“Not yet,” her mother added, a teasing lilt to her voice. “But she has just turned eighteen, and she will be sure to make herown little nest.” She smiled meaningfully at their guest, her intelligent eyes bright, her mind no doubt plotting as usual.
“If I were a boy, I would be at university,” Verity said with a hint of sourness.
Mr. Cole raised an eyebrow. “Indeed. Is that what you would have preferred?”
“What nonsense,” tutted Mrs. Lockhart, placing a hand on her full bosom. “There is no talk of our daughter doing any such thing. Is there, Mr. Lockhart?”
Her mother turned to her father, who was quietly submerged in his favorite chair. She did not wait for him to answer but instead continued with her usual momentum. “It is unheard of. Her days are filled to the brim already around the home and within the community. What more could a woman wish for?”
Mr. Cole looked pointedly at Verity, as if he expected her to answer that question.
She was taken aback. The William Cole she had known had never cared for her opinion.
He was nearly three years older. In their childhood, that had been a lifetime of difference. When the children of Fernbridge had gathered to play at picnics or festivals, William had been—not counting herself—the youngest. And he had wanted very much to be included. It had been an almost desperate need to be liked by the others. He had used his natural intelligence to banter and play the fool for their amusement. It had been a little sad, really. But it had also meant that Verity, being younger still, had been utterly discarded.
It hadn’t bothered her as much as it would have bothered him, had that been his fate. She was used to being ignored. Both her siblings were much older and always too busy for her childish needs. So, she would watch them play for a while and then wander off by herself to observe new things.
That was how she had found the butterfly. Its wing had been torn. She had expected it to fly away as she’d approached. Instead, it had fluttered haphazardly onto a leaf, perhaps hoping concealment could protect it when flight could not.
Verity had stood quite still, not to alarm it. She’d admired the design of its membranous wings and the way the segments had shone like plate-glass windows. It had been such a pity it would never fly properly again. Unless… What if she cut a piece of tissue paper and attached it with a little glue paste? But how would she keep the butterfly still while the glue dried?
She had been standing thus, in a pose of contemplation, when the jostling crowd of children had pushed past her, brushing the branch on which the invalid insect had been perched and knocking it down in a hail of knees and elbows. Verity had thrown herself to the ground to shield the helpless thing, but it had been too late. A cry of dismay had torn from her throat.
William Cole, always five steps behind the others, had stopped to see what was the matter. He’d peered over her shoulder at the battered shape in the trampled grass and scowled. “Oh, it’s just a stupid butterfly,” he’d declared. And he’d run on to find the others.
Verity had felt the air being sucked from her lungs. He hadn’t cared. None of them had. As far as they’d been concerned, the butterfly had been discardable, just like her. But it hadn’t been. It had been fascinating, and alluring, and… and… then it had been gone.
That evening, all those years ago, Verity had drawn her first sketch of many. It had been a rough attempt, but she’d persevered. She’d needed to capture what had made the butterfly special. So that it would have been trulyseen.
Was that what Mr. Cole was doing now? Here, five years later? Was he really seeing her for the first time? Could she saythings to him that no other man had wanted to hear—how she loved time alone at the pond? Or that she hid notebooks under her bed, filled with complicated diagrams and scientific studies copied from the library?
She didn’t think so.
“A woman finds fulfilment in her home and family,” she found herself saying. And she hated herself for it.
Did she imagine it, or did Mr. Cole look disappointed?
Her mother, however, would allow no opportunity for contemplation and began at once to fuss.
“Sit, sit, everyone.” Mrs. Lockhart waved her hands about. She proceeded to place herself in the middle of the settee so that Verity was obliged to take the only remaining chair—which just happened to be adjacent to Mr. Cole.
But if her mother had hoped to create a littletête-à-têtebetween them, her father had not been informed.
“How is my dear friend Marcus?” he asked their guest.
“My father is well, thank you, sir.”
“And business at the bank is thriving, I hope?”
“Certainly, I have not heard otherwise.”
“And your brother, Lawrence, he is to take the helm one day, I assume.”
“Yes, sir. They already work together as equals.” Mr. Cole looked at his hands. “My father is very pleased with my brother.”
“I am told your sister is married and in Munro.”
“Yes. Charlotte has a son and another child on the way.”
