Mrs Abercrombie didn’t look much better rested than she had when Verity had gone out wearing her entire being earlier but her casual gestures either meant she was genuinely calm or trying so hard to be so that she had convinced herself it was true. It had seemed such a trivial thing the first time Verity had noticed the tension in her employer’s body and the strain in her eyes; after a youth of hardwork and the promise of decades yet to come that thought that one’s nerves might give out even though you had everything had been a foreign one to Verity.

Fortunately she had nerve enough for both of them. At least she hoped she did.

“Dull. Mostly just men talking business while their wives stood about being bored,” Verity replied, her own quirks of speech coming out in Mrs Abercombie’s voice as she gently slipped off her shoes and padded behind the screen. Reaching behind herself Verity pulled at the first of the ties and began the irritatingly nervy task of getting out of Mrs Abercrombie’s dress before she split the seam. “A few of them asked after the children and the school but they listened as well as they ever do to the replies I gave.”

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MJ made magic out of my ramblings