What had Bertie said to him that day?
You may be legitimized, but you will never be one of us. You don’t know how Father panicked when it looked as if your mother might live. Your people are laborers and drunks and petty criminals. Don’t flatter yourself otherwise.
For years afterward, whenever he’d remembered Bertie, it was Bertie as he had been at that precise moment in time, impeccably turned out, a cold smile on his face, satisfied to have at last ruined something wonderful for his bastard-born brother.
But the slim youth in the picture, his fine summer coat faded to rust, resembled no one’s idea of a nemesis. His fair hair, ruthlessly parted and slicked back, would have looked gauche in more fashionable circles. The square placement of his feet and the hand thrust nonchalantly into the coat pocket meant to indicate great assurance. As it was, he looked like any other eighteen-year-old, trying to radiate a manly confidence he didn’t possess.
Stuart frowned. How long had it been since he’d last looked at the photograph?
The answer came far more easily than he’d expected. Not since that night. He’d last looked at it with her, who’d studied the image with a disturbing concentration.
Do you still hate him? she’d asked, giving the photograph back to him.
Sometimes, he’d answered absently, distracted by the nearness of her blush-pink lips. She’d been all eyes and lips, eyes the color of a tropical ocean, lips as full and soft as feather pillows.
Then I don’t like him either, she’d said, smiling oddly.
Do you know him? he’d asked—suddenly, and for absolutely no reason.
No. She’d shaken her head with a grave finality, her beautiful eyes once again sad. I don’t know him at all.
Chapter Three
June 1882
She didn’t know him at all, Verity thought, a ringing dizziness in her head. She didn’t know him at all. “You lied to me,” Bertie repeated his accusation, his words as heavy and hard as manacles.
“I did not,” she said, trying to keep her voice down to a reasonable volume. “Why would I lie about something like that?”
“Should I even dignify that with an answer?” Bertie was too well-bred to sneer, but the contempt in his voice made her turn her face, as if bracing for a slap.
“I was not trying to trap you into marriage,” she said through clenched teeth.
She wanted to marry him, of course. She loved him. And marrying him would rectify all the missteps of her youth and restore her to Society. But her pride was as great as his, and if he thought any less of her—
“‘I know something that would make you hold your head up high again,’” he mimicked her. “‘You can marry the daughter of a duke.’”
The battle for his inheritance had gone all the way up to the Court of Appeals. And their decision had devastated Bertie. He had not believed that he, the rightful heir, would be evicted from his own town house. Yet he had been, by a horde of constables, and allowed to remove only his clothes.
He could never show his face in London again.
She had been despondent for him, had railed against his brother and the bewigged, berobed old men who wouldn’t know a proper application of Common Law if it robbed them in broad daylight. And then an idea had come to her, a wonderful idea that would solve all their problems and salve both their battered dignities at once.
“I told you—”
“They showed me the Lady Vera Drake’s photographs, and she was not you. They showed me her tombstone. They even offered to summon the physician who attended her on her deathbed.”
“Did you tell them you wanted to marry me?” It would have made all the difference, particularly to the duchess.
He glared at her. “Have you completely lost your mind? It was embarrassing enough for me to go before Their Graces and inquire if this servant of mine could be their late beloved niece. My God, if word ever got around to my brother—”
He took a deep breath. “No, I don’t wish to marry my cook, thank you very much, if that’s all you are.”
For a moment she couldn’t speak. Of course she knew that he wouldn’t marry someone who was only his cook—though there had been gentlemen who’d married their servants, or even stage actresses, and lived and prospered—still, it tore her to hear him say it aloud. If that’s all you are.
When she found her voice again, the words that emerged were hesitant and beseeching. “The duke and the duchess are not the only ones who know me. We can find my old governess. Or Monsieur David. They won’t lie about me to save their own standing.”