“I am fine,” I lied to her.
“Good, see, a little effort does no harm.” She huffed and walked back to her mother and father.
“Verity.” I looked to Silva as she met us. “I’ve been instructed to tell you that you must accept a dance from a few other gentlemen this evening.”
“What? Instructed by whom?”
She nodded her head back toward the marchioness, who offered me a smile and nod.
“I believe she is worried what talk there will be if you dance only with Dr. Darrington this evening. It would be rather…troublesome.”
“Why? And what happened earlier? The mood changed so drastically before we went to dance.”
“The Marquess of Whitmear has been married to Lady Charlotte for the last twenty-five years,” she whispered back to me, taking my arm. But Dr. Darrington had said his mother had passed on.
“So his father remarried? Why would that be troubling?” Granted, a year later was relatively soon.
“The Marquess of Whitmear was never married before then,” she answered, and when I still stared at her, unable, or maybe unwilling, to put the two together, she said it clearly. “He is the marquess’s bastard.”
The very first thought that came to mind was my now departed father and how his unfortunate choices had impacted all of our lives. The most public suffering was that of my brothers, of which I had three—Evander and Gabrien, who were considered legitimate, and then there was Fitzwilliam, the eldest and the bastard of Everely. I had rarely ever spoken to him, and it had been years since I had seen his face. I was not even sure if I would recognize him if he walked past me in town.
That is a lie. How could one forget their own brother, half or not, illegitimate or not?
The Eagleman family knew all too well what chaotic disarray came about from having a bastard in its ranks. The pain and trouble it caused were not worth the association, and as such, the marchioness was correct to remove us from his presence.
Yet. I glanced over my shoulder at their party to see the marquess was still maintaining conversation with Dr. Darrington and Henry. My gaze was met by Dr. Darrington’s and quickly I faced forward once more.
Although I was not sure why, for I was not doing anything wrong.
I glanced around, seeking to shift my thoughts, but I could not. That dance, it still went on in my mind.
“Lady Verity.”
We both jumped, startled by the strange man who suddenly appeared before me.
“Would you do me the pleasure of this dance?” he asked, his hand outstretched directly before me.
“Forgive me, I’m a bit tired. Another time maybe,” I said softly, nodding goodbye to him as I pulled Silva with me to escape.
She tried to remind me, “Verity, you are to dance with—”
“Later.” I had not yet recovered from this first dance enough to think of taking any other.
Theodore
From the very first moment I laid eyes on her, I knew Lady Verity Eagleman was simply, purely, rather unfairly the most stunning creature I had ever beheld, and the mere sight of her would forever enchant me. That dance would forever repeat in my mind.
To think she of all people would have danced with me, a…
“Must you start every introduction with, ‘Hello, I am a bastard,’ ” Henry moaned as we left the company of Lord Monthermer and his son. “Such things must be said with tact or preferably not at all.”
“It is not I who starts the conversations as such but them.” I lifted my hand at the so-called nobility that surrounded us. Without fail, each and every time I wandered into this circle of people, I was asked within the first five questions to state my background and lineage. “Would you prefer I lied?”
“Yes, I would, in fact. Lie, Theodore. Lie. It would not kill you.” Henry sighed and took two glasses of wine from a footman’s tray, moving to give me one, but I held up my hand in protest. “Please, do not continue to be aggravating and take the damn drink.”
I had met Henry Parwens at Oxford; however, when he entered I had long since graduated and was assisting other professors with research when our paths crossed. I thought he would do as everyone else did, either seek to use me for my intelligence or avoid me due to my background. He did neither, and instead sought to be my friend. Years later, I was unsure what he had gotten from this exchange other than free medical advice.
He was strange but had become my only friend, though he tested the limits of that friendship sometimes.
“I am aggravating? Was it not you who forced me into a dance?” I snapped back at him. Was he mad? He had to be fully mad.
“You wanted me to take to the floor alone!”
“Yes! For why on earth must I accompany you in that?”
“It was because of your conversation that the mood was ruined and my father sought to remedy the situation by forcing me to dance with the Lady Hathor. If I must suffer, you must suffer as well!”
He was such a child sometimes. “Henry, the conversation soured as it dawned on the marchioness that she did not wish the ladies under her care to be associated with me. You then forced me to ingratiate myself even further. That does not help ease the tension. It was quite obvious Lady Verity was not pleased to be forced either.” She had said not one word to me and stared at me as though she were confused as to why she had accepted at all.
I knew to expect as much from a lady of her standing but still…it was not pleasant to accept.
“I—”
“Oh, how harsh,” came a male voice from the right of us.
“He’s left to look the fool.”
“He is the fool for going to her at all.”
Henry and I followed their gazes across the ballroom to where another man stood alone while others around him snickered.
“What show have we missed?” Henry asked, already among them as though they were the best of acquaintances.
That was the gift of Henry. In university, they called him the chameleon, since he could easily insert himself among any type of people. It did not hurt his cause that he was considered to be the ideal gentleman in looks and status.
“Anderkins over there sought to engage the Lady Verity in a dance and was utterly rejected,” one of the men answered, trying not to laugh as Anderkins, as he had called him, puffed up his chest and sought to walk away as though no one had witnessed the ordeal.
I tried not to, but I found myself looking for her, and with little effort, I saw her, standing near the window, dressed in blue, the candle’s light perfectly hitting her cheek. It was as though it shimmered.