“It is good of you to agree to accompany me to the Children’s Foundling Hospital,” Lady Verity said with a sympathetic smile as their carriage rumbled over rutted London roads to the orphanage that Everett’s sister sponsored.
Lady Verity was once again dressed in black, the locket she always wore peeping from beneath her wrap. Sybil found it curious. Verity seemed to be perpetually dressed in mourning. However, neither the dowager nor Everett was, and to her knowledge, there had been no recent deaths in the family.
“It’s hardly a chore,” she demurred. “I adore children and always have done, and the opportunity to get to know you better was impossible to resist.”
Sybil carefully refrained from mentioning Everett. She didn’t want to dwell on the state of their marriage. Her hope at his rescue of her mother from Eastlake Hall had waned. She was nothing more than an unwanted obligation to him, a woman with whom he might slake his manly needs.
She could have been anyone to him.
The thought was a bitter one, and not without an accompanying pang of resentment.
“The children will be most pleased to have a new face,” Lady Verity was saying, dragging Sybil’s thoughts from her husband. “I fear I am quite old news. Do you sing?”
Sybil winced. “When I have occasion, though I cannot claim much talent in that regard, I fear. It was never one of the feminine arts that I excelled at.”
“You need not worry.” Her sister-in-law grinned. “The children cannot discern the difference between lovely singing and hoarse warbling. I’m dreadful at singing myself.”
Sybil chuckled, charmed by Everett’s sister’s easy nature. It rather reminded her of the glimpses of the man he had shown her during their courtship—swift to smile, to tease. With a kindness and warmth that were not always easy to find amongst people of their set.
“Well, in that case, I reckon I am in excellent company,” she said.
They traveled on in silence until Lady Verity spoke again.
“How did you meet my brother, if I may ask?”
Sybil was surprised at the question, but then she recalled that her husband had kept her a secret from his family. They hadn’t even known of her existence until the day before.
She thought wistfully to the day that their paths had crossed. He had been wonderfully handsome in his riding attire, and he had ridden to her rescue, taking her back to his stables and from there on to Eastlake Hall. She’d heard of his reputation, of course. But his smile had stolen her breath, and she had known by the time they had arrived back at her father’s estate that she was falling hopelessly beneath the rakish duke’s spell.
“I was riding and my horse went lame,” she explained to the waiting Lady Verity now, trying to banish the girlish infatuation that had so foolishly begun that day. “I hadn’t realized how far I had ridden from the manor house at Eastlake Hall. Your brother came to my rescue.”
“That was kind of him,” Lady Verity said, her brow furrowing.
“You say that as if you are surprised,” she observed, still more curious about her husband than she knew was wise.
“Not at all, but I will admit that I didn’t think my brother was the sort to rescue fair maidens in distress.”
Sybil smiled wistfully. “Hardly a fair maiden.”
“You mustn’t be so modest,” Lady Verity said gently. “You are quite beautiful. It all sounds wonderfully romantic.”
“It certainly seemed so to me,” she allowed, not bothering to elaborate.
She didn’t know what Everett had confided in his sister about the state of their marriage, if anything.
Lady Verity was studying her intently with the same unique light-blue gaze that her brother possessed. Sybil found it rather disconcerting. She wondered what the other woman was thinking. What she saw when she looked at Sybil.
The carriage lurched to a halt before Sybil could further ponder or ask.
“We have arrived at the Children’s Foundling Hospital,” Lady Verity announced. “We had best not tarry. When the children see my carriage arrive, they grow very excited, much to the dismay of the headmistress.”
The door to the carriage opened, and the two of them alighted, making their way to the large edifice that housed the orphanage. They were greeted by a line of young boys and girls who stood stoically, barely controlling their enthusiasm for Lady Verity, who introduced Sybil as if she were a deity descended from the heavens.
“Are you a real duchess?” asked one of the girls, who was about six years of age, awe in her voice, her eyes wide on Sybil.
She felt rather like an impostor with the child’s gaze on her.
A slightly taller blonde girl with ringlets elbowed her in the side. “Hush, Emma. Of course she’s a real duchess. Ain’t any such thing as fake duchesses.”
