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I liked him.
Had my brother or Hathor told me of these very same thoughts, I would have simply told them they were caused by the affection they were feeling. But why was that so hard for me to accept? Why did admitting that leave me feeling as though I were going to roll into a hole in my floor and land directly in the drawing room?
“I like…” I whispered the word and then covered my face with my hands. I couldn’t say it.
“Is everything all right, my lady?”
I rolled over onto my side to look at Bernice, who had entered the room and was watching me with basin in hand. I stared at her freckled face. No, everything was not all right. It was absolutely the opposite of all right. I was enamored of the very worst option of suitors for me. Evander would sooner let me marry a pig farmer than…someone like him. Someone like our Fitzwilliam. The very mention of it would…oh…I could not even dare to think it.
“No, I am not all right at all,” I whispered. It was best for me to forget him altogether…and yet I remembered how he’d smiled at me yesterday and that made me smile.
“Are you ill, my lady?” Bernice put the basin down and reached over and placed her hand on my head.
“My lady, you are a bit warm,” she said in a panic.
“Am I?” I reached up to touch my own forehead, but I felt no fever. “I believe—”
“Wait one moment, I shall call her ladyship!” She was already rushing to the door.
“Surely it is not so bad,” I called out to stop her, but she was already gone, leaving her panic with me. I was not ill, nor did I wish to cause a fuss, I merely wished to…to wallow in my emotions.
Knowing the marchioness, now the whole house would be galvanized.
But if they thought I was ill, would they be calling on him? Again I smiled but then frowned, sitting up quickly, not wishing for him to see me look such a mess.
“Verity!” The marchioness rushed into the room, eyes wide, along with one other maid, pressing her hand to my head. “You are ill. I know it was from the rains yesterday. I told you and Hathor to rush to the carriage but instead you were playing!”
“I am not ill,” I said. And I had not been playing in the rain yesterday. I was just enjoying the cool water upon my skin, along with the sight of all the others running for cover.
“Mary, have the kitchen send up lemon tea with honey as well as carrot ginger soup. Bernice, have a hot bath brought in, the trick is to fight back early!” she ordered them, clearly ignoring me. They all but ran out of the room.
“You are not calling a doctor?” I asked her, already relieved.
“For a cold? Hogwash.” She smiled, helping me lie back down. “If I called a doctor each time one of my children caught a cold people would think my home was diseased. No need for all that drama. You shall be given the Du Bell family remedies and be back on your feet by tomorrow.”
“Who catches a cold in the spring?” Hathor said from the door as she finished braiding her hair at the side of the head. “And from a little rain no less.”
“If you are not going to offer her comfort, Hathor, it is best you go downstairs so you do not fall ill as well…from a hand on your backside!”
I giggled, settling into the pillow.
“I am not a child anymore, Mama, you cannot discipline me so.”
“Would you care to wager on it?”
They stared each other down before Hathor stepped from the door. “Ladies do not gamble, so I shall go draw…since someone so inconveniently decided to fall ill, preventing us from going on our walk—”
“Go with your father, Hathor.”
“Lord Hardinge will be visiting Papa and thus I will be stuck listening to them speak on Descartes the whole way.” She sighed dramatically and looked to me. “You’ve been little help so far.”
“HATHOR!”
“Going!” she said as she left quickly.
“Forgive her,” the marchioness whispered, petting my head slowly. “For some reason, she never wishes people to know she cares.”
I wished to tell her again that I was not ill. But on the other hand, I was struck by the way in which the marchioness tended to her family. She was far more attentive than I expected a lady of her status to be.
“Why do you go so far?” I asked her softly.
“What?”
“Evander said it is because you and my mama were the very closest of friends. But it has been more than eighteen years since her passing. How could such a friendship last even when one person is now departed?”
She chuckled. “It is because she is gone that it lasts, my dear. I can no longer remember any of the bad things that rock a friendship nor am I able to let go of the good things. I owe your mother a great deal, everything I have now is because of her.”
