Lady in Rags

Chapter Fourteen: Eighth Night

Neil had thought Verity's coldness would pass as quickly as it had come. It did not. The morning after, she rebuffed his apologetic kisses, turned away from his prying fingers, and ignored his sweet nothings, for the nothings they were. That night, arrived in his friend's manor in the countryside, there was still nothing more than cold civility between them. She condescended to let him kiss her cheek good night, and he felt it for the condescension it was, and burned.

His pride stung, he turned cold too. He left her alone in the rambling French manor and spent several days exclusively in the company of his old friend Prothero, catching up on the years. They had met on the tour, in Italy, as boys of seventeen. As men of the same class and creed tend to do in a foreign place, they had bonded, despite their differences of temperament, or perhaps because of them. Prothero was care-free, hedonistic, and extroverted, the sort of young man who it seemed inevitable would grow into one of those fat, jovial, red-faced old men who demand the descriptor "Jolly." And, with the extra pounds he had put on in the past six or so years, it seemed to Neil that Prothero was doing all he could to hasten the transition.

After the first wave of acute nostalgia passed, and there was nothing more of the past to talk about, Neil turned his attention back to the future, to Verity. By then, the bruise to his pride had faded, and he could hardly remember what they had argued about, or why. Therefore, he wasn't expecting her to stare coldly at him, when he entered the drawing room to look for her that evening, and to say, in response to his gentle greeting,

"What do you want?"

It wasn't a grunt, or a growl, or a slur. It was worse than that, because there was no emotion in it at all, except a cold, snake-like distrust. He drew back, almost flinching, and then came in and shut the door behind him. No one else was around, and Verity was apparently amusing herself with embroidery by the light of a lamp.

"Oh, Verity, I've been neglecting you," he began sheepishly. He knew he had intended to be cruel, but only now did he realize how cruel it really had been: Verity spoke no French, and the only people who spoke English in the manor were he, Mr Prothero, and Mr Prothero's wife, who was mostly too busy with her new baby to pay her husband's visitors any attention.

"Yes," Verity said sharply. "So why speak to me now?"

He sat down on the settee next to her. "Please let me apologize," he begged.

"I can't stop you." She stabbed her needle through the cloth savagely. It was a silk handkerchief, and she was embroidering tiny pale pink roses along its edge. She was really very good at it – or had been until he had come in. Her stitches were now coming too rough and fast: the silk warped under her careless touch.

"I'm so sorry, my darling, I just – I had to catch up with an old friend, you must understand me."

"I do. Perfectly well." Her needle went savagely onward, and she would not look at him. "God knows I haven't heard a thousand untrue apologies before – God knows my father hasn't called me "My darling" a thousand times, in supplication – but he's a drunk. They're supposed to be abominable."

"Verity, no! That's not true – I really, I haven't been good to you and I want-"

"You're sliming," she said icily. "I loathe a man who slimes."

"No!" His cheeks burned. "I don't slime!"

She pulled her needle so violently through the cloth that the thread snapped, and she sat with it dumbly between her fingers.

"Verity," he said pleadingly.

She put the handkerchief down on the arm of the settee and went over to the table, to rummage through her workbasket.