“I assume by your widow’s weeds the baron is dead?”
“Nine months, now. He was a dear.” A touch of sadness flashed across her face—sadness Theo would have believed if he didn’t know Fiona so well. “And he did a healthy amount of business with the late Lord Vandestile, which was why I was invited to Derbyshire for the ball.”
Theo stared at her, unwilling to speak, unwilling to add fodder to her tales of happenstance.
She gave an exasperated sigh, flitting her hand in the air between them. “You must get over yourself, Alton. I never knew what happened to you. You disappeared on us. Abandoned us in the middle of the war. So no, I was not stalking you. It was merely coincidence that we attended the same affair in Derbyshire.”
He took a step toward her, using his height to his advantage as he glared down at her. “And now? How much of the past day has been a coincidence, Fiona?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“The Revelry’s Tempest.”
“Ahhh.” She nodded and then spun on her heel and went back to the settee. Settling herself on the edge of the cushion, the straightness of her back was faultless in its gentility. She picked up the tea cup she had set down on a side table and took a sip. Her look went to the front window, taking in the movement of the street for a long moment before her gaze shifted to Theo. “She is an interesting woman, Lady Vandestile. Resourceful. Smart. I enjoyed meeting her. I would actually admire her spirit were we in different circumstances.”
Her words dripped with menace.
It sent Theo stomping across the room and he stopped in front of her, his fingers shaking, aching to throttle her. “Don’t you even dare to speak her name, Fiona.” His voice went vicious, his return threat just as explicit.
Unruffled, she took another sip of tea and met his eyes, a smile forming on her face. “Why not? I have been waiting an excruciatingly long time for you to care about something again, Alton.”
Hell.
He had known it. Known it in his gut when he walked into the drawing room. Even though he wanted to deny it. She was here for him. Here for revenge.
“What in Hades are you about, Fiona?”
She looked up at him, her eyes narrowing as a wicked smile carved into the corners of her mouth. “Oh, I know you care about those twin nieces of yours and your sister—but they would never do. I don’t hurt children. I don’t hurt mothers.” She nodded to herself. “So I had to be patient. You taught me that, Alton. You never thought I learned that lesson—at least to your standards—but I did. How to be patient and then deadly. And my patience has finally been rewarded with Lady Vandestile.”
Theo’s voice went deathly calm, not the slightest tip to any emotion. “That is where you are wrong, Fiona. You misunderstand my relationship with Lady Vandestile. The woman means nothing to me.”
She chuckled, a coarse, bitter laugh. “Truly, Theo, you think to lie to me? Of all people?”
He shrugged. “I think you will need to be more patient if you intend to truly hurt me, Fiona.”
“Hurt you? Did I give you that impression?” Her face went suddenly serene, innocent. “Well, then it is as you say. I will have to be more patient.”
A knock came on the door just before it opened.
Theo’s butler looked into the room, his eyes widening. “My lord—I apologize. I did not intend to interrupt. I believed Lady Toplan was alone in here awaiting the arrival of her partner.”
Theo waved his hand. “It is fine, Fillmore. Mr. Olston has arrived?”
“He has. Shall I show him in?”
“Yes.”
Fillmore disappeared, arriving back with Mr. Olston within seconds.
Fiona jumped to her feet, scooting in-between Theo and Mr. Olston with a bright smile on her face. “Mr. Olston, I have just introduced myself to Lord Alton. It appears I was early and I know it is not done, but I have been so excited about the opportunity to invest with Lady Vandestile that I must have confused our meeting time with Lord Alton.” She stepped to the side, motioning to Theo. “But Lord Alton was incredibly gracious with me and entertained me until you arrived.”
Mr. Olston smiled, smoothing the side strands of hair along his balding head as he nodded. “Very good, Lady Toplan.” He looked to Theo. “I apologize if my associate has taken more time of your day than necessary, my lord. This is her first investment and she is eager for it to go well. I have cautioned her against acting without proper research.”
“As you should, Mr. Olston.” Theo’s look landed on Fiona’s profile—the woman once more a picture of innocence. “Lady Toplan would do well to properly research her next move.”
“Yes, well.” Mr. Olston glanced between the two of them. He motioned to the settee and side chairs. “Let us then review the documentation we have on your mine in Derbyshire, my lord. Lady Vandestile assures us it is currently undergoing exploration and a new vein has been found that will bring substantial income—her portion more than enough to satisfy the terms of the loan shall it become necessary.”
Theo stepped back and extended his hand toward the settee with a slight bow to Fiona. “Of course. Let us review what is necessary, and then each of us can move on with our respective days.”
He watched the grace with which Fiona went to her seat. Grace he himself had taught her.
A monster he had created. A monster he pitied. A monster now come for him.
A monster he owed.
That one thing repeated in his mind. He owed Fiona. Owed her his life on two occasions. Owed her for her unfailing loyalty to the crown during the war. Owed her for all she had given up during those days.
How truly addled was her mind? She always had danced on the line of sanity. He couldn’t assume she would actually do harm. Yet he couldn’t dismiss the very real risk.
And he couldn’t break the code. Never reveal a fellow spy. The one thing that kept all of them safe.
Theo exhaled a seething breath. Above all, he couldn’t chance the possibility that Fiona would go after the one thing sure to destroy him. Violet.
And Violet he would protect at any cost.
{ Chapter 16 }
“This one.” Violet’s eyes closed, pure bliss spreading across her face as her head tilted backward. “This is the one.”
“That one? Which one is it?” Cassandra stretched over the round table in the empty ballroom of the Revelry’s Tempest, picking up one of the seven silver platters that held a variety of twenty different bite-size tarts. “Did you pull it from here?”
Violet opened her eyes and pointed to the row of sugar-dusted berry tarts in the middle. “The three-berry ones. They are tart and sweet and melt like no other in your mouth. Raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and her crust is exquisite on this one.”
Cassandra popped one of the tarts into her mouth. Her eyes went wide.
Violet chuckled, nodding. “I know. How has Cook never made these for us before? Plus, they are perfectly in theme with the three berries.”
“I told her no expense was to be spared in coming up with the latest creations—maybe that was the key. It apparently allowed her to procure some ambrosia and grate it into the tart,” Cassandra said. “I need another one to believe what I was tasting was real.” She plucked another tart from the tray and slipped it into her mouth. “What spice is that? Not cinnamon…”
Violet took another berry tart from the tray, eying the remaining three of its kind. “Before we eat them all, we have to have Logan try one.”
“Or not.” Cassandra smirked. “Truly, Violet, he won’t appreciate them—not like we will. He will swallow it without tasting it and then grumble a response, never acknowledging that heaven just fell onto his tongue.”
Violet nodded. “I think you’re right.”
“Right about what?”
Violet spun in her chair at the sound of Theo’s voice, an instant smile coming to her face. He was walking through the adjoining drawing room toward them. “Tarts Cook made for us to try—we are
deciding upon what will be served at the gala. You need to try this three-berry one.”
“Or you can refuse, and I can eat it instead,” Cassandra said, grinning.
He looked to Cassandra as a strained smile came to his lips. “My tart is all yours, Cassandra.” His gaze shifted to Violet. “Can I steal you away for a moment?”
Violet’s smile faltered. Theo’s face had not looked like that six hours ago when she had left his townhouse. No, she had left him in his bed, thoroughly devoured and with a thin sheen of sweat covering his skin. She had left him happy. Intoxicated in his exhaustion. She could barely move her own legs enough to carry herself down the stairs and to the waiting carriage in the mews.
She nodded, brushing her fingertips together to loosen the crumbs before she quickly wiped them on a napkin. She looked to Cassandra. “You will tell Cook she has exceeded any and all expectations?”
“Gladly,” Cassandra replied as she picked up an apricot tart. “I will just make certain there are no other contenders to that berry masterpiece. Hopefully not, as I am already near to bursting.”
Standing, Violet followed Theo out the main entrance of the ballroom. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “In the garden? There is too much activity in here at the moment.”
Violet shrugged, foreboding settling heavy in her chest. “Let me grab my cloak on the way.”
Within a minute, Violet was stepping into the gardens at the back of the Revelry’s Tempest, watching Theo’s back with wary eyes. She tugged the front of her dark cloak tight around her chest, a chill settling into her bones. A snap of springtime cold had descended in the past day, and she was already missing the sun they had been granted in the countryside.
“They will bet on anything here, won’t they?” Theo asked.
“What?”
He pointed to the plant box on his right as he moved past it. In a row, the early sprouts of beans stretched upward in a straight line. Each sprout was marked with a name and a wager on how many beans would eventually grow on the plant.
“Yes. That one was Cass’s idea and it was a splendid hit last summer. Grasshopper races will be the new garden game this year.” Violet shook her head, dismissing the silliness of it, and her look centered on the back of Theo’s head. “What is it, Theo? I don’t think you brought me out here to discuss bets on beans.”
He kept walking silently, only stopping once he was in the far back right corner of the garden, tall evergreen hedges creating a nook about them. As secluded as one could get here at the Revelry’s Tempest without going into a private room.
He wanted to talk to her privately, but not so privately that he was willing to go into an upstairs room with her.
Her heart started to thud hard, even as she tried to slow it. This was silly. She was imagining the worst—going directly to catastrophe when Theo probably just wanted to talk to her about the mine, or the loan, or something else of minor consequence. There wasn’t anything they couldn’t overcome together—it had taken a tremendous battle within her own mind on that front—but she was now sure of that one fact.
Slowly, he turned around to her. His light blue eyes looked dull, his movements slow. Was he drunk? No. His gait had been normal. Or had it?
She attempted to force her most optimistic smile onto her face. “What? What is amiss?”
“I…” The one word slipped out of his mouth, rough, dissolving into nothingness.
She took a step toward him, grabbing his forearm. “Theo, what is wrong?”
Her words jarred him, a quick jolt running through his entire body. It focused his eyes and he looked at her chin, avoiding her eyes. “I cannot continue this any longer, Violet. This farce between us. We must stop what we have so foolishly started.”
Her fingers tightened into the muscles on his arm, his words filtering into her brain, seeping their way past instant disbelief. “What is wrong, Theo? Why—what are you saying?”
“We are done, Violet.” The brisk words snapped into the air between them. His blue eyes lifted to meet hers, steel resolve vibrating in his look. “That is what I am saying.”
Her hand jerked off his arm, her body reacting where her mind would not. “No—what has happened, Theo? Something must have happened.” Her hand lifted to touch him again, but halted in midair, hovering in the space of nothing.
“Not a thing has happened, Violet. I now have clarity. Clarity that has previously eluded me.”
“Clarity?”
“How every step I’ve taken in my life has nudged me, bit by bit, further away from you. I was a third son. Not worthy. Nudge. I left for war. Nudge. Atrocities I committed in that time, again and again. Nudge, nudge. I ruined your bank. Nudge. I yell at you. I disappoint. Nudge. Nudge. Demons that refuse to release me. Nudge.” He shook his head. “It is unfortunate that I let us believe in this for even a moment. But I cannot fight it anymore, Violet. How many nudges, how many steps away from you do I take before I can finally admit that I am not worthy of you? While the one that suffers from my weakness is you.”
“Do not even think to say you are not worthy of me, Theo.”
A chuckle escaped him in a brittle guffaw. “That is a lie I want to believe. So I do—I did. You said it, so I believed it. But no more. It is a lie I cannot cling to any longer. I am stopping this—us—now.”
His last words—so vehement—made her gasp and stumble a step backward, her slippers crunching into the granite gravel of the pathway. “You…you cannot. Not after you…you said you loved me…you wanted the future.” She shook her head, her gaze dropping to the ground between them as her chest tightened, painfully seizing her next words before she could speak them.
“Just because I love you, Violet, does not mean I should have you.” His black boots shifted on the gravel, his stance widening. “I have faced the harsh truth of it. A truth I was attempting to deny.” The harsh timbre in his voice softened, his words going faint. “I have lost the will to change, Vee. To want more. The last fortnight with you—it was a dream I was touching, hoping for. But that’s what it was, and I realized it today.”
“When? What happened? I left you this morning—happy—you were happy. So…when?” The effort it took for her to lift her eyes to him exhausted every raw fiber of pride within her, for she knew her soul was bared at the moment—that he could see the destruction he was manifesting.
But she had to look at him. Had to see it in his face. She wouldn’t believe it otherwise. A tear—fat and rude and despised—rolled from the edge of her left eye without warning.
“Right before you woke up in my bed this morning. I watched you. And you…you were beautiful, Violet. You were everything I ever wanted in life and knew I could never have.” He stopped, taking a breath, his chest rising high.
For a brief moment, she wondered if he would go on.
His mouth set into a grim line. “Sleep had you—and peace was on your face. I knew it then. You possessed a peace that I would never have again. It was so clear in that moment.”
“Don’t say that, Theo.”
“Say that I will never have that peace? That my pain will always hold you back—drag you under with me? It is the truth, Violet.”
“But I never asked you to be at peace, Theo. I only asked you to be with me—demons and all. And you are letting them break you. Break us.”
“I am already broken, Vee.”
“No.” She stepped toward him leaving no space between them. “Don’t make me give up on you, Theo.”
Pulsating with defeat, but unwavering in conviction, his blue eyes met hers. A sad smile curved the edges of his lips, his voice a whisper. “Give up, Vee. Give up. Don’t try to fix me. You cannot do it. Just give up.”
His words stole her breath. For long seconds, she could only stare at him.
Stare and let his words hang between them.
And then she snapped.
“Bastard.” She took a breath deep into her lungs, vile taking a hold of her tongue as she lifted her chin an
d stepped backward. “Good riddance to you, then. I actually only wanted the guarantee of the mine from you, Theo. I knew I would have to trade myself for it. And since I now have it in writing, you are correct. Now is as good a time as any to break ties. You do me no good with your morose ramblings.”
He cringed, her words cutting. “Don’t do that, Vee.”
“Do what?” Her shoulders snapped back, her right hand smoothing the front of her peach dress. “You were the means to an end, Theo—nothing more. You served your purpose well. I do thank you for that.”
His head lifted and then dropped in one slow nod, his eyes flickering away for a second, and then landing hard on her. “Then you have exactly what you need, Violet. I wish you the best of luck.”
She gave him a curt nod, her hand flinging out, motioning to the back gate.
Without another word, Theo turned from her, walking along the back pathway and out the rear gate.
And then he was gone.
Gone.
Violet stood in the back corner of the garden, still, her hand frozen to her belly, for long minutes.
How could she have possibly let this happen to her again?
She was so happy hours ago, minutes ago. And then this, out of the depths of nowhere.
It was the one thing she had sworn—to never allow herself to be in this position again. To let a man take a hold of her so hard that she could be destroyed so easily.
She had failed again. Miserably.
And the devastation happening within her—her body seizing up, piece by piece crushed, smashed under the weight of the pain—was her reward.
She fought to stay upright. To keep the shell of her body from crumbling.
How?
How could she be so very wrong again?
How many times was she going to be a fool?
{ Chapter 17 }
Violet glanced up from the list in her lap to Cassandra. Her friend had been pacing, but now stood still with her arms folded over her ribcage as she stared out the front window of the second level drawing room at the Revelry’s Tempest.
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