“No,” he denied instantly, shame clawing at him. “I forbid it.”
“I shall be subtle, as I said,” Verity continued, unmoved by the vehemence of his protest. “She shan’t know that I’m speaking about you.”
“No,” he repeated.
“Everett,” she implored, using his given name again, “if you refuse to speak with her about it, then someone must. I refuse to watch the two of you carry on in such icy misery without doing something about it.”
“You are meddling where you aren’t wanted,” he warned her.
“I promise you that I won’t meddle. I will merely go on a reconnaissance mission on your behalf.”
Verity was truly incorrigible. And despite his reservations and pride, Everett found himself relenting. Perhaps it was the influence of the whisky, taking its toll on his good sense.
“You will not mention me,” he said. “I’ll have your promise.”
Verity beamed. “I promise, brother.”
As it didevery other weekday, the carriage swayed over the rutted London roads to the Children’s Foundling Hospital, Sybil and Verity within. And as she had been every day since Sybil’s arrival in town, Verity was dressed in somber black, her golden locket worn on a chain around her neck.
“It is beautiful, is it not?” Verity asked, clutching the oval locket in her gloved fingers.
Sybil flushed, embarrassed that she had been caught staring by her sister-in-law. “It is indeed a lovely piece. I noticed you always wear it.”
Where other ladies donned diamonds and sapphires and rubies, and certainly Lady Verity had the means from her wealthy family to do so, she wore the gold locket. Even to the ball. Just as she had worn her black.
Lady Verity smiled wistfully. “It was a gift to me from my betrothed long ago now.”
Suddenly, everything began to make sense. To Sybil’s knowledge, her sister-in-law was not engaged to wed anyone, nor had she been in recent times. Verity had said the gift was from long ago. And the black that she wore without fail…
“You are in mourning,” Sybil guessed.
“Yes.” Lady Verity still clutched the locket, as if doing so kept her closer to the fiancé she had apparently lost. “I have been for ten years now, ever since Leo died.”
Her heart ached for her sister-in-law at this new knowledge. “I am so sorry, my dear. You must have loved him very much.”
“I did.” Lady Verity faltered before continuing, her voice breaking with emotion. “When he died, I vowed that I would never marry anyone else. Leo was the only one for me.”
“I see.”
Sybil didn’t know what else to say. She was almost ashamed that she had spent so much time in her sister-in-law’s presence and hadn’t known or at least guessed at her painful history. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with the failing state of her marriage, she might have concluded the truth much sooner.
“Some say that there is room in a heart for more than one, or that time heals us enough to make a broken heart whole again, but I’m not so sure of that,” Lady Verity said, giving Sybil a searching glance. “What do you think?”
“I think that the love you have for him is admirable,” she said gently.
“But if you loved someone you could no longer have, what would you do?” her sister-in-law asked. “Would you cling to your love for him, or would you try to find love again?”
Sybil considered her question, suspecting there was some subtle, underlying context that she didn’t comprehend. She thought of Everett then, wondering how to answer. He was the only man she had ever loved. But to her greatest regret, he didn’t love her back. When she had been adamant about divorcing him from afar, the notion of beginning anew with another husband had seemed easy.
But now, she knew that she had been wrong.
She loved Everett more than ever. And she had him too. Only not the most important part of him, the part that she longed for most—his heart.
“I don’t think I could say what I would do, were I in your shoes,” she answered at last. “You must do whatever feels right to you, my lady. If your heart can only ever belong to your Leo, then that is understandable. But if, along the way, you were to find a gentleman and fall in love with him, it would not be a betrayal of your first love. Is there someone for whom you have developed tender feelings?”
It occurred to Sybil that the Duke of Kingham had paid several calls to the town house. On each occasion, he chatted with both Sybil and Verity. He had always been his amusing self and the soul of politeness. She had supposed he was bored or that he enjoyed nettling Everett in that peculiar way of his. But now, Sybil wondered.
Had Kingham been visiting them so that he could see Verity? And was Verity conflicted about the feelings she was developing for the duke? The possibility certainly put her sister-in-law’s queries in a whole new light.
