With the maid’s help, she dressed in the present from Aunt Lilly and her cousins, a lovely peignoir of lemon-colored silk that had been in Anne’s trousseau. After the girl left, she brushed her hair until it curled around her shoulders, studying her reflection in the mirror and noting the flush on her cheeks.
Would a man consider her beautiful? Would Montgomery? Or would he even see her as she was, avoiding the wedding night as he’d avoided her for the whole of the day?
She was a bride without a bridegroom. A bride, deserted shortly after the ceremony. A bride, left in no doubt of her new husband’s antipathy for her.
One thing her marriage had brought her, however, was the freedom of her emotions. She was growing angrier by the moment.
Was she supposed to sit meekly in her room and wait for her husband? Then welcome him into her bed? She’d perform her duty, but she wasn’t going to like it.
Or him.
Let him mourn the woman he loved.
I don’t love you.
She didn’t love him, either.
Was it too much to wish for love? Was it too foolish to wish that someone watched the door in anticipation of her arrival? Or listened to his watch to ensure that time, itself, hadn’t caused her delay? Or to have someone stand at the bottom of the steps looking up, his hand on the banister, his eyes lighting up because he’d just seen her?
Was it so terrible to want something so simple, so fragile?
Montgomery’s eyes wouldn’t light up when she entered a room because he hadn’t chosen her. Of all the women in the world, he’d not singled her out to share his life. He’d no choice in the matter.
Neither had she.
She clenched her fists, then forced herself to relax her hands. The bubble of anger wouldn’t subside. However much she told herself that resentment had no practical purpose, she felt it, nonetheless.
Was she simply to be a leaf blown by a strong wind? Always acquiescing to everyone’s plans for her? She’d been a dutiful daughter. However, it had been more difficult to be a dutiful niece, a companionable cousin. As the months passed, as one year faded into another, she’d found it more and more difficult to remain silent and agreeable.
Now, she was supposed to be a dutiful wife, submitting to her fate, silent when her husband abandoned her not an hour after their wedding.
Her marriage wasn’t going to change her life at all.
Yet in Montgomery’s enchanted mirror, she’d not been lonely. She’d had a family. She’d felt joy for that second, been surrounded by people who loved her.
How much had she really seen? Or had she imagined it all?
She could look again.
For the first time since she’d left Montgomery’s library, her spirit lightened. The mirror was somewhere in the house. Unless, of course, he’d returned it to its rightful owner. Yet Montgomery said he didn’t know to whom it belonged.
She glanced at the mantel clock. Where was he? Had Montgomery left for an evening of carousing? She should have taken advantage of Mrs. Gardiner’s solicitousness and inquired as to her husband’s whereabouts. She’d been too embarrassed, too ashamed to ask.
Removing her wrapper, she replaced it with her worn but sturdier robe, belted it tightly, and left the room, heading for the third floor.
Mrs. Gardiner urged her into her room, after looking both ways down the hall as if afraid the other servants would discover her on the third floor.
“Your Ladyship,” the housekeeper said, wrapping herself in a thick plaid robe, “how may I be of service?”
Once in the room, Veronica didn’t quite know how to ask.
“I’m looking for a mirror,” Veronica said.
Mrs. Gardiner’s lined face furrowed even more. “Is there not a mirror in your chamber?”
“A mirror with diamonds around the edge of the glass,” she said. “And writing across the back. I think it’s Latin.”
The housekeeper’s face smoothed with her smile. “The Scryer’s Mirror,” she said. “You know about the Scryer’s Mirror?” She studied Veronica for a moment. “Was it a bride’s gift, Your Ladyship?”
