What would he have said? Something about love, no doubt, since it was clear her parents loved each other. Something about forever, the future, the deep and abiding union of souls.
Would her dear father have understood expediency? Or that she was more than willing to trade a well-known prison for an unknown cage?
But if her parents had been alive, she wouldn’t be getting married in London at all, and certainly not to Montgomery Fairfax.
Her aunt sailed into the family dining room, took one look at her assembled brood, and beamed at them. Her smile dimmed when she caught sight of Veronica.
“Oh my dear, that won’t do at all.”
She braced herself, knowing what was coming.
“You’ve done your hair yourself, haven’t you? We have certain standards in this house, and it’s not simply enough to grab a hank of your hair and wind it into a bun, Veronica.”
A spate of laughter greeted her remark, and Aunt Lilly smiled again at her children.
“Especially today,” she added.
“Hester was otherwise occupied, Aunt Lilly,” she said, but her aunt disappeared into the kitchen again and paid her words no attention.
Aunt Lilly wasn’t a cruel woman. She was a woman with a great many concerns and a great many opinions, most of them acquired from her husband. Her appearance was outwardly pleasant, masking a will of iron. Her face was puffy, as if she were a loaf of bread passed its first rising. She was plump in other places, too, even the fingers normally adorned with an assortment of rings. By afternoon, she would complain her fingers were hurting and remove all her jewelry. First thing in the morning, as now, she was bejeweled, impeccably dressed, not a hair out of place, and expecting everyone else to appear the same.
When Veronica had lived at home, she’d never had anyone do her hair, and her results had been acceptable to everyone.
Her morning had always begun with a smile and a kiss from her mother, and the same from her father. Their conversation consisted of ideas, thoughts, her father’s poetry, her mother’s garden.
Ideas were not acceptable topics of conversation in her uncle’s household. Her uncle decided what everyone thought about politics, religion, or the news of the day.
All of them freely discussed other people, however. What people wore, how they behaved, the things they said were all fodder for conversation. Occasionally, someone uttered a compliment, but mostly the comments were critical.
No one was as good as the fair cousins.
As much as they loved to gossip among themselves, they relished sharing information with their friends. Veronica couldonly imagine the talk if the real story of what had happened the night before last became known. Or perhaps they’d be too afraid that society would judge them as harshly as they judged others.
Her breakfast finished, Veronica stood. Her aunt returned from the kitchen and regarded her with some displeasure. Yet the emotion Veronica felt from her aunt was not irritation as much as it was resignation. As if she had exhausted all of Aunt Lilly’s patience.
“I’ll tell Hester to help you dress, Veronica,” Aunt Lilly said, the look in her eyes daring Veronica to argue. “If there’s time, she’ll redo your hair.”
Her aunt was going to win the battle because Veronica simply didn’t care. She could enter the parlor in little more than two hours naked and clad in the brown wool robe, and she wouldn’t care. They could shave her head bald, and she wouldn’t care. Nothing could dim her joy. Nothing could alter her gratitude to Montgomery Fairfax.
“Thank you, Aunt Lilly.”
“Shall we help as well?” Amanda asked, sending a look toward her mother, a sweet smile curving her lips.
“Thank you, cousin,” Veronica said hastily. “I shall manage. In fact,” she said, allowing herself to look a little uncertain, a little shy, “I would welcome the moments alone to contemplate.”
“As well you should, Veronica,” her aunt said, glancing at her husband. Both of them nodded in tandem.
She left the room, praying that the moments raced by, so she would soon be free of that house, her aunt, uncle, and all the cousins.
Stepping behind the screen where the washbasin was located, she knelt and removed the loose floorboard. Slowly, she retrieved a small lockbox, the only possession she’d brought from Scotland.
She stood, carried the lockbox back to the window seat, and twisted the knob. Although it had always been kept in her father’s desk drawer, she’d never known it to be locked. No one in their household would’ve thought to steal from her father. She couldn’t say the same in her uncle’s home.
Inside was the totality of her inheritance. If Amanda had known the extent of the lockbox’s contents, no doubt her requirements would have been larger over the past two years. As it was, Veronica could afford to pay her cousin some small amounts from time to time in an attempt to be spared Amanda’s petty cruelties.
She closed the lid of the lockbox and held it on her lap. This lockbox, along with her two remaining dresses, two pairs of stockings, a robe, two nightgowns, and a spare corset, was the extent of her belongings. Her dress for the wedding was borrowed, as well as her shoes.
Gone was the silver she’d put away in her wedding chest, as well as all those carefully embroidered garments for her trousseau. Her copy ofMrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Managementhad been stored in her chest as well, and on nights when she couldn’t sleep, she’d pored over the recipes, planning for the day when she’d prepare them for her own family.
