The following week, Hartley Hall was greeted by an unexpected visitor. And yet, not a visitor, but a long-lost brother.
“Truman!” The joyous cry rang through the house and was immediately followed by footsteps pattering from every direction.
But Mother was there first. Her tears were beautifully shed, flowing down her cheeks in an unending torrent no matter how many times Truman wiped them away with his thumbs.
He smiled sheepishly before he pulled her in for a hearty embrace. “It has been too long, I know. I meant to visit six months ago, but there was a storm that put us behind schedule.”
The man in the foyer who had everyone blubbering over him was not the lean, scholarly brother Verity remembered. He had altered greatly, his skin nut-brown, his chestnut hair touched by the sun in streaks of molten gold around his forehead and temples. He was brawny now, his shoulders as broad as an ox.
“You have a scar,” Honoria said with a frown as she traced the line on his face.
He shrugged, scrubbing a hand over the shadow of whiskers along his jaw. “Eh, what can I say? The other men were jealous that I was so pretty. But at least I’m not as ghastly as you.”
It was his usual teasing and Honoria responded by sticking her tongue out at him and swatting his shoulder. But Verity saw something dark and haunted flicker across his gaze that told her of things he’d endured but had never written to her about.
She blamed that on Longhurst, too. “How long will you be home this time?”
He looked around at every expectant face, pausing to ruffle Thea’s hair and to shake Father’s hand. “I’m here to stay. Or rather, not as far from home. I’ll be in London, once I find lodgings. You’ll all be glad to know that I’ve been hired by an architectural firm. In fact, I received several offers.” He looked directly at Verity. “They took me quite by surprise.”
Oh, she just bet they did. And there was no question in her mind who was responsible.
Longhurst. Of all the nerve! Did he really imagine he could make amends so easily? A few letters cost him nothing. But the past seven years had cost her family far too much. She could not forgive him for that.
Clearly, Truman didn’t know the truth behind this matter. At least, not yet. But as soon as she had the chance to speak to him alone, she would tell him everything.
Well . . . not everything. Nearly everything. Then again . . . perhaps she’d tell him just what he needed to know.
Late that night, they sat together on the great eye of the stage and looked up at the stars, the summer air warm and balmy. And in the heat, Verity’s ire was starting to rise.
After telling her brother of the horrible thing that Longhurst had done by deliberately ruining his life, all Truman did was shrug his shoulders. Then he told her that he’d received a letter from Longhurst weeks ago, apologizing for his actions.
Trust Longhurst to do the honorable thing now, she groused to herself. But then it occurred to her that he would have had to mail the letter quite a while ago. Perhaps when she’d first arrived in London. Not that it mattered when he’d had his change of heart. It was far too late for him to make amends.
“Surely, you are not telling me that, after all he has done, you are willing to forgive him?”
Truman eased back on a pensive sigh, linking his hands behind his head, his long legs crossed at the ankle. “No. But I’d be a fool to refuse the job offer.”
She eyed his relaxed pose with confusion. “I don’t understand why you aren’t shouting to the heavens at the injustice of it all. He took everything from you!”
“It’s like lancing a festering wound, I think. All that’s rotten is drawn out into the open. But then, what do you do with it? Try to hold on to it? Carry around that stinking putrescent mass? Or do you wash your hands of it while the wound scabs over?” The weariness in his voice was palpable, making her wonder again at all the things he’d been through. “Besides, it all happened so long ago. And, if I’m to be honest, I would have done the same in his position.”
“You would have done no such thing. You are far above acting on revenge,” she argued.
“Not actually,” he said, that haunted look passing over his face in the moonlight. “Most men aren’t, Verity. At least, not until they do something unforgiveable and are fortunate enough to have the chance to see the error of their ways. Guilt and regret are formidable tutors.”
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the inquisitive hoot of an owl in the distance and the chirrup of crickets.
She thought about her own regrets. They seemed to be piling up like bricks, walling her in. “Even so, I would never forgive him.”
“And yet, you love him,” Truman said, startling her.
“And what makes you think that I—” She stopped when their gazes met. There was no fooling him. She eased down onto her back, too, their heads resting at an angle from each other. Her breath mingled with the night air. “If you read the society columns, then you’d know there was never anything real or honest between us. Nothing lasting. He’s out nearly every night with Miss Snow. And if he wasn’t interested in marrying her, he would have returned to his estate.”
Or returned to me, she thought.
Her brother rolled up onto his elbow, concern on his countenance. It quickly hardened to steel and she knew that he’d discerned all that she hadn’t told him. Even with so many years apart, he still saw too much. “Do I need to have a word with him? Shoot him or something?”
Her throat felt too raw at the moment to answer. So, she just shook her head.
He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “If you change your mind, just say the word.”
The following afternoon she returned from her perfectly pleasant walk with Reverend Tobias—take that Longhurst!—and went to the side garden to offer the nuts and berries she’d picked along the way to the birds.
But the instant she came close, she saw the cat.
She also saw feathers, nesting material, dried grasses, twigs and bits of ribbon strewn all over. Clapping her hands sharply, she chased the cat out of the garden. That blasted cat!
When she returned to the birdhouses, she surveyed the damage. Then, much to her relief, she saw an egg lying in a thicket of grass. Perhaps she had come in time.
Kneeling down, she inspected it for any cracks but found none.
As luck would have it, Mr. Lawson strolled by on the path just beyond the garden, whistling a tune. He stopped, giving her an alert glance when she hailed him, then strode over to offer his assistance. He was always like that, willing to lend a hand. Even willing to dance with her at the assembly when she hadn’t wanted Longhurst to think that no one else would.
But Bennet was skeptical when he stared down at the egg.
Removing his straw hat, he scratched a hand into the layers of dark hair and frowned. “Once a different scent is on that egg, the mother won’t likely come back.”
“I haven’t touched it,” Verity said, remembering when her grandfather had told her the same. In the springtime, he’d often said, Don’t meddle in the affairs of cats and birds, for cats cannot help their nature, and birds are skittish for good reason. “I just cannot bring myself to turn my back on it.”
He stared at her for a moment, then offered a nod.
Together, they gathered it into a makeshift nest. She even added a few feathers for warmth. Then she carried it, following him down to the stable yard where he fashioned a cage of sorts, with a nook below for warming stones, slats on the side to keep the cat out, but enough room for other birds to enter. That was Verity’s idea. She wanted the mother bird to be free to come back.
He mounted it on a pole by the breakfast room window so that she could watch it each day and change the warming stones.
“Do you think it will be enough?” she asked after thanking him at least a hundred times.
He offered a kind smile. “I think you’ve done all you can, and more than most would do.”
For the next few days, all she did was look after her little charge, still hoping that the mother and father bird would return to it. She had done everything right, wanting to ensure that this bird would not be alone. And, by the end of the week, she saw a tiny fissure on the shell.
She held her breath. The egg wobbled and her heart nearly exploded with happiness. It was hatching!
For hours and hours, she watched, waiting for the next crack in the shell. She alternated the warming stones in the nook beneath.
As time passed, Truman came to linger beside her for a while. Her sisters dropped by at different intervals, everyone waiting in anticipation for the hatchling to appear. Father tried to coax her away from the window, but she couldn’t leave it.
But then more hours passed. She spent the night curled up on the window seat in the breakfast room.
Hearing the distant chatter of the birds roused her from sleep and she blinked, opening her eyes to the pale lavender light of predawn. At once, she hopped up and checked on the egg. Surely all the happy birdsong in the garden meant she would be greeted by the sight of a new hatchling.
But it was still just an egg. There were no additional fractures. No wobbling from within. And when her mother came up behind her and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, Verity knew.
“Why didn’t they come?” she asked bleakly. “I made sure not to touch it. So why didn’t they come back for her? Help her break free?”
Mother smoothed a hand over Verity’s hair. “You did everything you could. But it needed to be strong enough to peck through the shell and survive on its own.”
“What if she’s tired of being strong enough?” Her voice shook, her throat closing on raw emotion. And she slumped down onto the bench, her shoulders shaking.
It wasn’t until she felt the dampness collecting on her skirt that she realized she was crying.
Her mother sat down beside her and gathered her in her arms, the comforting fragrance of lilac and vanilla orchid enveloping her.
“I don’t understand it,” Verity said. “How could all the others still be singing and chirruping? How could they go on with their lives? Don’t they care at all?”
“What else can they do but continue on?” her mother asked in her soft, lilting drawl. “Would you rather see them sitting on a branch and staring desolately off in the distance?”
“Well, no. But I do think they should go after the cat, all at once, beaks at the ready.”
“Would that undo what has already happened? No. Revenge is not the answer. Not for them, and not for you.”
Verity lifted her head on a sniff, frowning. “What do you mean? I haven’t done anything.”
“Precisely.” Her mother tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You have issued an attack of silent revenge against Longhurst, leaving him to grovel alone and to no one who will listen.”
“He hurt my brother.”
“But you’re acting as though he hurt you instead.”
“Well, he did,” she declared, adamant. “Family is all we have. That is what you’ve taught each of us, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it was never a lesson to hide behind. And sometimes anger is a clever disguise for grief, and for fear.” She smoothed the wetness from her cheeks, her gaze knowing. “So tell me, my darling girl, what are you really afraid of?”
She shook her head and swallowed thickly. “Nothing.”
“Little finch, sometimes the way through the shell is to break it apart completely. Only then will you be able to feel the sunshine on your wings.”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
Mother offered a patient smile. “Well, then I’m glad. If I were in your shoes, I likely would have already imagined how well he would have looked in the morning with a fresh shave and sitting at the breakfast table.” She paused long enough to release a sigh as her gaze traveled to the empty chair beside Verity’s. “I would have pictured him walking beside me through the garden, hand in hand, and seated at the dinner table across from me with the candle flames reflecting in his eyes as he looked at me with such warmth and tenderness that I felt the glow inside my own breast. And the way he—”
“Enough,” Verity interrupted, feeling as though her ribs were about to break apart. “I know what you’re doing. But I’m fine.”
“Good.”
Seeing the doubt in her mother’s gaze, Verity tried to square her shoulders and hike her chin. But when her chin trembled, she shrugged stiffly. “Would it make you happy to hear that I’ve imagined all those things and then some? Breakfasting, dinners, rubbing salve into the calluses on his hands, nestling my head into the crook of his shoulder where it fits perfectly. I’ve thought about what it would be like to wake up beside him, to have his children, to hear his laugh as he carries our son on his shoulders. Believe me, Mother, there isn’t anything I haven’t thought of. But if he could turn his back on his best friend, then what would stop him from leaving me . . .”
Her tirade stopped. Those words echoed off the painted walls, filling the room, pressing in, suffocating her. Tears clogged her throat. And the weight of grief crushing her ribs, forced her to face the truth.
“I’m afraid that I couldn’t survive it if”—her voice cracked, a breath juddering into her lungs—“if he abandoned me, like I meant n-nothing to him.”
If she thought she had been crying before, she was kidding herself.
This time she broke on a tidal wave of racking, throat-tearing sobs. She couldn’t stop, even as her mother rocked her like an infant. Doubled over, she felt as though she were about to retch from the agony. But she could not rid herself of it. The unbearable ache was trapped inside her, along with the knowledge that she had lost the only man she would ever love because she had been too afraid to believe that he could ever truly love her in return.
And now, he had moved on with his life . . . without her.