Virginia did the same, but in the opposite direction. She could see him if she lifted her head, but this way she could keep her gaze on the clouds overhead rather than the handsome man at her side.
“Do you like Christmas?” she asked after a moment.
“The town?” Theodore paused, as if considering his response. “I like you. I haven’t seen the town. In a sense, being anonymous here is harder than being away at war.”
She frowned. “In what way?”
“On the front lines, we still received letters and news of home.” His eyebrows drew together. “It’s unsettling not to have contact.”
Virginia could not disagree more. She thanked her stars every day that no one from London ever tried to contact her. She wasnotgoing back to that asylum.
Another terrible thought slammed into her. What if her parents numbered among Theodore’s acquaintances when he returned to London? What if he inquired about her, and they had nothing nice to say, other than getting rid of her being the best thing they could ever have done?
“I don’t mind the lack of contact,” she said. “No one cares what I do. I can only be tolerated for short periods.”
“That is a horrible thing to say.” He jerked up on one elbow. “Why the devil would you think that?”
“It might have taken even longer to figure out, had so many helpful individuals not seen fit to say so directly. Lord Munroe, Lady Voss, my mother…”
“Wait. What?” Theodore shot up straight, his jaw hanging open. “Who are your parents?”
“You don’t know them,” Virginia said, and prayed it was true. “They’ve only a baronetcy to their name.”
“Lady Underwood and Sir Hubert are your parents?” he said in disbelief. “Horridones, from the sound of it.”
Virginia closed her eyes in mortification. “You know them.”
“I haven’t had the pleasure. But I recall the names from Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage. Does your family live with you in the castle?”
She shook her head. “They live in London. I live in the castle.”
He stared at her. “How does something like that happen?”
His question seemed to stretch out between them, a razor-sharp whip of words and implication, capable of snapping back to break her in two.
Virginia kept her eyes closed and concentrated on the evergreens rustling in the breeze. She would not lie to Theodore. But to answer meant sharing secrets she guarded for a reason. If her own family found her unlovable and not worth their attention, Theodore might feel the same.
But she couldn’t keep him anyway, Virginia reminded herself. This was why. He might as well know the truth.
“It’s not their fault,” she said at last. The wind stole each word; made it colder. “Not completely. They have a little money but no sons. The baronetcy and our entailed home will go elsewhere, leaving my mother and sisters homeless and penniless. Making it essential to marry well, starting with the eldest daughter.” Her throat stung. “It was my responsibility to wed quickly and upwardly so that my younger sisters could do the same.”
Even with her eyes closed, she could feel Theodore staring at her.
“You had a Season,” he said in growing understanding.
She nodded. “Part of one. It didn’t go well. Since my parents couldn’t be rid of me that way, they had to find another.”
“What other way?” Theodore demanded.
Virginia swallowed the old hurt. “It’s natural. All baby chicks must be thrust from the nest when it’s time to fly.”
“When they arereadyto fly,” he corrected. “Good bird-parents don’t banish their baby chick to a castle on the opposite side of England because she had a bad first Season.”
“They didn’t.” Virginia’s voice cracked. “They sent me to a lunacy asylum on the other side of that forest.”
“They what?” Theodore’s growl was low and deadly.
A breeze blew through the lattice. Its chill was nothing compared to the cold inside. “An unmarriageable daughter is of no use to anyone. My reputation no longer mattered.”
