With that in mind, she tightened the belt on her dressing gown and marched down the corridor to Mother’s suite of rooms. She would find out in no uncertain terms if Lord Ware was the man her parents intended she marry. If he was, then she would figure a way out of it on her own.
There was no light coming from beneath the door. Perhaps she was still talking with Papa. Violet hurried down the stairs and to the drawing room. The door was cracked open, and light spilled out over the rug. The murmur of Mother’s voice, followed by Papa’s, had Violet slowing to a stop before they could see her. Checking that the hall was deserted, she leaned in to listen.
“You worry too much, Griswold,” said Mother. “Violet is the good one. She is placid and well-mannered. She will come to see that Lord Ware is the best choice. She trusts us.”
“I know you are right, my dear. I suppose I’m simply feeling softhearted. She isn’t even twenty, and she’ll be leaving us. First August, and now Violet who will be left here all alone.”
“She’ll hardly be alone. August will be near, and with the new office in London, we can stay here for months out of the year if we want.”
Whatever Papa answered was lost to the roaring in Violet’s ears. This was really happening. The marriage plan was starting all over again, and they had chosen Ware. She shouldn’t be surprised. Not one bit. And yet, she had hoped . . .
Turning, she hurried as quickly as she dared back toward the stairs. She was in no state to talk with her parents about this tonight. She was too upset, and anger never led to good decisions. As she passed the table with the silver tray that held their daily correspondence, her name written in a bold hand caught her eye. The letter must have arrived in the hubbub of preparing for the ball earlier in the day. Her hand visibly shook as she picked it up. A quick glance at the return address confirmed what she had already known; it was from the publisher in New York.
Rejection or acceptance?
She swiped the missive as if it were a secret letter and hid it in her skirts as she hurried up the stairs. The last thing she wanted to do was share this letter until she’d had time to absorb the contents. Locking her bedroom door behind her, she settled herself on the bed. The long-awaited letter trembled in Violet’s hand, and a portentous chill swept over her skin. Once again, her future awaited in a letter. Taking a deep breath, she tore into it, her gaze skimming over the words haphazardly, reading it in discombobulated phrases.
Thank you for your submission.
. . . interesting and revealing . . .
We regret to inform you . . .
. . . readers prefer serious and prudent topics . . .
. . . writing shows promise . . .
. . . consider submitting a manual regarding women’s interests . . .
They didn’t want her book. The paper slipped from her fingers and floated lightly to the floor. Unlike Teddy’s rejection, this one cut her deeply. Perhaps it was because they were rejecting not only her manuscript, but who she was. They wanted her to write books about etiquette or dinner parties. Nothing serious. Nothing real. Nothing that mattered to her.
Her parents wanted her to host dinner parties and show Mrs. Astor that they were very much worthy of her guest list. Again, nothing serious or real. If they had their way, she would live her life as an ornament. She would be pretty and mild and never utter a word that would cause anyone the slightest discontent.
For the past few years, she had suffered under the illusion that both were possible. That she could somehow be what they wanted while also holding on to the thread of who she was. But an impasse was ahead. She could choose herself, or she could lose herself completely. Both were not possible.
* * *
• • •
The next day dawned dark and dreary, pushing the afternoon garden party that had been planned indoors. Violet had to fight to find any sort of enthusiasm for the gathering. With the exception of a few guests, it was an entirely different set of mothers and daughters than those who had attended the small gathering Mother had held two days prior. Now that the news of August and Rothschild’s romantic escape had begun to leak, the Crenshaws were more popular than ever, and Mother couldn’t have been more pleased. Violet, however, simply wanted to be left to wallow in the ache of rejection.
Had the manuscript been badly written, or had it been rejected because she was a silly woman who couldn’t possibly write anything of interest? Had the subject matter been too provocative? A lighthearted look at the eccentricities of New York’s elite could be problematic, but Violet had kept it witty and good-natured in the hopes of overcoming that. Apparently, she had failed. Perhaps Mrs. Graham had only been exceedingly polite in encouraging her writing. She had been paid well by Papa to tutor both Violet and August. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that she might have exaggerated her enthusiasm. But August had read Violet’s work, and she wouldn’t lie to her . . . would she?
These questions and more plagued her throughout the afternoon. By the time everyone had gathered in the entrance hall to pull on capes and gloves, she was ready to spend a few precious hours alone in her room in the company of Jane Eyre.
“It was lovely to see you again,” said Lady Alfred.
Violet shook herself from her reverie and made her smile especially bright. “And you as well. I look forward to seeing you again at the Worthingtons’ ball.”
The woman nodded, already turning her attention to Mother, when her daughter, Lady Beatrice, screeched, “My pin!” She patted her chest in a display of dramatics as she searched for it. “I have lost it!” Lady Beatrice had made a point of showing everyone the gold-encrusted emerald she had recently inherited from her grandmother. It had likely been left in the drawing room, having been neglected after being passed around.
“I’ll go find it for you.” Violet was quick to volunteer before Mother could call out to a footman. Perhaps by the time she returned the crowd would have thinned and she would be spared an endless round of pleasantries.
She stepped into the drawing room and pulled the door behind her for a moment of welcome silence. The emerald bauble winked from its abandoned position on a table across the room. Retrieving it, she sank down onto a sofa and closed her eyes, happy for a moment alone. The headache she had awoken with thanks to her tears and fitful sleep the night before was pounding behind her eyes, but it seemed to lessen each time the front door opened and closed as another visitor left. Perhaps she would plead a headache tonight and forgo the theater outing her parents had planned. It would give her time to think of what to do next.
“Good afternoon, Miss Crenshaw.”
Her eyes flew open at the sound of the male voice. Lord Ware stood before her. She noticed immediately that he was between her and the closed door. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled pleasantly. “I arrived a little before your party ended. Mrs. Crenshaw had the footman show me to the salon.” He indicated the open door leading to the adjoining salon.
Mother hadn’t said a word about his arrival, but they’d had guests. Anger threaded with a tiny bit of fear churned within her as she rose to her feet. He didn’t appear threatening, but she didn’t like the fact that she was alone with him. He knew that it was improper, and yet he had approached her. Was Lord Leigh right? Was Lord Ware planning something inappropriate?
She almost forced a smile, but then she stopped herself. Why force it? She didn’t particularly like him, and it would be prudent that he knew it. Some instincts were difficult to deny, but not this one. Narrowing her gaze at him, she said, “You should return to the salon. I’ll be with you as soon as I see my guests out.”
He stiffened in surprise, but he didn’t move. “Actually, I am happy to have a moment alone. Without your mother. There’s something I want to speak with you about.”
Surely not a marriage proposal. She edged away. “What would that be?”
; “Your behavior last night was very naughty, Miss Crenshaw. Lady Helena said that you were with her, but I saw you leave alone. A lady should not be unescorted at a ball, especially in untraversed parts of a house.”
“Well, I am hardly a lady,” she snapped. It was terrible of her, but she couldn’t stand the idea of being berated by the likes of him. The cut of his gaze scraped along her jaw and down to her bosom, making her long to cross her arms over her chest to hide herself from him.
“No, not yet, perhaps,” he said. “But you will be.”
There was such dark promise in those words that a chill whispered down her spine. Last night, Hereford had been so cold with Camille, his words like ice. She had no doubt that similar behavior would be in store for her if Lord Ware was her future.
“And how is that?” she asked.
He gave her a bland smile. “I understand that you were brought up in a different way, but we do things otherwise here. There are . . . tutors, if you will, women we can hire to make certain you learn what you need to know.”
It sounded as if he intended to give her etiquette lessons and comportment tutors. Her heart pounded so hard that she could hear it in her ears. On a whim she said, “You should know that I intend to pursue a career as a writer.” There. He couldn’t tutor that out of her.
He laughed, but it lacked warmth. “There will be plenty of time to discuss the future, when it comes to it.”
“But there will be no future without my writing. I want to be clear on that.” She watched his Adam’s apple drop as he swallowed. If she could make him understand that, then perhaps he would take his interest elsewhere.
“Respectable ladies do not participate in a trade. Ladies may indulge in hobbies, of course, but they always, before anything else, conduct themselves respectfully.”
“And what happens when I am less than respectful?”
The corner of his mouth pinched as if the very idea of it caused him some sort of pain. “Then you will be corrected, until you understand your error. But never fear, Miss Crenshaw, you are intelligent for a woman. I have no doubts in your ability to catch on quickly.”
Her stomach dropped as she imagined this conversation playing out ad nauseam in the years to come. In that moment, the only thing she knew for certain was that she would never marry Lord Ware or anyone like him. She shook her head. “Then I am afraid there is no need to continue our relationship. I will not give up my aspirations.”
The pleasant mask slipped, and his eyes hardened. “You have been promised to me.”
She tightened her grip on the pin so hard that it unfastened and gouged her palm. Startled, she glanced down at the tiny pinhole of blood. The red shone bright against the white of her palm. In that moment, that’s how she felt. A tiny bloom of insurrection in the midst of conformity. What hope did she have of escaping?
Lord Ware clucked his tongue. “You have injured yourself. Let me help.” He stepped forward, but she moved away, Lord Leigh’s warning from the night before prominent in her mind.
“That isn’t true. My parents would have told me—” She stopped talking abruptly because his smile was back, but it was menacing now, or perhaps that was only her perception.
Shaking his head, he said, “Our future has already been decided. The contract is finished. You are mine for all intents and purposes. I had hoped to wait a little longer to tell you.” He shrugged and reached for her.
She was too stunned to dodge him. As his hand closed over her shoulder, her gaze went to the door where voices were coming closer. He heard them, too. He turned his head toward the sound, and his free hand closed on her other shoulder, pulling her against him. When his gaze met hers, she saw anticipation tinged with triumph as he tried to kiss her. He meant for them to be found. He meant to take all of her choices away.
Hot anger swept through her. Before she could even consider what she was doing, she stomped on his foot. He yelped and loosened his grip so that she was able to swing out of his grasp. Without looking back, she ran to the salon door, slipping through as the drawing room door opened. Hurrying through the empty salon, she made her way to the hall and front entry to find it deserted save for the footman stationed at the door. Composing herself and noting her flushed cheeks in a hallway mirror, she hurried to the drawing room to see Mother, Lady Alfred, and Lady Beatrice speaking with Lord Ware. He seemed unaffected except for a swath of red sitting high on his cheekbones.
“Here!” Violet kept her voice light and held the pin aloft as she floated into the room. “It led me on a merry chase, but I found your grandmother’s pin.”
Lady Beatrice squealed with delight and hurried over to retrieve the pin. Lady Alfred offered her appreciation, and Mother said, “Look who has paid a call. Lord Ware. Aren’t we so pleased to see him?”
Violet managed a benign nod, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at the man again. She could feel his gaze boring into her. The next several minutes passed in a blur as she walked the mother and daughter to the door and bid them goodbye. Lord Ware had stayed in the drawing room with Mother. When the door closed behind the duo, Violet eyed the stairs with longing, but before she could decide if she could chance hiding in her room, Mother emerged.
“Come join us, Violet.”
Stiffening her spine, Violet said, “I have a headache, Mother. I think I should lie down.”
“And leave our guest?” Shaking her head, she closed the distance between them and lowered her voice. “I don’t have to tell you that Lord Ware has come to see you, not me.”
“I am aware of that, Mother,” Violet said between clenched teeth. “I do not wish to see him.”
“Why not?” Brows close together, Mother put her fists on her hips. “I say, Violet, you have been short with him ever since he expressed the slightest interest in you. It’s a wonder he wants to court you at all.”
“I wish he wouldn’t. Do you know that he accosted me in the drawing room? He grabbed me, and I think his intention was for us to be found together. You know what that would have done to my reputation.”
Mother shook her head. “You seem unharmed to me, and the man is fairly besotted with you. Anyone can see that.”
As if that excused his poor behavior. The man was willing to ruin her to get what he wanted. The fact that she wanted something else wasn’t even a consideration to him. What made it worse was that her own mother supported him over her. Violet didn’t know what to do with that. She felt lost and alone. “I do not trust him, Mother. He has made it clear that his intention is marriage.”
“And that’s a bad thing? Violet, Lord Ware would be a fine husband. You make it sound as if he plans to compromise you and leave you ruined. His intention is marriage; that makes his purposes honorable.”
Violet stared at her mother. The woman appeared so perfectly reasonable in her earnestness that Violet had a vague attack of self-doubt. Was she overreacting?
No. She wasn’t. He had wanted to force her hand without regard to her feelings on the matter. That was unforgivable. The fact that her mother didn’t agree was heartbreaking. Swallowing against the lump that had risen in her throat, Violet said, “I have to go lie down, Mother. I really do feel unwell.”
The frustration on her mother’s face changed to concern as Violet raised a hand to her aching head. Her mother didn’t want to relent—the battle of care versus pressing her case for Lord Ware waged clearly on her face—but she finally nodded. “Go lie down. I will express your regrets to Lord Ware.”
The pounding in Violet’s head was nearly unbearable as she hurried to her room. She had to run away. There was no other choice. It was now obvious that her parents would refuse to see any bad in Ware, and that Ware himself would do exactly what Lord Leigh had warned her he intended. What would have happened had she not been able to escape his grip this time? Lady Alfred would have seen them together. It was possible that Violet would have
escaped total scandal because they had only been alone for a few moments. However, now that she knew what Lord Ware was capable of, how long before he tried to maneuver it so that they were alone again?
She couldn’t risk it. She would die if she had to marry him, which meant she had to leave. Suddenly, her hastily thought out solution for Camille didn’t seem so outlandish. The Lake District boardinghouse would be her refuge for a few weeks, or until she could make her parents understand that she would not marry him under any circumstances.
Chapter 6
Lord Lucifer failed to realize he was being ensnared in a trap of his own design. A cynic rarely had a fair grasp on reality, though the same could be said for an ingénue.
V. Lennox, An American and the London Season
THE NEXT DAY
Montague Club took up nearly half a block on a pleasant street in Bloomsbury. The expansive white marble address had once served as the very lavish residence of the late Earl of Leigh’s mistress. While the earl had kept a home in Belgravia, rumors were that he had rarely resided there, preferring to live with his mistress and their three children—Christian’s half brother and half sisters—until an aneurysm had killed him at the age of forty-six. Sometimes Christian liked to have a scotch in the club’s lounge and imagine his father roaming the halls of his beloved home in a rage over what it had become. Most days, however, he tried not to think of him at all.
Today was not one of those days. Christian could hear the fool in the laugh of a drunken gambler upstairs and in the belligerent shout of the man standing across from him in the basement’s fighting ring—the dungeon, as it was known by most club members. It was where the club held its most important matches. Not the ones for sport, but the ones for money and notoriety.
The Devil and the Heiress Page 6