Those silent moments at dawn felt almost like a vow, a ceremony more blessed than their wedding.
Chapter 25
“It’s going to be fine, Norma,” Veronica was saying, patting the girl on the back.
The young maid, one Montgomery had seen around the house, continued to sob, her face buried in a handkerchief, her shoulders shaking. Veronica reached for a cup, poured tea into it, and made the girl take it.
Sunlight, streaming through the broad windows behind them, danced on Veronica’s hair, touched it with gold and red.
He halted in the doorway of the Rose Parlor, wondering if he could disappear before he was seen.
Too late. Veronica looked up to see him. The slight shake of her head indicated, to his great relief, that he wasn’t required at the moment. Or possibly wasn’t even wanted.
It was that thought that kept him just beyond sight, listening.
“How did you know, Lady Fairfax?” the girl was saying. “Even Mrs. Brody doesn’t know, and she knows everything.”
“I felt your fear,” Veronica said simply.
He laid his head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling of the corridor. His ancestors had painted vignettes ofScotland’s history on several squares, he’d been told. The one he was looking at portrayed a battle about to take place, as men were aligned on separate hills, their leaders facing each other on horseback.
He was damned tired of war, even in art.
“It doesn’t matter,” Veronica said, as if the girl had sent her a questioning look. “What’s necessary now is to plan for the future. Can you go home to have the child?”
The girl began to weep in earnest, but his curiosity kept him in place.
A moment later, Veronica spoke again. “Then we shall just have to find a home for you, Norma. Have you any friends or other family?”
“A cousin in Glasgow, Lady Fairfax.”
“Then we’ll write her, Norma.”
“I don’t want to be a burden to her, Lady Fairfax.”
Several minutes passed in silence, making him wonder, exactly, what was happening in the room. He peered around the doorway to see the girl had wrapped her arms around Veronica, and she was returning the hug, patting Norma on the back.
Evidently, the girl had found herself with child and was going to be sent away to live with relatives. Not an unusual arrangement. What Veronica said next, however, was not commonplace.
“You’ll not go to them penniless, Norma. I’ll see to that. You’ll have funds of your own. That way, you won’t be a poor relation.”
She’d said something like that the night before, something he’d dismissed without paying it much attention. Now, he could only wonder what kind of future Veronica might have had without marriage.
The longer he was around her, the more he learned. He knew, now, why she’d been at the Society of the Mercaii, why she wasalways so careful to extinguish a lamp, and why she’d begun a fire brigade.
What would he learn tomorrow?
“Oh, I couldn’t, Lady Fairfax,” Norma said now, pulling back and blotting at her eyes. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“It wasn’t right for your William to leave you in such a condition and disappear.”
“He’s a good man, Lady Fairfax. He was just frightened.”
“He wasn’t a man, Norma,” Veronica said firmly. “Men don’t run away from problems. They face them. They’re not afraid of them.”
That wasn’t entirely true. He’d been afraid numerous times in the last five years and wanted to run like the Devil was chasing him. Circumstances, and perhaps pride, had kept him rooted in place. What he wanted to do and what he was compelled to do were often different, fear be damned.
When he entered the room, Veronica shook her head again. He ignored her that time and approached Norma, awkwardly patting the girl on the shoulder.
