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Chapter Twenty-Two

Viv had written to her aunt and to her family and packed all that she thought might be of use to her in Weymouth. Two trunks had been sent ahead. She would never wear her fine London clothes at home, but her mother and sisters might cut up her gowns for new ones for themselves. The letter to her aunt had required several attempts as Viv had dissolved into a watering pot with each early draft.

She had had to take herself to task and list Lark’s acts of perfidy before she could manage a clean, un-tear-stained copy. Item: he had deceived her from the first moment of their acquaintance, allowing his rough accomplice to make off with her purse. Item: he had given her a false name and lied about his position in the duke’s household. Item: he had prolonged their acquaintance by involving her in a deception of her friends. Item: he had kissed her without meaning anything by it, just as her former suitor in Bath had done. Item: he had stolen the corrected proofs of the book, her only record of the work on which she had placed her hopes.

The trouble with her list was that her heart looked at each of his treacherous acts and saw something different. He had stepped between her pistol and his friend, saving the friend. His spontaneous proposal had saved her for a time from the Strydes. He had ignored whatever real business he was meant to be doing to show her London as she had not seen it. He had challenged her and laughed with her. He had told her the name his friends called him. He had kissed her as if he meant it. He might not be a duke’s secretary, but he was clearly a duke’s intimate friend.

Her poor heart had been knocked about between the two ways of seeing him, like a sack of potatoes in a farmer’s cart jolted and bruised on a rough road. In the end, the theft of the proofs settled it. He was a thief, he stole things, purses, notebooks, pearls, perhaps even the ring he’d offered her. And if he read those proofs, and she knew he would, he would see how Lady Melforth had betrayed Viv. He would think Viv a rare idiot for believing that she, a dead man’s unwanted daughter, a girl from nowhere really, from an obscure seaside town long past its moment as a fashionable resort, could take on the great metropolis and tell its stories. It had all been vanity. She truly deserved her fall.

Her letter home had been easier to write as her family had never heard of her false betrothal. A reply came from her mother in Pippa’s handwriting saying that she could have her old bed in the room she had shared with Pippa and Charlotte.

Resigning before being sacked was small comfort. Since that day the Strydes had made themselves quite at home in the upper rooms, and Viv had moved like a ghost, nearly invisible as she went about her few tasks, using the servants’ stairs, speaking little, and eating her meals in her room. Only Jenny seemed to notice Viv at all. And in the morning, she would leave for home.

Jenny found her in the stillroom, the perfect refuge for a ghost, where she was in nobody’s way.

“Miss, an invitation ’as come for you.”

“Thank you, Jenny. Set it on the table, and I’ll get to it when I can.”

“It’s quite posh, miss, with a crest and all.”

Viv went on mixing a cordial for Lady Melforth. Now that she was leaving, she wanted to be sure that a good supply of Newberry’s headache cordial was on hand. She had no confidence in a nurse of the Strydes’ choosing. They would favor someone stern and of their moral leanings, but also cheap, and they would not look for a woman capable of compassion.

Out of the corner of her eye, Viv could see Jenny hovering, looking for a place to put the card. Viv set aside her work, wiped her hands on a towel, and came around the big table. “I’ll take it, Jenny, if you’re worried about setting it down among the herbs and such.”

“Thank you, miss. It’s from a duchess.”

Viv accepted the card. It was indeed from her grace, the Duchess of Wenlocke. For a moment a flutter of hope stirred in her. Then she recollected herself. The invitation came from her other life, the one she had led before she learned Lark was a pickpocket, before she knew he’d lied, before he’d stolen the proofs. In that life, she would have eagerly torn open the envelope and lost herself in anticipation of what to wear and whom she would meet. She was grateful to the duchess for the distinction of a personal invitation, and not as a lady’s companion might expect, a mention of herself as part of the household invitation.

But that life had ended. In her new life, the invitation meant nothing. Viv would be with her family in Weymouth long before the duchess’s dinner party.

“Will you go, miss?” Jenny asked. “Everyone says the duchess has great kindness.”

“I’m sure she does,” Viv answered, “but I must return to my family.”

“Oh miss, must you leave? Nothing will be the same without you.”

Viv shook her head. “If I tried to stay, I would be sacked.”

“We will all be sacked soon, miss, and whatever will we do? Mr. Haxton may find another situation, but I’m sure no one will want me.”

Viv tucked the duchess’s card into her apron pocket, took Jenny by the shoulders, and looked into the round, sweet face. “You must go to an agency, Jenny. I’m sure Haxton knows some very good ones.”

“But if you leave, miss, the mistress will die, I know she will, and if she dies, ’er ’orrible Stryde cousins will turn us all out at once.”

“You are probably right about the Strydes, Jenny, but not about her ladyship. Her low spirits make her case seem desperate, but it’s not. She has you and Sarah and Mrs. Brandle and Dr. Newberry to look out for her. She won’t die. Once her spirits recover, she’ll go along much better. You will see.”

“Oh, I hope so, miss. She used to laugh ever so much. Do ye remember?”

“I do, Jenny.”

“And, she doesn’t anymore.”

“It is the shock of learning about her illness, Jenny. You must give her time to discover that she can get along quite well in spite of it. You can help her by being your usual self.”

“Me, miss?”

“You, Jenny. You go on doing for her with your quick cheerful ways, and you’ll see.”