“Well?” Violet asked, her voice sharp. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”
James lowered his hands and looked at her. Her cheeks were flushed; a curl of dark hair lay against her neck, in striking contrast to the creamy perfection of the skin behind it.
He dragged his eyes upward, meeting her gaze directly. “I’m sorry.”
She blinked. Under different circumstances, he would have found it amusing—she had clearly been preparing for a fight, and his capitulation had caught her completely by surprise. He watched as she clutched at the threads of her composure. “I—of course you are,” she said, clearly attempting to put her best face forward. “As you should be.”
He took a step closer to her, all but erasing the distance between them. “I will send Lady Fitzwilliam a note of apology today,” he said. He noticed that at this proximity, she had to tilt her head back to look up at him as he spoke. It was one of the thousand tiny details he had unlearned about her over the past few years, now presented for him to memorize anew. “I owe her an apology in person, of course, but I would not risk her reputation by calling on her.”
“A bit late for such consideration, don’t you think?” Violet asked, her eyes narrow. He spared a moment’s longing contemplation of the normally round shape of the eyes in question—he had found them narrowed upon his person so often of late that he had almost forgotten what they looked like in their natural state.
“Entirely,” he conceded, and had the pleasure of watching her face register her surprise once again. “But as I cannot undo the past, I am merely going to do the best I can in the present.”
It was then his turn to be surprised as, with absolutely no warning, she burst into laughter.
She raised a hand to cover her mouth, the move doing little to contain the peals of unladylike laughter. She took a step back from him, even as she seemed to be making largely futile attempts to contain her mirth.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, but was unable to say more as another fit of giggles overtook her. For his part, James found himself less irked at being laughed at than he might have expected. It had been so long since he had seen her laugh that he could only stand and drink in the sight, his eyes greedily consuming the details that had grown fuzzy in his memory.
She attempted speech once more. “You just seem so absurdly serious—it really all sounded a bit ridiculous…”
James was dimly aware that he was being mocked, but he seemed unable to be overly much bothered. And then, without really giving the matter much thought at all, he did the only thing that, in that precise moment, seemed at all reasonable—or perhaps even possible.
He kissed her.
And the moment his lips descended on hers, all reason fled.
The only vague thought that flitted through his head as his lips moved over hers was that he’d forgotten. He’d forgotten how soft her mouth was as it brushed against his own. She seemed momentarily startled by his kiss, her entire body freezing in the instant that he first touched her. But then, suddenly, it was as though she melted all at once, kissing him back with a fervor that matched his own. His tongue darted out, teasing at the corner of her mouth, and her lips parted. This, too, he had forgotten: the precise feeling of her tongue tangling with his own, the strength with which her hand moved to the back of his neck, cradling his head in her palm as she kissed him.
He slid both of his hands to her waist, pulling her more firmly against him. Each spot where their bodies touched felt suddenly alive, as though every single nerve was sparking at the friction. He could feel himself stiffening and, rather than stepping back to put some much-needed distance between them, he let his hands drift down to cup her bottom, keeping her pressed tightly against him so that there was no space between them, nothing but warmth and desire.
And here was yet another thing that he had forgotten: how perfectly their bodies fit together, her breasts crushed against his chest, her arms tangled around his neck, their heads tilted at just such an angle as to allow the kiss to stretch on endlessly, time seeming to stand still. He broke his mouth away from hers at last and moved lower, planting a series of soft kisses along the silky skin of her neck, the sound of her uneven breathing making his heart pound even faster.
“James,” she moaned softly, and his tongue darted out to taste the hollow of her throat, flicking against the pulse that beat steadily there. She shivered, the small vibration rippling down her body like a wave, and slid her hands into his hair, pulling his mouth back up to her own. His mouth opened, her tongue darted inside, and he nearly groaned aloud it felt so good—it was all he could do to keep from sinking to the floor with her, hiking up her skirts and—
The sound of a throat clearing, with perhaps more force than was generally necessary to such an endeavor.
Violet broke the kiss with a gasp, whirling around to face the doorway, where Wooton stood, his face carefully impassive.
“My lady, your carriage is ready,” he said, his tone neutral.
“I, yes, thank you, Wooton,” Violet said, panting slightly. “I’ll be along shortly.”
“Very good, my lady,” Wooton said and, with a perfect bow, exited the room.
James could have kissed his butler in that moment—needless to say, not a sentiment he had ever expected to experience. But who knew how far things might have gone had Wooton not interrupted? He ought to give the man a raise, really.
Because James was feeling deeply unsettled. How could it be that he still responded to Violet with such intensity? Why was it that a few stolen moments spent kissing his wife in his own study left him feeling more alive than he had in years? It was infuriating. Absurd. And so James did what he always did whenever he was feeling off-kilter, lacking the upper hand.
“I’d forgotten how easy it can be to silence you,” he said, his tone deliberately even, just the slightest note of mockery lurking underneath.
It worked in an instant; Violet had turned to face him a moment before he spoke, and in that moment he had seen a hundred things in her face—uncertainty, amusement, lust. But as soon as the words left his mouth, her face closed, her gaze shuttering and the corners of her mouth turning down.
“And I’d forgotten what an ass you can be,” she responded, her own voice clipped and remote. She turned on her heel without a further word and sailed from the room.
And James—despite having achieved exactly what he’d intended, despite having put some much-needed distance between them—was left feeling precisely as she had described him: like an ass.
Ten
“Violet,” Diana said, rising from the chair upon which she was seated, dropping her paintbrush in the process. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
“I needed to speak to you at once,” Violet said as soon as Wright had closed the door behind her. “I apologize for arriving so early—it’s barely past noon, but I knew you would be awake—”
“Not at all,” Diana said, waving a lazy hand at a chair and sinking back onto her own. “Shall I ring for tea?”
“No,” Violet said, not wanting the distraction, then paused, reconsidering. She liked to think she was a sensible person, and any sensible Englishwoman knew that life was more easily tackled with tea. “Well, perhaps a spot of tea wouldn’t go amiss.”
Diana rose again to ring the bell, and after a moment’s murmured request to a maid, she resumed her place in her chair. They were not in her sitting room but in the solarium, Diana’s favorite room of the house and, she often joked, the reason she had agreed to marry Lord Templeton in the first place.
At least, Violet thought she was joking. It was rather difficult to tell with Diana sometimes, and her motives for marrying the viscount had certainly been mercenary.
The room was littered with chairs and a couple of settees, all given a warm glow by the ample light flowing in through the windows that lined the walls and roof. Diana spent most of her mornings in this room, painting, as she had been doing when Violet interrupted her.
&
nbsp; “Darling, what’s all this about?” Diana asked after she had settled herself once more. “You don’t look quite the thing at all.”
Violet, who had perched on the edge of an armchair as she waited for Diana to resettle herself, barely able to contain her impatience, burst out, “I think James knows I’m not ill!”
Diana blinked once, twice, and Violet, with effort, relaxed her posture slightly, doing her best to attempt to look casual, rather than like an escapee from Bedlam.
“How could he possibly have found out?” Diana asked, waving a dismissive hand. “He’s a man. They’re sheep.”
Now it was Violet’s turn to blink. “Meaning… they follow each other?”
Diana sighed, impatient as always with anyone who couldn’t quite keep up with her. “No, meaning their minds can only focus on about three things at once—and I’m quite certain your husband doesn’t have the mental capacity to think overmuch about the symptoms of your malady.”
“He did take a first at Oxford,” Violet felt compelled to mention, out of some lingering sense of wifely loyalty. “He’s not a complete idiot, you know.”
“Oh yes, Audley’s clever enough, as men go”—Diana’s tone indicated that she had her doubts as to the extent that any man could, in fact, be considered clever—“but they’re all the same. None of them question anything too terribly much. It’s why in any real marriage the woman should pull all the strings.”
“I pity your next husband,” a voice sounded from the doorway. Startled, Violet turned in her seat, only to relax upon realizing that it was Penvale, leaning against the doorjamb. “I showed myself in,” he said, pushing himself upward. At that moment, a maid bearing a heavily laden tea tray appeared behind him; he relieved her of her burden with a wink and a smile, making her blush and giggle as she bobbed a curtsey and departed.
“Really, Penvale,” Diana said as he carefully set the tray down on the table before her. “Please don’t send yet another one of my maids into a tizzy, you’ll put her off her work.”
Ignoring her, as he frequently did, her brother flung himself into a chair, then leaned forward to select a scone. “What’s this about, then?” he asked after swallowing his first mouthful.
Diana, who had busied herself pouring cups of tea for them, didn’t look up as she spoke. “Violet’s concerned that Audley knows she’s bamming him.”
Violet, who had expected a denial from Penvale, instead merely received a snort of laughter. “Of course he does,” he said.
“What?” Diana asked, freezing in the act of handing a cup of tea to Violet. “What on earth do you mean?”
“I mean,” Penvale said, speaking with exaggerated slowness, “that Audley isn’t a complete idiot, and he’s perfectly capable of recognizing when he’d being lied to by his own wife.” Penvale’s tone wasn’t reproachful, but Violet couldn’t help stiffening all the same.
“When did he realize?” she asked.
“He recognized Belfry,” Penvale said wearily, taking another hearty bite of scone, “as he was leaving your house that day.” He cast a wry glance at his sister. “I realize you might find all this difficult to believe, given his man-size intellect.”
Violet slumped in her chair. “I knew it,” she said, feeling glum. She ought to feel relieved, she supposed, that she didn’t have to attempt that ridiculous cough anymore, and yet instead she felt oddly bereft. It had been rather nice to have an excuse to speak with James, even if much of their conversation over the course of the past week had involved arguing.
And kissing.
Her lips tingled at the memory of the feeling of his mouth on hers, and she resisted the urge to press her hands to them with great effort. She felt rather irked with her traitorous body for choosing that precise moment to relive the scene in James’s study, when she was so terribly annoyed with the man in question.
And yet, here she was.
“How did you realize?” Penvale asked curiously, having finished his scone and now redirecting his attention to the cup of tea his sister had handed him.
“He summoned my mother to nurse me back to health,” Violet said darkly. “The man knows full well that ten minutes in her company is likely to force me to take to my bed, not cure me. And then there was that ridiculous scene in Hyde Park yesterday afternoon with Willingham and Lady Fitzwilliam,” she said dismissively. “Absurd.”
“I gather he and Jeremy quarreled about it.”
“As well they might,” Violet said severely. “It was frightful.”
“Lady Wheezle was telling some sort of outlandish tale along those lines at Lady Markham’s dinner party last night,” Diana said. “The behavior she described sounded so wildly out of character for Audley that I didn’t believe a word of it, and said as much to the entire table.” She paused, heaving a dramatic sigh. “She probably won’t invite me to her Venetian breakfast this year, but that seems a fair price to pay. Odious woman.”
“She unfortunately more or less has the right of it,” Violet said, turning to her. “James and I went riding yesterday. We encountered Jeremy and Lady Fitzwilliam Bridewell whilst we were out, and James made a cake of himself assuring the lady that he was at her… service, should she ever require it.”
Diana’s mouth fell open. “That bounder!”
“Quite.” Violet took a sip of tea. “It was so out of character for him that I felt certain that he was doing it merely to irk me. Penvale has simply confirmed my suppositions.”
“So you’re speaking to him now?” Penvale asked hopefully, in the tones of a schoolboy who has been told that a particularly nasty assignment has been canceled.
“I most certainly am not,” Violet announced, hoping that she did not blush and give herself away. Speaking—only as was necessary. Engaging in passionate embraces—well, rather. “I did give him a piece of my mind this morning before I left the house, though, I assure you.”
“As well you should have,” Diana said encouragingly.
“And now you shall leave all this in the past and carry on as normal?” Penvale asked, ever the optimist.
“Hmm,” Violet said, tapping her chin, pretending to consider it. “No, I think not. I’ve a better idea.”
* * *
Lady Fitzwilliam Bridewell lived in a large house not far from Diana’s. Although her late husband had only been a second son, her dowry had evidently been sufficient to keep them in lavish style, and to ensure her comfort after his death. Violet had lingered at Diana’s for the rest of the morning, eating a meal with her after midday before finally departing in her carriage for her next social call. Upon arriving at Lady Fitzwilliam’s, she was led by the butler into a small drawing room, where she sat, rather uncomfortably, on a well-upholstered armchair. What had seemed like a clever move in Diana’s solarium now seemed a bit foolish.
Before she had further time to reconsider, however, the lady of the house appeared in the doorway. She was dressed simply in a gray afternoon gown—Violet knew that she was out of mourning, but this looked like one of her frocks from the months of half mourning that had concluded that period. Her golden hair was pulled back from her face into a simple knot at the nape of her neck, and her features bore an expression of polite curiosity.
“Lady James,” Lady Fitzwilliam said, walking into the room. “What an unexpected pleasure.” Her tone was wary, as well it might be—Violet had never spoken to her outside of a ballroom before, barring their meeting of the previous day, and she knew that for her to call upon Lady Fitzwilliam in her own home was curious indeed.
“Please, call me Violet,” Violet said, abandoning all etiquette as she stood. Her mother would have fainted at this breach of propriety—but then, Lady Worthington tended to swoon at the slightest provocation. Violet secretly suspected that she laced her corsets tighter to ensure said swooning—though, valuing her life (or at least her ears), she had of course never voiced her suspicion to her mother.
“Then you must call me Sophie,” was the reply, and Lady Fitzwilli
am—Sophie—crossed the room to take Violet’s hand and squeeze it lightly, seemingly unfazed by how highly irregular everything about this was. “Would you care for some tea?”
“No, thank you,” Violet said, resuming her seat.
Sophie cast a quick glance around the room, as though reassuring herself that they were alone, then said, “Something stronger, perhaps? I’ve some brandy stowed away for special circumstances—and I rather suspect that this is going to be one.”
Violet realized in an instant why West had been so taken with Sophie Wexham. On the surface, she was all that was prim and proper—her hair pulled neatly back, her trim figure clothed in an entirely appropriate gown—but there was clearly more to her that lurked just beneath the surface, and Violet found herself rather intrigued by what, precisely, that more might be.
“Yes, I think that might be just the thing,” she said by way of reply, and Sophie shot her a pleased smile, rather as if she had sized Violet up correctly.
Sophie hastened to a sideboard and opened a cabinet, removing a decanter half full of brandy and two crystal tumblers. She poured a couple of fingers of brandy into each glass.
“Cheers,” she said, offering Violet a glass.
“Cheers.” Violet raised it in reply. She took a sip.
“So,” Sophie said, selecting the armchair closest to Violet’s own, “I presume you’re here to discuss our meeting in the park yesterday.” Her brown gaze was direct, holding Violet’s own without blinking.
“I am, yes,” Violet said. She paused, momentarily uncertain—she wasn’t at all sure how to phrase her request. Being at a loss for words was not a condition she was terribly accustomed to. “I presume you are somewhat familiar with the rumors surrounding my marriage.”
Sophie’s mouth quirked up slightly. “I’ve heard some whisperings that you and Lord James are not as close as you once were.”
“My husband and I married for love, but we were very young,” Violet said bluntly. “We have discovered that we did not suit so well as we thought.”
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