Lady in Rags

Chapter Twenty-Four: He, She, and Scandal

The day he learned his wife loved him, Neil realized the law suit to separate them no longer mattered. His father was nothing more than a brutal child kicking down sand castles, out of spite and malice. His father had never been anything more than that. But his father could not destroy what Verity felt for him, nor even what he felt for her. He felt safe in her arms; he was even beginning to feel at home in them. If they had to remarry, she would do so with joy, and he would do so with confidence. And at that point, his father would have no more ammunition against them, no more circumstances or weaknesses to exploit, nothing he was able to kick down. His father would recede to a cold and dark distance, where he could be forgotten, if never forgiven.

So for Neil, the last of summer, and the first of Autumn, passed in a golden haze of contentment. He no longer bothered with the letters his lawyer sent him, but merely signed them and sent them back. When villagers, reading the gossip of the case in the papers, commented on it, he smiled and diverted the conversation. He enjoyed his wife, and his society, and his house without sparing a glance for the cloud that hung over them all: it was only a storm, and it would pass.

In mid-October, the court case concluded, and the storm broke. He attended the London Consistory Court with his lawyer Colbert to hear the verdict:

The wedding had been unlawful, and the marriage was null and void.

Returning to Verity to tell her was more awful than hearing it himself. She came out onto the front steps as his carriage arrived, and when he jumped down and ran towards her, she turned white and still as porcelain.

"They did it..."

He folded her in his arms.

"I'm afraid they did, my dear."

Colbert, who had travelled with him from London to sort out the last details of the event, came up behind and said, sincerely,

"My deepest apologies and commiseration, Miss Baker."

At the sound of her old name, Verity went slack in his arms, and he lowered her, shaking, to sit on the steps, his arms still around her.

"Has she fainted?" Colbert said helpfully. "Should I fetch my smelling salts?"

For not the first time, Neil cursed his lawyer, who was so clever with law, and so stupid with people.

"Do go away, Colbert," Neil said roughly. "Go and wait in my study."

It was only the lawyer had gone away that Verity raised her pale face again.

"I had still hoped otherwise."

He kissed her. "Colbert says we may marry again after your birthday. Don't fret."

She leaned her head against his shoulder, and slumped against him, her warmth like fire compared to the chill of the stone steps beneath them. "People will talk. They will judge me."

"As they did before, I know." He patted her shoulders. "Perhaps you should return to your grandmother's house, for a short while. Just until we can marry."

She gave a weak laugh. "I'd rather stay with you. If I have committed sins unknowingly... I did honestly enjoy them, and would knowingly repeat them."

He kissed her hair. "I've even been thinking, on the drive over here, that I might spend the winter in France, with Prothero... I can return in time to be decently married."

"No!" She twisted and clung to his coat. "Neil, please, please... I'd rather be judged. I'd rather be with you, and judged. Please. Stay."

She was shivering, he realized, with both cold and emotion. Perhaps she was even taking ill. In damp weather, he had noticed her old cough seemed to return. He pressed a hand to her cheeks, and found them burning.