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V erity waited in vain for Mr. Cole’s return. After a week, she stopped waiting.

So, he was done with her. She could hardly blame him.

She hadn’t made it easy. She had never been very good at pretending.

He could not possibly have been under any illusion that they were a love match.

Seeing him flounder in his attempt to please her had only driven that home.

To be honest, there was a measure of relief in his rejection.

Still, she had hoped for the possibility of friendship.

They could both use a little of that—some support rather than further demands.

Though ill-suited to each other for marriage, they still had enough in common for something simpler and, in her opinion, more meaningful.

She wished she had had a chance to tell him that.

Despite that awful moment in the parlor, when the words had stuck in her throat, she had come to think of William Cole as the one gentleman with whom she could speak freely.

That was a privilege she did not want to lose.

She had planned an apology and an explanation and the polite return of his gift.

Perhaps he could recoup a decent portion of his money—he should not be out of pocket for her sake.

She did not want to be the cause of any further regret for Mr. Cole.

But his continued absence told her it was too late for any of that. Clearly, he did not have the stomach for her.

He’d been markedly absent at the little party her parents had hosted after church for her coming out.

She had not wanted anything glamorous. What was the point if she did not seek a match?

She did not hope for a dance as an excuse to touch hands.

Nor did she desire to be presented before eager potential mothers-in-law at a large dinner.

Her parents had insisted that some sort of event should mark the occasion, and Verity had relented at the offer of a small tea for close friends and neighbors.

Mr. and Mrs. Cole had attended, though their shame at their wayward son’s absence had been clear.

“A little under the weather” was the excuse they’d offered for the lack of his company.

Only Verity and her parents had known this to be a lie.

So they’d offered their sympathies and wished him a speedy recovery as if, they, too, had believed him to be ill.

It seemed, however, that his “illness” persevered.

“Should I not at least send the butterfly back?” she asked her mother when another week had passed. “He knows I do not want it. I could offer my regret for my reaction on that day and try to heal some wounds.”

Her mother looked up from her sewing.

“Returning his gift would renew the injury,” she said firmly. “You have bruised his sensibilities, Daughter. And, I suspect, even if he did return, you would do it again, however unintentionally. Unless you intend to welcome him into your heart without reservation, you should not offer him hope.”

“I don’t want to encourage a romance,” Verity replied firmly. “I only wanted to undo some of the harm I did. I hadn’t meant to offend him.”

Mrs. Lockhart put the shirt she had been stitching down upon her lap.

“Verity, as unlikely as it seems, there exists the possibility that young Mr. Cole is taking his time licking his wounds, but that he may return to us now that you are out in society. The idea of courting you more formally might be all the encouragement he needs. If he is willing to brave the obstacles that your eccentricities present, would you not be willing to at least give him a chance?”

Verity felt the panic rise in her throat. He mustn’t. He can’t! The words burbled up before she could stop them.

“No, Mama! It wouldn’t be right!”

Her mother sighed. “What is it you want, then?”

“Just to be myself.”

“Is it not possible to be yourself and find happiness with a family of your own?”

“I don’t know. I think I will know when it feels right. And it doesn’t now.”

“How can something feel right when you don’t let anyone in?” Her mother’s voice had taken on a slight edge to it.

“What do you mean?” Verity was already tiring of the conversation. Her mother could go on so!

“If you don’t give anyone a chance, how can they win your heart?”

“They might break it instead.”

“Or you could be missing out on the one great love of your life because you did not recognize it in its infancy.”

“Like you did?” Verity answered sulkily.

“Pardon?” Her mother tilted her head sharply.

There was a note of warning in her voice, but Verity ignored it.

She was sick, sick, sick of the constant harassment.

Her mother had let her own parents talk her out of being with the man she loved because they’d wanted her to marry someone more respectable.

She was sure of it. Nothing else made sense.

And here she was, lecturing Verity on making a similar mistake.

Well, she wasn’t having it. Concern for her well-being was one thing. Hypocrisy was something else entirely.

“I saw your letters,” she blurted out. “The ones from a man with the initials T.L. The man you loved before you married Father. You cannot tell me to open my heart when you closed it so firmly to him all those years ago.”

Her mother’s face froze. “You read my letters?”

“Yes.”

“My private correspondence?”

Verity swallowed. Some of her bravado was already slipping away.

“It was in the storage room, up in the attic. I didn’t know they were such… intimate letters until I began reading them.”

“You saw something that did not belong to you. Yet you helped yourself to its contents out of idle curiosity.” The warning was still there. Verity’s courage was failing fast.

“I’m sorry, Mother. I know it was wrong.” And then a little flare of rebellion… “But you can’t deny the truth. Before you married Father, you loved someone whose initials were T.L. You loved him deeply, but you married Father instead. Why? Why did you not follow your heart?”

Mrs. Lockhart leaned back in her chair. “You haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about, my dear child.”

But Verity remained resolute. “I have eyes. I know what I read. I know what you gave up. And you would tell me to do the same as you—to marry someone I do not love because it is practical.”

Mrs. Lockhart turned her full gaze upon her daughter, anchoring Verity with the weight of it. “Have you observed anything in all these years to suggest your father and I are unhappy?”

“No, but you were married for many years before I was born. You had already grown fond of each other before you had me. But in the beginning, it must have been difficult.”

Her mother picked at a stray thread on her cuff before folding her hands on her lap. “It might surprise you to know that I was fond of your father from the start.”

“Oh.” Verity’s confidence deflated somewhat. “But Father is so… you know… staid . He is not a very passionate man. Not like the gentleman in the letters.”

A smile quirked about her mother’s lips. “It might interest you to know—not that it is any of your business, and I really feel you have overstepped the mark in the whole affair, Verity—that the passionate gentleman who wrote those letters is, in fact, your own dear papa.”

Verity’s small world exploded.

“It can’t be!” she spluttered. “Father is nothing like that!”

Her mother sighed. “We were young. That is how the young go about things—all wild abandon and unfettered swooning. It lasts a while. Long enough to marry and have children and become busy, distracted. Then you settle into a familiar pattern. Less exciting, to be sure. But not less meaningful.”

“But,” protested Verity, still quite unable to come to terms with this new information, “Father’s initials are not T.L. He is John Lockhart. There is no ‘T.’”

“Ah, that. He was ever the romantic, my John. ‘T.L.’ stands for True Love, for that is what he has always been to me. Though we grow old and grey and tired, we have loved each other since our youth, and no one else.”

Verity suspected that such news should have pleased her.

For one, it meant her mother had not made a terrible sacrifice in marrying her father.

And for another, it proved that the young Dorothy had indeed been true to herself and followed her heart.

Both these discoveries should have offered relief, even encouragement.

Why, then, was she dissatisfied with the outcome?

Mrs. Lockhart looked with pity upon her daughter. “I rather think you would have preferred a scandal. Your father and I have not provided the escape you sought from your own doubts.”

Yes! That was it! How wise her mother was. And how horribly, awfully right.

Verity fiddled with her fingers, her eyes unable to lift to meet her mother’s. “You believe,” she began in a small voice, “I am capable of finding a lasting love like yours. Why… Why would you think that?”

“Oh, my dear!” Mrs. Lockhart threw her sewing down. In one fluid movement, she was beside Verity, wrapping her arms about her and cradling her head against her shoulder.

“You do make things impossible for yourself, my precious, foolish child. All that pining after little creatures, and endless hours spent painting in your room. This is not the way to love. You will have to give a greater measure of yourself to receive more in return.”

Verity lifted her head and pulled a face. Her mother had just described everything that she did not want to hear.

“Now, now, do not look at me so. You know I am right. You are not ready to hear it, but I must say it nevertheless. Perhaps what you need is…”

Her mother’s speech stalled. Verity could picture the cogs turning in the mechanisms of her mind. That did not bode well. Whenever her mother had a brilliant idea , it was usually mortifyingly embarrassing for Verity.

“What is it, Mother?” she asked, dreading the answer.

“Oh, nothing.”

Nothing. That was the worst possible reply. It meant her mother knew she would not like the plan and was keeping it under wraps until she was ready to spring it on her.

Verity pulled herself free of her mother’s embrace.

“Tell me.”

“There is nothing to tell. I merely had a thought. That is all.”

Verity closed one eye and squinted suspiciously. “Will this thought become a reality in the near future?”

“I cannot possibly say.”

Verity groaned. Her mother—despite being a habitual gossip—could be utterly tight-lipped if she chose to be. There was no use in attempting to pry anything from her which she did not wish to share. The only way Verity was going to discover her latest epiphany was when her mother chose to reveal it.

So that was it. She could now stop fretting about William Cole and the courtship that had ended before it had quite begun. Instead, her mother had given her an entirely different cause for concern.

Just marvelous.

Her worries were further exacerbated when Mrs. Lockhart rose with quiet determination and murmured something about a letter she needed to write. And would Verity mind putting her sewing away in the basket for her?

An alarm sounded in Verity’s brain. Her mother hated writing letters. She often dictated them to Verity, declaring herself too easily worn out by the demands of the quill. But this particular correspondence was to be written by Mrs. Lockhart’s own hand.

Verity watched her mother leave the room. A cloud of doom settled over her as she imagined the private scribblings and to whom they might be addressed. What scheme was brewing in her mother’s mind?

The room grew close. It stifled her. Outside, the branches swayed under a cold wind. There was no escape to the pond. So, painting it was, then.

Verity plodded up to her room, the weight of decision upon her.

Which of her pictures would she have to give up looking at so as to paint upon the back of it?

She scrutinized the multitude of choices.

A ladybird upon a daisy drew her attention.

It looked a little lost in the middle of the otherwise-empty page.

She could fill in the background with more detail.

The existing picture could remain, only better.

She began to set up the colors she would need.

She did not want to overwhelm the image of the ladybird.

It was still the focus. The flowers and leaves she would add would be small, delicate.

She selected white, yellow, and green. These would offer a suitable backdrop for the bright-red shell of the beetle.

She pulled an old, stained smock from a drawer and drew it over her bodice, tying it deftly behind her waist. Choosing a fine-tipped brush, she captured her first new stroke upon the paper.

The glass jar tinkled softly as she swirled her brush in water to rinse it before dipping the hairs into a darker shade of green.

A minute slipped by. It was enough. Her thoughts stayed only on the brush and the paper. All other cares slid from her.

An hour passed. A blessed hour with only her painting for company. It restored her equilibrium. When her mother called her to come downstairs and read to her, she did not mind. She thought no more about what schemes were being concocted on her behalf. For the rest of the evening, Verity knew peace.