Page 41 of Lady Liar (A Series of Senseless Complications #5)

Verity kept a close eye on all of her boys to catch any signs of word swimming.

She would sometimes surprise them with a new book and ask them to read aloud.

Somehow, it had skipped a generation. At least, mostly.

The youngest of them struggled with reading, though not as severely as Verity had done.

Fortunately, he was a farmer at heart and liked nothing more than being atop his horse, surveying his fields, and talking with like-minded men at the tavern about crops.

Wembly bought him a small estate not too far from his own where he farmed to his heart’s content and let his wife do most of the reading.

All her boys were well-acquainted with the condition so they might look for it in their own children.

Verity did not wish for another soul to spend years of their lives in a constant state of fear that somebody would find out about them.

Had she and her sisters understood their mother’s condition, Verity herself would never have had to keep it a secret. As it was, she’d felt very alone in it.

She did suspect that the condition was more widespread than was generally known.

She suspected that people, rich and poor, covered it up in a variety of ways, believing themselves to be the only ones who suffered from it.

That, coupled with the fact that she’d wed an exceedingly rich man, prompted her to take steps.

Baroness Wembly arranged for places across England that were manned for a few hours a day with readers.

Sometimes nearby a tollhouse, sometimes in the center of a village, sometimes attached to a haberdashery or grocer.

Any citizen could bring a piece of writing, or a blank paper to be written on, and have a person well-versed help them through it.

This gave employment to educated men and women who were not so educated as to become a teacher or had other reasons for not pursuing more formal employment, and it gave a free service to those who had before had to pay for it.

As it was not likely to be popular with those who had once charged a fee for such a service, Verity gave those people preference for the job and paid them out of Lord Wembly’s pocket.

It did come, though, with the caveat that if they were caught charging, they were out.

As for herself, over the years she hired a series of clever girls to read and write her letters.

Some of them went on to marry, a few of them took positions as teachers or governesses.

As the queen had once enjoyed meddling in her business, Verity greatly enjoyed helping launch those young ladies in whichever direction they chose.

Lilith enjoyed the same. The queen had decided to step in and assist her and had done a rather marvelous job of it.

She’d provided a dowry and perhaps most importantly, her public backing.

Lilith was wed the very next season to a steady and reliable viscount.

She had once had ambitions to rule society, but now she found she enjoyed the peaceful regularity of her viscount.

She appreciated having a firm foundation under her feet.

Most of all, she appreciated that her children would have just the same.

She never forgot Lady Verity’s kindness and they would become fast friends over the years.

After all, they were practically neighbors and Lilith’s influence went a long way to stopping her viscount from firing his gun off at all hours, as had been his habit.

Lady Pegatha was often visiting Lilith’s house, only to move on to Baron Wembly’s house.

Unbeknownst to the people he left behind in England, things worked out rather marvelously for Mr. Klonsume.

He was startled, to say the least, to discover that Mrs. Right had cooked up a ruse to get him out of the house.

He was not at all surprised that he would have been put forward for a knighthood, but he was gobsmacked that an English housekeeper could fool a clever fellow like himself.

However, the one thing he knew about his American ingenuity was that it never let him down.

Having been sent back on a ship to America, Mr. Klonsume put his American confidence and ingenuity to work.

He’d insisted Lady Marchfield fork out the funds for a private berth and a certain amount of money in his possession, and he rubbed shoulders with the other people aboard with deep pockets.

It seemed to him that despite Americans being a proud people with every right to be proud, there still was that unspoken regard for nobility and rank.

His old employer in New York had been a striver into certain circles and was forever mentioning his pedigree of being descended from one of the passengers of The Fortune , the second boat that had arrived after The Mayflower .

That was nothing compared to Mr. Klonsume’s reinvention.

The circles Mr. Klonsume preferred to travel in were not so rarified as to care about The Mayflower or any boats that followed, nor would any of the members of those circles have the first idea of whether he’d been actually knighted or not.

After all, was it not more pleasant to be a large fish in a small pond than a minnow in the ocean?

He was determined to leave the noses-up crowd where they were—it was far more satisfying to be at the top of the hoi polloi.

By the time he docked in New York, he was known as Sir Morus, of the Order of Owen.

He’d kept the clothing he’d been given to wear to the knighting ceremony, had there been one, and would wear it on special occasions.

As he’d not got hold of a crest, he invented his own and plastered it on every available surface in his household.

It was comprised of two lions surrounding a phoenix in flight, carrying his knight’s sword to the sky.

He had made all sorts of medals to hang on his coats, indicating various braveries done during his time in England.

He even invented a Klonsume lineage motto— We Rise to the Heavens .

One of the advantages to being seen as rich was that it seemed everybody around one wished for one to be even richer. He was forever being given sage investment advice and did very well using the small pile of money that he’d squeezed out of Lady Marchfield.

He eventually married the daughter of a rich factory owner from Boston and became even richer.

That lady styled herself as Lady Klonsume.

It was well he did do so well financially.

Now that he was a Sir, he could hardly be expected to hold a job.

He often made a great show of writing a letter to Lady Marchfield, an English countess and a great intimate of his, he claimed.

He made an even bigger show of it the one time she’d written him back.

Of course nobody was privy to the contents of that letter, which instructed Sir Morus in no uncertain terms to stop sending her letters.

Sir Morus and Lady Klonsume were invited everywhere within their strata of society, which was perhaps not at the tippy-top. Being a leader of sorts, he was often able to explain ‘how things were done at Buckingham’ and what was ‘good form.’

American ingenuity had served him all his life, and it continued to do so until the day he died.

Though, perhaps his last idea on showing his milieu an example of good form was ill-advised.

Well into his seventies, it had not been the most ingenious idea to perish by falling into a lit fire while demonstrating how the English used two fire pokers, elegantly pinched between thumb and forefinger, to rearrange the logs.

Especially since it was not even true. But then, one would suppose Mrs. Right would not be surprised to hear that Mr. Klonsume had gone up in flames of his own making.

Lady Marchfield was, if she was anything at all, made of stern stuff.

Her brother might wonder when she was going to give up installing butlers into his house in an effort to establish regularity, but she was not such a wilting daisy as that.

She found herself very reluctant to admit defeat, as that would mean her brother had prevailed.

The duke would likely be happy to know it, as he did enjoy the spectacle of his housekeeper driving those butlers out as fast as they came in.

She was already thinking of where she could find the next one.

As a London season had gone once more, a new one would come again.

That would be time for Winsome to take her place in society.

In fact, she had already met one gentleman who had sparked interest. The Marquess of Manderbey had attended Verity’s wedding, and he was found to be rather divine.

Of course, she was doubtful that the marquess had even noticed her.

As for Manderbey, he certainly had noticed. If only the lady were not so suspicious over everything he said. Why did she look at him as if he were some sort of climber or grifter? Why was she always trying to catch him out?

Why would she not? It was not as if any of the duke’s daughters would go forward in a rational manner. Where would be the fun in that?

The End