Free Mistress of the Storm by M. L. Welsh Page A

deflate a little. ‘She hasn’t said.’ Just thinking about her elderly relative made her feel flat. ‘I don’t think she’s very keen on me.’ Saying it out loud made her feel even more unpopular than usual.
    Henry gazed up as if pondering one of life’s great mysteries. ‘Sometimes people take a sudden and inexplicable dislike to me,’ he said. ‘Which baffles me – because I’m fantastic.’
    His two brothers hooted with derision.
    ‘Fantastically annoying, don’t you mean?’ said Percy, pummelling Henry to the floor in response.
    ‘I wouldn’t worry about it too much,’ said Will. ‘Lots of old people have peculiar views on all sorts of things. Hoarding buttons, going to the shops in your slippers …’
    Verity smiled at him, appreciating the sentiment. She leaned against the sagging sofa with the threadbare arms. It didn’t match the other chairs in the room, but she didn’t notice. She didn’t take in the brass fire ornaments, which had been polished so many times they’d lost a significant amount of detail, nor the wool rug that had come off worse in a tussle with some moths. All she could see was that it was happy and it was noisy. Would her own home be more like this once the baby arrived?
    ‘Perhaps Mother will have a boy …’ she wondered out loud.
    ‘Is she expecting?’ asked Percy.
    Verity nodded.
    ‘Better hope it’s not,’ he advised. ‘I can tell you firsthand that there are few things more irritating in life than a younger brother.’
    Will noticed the backgammon board. ‘You’ve missed a trick with those spare counters over there.’
    ‘Verity doesn’t need any
more
help,’ yelped Henry indignantly. ‘She’s only been playing two minutes.’
    ‘Well, in no time she’ll be wiping the floor with you, won’t she?’ Will started to show Verity what he meant.
    It was the end of the day at last. Verity’s mind was still churning with curiosity and excitement about the mysterious and inexplicable events of recent days. She was looking forward to losing herself in her new book. Safely tucked in bed, her wooden ball clasped in her hand, she turned to a section titled ‘Control and Punishment’:
    And she used her power to box him about the head till he was driven near mad with the torment of it. ‘Release me,’ he begged. But she would not. The sight of his suffering served only to make her more satisfied at her own cleverness. ‘Let that teach you to deny me,’ she told him. And she had peace in her cruel and covetous heart, as much as a cruel and covetous heart can ever have peace
.
    Sitting with her knees up, the reading lamp casting outa warm glow, Verity felt cocooned from the world. Funny how the sailing match tomorrow no longer seemed so daunting. She knew it was silly, but holding the ball seemed to make her feel better, as if it were lucky.
    Downstairs, her mother opened the door of her husband’s study. By the time he’d returned home last night she’d been asleep. So – given their tacit agreement not to quarrel in front of the children – she’d had all day to rehearse this conversation.
    ‘Your stepmother has taken Verity’s room,’ she began briskly.
    Mr Gallant was sitting facing away from his desk, looking out of the window. He didn’t reply.
    Not unused to this state of affairs, Mrs Gallant continued with her speech, gazing with irritation at the cluttered shelves that were so difficult for Sophia, the maid, to clean. ‘I really do think, Tom, that if you are going to invite guests to the house, the least you could do is warn me of it. And possibly make sure you are here to welcome them too,’ she added with more sarcasm than was usual.
    Still her husband said nothing. Mrs Gallant huffed with frustration. This was intolerable. ‘Are you just going to sit there and say nothing?’ she asked crossly.
    He remained silent. Mrs Gallant drew herself up to her full height. ‘Fine,’ she said coldly, closing the study door with an abrupt