James arched a brow again. “It is always interesting to hear a revisionist view of history, my dear.”
“Don’t call me that,” Violet said through gritted teeth. He had never once called her “my dear” in earnest—only ever in that horrible, vaguely sarcastic tone of his that she’d had so many occasions to hear over the past four years. She hated it. Sometimes, she knew without any doubt that the man she had once loved was still underneath there somewhere, if that layer of ice would only melt away—but when he used that tone with her, she found it nearly impossible to believe.
“Of course,” James murmured. “I shouldn’t wish to upset you in your fragile state of health.”
“I’m not—” Violet began, then cut herself off hastily by feigning a coughing fit. It was just as well she wasn’t prone to lying on a regular basis—it seemed that she was utterly inept at it. She allowed her coughs to subside, offering a weak, “Indeed.”
“Quite.” A pause, and then James said, his manner suddenly businesslike, “What can I do to assist you? More pillows?” He peered behind Violet’s shoulder, as though to assess the current status of her cushioning. “Yes, more pillows, I think.”
“I have eight pillows,” Violet said, but James did not seem to hear her, given that he was already walking briskly toward the bellpull to ring for Price.
“Now,” he said, turning back to her. “I believe you need some tea.”
“I’ve already had tea.”
“More tea. And some milky toast,” he added. Was Violet imagining the slightly gleeful look in his eyes?
“I hate milky toast,” she gritted out. “Passionately.”
“Yes, I know,” James said, adopting an expression that Violet assumed he meant to be apologetic but which wasn’t quite successful. “But one must do what is necessary in the face of illness.”
“I assure you, husband—”
“And broth!” Violet had never heard someone sound so delighted at the prospect of broth. James paused thoughtfully. “Perhaps I should be writing this down—I wouldn’t wish to forget anything by the time Price arrives.”
“Somehow, I think you’ll manage,” Violet said darkly under her breath. She had forgotten how sharp his ears were, however, for he shot her a grin at this—and her breath caught in her throat.
“More blankets,” James said decisively. Her brief feeling of tenderness passed. “And perhaps a hot-water bottle or two.” He stood with his hands on his lean hips, surveying her the way a general might survey his troops, his brow slightly furrowed, clearly deep in thought.
“It’s July!” Violet wailed, forgetting entirely that she was supposed to be frail and weak.
“You’re right.” James paused, suddenly serious. He turned to the window, which was cracked slightly, letting in the warm breeze from the back garden. “This window needs to be closed—we can’t have unhealthy airs waft in and weaken you further.”
Violet narrowed her eyes at him, assessing. Something was… odd. This level of solicitousness should be gratifying, but it merely had the effect of thoroughly rousing her suspicions. It made no sense, his rapid-fire transition into a version of James that she had never seen before. Even in their happiest moments, he had never fussed over her like this. It had been one of the many things she had found so freeing about marriage, after years of her mother’s ceaseless attentions. He had treated her like an adult, not like a recalcitrant child. He had made it perfectly clear that he saw her as his equal, and it had been… liberating. Like taking a full breath of clean air after being trapped inside a smoky cupboard.
Nothing about that man squared with the behavior of the one currently fidgeting with her curtains. It was strange. Something wasn’t right.
As she was contemplating this, he whirled around, a feverish glint in his eye that instantly had her on her guard. “I have realized,” he said dramatically, “what you truly need.”
She was nearly certain that she was not going to like the answer to her following question. “And what is that?”
“Your mother!” He rubbed his hands together, looking pleased with himself. “There is nothing like the warmth of a maternal embrace to set an invalid on the path to health.”
Violet was temporarily struck dumb with horror. She scarcely knew where to begin. For a start, she had never received an embrace from Lady Worthington that could be deemed anything approaching warm—indeed, on the rare occasion the countess felt duty-bound to offer some show of physical affection to her only daughter, the resulting display more closely resembled a monarch offering a hand for a lowly peasant to kiss than any sort of moment of familial tenderness.
Furthermore, she was fairly certain that affectionate nursemaids did not result in consumptives miraculously finding themselves cured—indeed, if physical devotion had any effect at all on an invalid, she thought it likely some enterprising woman would have already had the brilliant idea of creating a combined brothel and hospital.
All of these logical questions, however, paled in importance compared to her strongest, most instinctive reaction: that she would rather have actual consumption than be forced to live under the same roof as her mother for even one night.
She could not, however, say that to her husband. Her husband, who was watching her with an uncharacteristically attentive look in his eye. She narrowed her eyes at him in return.
“What an… unexpected idea,” she offered.
He nodded. “I know you’ve had your differences with her, but who better than the woman who raised you to attend you in your moment of need?”
She smiled sweetly at him. “I’m afraid my childhood nurse lives in Somerset now, darling.”
James waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not saying your mother was the most attentive parent, but this seems like a perfect opportunity to let her make up for lost time.”
“I don’t think…” Violet began, but a sound that would surely haunt her nightmares came emanating from the corridor just outside her bedroom: her mother’s voice, outside her bedroom door.
“Where is my daughter?” the countess demanded; Violet would have thought it rather obvious where to find an invalid, but it occurred to her that her mother likely didn’t know where her bedchamber was—Violet could count on one hand the number of times Lady Worthington had visited Curzon Street since Violet’s marriage.
She must have received some sort of murmured direction from whichever beleaguered servant had the misfortune to be accompanying her, for a moment later the door was flung open and Lady Worthington stood in the doorway, looking for all the world as though she expected a round of applause for this performance of Loving Parent Rushing to Offspring’s Bedside.
Violet groaned internally.
“What was that noise?” her mother demanded; apparently, that groan had not been internal at all. “I’ve never heard her make that noise before; surely it must be a symptom of her illness.”
“Are you feeling any great discomfort?” James asked Violet solicitously, leaning over her to place a hand on her not-so-fevered brow. “As you will see, I took the liberty of inviting your mother to come attend to you. I would have asked you before doing so, but I thought that you would attempt to downplay the severity of your illness, so as not to put Lady Worthington to any trouble.” His voice was solemn, but his eyes were teasing. And in that instant, he made her suspect that he knew.
She could not, of course, accuse him of anything within her mother’s hearing. Instead, she said, “I hardly think I need such a fuss made.”
James cupped her cheek and turned to look at Lady Worthington, who had made her way to Violet’s bedside and was looking at Violet’s rather tousled hair with an expression of vague distaste. “This is what I meant,” he said to her mother. “My Violet. My flower. So courageous in the face of grievous illness.”
Lady Worthington sniffed. “Audley, please don’t become maudlin, or I may find myself in need of a physician as well.” She looked at Violet, frowning. “You look flushed. Are you f
everish?”
“I wish,” Violet said honestly. “That might indicate that this was naught but a horrible nightmare.”
“She must be feverish,” Lady Worthington said to James.
“She clearly requires constant attention,” James said earnestly. “I have been, naturally, as attentive as I can manage, but I thought a feminine presence…” He trailed off.
“Indeed,” Lady Worthington said curtly, with the air of someone resolving herself to tackle an unpleasant task. “A sickbed is no place for a man, Audley. Leave it to me.”
“Of course.” James leaned forward to press a kiss to Violet’s brow. “I will leave you in your mother’s loving care.”
I will murder you in your sleep for this, Violet attempted to say with her eyes as he gave her a limpid, loving, thoroughly sickening look. His lovesick smile slipped for a second, replaced momentarily by an entirely self-satisfied grin, and in that instant she knew two things beyond a doubt.
One, her eyes’ message had been received.
Two, he undoubtedly knew that she wasn’t ill.
Eight
It had, James reflected over a late luncheon the next afternoon, been a remarkably enjoyable day. The day before, he’d had to work very hard on several occasions to stifle his laughter at the expressions on Violet’s face—which had ranged from incredulous to murderous—but on the whole, he’d put on a rather impressive performance. When he finally left his wife in her mother’s care the previous afternoon, she’d been propped up by enough pillows to support an entire family, under a layer of bedclothes thick enough to ward off a Russian winter. Her mother had been patting her gingerly on the shoulder with an air of long-suffering weariness that implied that she expected to shortly be sainted for this effort. He wondered how long it had taken for Violet to convince her mother to leave—he had seen no sign of the countess at the dinner or breakfast tables, and an inquiry of Wooton confirmed that the countess had not occupied the room James had ordered prepared for her.
On his way out of the room he’d caught Price on the stairs with a stack of books in her hand, so he’d guessed that Violet was running some sort of elaborate scheme to continue her library cataloguing project from the confines of her bedchamber—it must have driven her mad to have her mother’s visit interrupt her progress. In some ways, this was an improvement—at least now he could enter the library at any hour of the day without worrying about finding her there, filling the room with her scent, biting her lip in concentration as she scribbled away at her catalogue, her face as beautiful as it always was when she was deep in thought.
He’d been half expecting to find her up at dawn, or at least by the time he left for an early meeting with his man of business about a pending sale of a stallion. He shut himself away in his study for several hours with a neglected pile of correspondence, both stables related and personal, and when he grew peckish and rang for a footman to ask for a tray to be sent in, he learned that Violet still had not made an appearance outside of her bedchamber.
He allowed himself a brief moment of surprise as he accepted the tray placed before him on his desk, wondering at her lingering in bed, but promptly decided that she must have calculated that she could not reemerge, bright-eyed and in the full flush of health, without rousing his suspicions. He told himself that this was all the better—his trick had worked so well that she had now taken to punishing herself—but he could not deny the small voice within him that noted that tormenting Violet was considerably more entertaining when he was actually in her company.
He took a bite of bread—upon which he promptly choked, when Violet entered the room.
“Good afternoon, darling,” she said sunnily, sinking into the chair facing his desk. She was dressed in a riding habit of midnight blue, her dark hair pulled neatly back from her face into some sort of elaborate braided concoction at her nape. She looked beautiful—and perfectly healthy.
His eyes narrowed.
Violet seemed not to notice. “Did you sleep well?” She reached forward and, without so much as a by-your-leave, poured a cup of tea, which she nudged toward him.
James, being rather occupied with the task of forcing air back into his lungs, took a moment to reply.
“Very,” he finally managed, taking a healthy gulp of tea and watching as she prepared a cup for herself. He was amused to note that her inability to pour tea without at least a splash or two winding up in the saucer remained unchanged. “What are you—”
“Oh, I’m feeling much improved this afternoon,” she said cheerfully, stirring sugar into her tea. The sound of the spoon against china was loud in the otherwise silent room. “My mother’s visit really worked wonders—you were entirely correct in that regard. I can scarcely believe what a miraculous recovery I have made. But then, this is how Briggs said it might be, you see.”
“Did he?”
“Oh, yes.” She beamed at him, and he averted his eyes. Her face was radiant when she smiled, and he sternly reminded himself not to be distracted by a pair of sparkling eyes and uneven dimples—he had made that mistake five years earlier, and all he had gotten in exchange was a brief window of happiness, followed by a long period of regret. “One day bedridden, the next up and about as though nothing were at all the matter.”
Despite the knowledge that she was lying to his face, James was nevertheless amused. She seemed to be taking an awful gamble that he knew nothing at all about the symptoms of consumption—which, admittedly, he didn’t, but he’d never heard anything about the wild fluctuation in health associated with the disease.
“Interesting.” He drew the word out slowly. “You know, darling, I can’t help but think this isn’t at all consistent with what I’ve read of consumption in the past.” Which was nothing. But she didn’t need to know that.
“Oh, James.” She waved an airy hand as though he were being entirely foolish—was he imagining it, or did she seem more alert than normal? “I’m certain Dr. Briggs knows more about it than you do—or would you like to summon your own physician for a second opinion?”
She blinked at him innocently.
His eyes narrowed. What the bloody hell was going on? Did she know that he knew? But how could she possibly?—he’d only learned the truth for certain the previous day, and she’d not seen anyone but him and her mother in the interim.
Belatedly realizing that she was still awaiting his reply, he said slowly, “Yes, perhaps we shall. I’m certain Dr. Worth would like to make a thorough examination of you.” And why, oh why, did discussion of a physician visiting Violet have to send such utterly lewd images into his mind? Never had the word examination sounded so… obscene. Clearly he was going slightly mad from lack of female contact.
Or, he amended hastily, entirely too much female contact of the non-nude variety.
“Anytime you wish, James,” Violet said, raising an eyebrow as if they were playing chess and she was awaiting his countermove—which James had a sudden feeling was remarkably close to the truth.
Feeling it best to tread on safer ground, he asked, “When did your mother depart?”
“Yesterday afternoon, not too long after she arrived,” Violet said, a note of satisfaction in her voice.
“How did you manage that?” he asked, impressed despite himself—Lady Worthington did not strike him as a woman easily dismissed.
“I told her that if she did not leave me be, I’d take to riding in breeches in a gentleman’s saddle.”
He bit back a smile with considerable effort. “I imagine she swooned from horror.”
Violet smirked. “I think I should take it as a compliment that she believed me.”
“Speaking of which,” James said, “you’re dressed for riding.”
“Yes,” she said, taking a sip of tea and casting a brief glance down at her riding habit. “Since I’m feeling so improved today, I thought I might take a ride in Hyde Park.”
James had to hide another grin at this. Violet was a reasonably accomplished rider, but she wa
s not horse-mad by any stretch of the imagination. Her desire to go riding could only be indicative of one thing: she was tired of being confined to her room.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly, pasting a concerned look on his face that he hoped was convincing. “I’m not certain the physician would think—”
“I’m getting on a bloody horse this afternoon whether you think it’s a good idea or not,” Violet said through gritted teeth, and James was surprised into silence. While Violet was certainly no shrinking, well, violet, swearing was still a bit much even from her, aside from the occasional muttered curse when she thought no one could hear. Although he supposed, upon a moment’s reflection, that had he been confined to his bed for three days, he might have had a choice word or two to offer as well.
“I am going to drink my tea, and I am going to have a groom make Persephone ready, and then I am going to go riding in Hyde Park. I am entirely uninterested in your thoughts on the matter.”
After this little speech, she dedicated her attention to the cup of tea at—or rather, in—hand, as though she’d never seen anything quite so fascinating, leaving James to make a valiant effort to force back the many questions that rose in his throat, begging to be voiced.
As was so often the case in matters concerning his wife, his willpower failed him.
“Do you recall our wedding day?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands over his stomach. Violet, he was pleased to see, choked slightly on her tea.
“With unfortunate clarity,” she said once she had dislodged the liquid from her windpipe.
“Why unfortunate?” he asked, arching a brow.
Violet straightened in her seat. “It’s difficult to think back so clearly on a day that was such a massive mistake.”
A beat of silence. Then:
“A hit,” he said coolly. “A palpable hit.” He kept his voice bored and disinterested, hoping that it wasn’t obvious that her barb had, in fact, landed. “I myself recollect it a bit differently.”
To Have and to Hoax Page 14