Page 31 of Lady Liar (A Series of Senseless Complications #5)

“It’s our understanding,” Valor said, “that Lord Wembly got mad about it. But I really think, Verity, that if he wants to be mad and go away, you should let him.”

Verity ignored that bit of sage advice. Of course Valor would wish him away.

“I’d like to know why he repeated it, though,” Mr. Stratton said. “He must have done, as I do not think Lady Pegatha would have had cause to.”

“I’d like to know why too,” Verity said. “He’s come to the house twice and maybe he came to say why, but I could not see him.”

“The queen’s told her to stay indoors and see nobody,” Serenity said.

“I like the queen,” Valor said. “You should stay inside forever, Verity.”

“It’s only for a few days, Val,” Grace said.

“It could be longer!” Valor said. “The queen might mean longer.”

“I’m sorry,” Lord Dashlend said, “are we not to mention the other three prints going round?”

Other three prints? Why would there be others? Was she to be mocked incessantly? Was not one caricature enough? Who were these spiteful people making up these prints to ridicule her just because she’d said one stupid thing?

“What other three prints?” Mr. Stratton asked.

“The ones depicting Lord Wembly,” Lord Dashlend said. “One has got his posterior on fire and names him not very stoic, another has him slumped in a chair and named spineless, and the other has him on a fainting couch with a vinaigrette.”

Verity felt her insides go cold. It was bad enough that she was mocked, but now there were direct salvos at Lord Wembly? Three of them? Why?

“Well now, the spineless one was from me,” the duke said. “I felt compelled to answer his failing to appear at Lady Jellerbey’s dim indoor picnic on account of a teasing. Thought I’d put some starch in him. Of course, if he’s come to the house to apologize, that might have been a mistake.”

“But Papa,” Verity said, “what if he did not come to apologize? What if he is infuriated to be mocked in three different prints? And who made the other two?”

“Calm yourself, Verity,” Felicity said. “A gentleman would never come to express his indignation directly to a lady of his acquaintance.”

“Quite right,” Mr. Stratton said. “If a gentleman wished to yell about it, he’d yell to his friends, not to the lady in question. It would be very bad form.”

“He might see the duke about it,” Lord Thorpe pointed out. “If he really wished to take things far.”

“Yes,” Mr. Stratton said. “He might see the duke about it.”

All four gentlemen laughed heartily at the notion that anybody would have the temerity and lack of sense to come to the duke to complain about one of his daughters.

“Then he really would have his posterior on fire, eh?” the duke said, joining in on the laughter.

“Who did make the other two, though?” Serenity asked.

“I can make some guesses,” the duke said.

“That not very stoic comment smacks of Mrs. Right—we all know how ready to come to the defense of my girls she is. And then the vinaigrette is certainly Queen Charlotte. It is one of her preferred insults. Everybody remembers when Lord Destin was forever complaining about the waltz being allowed into England. She famously asked him if he needed to borrow her vinaigrette and not a word was heard from him after that.”

Verity took up her wine. It had been bad enough to wonder if Lord Wembly would be able to see past the print going round about her.

Now there were three going round about him !

She well knew her papa and Mrs. Right, and even the queen, she supposed, had meant to be helpful.

But how was a gentleman to see past all of that?

And that was before she’d even mentioned the idea that she could not read.

There did not seem to be any way he could look past all of it. It would be too much for any gentleman.

“It’s hopeless,” she said. “I just wish to go home.”

“Let’s go,” Valor said, championing the idea.

“Why do you say so, Verity?” Grace asked. “The rest of us have faced some…circumstances. We’ve come out all right.”

“ I’ll say there were circumstances,” Lord Dashlend said with a laugh. Mr. Stratton, Lord Stanford, and Lord Thorpe all nodded in his direction to acknowledge the truth of it.

“I just know that this particular case is hopeless,” Verity said.

“There it is. Totally hopeless,” Valor said, seeming delighted over the hopelessness of her sister’s fortunes.

“It cannot be hopeless,” Patience said. “It only feels hopeless. We’ve all felt it at one time or another, but then it turns out not to be true.”

“It is true this time,” Verity said. “Winsome knows why.”

All eyes turned to Winsome, who in turn peered at Verity. “Should I say? Really?” she asked.

Verity took a rather large swig of wine and said, “Why not? I cannot hide it forever, can I? I do not even care anymore.”

That was coming very close to the truth.

Her mind was drained of strength. It was tiring to always be on guard, as any moment somebody might thrust a paper into her hands and ask that she read it.

It was wearying to sit with her bible every Sunday and pretend to read.

Most of all, it was exhausting to always have a secret that somebody might find out.

It was akin to acting as a spy in a foreign land, always looking over one’s shoulder and waiting to be caught out. She was just so tired from all of it.

“Gracious, what is it we do not already know?” Patience asked.

Winsome looked at Verity once more. She nodded to her sister. She would like to get it over with and stop hiding who she really was. She could not go on with the pretense that she was just like everybody else. She was not. Everybody could know it, and see it, and do what they liked with it.

“Well,” Winsome said, “you see, Verity cannot read. Her eyes make the words all jumbled.”

“And my mind jumbles it too,” Verity said. “I cannot read and Lord Wembly is an intellectual. You see the problem. There. Now everybody knows that Verity Nicolet is the stupid sister.”

“I do not think you are stupid,” Felicity said. “It is just what you have, and we all have something. Poor Stratton here has been introduced to my temper once or twice.”

Mr. Stratton laughed. “I show her my scars and then she remembers I saved her from being eaten by a tiger and she cheers up.”

Felicity nodded. “And then Grace has flung herself on the floor more than anybody in England, and Serenity collects dead bees, and Patience is forever toe-tapping, and Winsome is suspicious of everybody. You see? We all have our crosses to bear.”

Verity gave Felicity a weak smile, but really, she did not think her sisters’ minor peccadilloes rose to the level of her own faults.

“Papa,” Valor said, “I am the only one who is perfect, it seems.”

“Is that right?” the duke said with a snort.

“Valor,” Felicity said, “you have not even managed to get your pony up to a trot and do not tell me it is because she likes going slow.”

Valor shrugged to have her fearfulness pointed out.

“Now, Verity, I am not entirely sure why you never mentioned that you have word swimming?” the duke asked.

“Word swimming?” There was a name for it? “I did not want to disappoint anybody, I suppose. But Papa, do you mean to say that other people have it? There are other people who cannot read, even when they’ve tried very hard to do it?”

“Your mother had it,” the duke said. He laughed. “She always said the words got up and went swimming on her so that’s what we called it—word swimming. For all I know, there is some other term for it I’ve not heard.”

“That is exactly what happens,” Verity said. “The words swim around and then they don’t make sense.”

“You would have been too young to remember, but Felicity and Grace might,” the duke said. “Girls, do you not recall that Mrs. Right used to read everything to the duchess?”

Felicity laid down her fork. “Yes, I do remember. She would read all of Mama’s letters aloud and then she would write out the responses. Goodness, I suppose I just thought it was part of Mrs. Right’s duties.”

“It was,” the duke said. “See that, Verity, the whole thing is easily managed. We might have been managing it all along if you’d mentioned it. What a thing to keep to yourself.”

Verity drained her wine glass and Thomas hurried over to refill it.

It felt a great relief to have everything in the open.

Though, she also felt a bit stupid to not have mentioned it before now, as it seemed it was not so unusual, and it might have been managed.

She looked like her mother, and it turned out she was more like her than she’d known.

“Well, look at that,” Serenity said, “things are coming right already.”

Verity stared at her sister. “Serenity, there are four prints going round, entertaining all of society. One of me and three of Lord Wembly. Also, I have not mentioned to him, an intellectual and member of The Royal Society, that I cannot read. That I have word swimming.”

“Oh yes, all that,” Serenity said. “That is quite a lot.”

“Not insurmountable, though,” Lord Thorpe said. “What I would like to know is why is the queen escorting you to the masque?”

Nobody had an answer to that. It had been a very informative evening. But nobody had an answer to that.

“What do you wear to the masque, Verity?” Patience asked.

As the queen was sending over a costume, nobody had an answer to that either.