Page 54 of Duke with a Deception
“Whilst I find your love for your sister admirable, I do wish it would extend to her husband,” Sybil said quietly, disappointment lacing her voice.
“My love,” Everett said softly, giving her a look of such love-sick tenderness that Verity had to glance away. “We have been over this.”
“And we have talked about the importance of Verity’s happiness,” Sybil reminded him.
Verity sent her sister-in-law an appreciative smile. Although Everett had initially kept Sybil a secret from them all, hiding her away in the country at Riverdale Abbey, when she had come to London with her mother, Lady Eastlake, Verity and Sybil hadbecome fast friends. That much, Verity could thankfully recall. She was grateful the blow she had suffered had not banished the memory of her friendship with Sybil.
“We have also talked about the likelihood that someone like Kingham can make her happy forever,” Everett gritted.
Verity cleared her throat, having had quite enough. “He can. I assure you of that. King has been the perfect husband.”
Except for that awful night when she had gone into the nursery. But his lost daughter was a secret that belonged to King and was his for the telling, not hers.
“Your marriage is yet new,” Everett cautioned. “No doubt you have the disillusioned glow of many a bride who is destined to be disappointed by her husband.”
“Do you mean like you and I?” Sybil asked tartly.
Her brother gave his wife another affectionate look. “You and I are different, darling.”
“To be perfectly fair, Riverdale, you did disappoint poor Sybil quite a bit for the first several months of your marriage,”Mamanoffered ruthlessly.
It was most unlike her to take Everett to task, but perhaps it was her irritation at being left out of the plotting of his wedding that had settled like a burr under a horse’s saddle.Mamanloved nothing so much as she loved planning a fête, whether it was a wedding or a ball.
“I saw the error of my ways,” Everett said, frowning ferociously at their mother.
“Perhaps Kingham has as well,”Mamancountered.
“I must admit that I don’t recall having seen a groom look more besotted than Kingham did,” Sybil added. “He had eyes only for you, Verity.”
“I can see where this is leading,” Everett grumbled. “Three against one is a decidedly unfair advantage. Where the devil is Henry when one needs him?”
“He is taking Mother shopping,” Sybil reminded him.
Henry was Sybil’s illegitimate half brother, and he had recently come to London at Everett’s behest to live with them after being relegated to servitude for all his life. Henry and Sybil’s father, Lord Eastlake, was a vicious and terrible man who had beaten his wife. Henry was a kindhearted young fellow with an agreeable nature, much like Sybil was. Verity had enjoyed getting to know him during the two months she had spent waiting to marry King.
“I’m persuaded to believe I ought to have accompanied them,” Everett said.
“Behave yourself, and all shall be well,” Verity parried, trying to keep her voice light.
In truth, she fervently hoped her brother’s ire would soon begin to wane. She had been a married woman for weeks already. Could he not see how desperately in love she was with her husband? How desperately in love she had always been with King?
Shehadalways been in love with him, had she not? There it was again, the faltering of her memory. She had done everything she could to remember, and still, so much of her past remained a mystery. There seemed to be no reason for what she could recall and what she couldn’t.
“It is my most fervent wish that all shall be well, dearest sister,” Everett said, pressing a hand to his heart. “I want nothing for you other than your complete and well-deserved happiness. I want you to have everything you once hoped for with Lord Leopold.”
She frowned at her brother, struggling yet again for any hints of remembrance of the Lord Leopold he continued to mention. But she found none.
“I don’t see why you persist in the wrongheaded belief that I cannot be happy with King because of a beau in my past,” shetold him firmly. “My love for my husband far surpasses anything I’ve ever known for anyone else.”
She didn’t miss the long glance Everett exchanged with Sybil. It was as if the two of them were silently communicating with each other.
“What is it?” she questioned them both, not liking that they seemed to have a dialogue between each other concerning her. “I can see there is something more. Why hold your tongue?”
“I find it astonishing,” Everett said, shaking his head.
“What is astonishing? That my husband and I should be in love?”
“ThatKingis in love, yes,” he elaborated grimly. “I have known him for longer than you have, Verity, and I daresay I know him far better than you. No one has espoused a hatred of matrimony more loudly. He vowed to never wed.”
