelings on these matters be foreign? You like orange juice, do you not? I have seen you happily drink it each morning this week.”
“And?”
“You are capable of knowing you like things. So the same would apply to people, no? You can like a person for being handsome, or well established or anything at all. This knowledge is not the depths of the sea, it is the depths of you. That should not be foreign at all,” she replied, rising from the bed. “You are strange, Verity. But I like you as a person, another strange sister of sorts. Good night.”
“Are you not going to ask if I like you?”
“You apparently have no clue what you like. Besides, who could rightfully dislike me anyway?” She smiled brightly and skipped to the door.
I chuckled then laughed.
She was just as strange as I was.
But as the laughter faded and I thought of Dr. Darrington, my heart once more began to flip.
And the depths of me feared she may have been right.
8
Verity
“What are you doing here?” my father questioned, glaring up at me from behind his desk. He looked almost exactly like Evander—tall, sand-brown skin with short curly hair and deep brown eyes, but unlike my brother’s his were cold, angry.
“Papa—”
“How many times must I tell you that you are not to call me that?” he snapped at me.
I hugged my doll, the one Evander had given me before leaving. “I’m sorry, Your Grace—”
“No, it is I who is sorry, sorry I could not send you off to school with your foolish brother.” He grumbled, lifting another paper to read. “This is why daughters are such a terrible inconvenience. I can rid myself of you only by paying a lofty dowry.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Is that all you know how to say? You are no better than your mother, always sorry but never changing! If she was going to die she should have had the good sense to do it while producing a son.”
“Is everything all right?” Datura, his new wife, whose skin was pure white and hair golden, came to stand behind me. She was dressed in bright red and wore rubies around her neck.
“No!” he yelled at her. “I knew it was going to be beyond your lowly capabilities to keep the house in order, but I did think you would at least know how to manage a child. Yet here she is, roaming about.”
“Worry not, I shall take her now.” Datura smiled at him but when she reached for me I immediately stepped to the side, hugging my doll as tightly as possible.
No!
Please, no.
“No, Papa—”
She closed the door to his study, the smile on her face dropping as she glared down at me angrily.
“What did I tell you about leaving your room?” Datura sneered as she reached for me, grabbing my arm tightly. I pulled away, but her grip only tightened more.
“Papa!” I screamed but she placed one hand over my mouth and yanked me away. Please, please. I didn’t want to go.
“Come!” Datura dug her nails into my arm. “Must you always be such a nuisance?”
“No!” I tried to dig my heels in but it was no use, they just slid upon the marble. She was so much bigger than I; there was no escaping. I bit her arm and tried to run, but she pulled on my hair, dragging me to her. I reached up to her hand, trying to free my hair, but I was met with a smack, then another, and another.
