“What are you doing?” She pushed at his chest, but he was blocking the only exit.
“My apologies, Violet,” he said with a brilliant grin. “It was a subterfuge from you.”
“What?”
“Surprise!” He beamed at her. “I’m taking you to the seashore.”
“I don’t want to go to the sea! I’m giving a lecture tonight. I have to practice!”
A steam whistle sounded; the train jerked forward.
“No,” Sebastian said. “You don’t. I’ve heard you deliver your lecture pitch-perfect four times already. Five, six—it doesn’t matter how many more times you do it. All you’re going to do is work yourself up.”
The steam whistle sounded again; the train was gaining momentum, shifting from side to side as it sped down the tracks.
Violet folded her arms. “Easy for you to say. You’ve given a hundred lectures. I haven’t.”
“Yes, you have. Every one I gave, you were there, watching me, knowing each word I said before it would leave my mouth.”
She huffed. “That hardly counts. They weren’t looking at me.”
He bit his lip and looked away. “Very well, then. My motives are entirely selfish. Until this moment, I’ve been the only one who has known what you’re capable of. By the end of tonight, everyone will. Is it so wrong of me to want to spend these last hours with you?”
“Oh.” She paused.
He was giving her his most hopeful look—so innocent and yearning at the same time that even she could not be so hard-hearted as to refuse.
“I suppose,” she started to say grudgingly, but then she caught a triumphant flicker in his eye.
“No! You cad!” She shoved him, but she couldn’t help smiling. “I almost believed you.” She held up two fingers. “This close. You almost had me with that oh, pity me, poor Sebastian routine. You weren’t thinking of anything so maudlin.”
“True,” he admitted. “I just wanted to make you smile. You’re working yourself into a state.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“True. But your mother is collecting your exhibits as we speak. You have nothing to worry about. You’re going to be brilliant.”
She tried to give him a really good glare. “You absconded with me. We’re on a moving train to—where are we going, anyway?”
“King’s Lynn. We’ll catch the early afternoon train to Cambridge and arrive with hours to spare.”
“I don’t have my notes with me,” she offered feebly. “How am I supposed to look over them?”
“If you really want, we’ll be changing trains in Cambridge anyway. You can always get off there and wait for your mother, who should be along half an hour later. You can go and sit in our house and make yourself sick with worry. Or…” He let the pause stretch and then gave her a wink. “Or you can pretend I gave you no choice at all. You can walk along the docks and breathe the sea air and enjoy yourself, muttering the entire time that it’s all my fault.”
Violet gave him a level gaze. “It is all your fault,” she told him severely. “If I so much as crack one smile, the guilt will be on your head.”
He grinned back and then—very suddenly—stopped smiling. He patted his coat pockets, once, twice, then checked his waistcoat pocket, his trousers. His face turned carefully blank.
“Is there some sort of problem?” Violet asked.
“Let’s play a game,” Sebastian said. His voice was a little too calm, his tone too measured. “It’s a guessing game called—did Sebastian remember to bring the return tickets?”
For just one second, Violet almost fell into his trap—running through a swift calculation of how much those tickets must have cost, estimating the meager value of the coins she’d brought with her.
Then she glared at him. “Very droll.”
“You’re no fun.” He frowned at her. “How did you know?”
She shrugged. “You only pretend to be absentminded,” she said, “but it’s obvious that you planned this to the inch. You’d never have made so ridiculous a mistake.”
SEBASTIAN MADE HER LAUGH four times. She smiled every hour—while they climbed to the top of a tower and looked out over the sea, while they clambered down and walked along the docks, watching the masts of the vessels roll up and down with the ocean. Every minute of her happiness felt like a victory that he’d won.
And, as she was the one to institute the no-science rule—he who mentions science must purchase ices for both parties—he suspected that she’d enjoyed herself, too.
The no-science rule was broken twice, both times with deliberate intent. Once had been an argument over whether seagulls inherited begging behaviors or learned them, a debate that became increasingly ridiculous as they walked along the beach and devised potential experiments for the unsuspecting birds. Luckily for the gulls, neither of them had any desire to perform their experiments, so they purchased ices instead.
The second time was when they passed the ice shop again on their way back to the station. Violet eyed the board listing the flavors as they walked past, and then deliberately asked him whether he thought ice was an admixture or an emulsion before it was frozen.
On the return trip, after the ices had been consumed, her smile faded, giving way to furrowed brows and a look of intense concentration. He didn’t disturb her; he didn’t dare. He conveyed her to her home in Cambridge and left for his own house.
His mood grew solemn. He’d not wanted to think of what might happen. But he didn’t know how people would respond to the coming revelation. He hoped for the best; he feared the worst. If the crowd took this revelation badly, who knew what Violet might be exposed to? He wouldn’t be able to protect her from that, and a little trip to the sea wouldn’t cure that harm.
It was in that somber mood that he set off for the hall. It was summer, and so still light out despite the fact that it was almost eight in the evening. He didn’t arrive at the hall with Violet; he came alone.
The crowds were out in force. It had been years since he’d spoken to even a partially-empty room, and with the way this evening had been advertised, tonight was no exception. There were already over a hundred people outside the lecture hall bearing placards.
Down with Malheur.
God, not evolution.
There were also his supporters. We’re with Malheur proclaimed a large banner carried by a group of Cambridge students.
Sebastian stepped from his coach, and the crowds roared at him.
“Thank you, thank you!” He bowed, tipping his hat with a flourish.
“Miscreant!” a woman shouted, hurling a turnip in his direction. It sailed a good twenty feet, landing on the cobblestones just before him, bouncing once, twice, before rolling the last few inches to tap his shoe.
Sebastian motioned back to his coach. He’d come prepared for this. A footman came and set a barrel on the ground.
“I see many of you have come armed with vegetables,” Sebastian shouted out. “You’ve no doubt heard of my initiative—save your soul, save the poor.”
This brought blank stares.
“If you’ll be so good as to deposit your food in this barrel,” Sebastian informed them, “we’ll see it distributed to the parish poor.”
A potato sailed out of the crowd directly toward his head. Sebastian extended his arm and caught the offending root vegetable before it struck him.
“Precisely like that!” He dropped it in the barrel. “Thank you for your generous contribution.”
“What? What is he saying?” a woman cried.
“But of course, you don’t need my thanks,” Sebastian said. “You’re only doing what every good Christian does—feeding the poor and the hungry.”
He inclined his head once more and then, before they started up again, strode into the lecture hall.
Violet came in a few minutes later. She didn’t look at him; she and her mother were linked arm in arm. Still, he winked in her direction and marched up to the front.
“Jam
eson,” he said to the white-haired botanist at the front. “You’re doing the introductions today, I presume?”
“Indeed, sir. Will you be wanting the usual?”
“Actually, I thought I’d do the introduction myself.” Sebastian did his best to smile charmingly.
Jameson frowned. “Introduce yourself? That’s…not done. Just not done, sir.”
“Well, then.” Sebastian sighed.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Robert enter the room. He was alone; Minnie didn’t like crowds, and if he remembered correctly, she’d had a bad experience at one of his lectures. Oliver and Jane followed; they’d brought Free with them. They flanked Violet and her mother, sitting in an easy group, smiling with one another.
“Maybe,” Sebastian said, “you might consider a very minimal introduction. Everyone here already knows me. One or two sentences, if you will.”
“Very well, sir.”
After that, there was nothing to do but wait. Wait while the seats filled in. Wait while the clock ticked closer and closer to eight in the evening. Wait a few seconds after that, until the doors closed and the ushers nodded to Jameson that the last stragglers had found their seats.
Jameson shuffled up to the front.
“Tonight’s lecture will be given by Mr. Sebastian Malheur. He needs no introduction, as his discoveries regarding the science of inheritance are known by all. I give you Mr. Malheur.”
Sebastian stood and looked out over the sea of faces. Some were familiar; others he’d never seen before. His lectures had always felt like a secret joke, one that only he and Violet understood. Tonight he felt a sense of gravity, as if his entire life had contracted to a pinpoint. Every one of his jokes had brought him here: onto a stage in front of the entire world, about to announce the truth.
He took a deep breath. His task was easy. All he had to do was point to Violet, and then watch her shine.
He felt as if all his life had brought him to this moment. One sentence from him, and everything would change. He took a deep breath and began.
“This isn’t Mr. Jameson’s fault,” he said in carrying tones, “but every word of that introduction was false. I will not be giving tonight’s lecture.”
A surprised murmur rippled through the crowd.
“I have never made any discoveries about the inheritance of traits, except a trifling piece I presented a short while ago regarding violas. And I am here today for one reason only: to introduce you to the person whom you should have known before now.”
He couldn’t look at Violet, not as he said those words. But he sensed her in the front row. He felt her unease and her hope as keenly as if those emotions were his own. The crowd had gone utterly silent in disbelief.
“I have been given the credit for the work I’ve presented thus far,” he said, “but in fact, my role has been more of a helper, if you will. So let me introduce the individual giving tonight’s lecture. This person did all the research for the work I presented, had the brilliant insights underlying every word I have ever spoken. Excepting, of course, the improper ones.” He grinned. “Those were mine.”
He did look at Violet then. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open. He smiled at her—he couldn’t help himself—and looked up at the rest of the crowd.
“I give you Violet Waterfield, the Countess of Cambury. Her ladyship will be—”
A rumble swept over the crowd, a thousand murmurs of surprise and disbelief.
“Is this a joke?” someone called from the side.
They’d know it was serious soon enough. The moment she started speaking, they’d recognize her mastery.
“Her ladyship,” Sebastian shouted into the din, “will be lecturing on her latest discovery, which, you will soon see, is her most exciting to date.”
For a second, he thought Violet was going to be ill. She sat in her seat breathing hard, looking down. But then Jane, seated beside her, squeezed her hand. Violet’s mother patted her knee. Violet took a deep breath. The greenish cast left her face and she rose to her feet.
She glided to the front, turned, and…
And she smiled. She smiled as only Sebastian had ever seen her smile before, a smile that filled the room, fierce and powerful.
This is not a joke, that smile said. You will have to deal with me on my own terms, from here on out.
Sebastian had never felt so proud. He stole to the seat she had vacated, sliding between Jane and Violet’s mother.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Violet said. “Today, I give you the chromosome.”
Until this moment, only Sebastian had seen this side of her—the side without sharp prickles, the side that was nothing but sheer exuberance. Damn anyone who said that she wasn’t beautiful. She was now.
“You don’t know what a chromosome is—yet.” She beamed at the crowd. “But you will. Let me start with the work of my colleagues. Mr. Malheur is one, and he has sold his contributions rather short. I could not have managed this work without his lengthy and comprehensive work on violas, as you shall see. I must also give equal credit to Bollingall here at Cambridge, whose work was vital.”
She left off any other designation, which Sebastian suspected was a deliberate choice. She had spent hours talking the matter over with Mrs. Bollingall.
And then she was off. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t flinch. And even though Sebastian was aware of a couple whispering behind him—whining, in truth, because apparently Violet giving the lecture rather than Sebastian had upset some ridiculous plan of theirs—he had eyes only for Violet. She was utterly incandescent.
He noticed the gentleman behind him only when the man stood and left twenty minutes in—a deeply boorish choice.
Violet did not falter despite that rudeness. He was fairly certain she didn’t even notice it.
By the time she started showing the enlarged sketches they’d made of Alice Bollingall’s photographs, the murmurs had nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with her work. When she brought the talk to its triumphant conclusion, Sebastian was not the only one on his feet, shouting and stamping.
He barely registered that the gentleman who had left earlier had come to stand near him.
Jameson eventually waved the crowd to silence. They subsided reluctantly into their chairs—all but that one gentleman, who remained standing. Sebastian cast him a glance. He held a paper in his hand, and sported a ridiculous set of mustachios.
“This has been most illuminating, I’m sure,” he said. “And I’m sure we all have years’ worth of questions. But the schedule allots only twenty minutes. And so, gentlemen…”
He frowned and glanced at Violet, and then shook his head in confusion.
“…And, uh, ladies. If you might…”
The mustachioed gentleman stepped forward. “There will be no questions,” he said in a booming voice.
Jameson frowned. “Who are you?”
“I am John Williams, third constable for Cambridge.” He held out a paper with a flourish. “And based on the activities seen tonight, I have obtained a warrant from the magistrate.”
“A warrant?” Jameson stepped forward; Violet stepped back.
“A warrant,” the man said. “For the arrest of one Violet Waterfield, on charges of inciting a riot, uttering lewd and lascivious statements in a public place, and disturbing the peace.”
Chapter Twenty-three
THE CROWD SWALLOWED VIOLET and the constable like an amoeba extending its pseudopods around a morsel of food.
An amoeba, Violet thought feverishly. A thingy-blobby. Thingy-blobbies had brought her here, and now thingy-blobbies were bearing her away. She was aware that she was not quite in her right mind.
They moved en masse to the magistrate’s court a few streets down.
In the press of those who surrounded her, she couldn’t see any of the people who mattered—not Sebastian, not her mother, not any of her friends. She still hadn’t quite wrapped her mind around what had happened.
She recognized th
e constable. It was William—he with the high-pitched, whining spouse—and he’d no doubt been looking for an opportunity to do this for ages.
“I’m a countess,” she whispered to him as they brought her before the bench. “I’ll have your badge for this.”
He regarded her with lazy intent. “I had to nip out to adjust the warrant,” he finally said. “I had planned to bring Malheur in, but you’ll do instead. I’ve had enough of these disturbances. If this ungodly work is yours, I hope you enjoy being branded a criminal.”
He’d even managed to muster three magistrates; they faced her, solemn in dark robes and white wigs.
Before the proceedings could start, Violet’s mother came to the front.
“Your Worships,” she said, “you have no power to hold my daughter. The warrant is sworn for Violet Waterfield, but your constable neglected to inform you that she is the Countess of Cambury. As a peeress, she can be charged with a felony only in the House of Lords.”
The magistrates looked at one another in sudden doubt.
“God,” one muttered, audible to Violet’s ears. “What a mess.”
“Is her husband present?” asked another.
“He is deceased.”
“So she’s a dowager countess, then?” He frowned.
“No,” Violet’s mother said. “The new Earl of Cambury is eleven years old.”
There was another frown. One of the magistrates rubbed his forehead. “Do the privileges of peerage accrue to peeresses whose husbands predecease them?”
“How should I know?” the other magistrate replied. “We’ve never charged a peeress before.”
White wigs bowed together in a hushed conference.
When they broke apart, the one in the middle banged his gavel sharply. “This court will adjourn until the morning,” he said, “in order to determine which body this matter must be brought before.” He looked over at Violet. “Your ladyship, I trust that we can be assured of your presence on the morrow?”
“Of course.” Violet held her head high. “I shall be here.”
“Then so shall we. Court is adjourned until tomorrow at nine in the morning.”
The Countess Conspiracy Page 25