Widow in White

Part Two: The Wife - Chapter One: Ten Conversations

SEPTEMBER

Neil read the letter twice, just to make sure, then tossed it back on the table with a snort of discontent. Verity looked up from buttering Annie's toast.

"Bad news?"

"More or less."

"Richard's not ill, is he? That's the second letter he's sent you in two weeks."

"He's... well he's not ill. Though he might be out of his mind." Neil drained his coffee without tasting it. "He's married her."

Verity dropped the knife with a clatter on the floor. "What!? Oh drat! There's butter everywhere!"

To Neil, that seemed less important than the news the letter had brought, but somehow it was cleaning up butter that occupied the next ten minutes of his life. Once that was done, it was time for Annie to be sent to the nursery again. Normally, Verity would go with her, but today she stayed behind in the breakfast room with Neil.

"Did he really marry her?" she asked, coming close and making a fuss of smoothing the shoulders of Neil's coat. "Oh, Neil, I hope— I hope he'll be happy."

"Happy!?" Neil was confounded by the notion. "Oh, so do I but—"

"But you don't like her." Verity nudged him gently. "You are going to write to congratulate him, aren't you?"

"Should I?" Neil asked bitterly. "He didn't invite us to the wedding. He didn't even have a wedding — or just barely. Nine o'clock in the village church on a Thursday, with no one to attend but a gaggle of tenant farmers!"

"That sounds quite romantic, really." A smile twitched on Verity's lips and Neil's anger faded. "He must really love her."

"I hope so." Neil looked into his wife's eyes a moment then pulled her into his lap and kissed her. "But oh God, if she hurts him I will—"

"—If." Verity drew back reproachfully. "Give her a chance, Neil."

But, thought Neil, it was easy for Verity to say that — Verity had never met Laura.

*    *    *

"Neil has sent his congratulations," Richard said, rather stiffly. Laura looked up from her own letter — ever since the news of her marriage had got around, acquaintances whom she hadn't spoken to in years were writing to congratulate her.

"Should I write back and thank him?"

"He's not happy about it." Richard sighed. "I knew he wouldn't be, but I didn't think it would be this bad, listen — 'as you refused my earlier advice, I shall neither waste ink nor risk offense by offering more, but content myself with sending my regards to her ladyship and my best wishes for your happiness'. He must have cribbed it from a book of manners."

"Give him time," Laura said, her heart sinking. "I know he never loved me, but he does love you. He'll come around."

"The post-script says he can't contain his surprise with how events turned out," Richard grumbled

"We were a little abrupt," Laura pointed out.

"That's not what he means. He warned me about marrying you months ago. Said you'd be a mistake, or something along those lines. Honestly, back then, I agreed with him."

Laura flinched. Richard leaned over the breakfast table to take her hand.

"It didn't take me long to realize I was wrong," he said. "You're not a mistake. You're wonderful."

OCTOBER

"I've been thinking," Elizabeth said as she did the flowers in Farthingdale's study. "It's not such a bad thing after all."