Her hand slipped off her stomach, settling at her side. “I was so young and you made me want more out of my life than what I thought I could reach for. More than what Uncle Demetrick would allow. I thought…” She shook her head, washing away whatever she was about to say. “But then you just left, Theo. Without a word. Without an explanation.”
Theo stiffened, his jawline setting hard. “You moved onward with haste, if I recall. Directly to Lord Vandestile. He was a fine match for a woman with your inheritance. He had the right bloodlines. The proper birth order.”
Her head slanted to the side, her dark blue eyes piercing him. Just as her lips opened to speak, a burly man pushing a wheelbarrow full of oats angled himself between her and the building behind her, brushing the back of her skirts. She jumped forward out of his way, her mouth clamping closed on whatever she was about to say. With a quick glance to Theo, she shook her head and turned, walking toward the coaching inn.
This time Theo was immediately step-in-step alongside her.
“You did not answer the question, Violet.” He motioned for her to step before him to pass by a cart piled with various hot pies. Next to her once more, he looked at her. “Will you be returning to London?”
She looked to him for a moment, and then her focus shifted forward to concentrate on the coaching inn a block away. “I did not want to get pulled into your world again, Theo, because I still cannot say no to you. And that fault of mine will only bring me woe. I did not want to get pulled into your world last night when you appeared at the Revelry’s Tempest asking for that credit, and I do not want it now. But I came for Adalia. I owe her everything, and I thought, in some odd way, this would help her. Help her with her worry over her sole surviving brother.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“I will stay true to my word. I will come to Glenhaven to see the mine.” She looked up at him. “But I cannot be near you if you insist on lying to me. If you insist on manipulating me. For I will not allow that any longer. Last night, you manipulated me into allowing that marker. This morning, you manipulated me into coming to Glenhaven.”
“I would not go so far as to say manipulated—”
“You manipulated me, Theo. You blatantly used your past, your scars against me. To play upon my sympathies. And I was the fool to buckle to it. So I will go to Glenhaven, see the new vein, and you will sign over a portion of the mine to me. Then we are to be done with one another.”
He shrugged. “If it is the only way.”
“It is. But heed my warning, if you think to lie to me, manipulate me again, I will leave immediately and find another way to raise the needed funds for the gala.”
“Your plan is sensible—except what if I ask you to stay longer?” A slight grin lifted his mouth. “It is by your own admission that you are unable to say no to me.”
Her jaw shifted to the side, an exasperated sigh groaning out of her mouth. She looked up at him. “I will find a way. Somehow, I will find a way.”
It was then he noticed it. The glint of steel in her eyes. The mettle so hardened within her, he had no doubt she would leave him behind without another thought.
He had suffered atrocities in the war. But what he saw in that moment in Violet was caused by a scar just as real, just as jagged as the visible one along his face.
He had been so consumed in the last eighteen hours about his own purgatory, he had not considered the possibility that Violet had her own demons to contend with.
What in the bloody depths of hell had happened to her?
{ Chapter 4 }
Her boots slipping every third step on the slick grass, Violet walked up the hillside toward the Alton family cemetery. The cold spring rain that had greeted them upon arriving at Glenhaven House had cleared overnight, and Violet had slept in far longer than she had intended.
She had forgotten how well she had always slept at Glenhaven when she was visiting Adalia. Her chambers were tasteful, but beyond that, the entire Palladian designed home with its sleek, symmetrical lines and imposing pediments was a warm cocoon against the wet cool of the midlands.
Whether it was because the place had held Adalia’s family and the joy that had surrounded them when they were young, or whether the architects of the original building had managed to design the building without drafts, she had always felt coddled there.
For two years after her parents had died, she had suffered a gaping hole in her life that had just grown larger and larger—and then she had met Adalia. Adalia and her three brothers had welcomed her into their home, and that gaping hole was filled—or at least covered—for a time.
Violet paused halfway up the hill. She could see Theo fully at this angle, not just his head as she could from the stables when she had gone looking for him. He stood as a stone, his head bent, staring at a grey marble gravestone standing up from the ground. Strands of his sandy blond hair fell forward, curling along his forehead. Her eyes traced the line of the scar along his cheek, dropping to the juncture of his ear and jawline. His chin was set hard—even with the distance between them she could see the unwavering steel line of it.
After a moment of debate if she should disturb him, she started up the remaining hillside. She needed to get on with the day, see whatever it was Theo was insisting upon showing her, and prepare for her return to London tomorrow. She could interrupt him for a mere moment, just to let him know of her intentions, and then she would leave him to his reverie.
As she crested the top edge of the hill, her eyes wandered over the gravestones and pointed obelisks. Twelve generations of the Altons were laid to rest here, since the era of the knights when the title and lands had been bestowed upon the first Earl of Alton.
Theo’s arm twitched, and she knew he recognized her presence, but he did not look up at her approaching footsteps. Five more steps to him, and she aligned herself next to him, turning to the gravestone before them.
The gasp escaped her lips before she could choke it back.
Theodore’s gravestone.
Beloved brother, uncle, friend.
Tears instantly swelled in her eyes.
He wasn’t staring at the stones of parents, or the stones of his brothers. Not Caldwell’s. Not Alfred’s.
His own.
His own gravesite.
Her look whipped up to Theo’s profile. His jaw flexed, nothing more.
“It is still here,” she whispered.
His ice blue eyes did not lift to her as he nodded, remaining fixed on the stone. He’d had more than two years to have the stone removed, yet there it sat.
Ready. Waiting for him.
What in the bloody depths of hell had happened to him?
Violet inhaled, the air loosening the clamp in her chest. “Why do you leave it?” Her soft words settled into the air, wispy.
Silent, his head shook slightly, the lump in his throat bobbing as he swallowed again and again.
A sudden primal—foreign—urge to wrap her arms around him, bury him to her chest and take away all of the pain she could feel vibrating from him surged in her gut. From where or why the urge manifested, she didn’t care to reason upon.
But she held back, accepting that she could only allow herself to lift her hand, the tips of her fingers lightly brushing the scar along his eye. “Is this not reminder enough?”
His head jerked away. Not far, but enough to distance his face from her fingers. “That is nothing compared to what others suffered.” His eyes closed. “I leave it because it is where I should be. That I lived…it was not as it should have been.”
Her look drifted to the stone. “Lots of things should have been, Theo. But they are not. Is a ‘should have’ a reason to keep it?”
He shrugged, his eyes opening to focus on his name etched deep into the grey marble. “They will need it eventually. Why go through the trouble of removing it?”
Violet’s head snapped backward, looking to him as she blinked hard. They will need it eventually?
&nb
sp; She stepped in front of him, putting herself between him and the cold stone, forcing him to look at her. “You are alive, Theo. That seems a logical reason enough for the trouble of removing it.”
His forehead tilting downward, his light blue eyes centered on her under raised eyebrows. He glared at her, a simmering explosion aching to happen.
Ten beats of her pounding heart passed, and without a word, Theo spun away from her, walking down the hillside.
She was not prepared for this—to learn Theo had one foot firmly in the grave just below her feet. She had thought him angry. Pouty. Flippant. A drunk. An irredeemable rake with no regard to those around him.
But not this.
In the next breath, she hurried down the hillside, sliding along the wet grass with every step. Sliding so much, she flew out of control just as she passed Theo. Her toe snagged on a fat stone and she slipped, falling onto her side. She managed to catch herself before the bodice of her riding habit hit the ground, her left kidskin glove sinking into the mush of the dirt.
Before her body stilled from the fall, a hand wrapped under her elbow, dragging her upright.
Once she had regained her feet, Theo released her. There was the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. The darkness tempered, if not dissolved.
“Do not make light.” She slapped her hands together, trying to smack away the mud that had coated her glove. “I never grew into the grace my mother had always hoped for me and I am still as horrifyingly clumsy as I always have been. It is why I belong locked away in a drawing room.”
His light blue eyes met hers, his stare piercing. “You have always belonged everywhere but in a drawing room, Vee.” The words came out of him, unexpected and so heated Violet forgot to breathe for long seconds.
He bent, breaking eye contact as he made a paltry swipe at the mud on her dark blue skirt, seemingly unsure if he should help her shake off the dirt. “Why did you come out here, Violet?”
Her clean right hand went down, joining his hands to swipe away at the dirt on her skirt. “I needed to find you as I had hoped we could dispense with the business of visiting the mine today.”
“In a hurry to see it and be on your way?” His hand paused above the bottom of her hem.
She was. But that was something that didn’t need to be said.
Standing straight, he nodded. “We will ride out to the mine now. It is a half hour to the east. Is your maid ready to accompany you?”
“Clarissa has been sick from the carriage ride—the motion of it, she believes.” Violet wrinkled her nose. “I assumed you could hear her retching. The smell in the carriage had me near to joining you on a horse yesterday and riding the rest of the way. If not for the rain, I would have done so.”
“Then I am glad I could sit a horse properly and avoid that. Shall I gather a maid? I do have one left in the house. I imagine she should have skill enough to ride. Or possibly Cook. She is the only other female at Glenhaven at the moment.”
“It is fine to go without a companion.” Violet flipped her fingers in the air. “I already feel guilty for the extra burden we are on the household.”
His right eyebrow cocked. “You are positive? I remember how protective you are of your reputation.”
She chuckled. “Then you also must remember how you convinced me time and again to dip my toes outside the bounds of propriety.” She smacked her hands together one last time and then gave up on removing the last of the dirt. “Truly, Theo, it is just a ride to the mine. We are in the country, and your staff does not seem to have the time to stoop to gossip of the household. As a widow now I find people care very little about my whereabouts and pursuits. I was not even particularly concerned about travelling here to Glenhaven with you. Becoming proprietress of the Revelry’s Tempest has inadvertently freed me from so many of the shackles of society.” Her eyebrow cocked as she looked at him. “Unless, of course, you have designs to not be on your finest behavior with me.”
“I swear to epitomize the utmost in gentlemanly behavior.” He inclined his head toward the stables. “Shall we?”
“Yes.” Violet started walking, digging the heels of her boots into the soft ground so she didn’t repeat her earlier slide.
They were halfway to the stables when a lone figure on a horse came thundering across the sheep field toward them, one hand high, waving at them.
Theo lifted his hand to his brow, staring at the approaching figure. “Who is that?”
She squinted. “Is that—Mr. Nullter?”
Theo looked at her. “Mr. Nullter? Is he still the Vandestile solicitor?”
Her eyes flickered off the maniacally waving man to look at Theo. “You don’t know?”
“I have not bothered to keep up on the happenings in the county.”
“Yes, he is—the last one left. He also took the position of steward at the Vandestile estate as well. I usually only deal with him through correspondence.” She looked back to the elderly man quickly approaching, riding far faster than one his age should. His horse leapt the low stone fence. “He is one of the few that stayed on after my husband’s death. Valiantly so, I might add.”
“Valiantly?” The word spit from Theo’s mouth, half a question, half a sarcastic statement.
Just as she was about to inquire at the derision in Theo’s voice, Mr. Nullter reached them.
“My lady, it is true, you are here. My lord.” Mr. Nullter yanked his horse to a stop, nodding to Theo as he quickly jumped from the saddle. “It is more than I could have hoped for.”
As agitated as he was, Violet had to keep her hands from reaching out and steadying the older man as he bounced with excitement. “Mr. Nullter, however did you learn I was here at Glenhaven?”
“The coaching inn at Northampton—Mrs. Bentworth was travelling from visiting her cousin in London, and she saw you leaving the coaching inn just as she arrived. She inquired as to your destination with the owner.” Mr. Nullter’s thin, weathered hands twisted the leather reins, his frenzy sending his words to speeding. “You are a sight for my old eyes, my lady. It has been far too long since you have been at the estate. I came directly when I heard you were here—I left before dawn, before Cook had breakfast ready—and with all that needs to be prepared, but that you are here is a sign that cannot be ignored, my lady.”
“Wait, Mr. Nullter, slow down,” Violet said. “What needs to be prepared? What has sent a wild rabbit under your hat?”
Confusion deepened the thick wrinkles on his face. “My lady, did you not receive my letter?”
She shook her head. “Letter?”
“The new viscount. He has finally made his way to England. There is a ball celebrating his arrival in two days, and you must attend, my lady.”
Her hand flew to her chest. “The new viscount has finally come? But it has been a year since they found him in America, and he appears now? Why? I thought he had no interest in the title.”
“I do not know the reasoning, my lady. He is an American, and they are a different sort, as I understand it. Regardless, he has finally accepted his birthright and is travelling to Vandestile Manor as we speak.”
A swath of relief swept through Violet. Relief she had longed for, ever since her husband had died nearly three long years past. “That is excellent news, Mr. Nullter. You will not need to suffer my inept interference in the estate any longer.”
“Inept? No, no, my lady. We both know that is a humility you should not own for what you have suffered—and for what you have managed since his lordship’s death.” Mr. Nullter’s free arm swung a wide arc in the air. “But no, we will not dwell in the past. Everyone you know will be at the ball, my lady—they have already started to arrive. That you are here in the area—well, you must come. It is a wonder it happened so. It is your duty as Lady Vandestile to meet the man. To welcome him as the new viscount.”
Violet swallowed a groan. Her life had been haunted for too long by her “duty” to the Vandestile title. She set her sweetest smile onto her lips. “
While I would thoroughly enjoy the honor of meeting this American, Mr. Nullter, I am afraid I am due to leave back to London tomorrow. You will give the new viscount my best wishes?”
Mr. Nullter’s wiry white eyebrows crinkled. “You came to Derbyshire without intention to stop at Vandestile Manor?” He shook his head. “But you must meet the man, my lady. It is only proper.”
“I had not planned to come to Glenhaven as it was.” She glanced at Theo. “This was an unexpected trip I needed to make—for my friend, Adalia, the duchess. I needed to come to arrange a business matter with Lord Alton on her behalf.”
“Yes, of course, I recall the duchess is a fine friend.” He nodded, looking between Violet and Theo. “But it will not do—your presence in the area and then obvious avoidance of the ball. It is rudeness beyond imagining.”
“Truly, Mr. Nullter—”
“I do believe you can afford an extra two days, Lady Vandestile.” Theo interrupted her, his ice blue eyes twinkling.
“No, I do need to get back to London.” She strained to keep her feigned smile in place. “There is still so much organization needed for the gala, not to mention the weekly events until then. And the necessity of this matter here at Glenhaven has already taken so much time.”
“Yet you said yourself Lady Desmond was perfectly capable of handling the Revelry’s Tempest while you were away.” Theo nodded, having already made the decision for her. “I do not see what harm an extra two days will make. I will even accompany you on horseback to London to make the return journey faster than travelling in your coach.”
Her smile pulled tight, morphing into a near grimace as she skewered Theo with a look. “That is not necessary, Lord Alton. I will be leaving in the morning.”
“My lady, if I may say so, I have always held tremendous respect for you,” Mr. Nullter said, the reins twisting in his hands. “For both what you brought to the Vandestile estate with your inheritance, and all that you have done for it in the ensuing years since your husband died. The only reason the estate has survived intact was because of you.”
Of Sin & Sanctuary: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Page 4