Grief took people in all sorts of ways, she knew. She was certain she was not mad, but her nightmares, her sudden attacks of forgetfulness or panic, her strange visions of a lady in blue, had been witnessed by enough people in the past to have got her talked about here in Somerset.
While the English were known throughout Europe for their harmless if dotty people, the specter of the asylum always loomed large. Nightmares and odd reveries were one thing, but no woman was supposed to be so avidly curious or well-educated as she had become, taking refuge from the real world in the realm of books. Praying that the visions she saw in her mind's eye would never come true...
She sighed, wishing more than anything that her Aunt Agatha were here. Could tell her what to do. But of course, if Aunt were still alive, she thought with a sniff, she certainly would never be in the predicament she was now. The pang of grief which welled up was every bit as acute as the day she had lost her.
It had been so sudden. And the loss was one that could never be made up for. Her aunt had been a rare lady in every sense of the word, an exceptionally intelligent woman whose parents had fostered her inquiring mind. Vanessa knew only too well how much she owed her. And how much she had come to love her.
When her father had become a widower, and Vanessa had become what was labeled difficult, her mother's sister Agatha had raised the little eight-year old girl the only way she had known how, taking her mind off her odd fits and starts by teaching her all she had learned. It had been a never-ending source of pride to Agatha that her niece had not only surpassed her in learning, but also mastered all the accomplishments so fashionable for ladies of quality in society. She had been sure her young charge would certainly turn more than a few heads if she were ever to leave her self-imposed isolation, but Vanessa had been a homebody despite having developed into a great beauty, the talk of Dorset.
What were balls and soirees compared with consols and selective breeding? Vanessa had rejected the fashion papers in favor of the Farmer's Almanac, and shown remarkable aptitude for running an estate.
Using all the knowledge she had gleaned from her books, she had set up experiments in farming which had been successful as well. Rotating crops, animal husbandry, these had seemed unusual ideas at first, but bumper yields and the best horses and cattle in the shire had proven Vanessa to be an astute farmer and manager.
Yet now that she had returned here, she was once more being labeled eccentric, which so far as she was concerned, was just a polite word for mad.
She thought of her old home with an acute stab of regret. It had been a pity that Aunt Agatha's estate was to be sold, though it would certainly fetch a pretty penny, prosperous as it was.
Why, oh why, could she not be allowed to live there and manage it by herself? What had Agatha been thinking to force her hand, making her come back to this terrible, gloomy old place after all of her wondrous freedom in Dorset?
But Society frowned upon unmarried women, and her reputation would have been in tatters had she sought to go against convention. There were also huge disadvantages to being considered a bluestocking.
Even worse, as long as she remained unmarried and unprotected, she would be the prey of every fortune hunter in the County, if not all of England and Scotland, such was the fame of her small-holding.
But the instructions in Aunt Agatha's will had been clear: Vanessa was to sell the property and move back home to her family estate with Gerald as her chaperon. Her two solicitors would oversee the sale and the administration of her considerable fortune. Surely they would not...
"Please sign the paper, and the marriage will take place by the end of the month," Gerald urged again.
Vanessa clung onto her last thought with eager desperation. "My solicitors will have to be informed at once. I can do nothing without their approval until I'm twenty-one. Even when I reach the age of majority, they will still insist on an appropriately drawn up marriage settlement."
"You know they'll raise objections, and we have little time. Tell them you are marrying, and that you must do it soon."
She shook her head. "I can't get them to agree just like that. There are settlements, papers to sign, negotiations. Even if I were willing to say I wanted to marry Clifford tomorrow, and be party to the dealings between the solicitors as to my dowry, I still fail to see the reason for such haste. Can we not speak to Mr. Stone, tell him--"
"The banns are being read today, and he won't wish to wait. You shall be wed by the end of the month, no later. And if you need an excuse that will convince them to expedite matters, tell them you are with child."