Page 28 of A Scandal at Stonecliffe

“What kind? The kind who care?” Nathan asked behind her. “The kind who’d like to help?”

She stopped halfway up the flight and turned to face him. “The kind who stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Nathan stiffened. Why am I pursuing this? It should make no difference whether she shut him out. “You’re right. I haven’t any right to inquire into your life.” He turned around, cursing himself for being a fool, and reached for the door handle.

“Wait, Nathan.”

Nathan turned to look up at her. She looked very pale, almost frightened, and Nathan felt he had been a brute to push her to speak about something that shook her like this. “Verity, you needn’t tell me.”

“No.” Her chin was set, her hands clenched at her sides. “You are connecting yourself to me in this pretense. It could reflect on you. You deserve to know.” She drew a breath. “I murdered a man.”

CHAPTER NINE

VERITY WHIRLED AROUND and ran up the rest of the stairs. She didn’t want to see the look on Nathan’s face. Nathan would be far too polite to follow her upstairs. She hurried into her room and closed the door. She wanted to burst into tears, but she refused to do that. Damn him for pressing her on this.

She stripped off her clothes and threw them on the floor and started over to the wash basin to clean off her disguise. Behind her there was the sound of hurried steps in the hallway, then a pounding on her door. “Verity!”

Obviously he’s not as gentlemanly as I thought.

“Don’t you dare come in here,” she called to him, and for good measure, she slipped over to the door and turned the key in the lock.

“Damn it, Verity, you don’t have to lock the door. I wouldn’t come into your bedchamber without permission,” Nathan said gruffly.

She didn’t answer, pouring water out into the basin and setting to washing her face and hands. Verity wondered why he hadn’t left the house after that confession from her like any other gentleman concerned for his reputation. Nathan is simply the most annoying of men.

“You can’t expect me to just depart after an announcement like that,” Nathan went on.

“Anyone with any sense would have,” she snapped back.

Ripping out the hairpins, she let her braid fall down her back and then pulled on an old morning dress that was easy to wrap around herself and tie on her own. She glanced at herself in the mirror and grimaced. She looked her worst. But what did it matter? She couldn’t get away without telling Nathan the whole story, and surely after she did that, no trace of their little flirtations would be left. But at least he would leave after that.

Verity unlocked the door and opened it, gesturing for him to enter. He stepped inside, glancing around the room a trifle uneasily. “Um, Verity, perhaps we should go to another room.”

“Oh, what does it matter? The story won’t sound any better.” Her voice was bitter, which she regretted. She didn’t want him to know how much it hurt to tell him. She gestured toward the comfortable chair beside the fireplace. “You might as well sit down.”

“I can’t sit down while you’re still standing,” he protested.

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Nathan, can you not abandon courtesy this once?”

He sat down. “Verity, you were a spy, and I understand that you might have done things in the name of the Crown that—”

“I’m not talking about that,” she said impatiently. She linked her hands in front of her, like a schoolgirl about to recite a poem. “My mother was French. Her parents were émigrés when the Revolution happened. She married my father, who was handsome and penniless—she had an unfortunate romantic streak. I was their first child and several years later, my sister, Poppy, was born. Mama grew tired of being dunned by creditors and having to sneak out of our lodgings in the dead of night to avoid paying the rent, so when our father died, she chose her next husband for his wealth.”

“Understandable.”

“Yes. I have no quarrel with her pragmatism. It was the man she chose. He was a rigid man who brooked no opposition. He was at best unkind and cold. At worst, he was given to punishments.”

“Verity, no.” Nathan rose and went to her, taking her hands in his. “I am so sorry.”

His sympathy put her perilously close to tears, and she pulled away. “It wasn’t just with us, but also with his own son.”

“Did he...hurt you?”

“At first he was inclined only to break our spirit. He was given to furious lectures or locking us in our rooms for the day or denying us supper for our transgressions. Standing in the corner. That sort of thing.” She wasn’t about to recount to Nathan the pain of standing motionless for hours until her back tensed and her knees ached or she fainted. “The worst thing was having to apologize to my stepfather and ask his forgiveness. You can imagine how well I liked that.” She cast Nathan a little smile.

“He should have been taken out and thrashed.” His eyes were dark and glittering, his voice clipped.

Verity warmed a little inside at Nathan’s outrage. “He didn’t strike Poppy or me. He was harsher with his son, but the boy spent most of his time away at school. It was my mother who took the brunt of his wrath.” Verity’s eyes flashed, the familiar cold iron of anger forming at her core. “We had always lived in the city—that is where he courted my mother, where we first went to live with him. But soon we were spending more and more time at his country house, and before long that is where we lived. I missed the city, but it was more than that. In the country we were completely under my stepfather’s control. We had no friends. He used to say to my mother, in a lover-like way, that he wanted her all to himself. But it wasn’t that. He wanted her alone and unable to rely on anyone else. I hated him with all my being. Then my mother died.”