Chapter One
Fernbridge, October 1814
Verity Lockhart’s toessank into the mud with a satisfying squelch. A youthful giggle that belied her eighteen years bubbled up in her throat.If Mother could see me now!Her eyes cast quickly in the direction of the vicarage. No, she was safe, out of sight, and deliciously alone.
The hem of her dress dipped into the pond water and she hastily raised it higher, draping it over her arm, her pale knees exposed in a most shocking fashion. She didn’t think the frogs minded. They were used to her knees by now.
Her focus turned to the dragonfly perched on a sunny rock a few feet away. She carefully lowered her net. Her toes felt their way through the chilly water as she edged forward. Slowly, slowly.
The dragonfly shifted as her shadow fell over it, and Verity threw her arm out just in time. The hoop of the net encircled the creature’s flight and the collapsing netting downed the insect while it struggled.
“There, there,” she soothed, gathering the net and its flailing prisoner up with gentle fingers. “Don’t fight so. I am only going to sketch you, and then you’ll be free again.”
She hastened to the grassy verge, dropped her skirts against her damp legs, and reached for a glass jar that lay waiting. Abzztof frustration, and the dragonfly was in the jar, the cork stopper sealing it in.
“Come on,” she said conversationally as she carried the jar and its occupant to a bench nearby. “This won’t take long. You’ll soon be off on your adventures again.” The dragonfly did not respond. Verity considered its silence somewhat accusatory. She tucked a straggling lock of white-blonde hair behind her ear and dropped her gaze. “You don’t understand. I have no adventures. None at all. But I will keep a memory of you in my sketches. Later, I will add water colors. Do you see? Whenever I look at them, I will think of what you may be getting up to, somewhere beyond the meadow, perhaps even crossing distant rivers.”
The dragonfly pulsed its wings. Verity sighed.
“All right, let’s begin.”
She opened a leather portfolio of loose pages and removed a clean sheet. Verity squinted at the jar, then her pencil began to shift with confident strokes as the dragonfly took shape, first in outline, then in exquisite detail. Her feet rubbed against each other as the early autumn afternoon began to cool. But she wouldn’t stop to put on her stockings and shoes, not until her little muse was free again.
It was while she was jotting down notes about the colors to be added later that she heard the faint voice.
“Miss Lo-o-o-ck-ha-a-art!” it called.
Verity knew to whom the voice belonged, even though its owner had not yet appeared over the rise.
“Tch, what is it now?” she grumbled to herself. “I have barely been gone an hour.”
She packed away her sketch and pencil, slotting the leather tongue of the portfolio through its buckle. A deft bend and twist deposited her footwear out of sight under the bench, where her bare feet were tucked away from view. Just in time, too, as the calling refrain had changed suddenly to “Oh, there you are! Idon’t know why I look anywhere else. If you’re not at the stream by the church, you are always here.”
The voice was accompanied by a degree of puffing as a plump young woman approached the bench.
She stopped to catch her breath, her gaze following Verity’s across the shallow pond, buzzing with insects.
“My, but it is a lovely view. I can see why it draws you here, miss.”
Verity smiled down at the glass jar. One of her mother’s maids would never understand how the strange and wonderful denizens of the waterways caught Verity’s heart far more than flowering fields and dales.
“I suppose my mother is looking for me.” Verity’s tone suggested this was nothing new.
“Yes, miss. There is a visitor come. A young man from the village.”
“And what has that to do with me? He has surely come to discuss something with my father. Some church matter or the like.”
“I couldn’t say, miss. I only know that Mrs. Lockhart said you are to come, and to make yourself presentable.”
Verity’s naked toes wriggled guiltily beneath the bench.
“Does this young man have a name?” she asked.
“I didn’t catch what it was.” Nellie’s nose wrinkled as she tried to remember, without success. Then she grinned. “He was awfully handsome, though. I wouldn’t complain if he came calling onme.”
“Why, Nellie Brown!” Verity laughed. “I’m not at all certain these are appropriate thoughts for a young lady to have.”
“Oh, miss, I suspect these are exactly the thoughts your mother hopes you will have when you see him.” Nellie’s eyes twinkled knowingly.
