Fragile Mask (27 page)

Yet he must refer to their last encounter. He could not
begin to make amends unless he first cleared that
hurdle.

Verena was no longer looking at him. Her beautiful
countenance was calmer, but her fingers were clasped together in
her lap, and their nervous movement told its own tale. Only this
time, Denzell did not make the mistake of setting it down to his
own account. There was clearly a good deal else on her mind
today.

‘
Miss Chaceley—Verena—’ he began, and paused as her gaze
came up to his again on the use of her given name. Such haunted
shadows in her eyes! Involuntarily, he threw out a hand, saying,
‘Have no fear. I have not come to distress you with unwanted
attentions, nor to plead my cause against your express prohibition.
I have come only to apologise for my conduct the other
night.’

Verena bit her lip. He had come to apologise? And what of
her conduct? Well she knew she had given him cause both for anger
and confusion. She had treated him so unkindly—and after behaving
in a manner that must have encouraged him to believe her willing.
Oh, that kiss!

‘
Denzell—’ she began impulsively, and then broke off,
recollecting herself. ‘I mean, Mr Hawkeridge—’

‘
Ah, no,’ he exclaimed out of the instant warmth that had
invaded his breast at her use of his name. ‘Let us, I pray you,
drop formality.’ He leaned forward a little, holding out his hand.
‘Can we not at least cry friends, Verena?’

Verena looked at his outstretched hand, then up to his
face, and a rush of tenderness engulfed her. Her eyes filled and
she put out her fingers towards his, unaware of how her own
quivered. Denzell clasped them, bowed his head, kissed the tips of
her fingers, and then let them go.

They tingled as Verena returned them to her lap, lacing
them into her other hand. She could not look at him, and her voice
was low.

‘
You are—very kind. I am aware that I behaved—I may have led
you to believe—’

She stopped, drawing a strengthening breath, and grateful
he did not seek to interrupt her faltering speech. Dredging up from
somewhere the remnants of her shielding mask, she composed herself
and looked up at him again.

‘
Denzell, I accept your apology, and I hope in turn you will
accept mine. I did not conduct myself in the manner of a lady in
receipt of such a very flattering declaration.’

No, that was too much, Denzell decided. He broke in. ‘You
did nothing for which you need reproach yourself. Mine is the
blame.’ He stood up. ‘I will not importune you further, but I beg
you to believe that, now and always, if there is some way in which
I can serve you, you may command me in anything.’

Verena rose, holding out her hands. ‘Oh no, no. You deserve
of me better than that. If we are to be friends, then don’t speak
of service. Friends are not to be beholden to one another.
They—’

She broke off, turning her head away, and dragging out of
his grasp the hands he had so willingly received into his
hold.

‘
What is it?’ he said at once, seeing the warmth in her face
instantly overlaid with fear.

She did not answer, but ran to the window in the bay and
peered down. Denzell followed and saw below that a travelling
carriage was drawing up outside the front door. Verena seized his
arm in a fierce grip.

‘
Denzell, you must go. Dear heaven, but I knew he would come
this day!’

Still looking down, Denzell saw a middle-aged man descend,
dressed for the road in a light greatcoat, his hat in his hand, and
stand looking about him with grim eyes in a hollow face with an
unmistakable resemblance to the boy Adam. The man moved to the
door, and next instant they could hear the knocking
downstairs.

Denzell laid his hand over Verena’s which still clutched
his arm. ‘This is what you have been home for these few days, is it
not? You have been waiting for this man. He is the cause of all
your fears, is he not, Verena?’

‘
Ask me no questions, Denzell, but go, I beg of you,’ she
uttered, her tone frenzied. ‘I must meet him alone.’

He plucked her hand from
his sleeve and held it fast.

‘
Verena, I have serious misgivings about leaving you to face
this man on your own.’

She shook her head, moving towards the centre of the room,
so that Denzell, still holding her hand, came with her willy-nilly.
Betsey’s face appeared at the door.

‘
It’s him, Miss Verena,’ she hissed. ‘I saw him from the
window.’

‘
Yes, I know. Go, Betsey. Bring him up.’

The maid disappeared and Verena turned on Denzell, unaware
that her fingers clung to his even as she pushed at his chest as if
she would dislodge him from her presence.

‘
Denzell, pray go! I
must
see him alone,
for I have much that must be said to him—and I don’t know how long
I have before Mama gets back.’

‘
But, Verena—’

‘
You need have no fear at leaving me with him,’ she
interrupted. ‘He is my stepfather.’

Denzell only just prevented himself from blurting out that
he already knew it. Nor could he say he feared for Verena’s safety
at the hands of a man who was a known wife-beater. Adam had stated
that Verena never gave her stepfather cause for attacking her, but
she looked at this moment as if she might well do so. Frustrated at
being unable to speak his real fears, he could say
nothing.

Verena was listening for the voices downstairs, and then
the footsteps coming up. She dragged her hand out of
Denzell’s.

‘
Too late! Promise me you will go the moment he arrives in
here.’

What could he do? He had offered his friendship, and his
support. If she refused the latter, what more was there to be said?
Friendship dictated that he respect her wishes.

‘
Very well,’ he sighed.

Verena nodded. She could hear the footsteps coming up now,
and she had no attention to spare for Denzell. It occurred to her
that his presence had been of help, for she was no longer in a
state of fear. Her control was back, and she faced the door in the
sure knowledge of her own capable strength.

Betsey pushed the door open, saying as she entered, ‘It’s
the master, Miss Verena.’

Nathaniel Peverill came in behind her, and paused on the
threshold, his hooded eyes passing from Verena to Denzell and back
again. His lean features were drawn, etched with deeper carven
lines from nose to mouth, and the sunken hollows under his eyes
were dark with shadow.

Verena noted these signs of suffering, and could not but
rejoice in her heart. The very sight of him filled her with a
renewal of the hatred she had nurtured through the years, and she
was conscious of an intense satisfaction that he had experienced
even a tithe of the torture with which he had broken Mama’s spirit.
She could not speak, for fear she might express these thoughts in
words.

Nathaniel broke the silence, in a voice heavy with
suspicion.

‘
Are you not going to present me, Verena?’

Instinctively, Denzell’s glance went to Verena and he
almost gasped out. Did she hate the man that much? Her eyes pierced
like twin daggers and there was tension in the air. It must be long
since these two had met, but there was evidently to be no exchange
of greetings. And Verena, it was clear, had no intention of
introducing him.

He bowed. ‘My name is Hawkeridge, sir.’

The other eyed him appraisingly, looking again at Verena.
He nodded, and began to remove his greatcoat.

‘
I am Peverill. You will excuse us, I trust. I wish to speak
with my daughter alone.’

Verena found her tongue. She almost spat the words. ‘I am
not your daughter!’

Denzell saw the man’s eyes flash, and his jaw tighten. A
glimpse of possibilities that filled him with instant
comprehension. There was a black temper here, a temper unused to be
crossed—particularly by this slip of a girl. Yet he was in a
delicate position. Everything in him urged him to champion Verena,
refuse to leave. But on what grounds? The man had not offered her
violence, and Verena had already asked him several times to
go.

It was Betsey who settled the matter. Having received the
greatcoat Squire Peverill handed to her, she made frantic signals
behind the man’s back indicative of her urgent desire that Denzell
should absent himself from the scene. He took one more look at
Verena’s set face, and capitulated.

He turned to Verena. ‘I will leave you, Miss
Chaceley—unless you feel you would wish me to remain.’

Verena, her sight and mind filled only with the loathed
figure before her, scarcely heard him. The concept reached her only
as a faint wisp of interruption in the intensity of her
concentration. Her eyes never left the man’s face, and she uttered
the one word, ‘Go.’

Denzell gave an inward sigh, but he bowed and nodded to
Peverill as he passed him, noting the careful neatness of his
dress, despite a carriage journey. No doubt but the man had come
a-courting.

Betsey seized his arm and drew him from the room, closing
the door behind them both. When Denzell would have spoken, she put
a finger to her lips and set her ear to the woodwork. Perforce,
Denzell listened also. Peverill it was who spoke first.

‘
You have practised a fine deceit upon me all this time,
Verena,’ he said in a voice that spoke his sense of outrage.
‘Through how many years have you shown that modest and docile
exterior, when all the while you were planning to practise this
shameful trick upon me? Was that done as I deserved? Have I not
ever taken care of you, used you as if you were truly my own flesh
and blood?’

Verena’s voice came then, vibrant with scorn. ‘I
thank heaven you have not. I pity Adam, that he is obliged to carry
your blood in his veins. But I, sir, am a Chaceley born, and though
I blame my father’s family for their treatment of Mama, I say only,
God forgive them. But if I am to endure to hear you speak of
your
deserts, Nathaniel Peverill, then I answer you this: may
you burn in hell!’

There was a silence. Denzell saw Betsey stand up straight
again, throwing a hand to her capacious bosom and rolling her eyes.
He was not surprised. He was shocked to hear Verena dare so
far.

Deuce take it, was she mad? Although it seemed as if
Peverill knew not how to reply to her words. To his relief, he
heard the man laugh.

‘
You amaze me, Verena,’ he said. ‘I did not think you had it
in you.’

Betsey visibly relaxed. ‘All’s well,’ she whispered, and
shooed at Denzell to move him along the corridor towards the stair
head, collecting his hat along the way from the stand in the
hallway.

‘
But can we safely leave her there?’ he asked in a low tone,
receiving the beaver from her. ‘Is she not in danger from him if
she speaks in such a provocative way?’

It did not seem as if the maid was surprised to hear him
talk of Verena thus. She shook her head, ushering him down the
stairs.

‘
Never you fret, sir. It ain’t defiance as angers him. He
won’t touch her.’

‘
How can you be so sure?’ Denzell demanded out of his own
deep concern.

‘
I know him too well. He won’t do nothing ’til the mistress
has shown her face. It’s her as he’s come to see. Besides, Mr Adam
will be here. Believe me, sir, if I feared for her, I wouldn’t be
letting you go.’

This was a touch comforting, although Denzell would have
preferred to remain within call. But he did not see how he could.
He had no rights here, and Verena had made it clear she did not
wish him to intervene.

A thought struck him and he paused at the front door,
eyeing the maid in a speculative way. ‘You would not care to
explain what she meant by her words about her mother’s family, the
Chaceleys?’

Betsey pursed her lips. ‘No, I wouldn’t. If you win the
right to it, Mr Hawkeridge, she’ll tell you herself.’

He grimaced. ‘If I win the right.’

‘
Go now, if you please, sir,’ the maid said, opening the
door. ‘Family business, this is.’ Then she shut him out of the
house.

Denzell remained on the doorstep for a moment or two,
glancing up at the window above. There was nothing to be heard, and
the maid was right. It was family business. Cheered by her words
about his possible rights, he moved off, albeit reluctantly, in the
direction of the Ruishton home. The travelling carriage had gone,
presumably so that the servants might refresh themselves at some
inn. Evidently Squire Peverill expected to be here for some
time.

He crossed the garden and passed into the open space of
ground where Verena had once helped the children to build a
snowman. Then he paused and looked back. It was with some measure
of relief that he saw Adam and Mrs Peverill turning into the drive
of the lodging-house. He wondered what might be the outcome once
they discovered the new arrival above stairs.

In the parlour Verena was listening to her stepfather with
a slight cooling of her rage, now that she had discharged some of
it. She had need of her composure, for the last thing she wished to
do was provoke him into some precipitate action that might lead to
disaster. Besides, she had to state her unalterable intentions
against his own.