In the end, Verity went to her grandmother's house the next day. The shabby cottage, even after Mrs Roper had helped her clean out the attic bedroom, had proved too full of draughts and dust and bad memories for her to stand it any longer. Shivering when she woke and dressed that morning, she decided to swallow her pride. She would accept her grandmother's help â if it would be still be on offer when Lady Duvalle learned of her condition.
She walked there, through the woods that backed onto the cottage, and the farmland behind them, realizing halfway that this must have been the same route that she had taken the day she had stabbed Mr Harlan and fled the cottage. Only this time, when she had to stop for rest on a tree stump in a field, there was no Neil to rescue her from her tiredness, or the faint dusting of snow that was beginning to fall across the countryside.
He had never properly told her what happened that night. She knew only that he had carried her into her grandmother's house in his arms. He had refused to admit his part in heroship. Her only memory of the event, vague and untrustable, was that he had kissed her forehead and begged her to wake.
She would never know now if it had really happened. Part of her had hoped that he had cared, even then. Perhaps he never had loved her, but he had come to care for her, perhaps as early as that horrible night. She had to believe he had, or she would never be able to walk onwards.
By the time she reached her grandmother's house, she was exhausted. Her grandmother was in the dining room, seated by the fire, eating breakfast. She looked Verity up and down with a grimace.
"Now that you're here, I suppose you'd best eat with me. You look half-starved."
"I have not been well recently, and I have lost some weight." Verity nudged a seat closer to the fire and sat down. The waiting maid found her a plate and a cup, and would have stayed to serve her, but Lady Duvalle nodded at her to go.
"And you have come here, to beg of me a sick bed again?"
"No." Verity sipped chocolate, found it was too hot, and put it back to cool. "Maman, I have much to tell you. I have decided what I am going to do, and it will not impose upon you â except, perhaps, for a week or more. Lord Albroke has arrived at Neil's house, and I can stay there no longer."
"I had heard he had arrived." Lady Duvalle's nose wrinkled in displeasure. "Yes. I had heard. And you may stay here while he is in the town. I can give you that much. But I shall not keep you forever. What are you going to do with yourself?"
Verity began to eat a roll covered in jam and butter, and was saved from answering for a moment. Finally, Lady Duvalle snapped impatiently,
"Well? You came here to tell me, didn't you?"
"Yes." Verity swallowed hastily. She did not know how to say what she had to say. "First, Maman, I must tell you..." Except she couldn't. She forced a sick smile to her face. "I must tell you that there shall be money. I shall have some money, of my own."
Lady Duvalle poured herself more chocolate. "Money? How? It is not Lord Albroke who is giving it to you, I presume?"
"Indirectly, yes. He honoured his deal to give my father ten thousand pounds... and my father is dead now. The money shall pass to me."
Lady Duvalle drank and considered this. "It is sound. You must forgive me the sentiment, but I cannot withhold it from you. It is no ill thing that your father died when he did."
Verity looked away. "He ruined me. Why do I waste tears on him? Why?"
Lady Duvalle was not moved to such an expression of emotion. She passed the bread basket to Verity. "You have not eaten enough."
Verity crammed another roll in her mouth. The act of chewing soothed her. "So. There is that. I shall have over three hundred and fifty pounds a year, and I shall live with Mrs Roper as my companion. She has one hundred pounds of her own. My disgrace shall not impose on you, other than that it may make it more difficult for my cousins to marry, if all the town continues to talk on it. If they do, perhaps I shall leave, for the better of all of us."
"A nursemaid for your companion!" Lady Duvalle sniffed. "After you have been all but the wife of an earl's son. It is a come down, indeed. Yet in some ways, you are very fortunate. You shall be more comfortable in ruination than you ever were under your father's roof. Very well. You may stay here until you have found a place to live, though I hope you shall not delay. And you will have over three hundred and fifty pounds you say? Whatever the sum, I shall raise it to four hundred. I can do that much quite easily, and it is clear to me that you are trying very hard to outpace your antecedents."
Verity stiffened, but did not show that it offended her. She was too used to her grandmother's blunt manner to quarrel on it now, particularly when it came with a gift attached.
"Thank you. You are very generous, Maman." She finished the last of her roll. She had to say it. It could remain a secret no longer. "I can only hope you will not revoke that kindness when you hear the last of my intentions."
"There is more?" Lady Duvalle's eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"There is." Verity flushed. "There â there is going to be-" Her voice rose to almost a squeak. She started again. "That is to say... I am going to have a child. Neil's child."
For only half a breath, her grandmother looked surprised. "I suspected as much when you came at Christmas. When you said nothing of it, I assumed I had been wrong, or that you had lost it. You need not cry. I shall not cast you out on that account. Though it shall only add to your misfortune, I am sure. A woman with four hundred pounds a year might yet find a husband, even if she were ruined. A woman with four hundred pounds a year and a natural child will not."
"I have no want of a husband." Verity wiped her eyes. "I loved Neil. I came to love him. I do not wish to marry again."
"In time, you may find yourself thinking otherwise. Have not the Armigers offered to raise it?"
"Lord Albroke does not know about it. Maman, he must not find out. If he does, there shall be no offer about it. He shall command me to give it up to him â and I cannot. It is my child, and Neil's, and I shall not let it be taken from me."
Lady Duvalle screwed her lips into a knot of distaste. "It is my opinion that that would indeed be the best event for you. But I will not press you to change your mind. Your opinions have never been close to my own, and I have long given up on changing them."
It was not the same as agreeing. Verity pressed further:
"You shall not tell him."
"A child belongs in his father's house." Lady Duvalle eluded the question.
"His father is dead." Verity bowed her head a moment. "My marriage to Neil has brought me and our unborn child humiliation and disgrace. It was somewhat of your machination, and you bear some responsibility for it."
"Verity! That-"
"I don't blame you though. I don't. I can only thank you. Because I loved him. And I love this child of his that I carry. In disgrace and humiliation, I love this child. So, please, don't separate us. Don't tell Lord Albroke, who will."
She would never be as manipulative as her grandmother, but her blunt appraisal of the situation and her feelings was not as frank or unassuming as it appeared, and successful in its object. Lady Duvalle was flushed and confused.
"Very well," she faltered. "I shall say nothing of it. If you wish to put yourself in such a position, I shall make no attempt to prevent it. You have my word."
Richard came to visit Verity the day before he and his father were to leave Houglen for their own estate again. She received him in the rose garden of her grandmother's grounds, out of the view and hearing of any gossiping servants. At this time of year, the rose bushes were nothing more than thorny grey-brown skeletons, leering up out of the dirt.
"You look better," Richard said by way of greeting, when he limped through the door leading his horse behind him. "You look much better."
"I feel better." Verity sat down on a little stone bench, and nodded for him to sit beside her. Her malaise of grief seemed to be over. The nights were sometimes bad, when there was nothing to do but lie in bed and remember, but the days were mostly clear and productive. She no longer had the sense that she was being pulled along in a flood. She had control. She had four hundred pounds a year, and a faithful companion.
"Yes." His eyes caressed her figure before coming back to her face with a guilty jerk. She noticed it, and savagely wished she had made him stay standing on his crippled legs. "I am no longer worried to leave you. Mrs Roper has convinced me that she will take care of you in your confinement, and afterwards."
"You will also be happy to know that my grandmother has pledged some of her own financial support. We shall have five hundred pounds a year between us. It will be very ample. Mrs Roper thinks she has found us a cottage too, on the edge of Greater Hough. There is a nice little garden, and she tells me it is quite large enough for two women, and a baby, and a maid."
"Then you have it all quite sorted, and I was of no help whatsoever." He made the strange facial expression that passed for his smile. It was quite grim. He did not seem pleased.
"You most certainly have been helpful, if your father does not suspect that mine is dead and that I am pregnant."
"He does not. I believe he has not spared a single thought for you since you left the house. You are quite inconsequential to him, and I believe you will remain that way."
"It is best."
Richard's yellow eyes seemed to be searching hers for something still.
"If I cannot help you now," he said finally, his voice very quiet and serious, "Then I can only promise that if ever the day comes when I see the slightest chance to help you, I will do so. Regardless of the fact that I know you never shall request it. I shall do it."
"I don't think I want this promise," Verity said slowly.
"Well." This time the smile was absolute, a wicked grin. It was the only smile that seemed to have a home on his face. "I admit, Miss Baker, I am not making this promise for your salvation. I am making it for my own. If you throw it back in my face, you are certainly damning me."
She laughed, despite herself. It sounded like the kind of thing Neil might have said. "Then... I shall not deny you your vow."
It seemed to be all he wanted. He got to his feet, and led his horse back to the garden gate. Verity stood to watch him leave.
"Farewell, Miss Baker."
She curtsied faintly. "Fare thee well."
When the sound of his horse's hooves faded away, she remarked viciously to the silent, bloomless roses, "I hope that day never comes."
~~~~~~
A/N: Yay!!! Chapter!!! Hope you guys enjoy :) I wrote 5000+ words today and my hands are cramping. But now I've learned that the best way to type is with your back straight and your wrists not flopped over the keyboard. If I was a regency heroine, no one would ever marry me, because my natural posture is hideous.