The Countess Conspiracy (5 page)

“Bring you?” Sebastian said, carefully refusing to look in his brother’s direction. “Harry, why would you think I had brought you anything?”

“Oh, come now, Uncle Sebastian, don’t tease—”

Harry stopped abruptly, seeing his father in the shadows. “Oh, Papa,” he said, suddenly subdued. “I didn’t see you there.”

Benedict’s eyebrow rose. “Spoiling my child, are you, Sebastian? Didn’t see fit to mention that earlier, did you?”

“Would
I
spoil Harry?” It was important not to sound too innocent, or Benedict would know he was lying. He was just congratulating himself on hitting the proper note when his brother held out his hand.

“Give me the horehound and nobody gets hurt.”

With a grimace, Sebastian withdrew a packet of sweets from his coat pocket and handed it to his brother.

“That thing we were talking about?” Benedict said. “That thing you wanted? Exercise a little discipline. He’s a boy, not a puppy, and I don’t want him spoiled.”

“Aw, Papa.” Harry glanced from one adult to another. “Wait, what did Uncle Sebastian want? Was it about me? Is he going to take me on that fishing trip he mentioned last time he was here? Is he?”

“You may have a single sweet after dinner,” Benedict said firmly, juggling the packet Sebastian had relinquished. “If you’ve been good.”

“Yes, sir.” Harry bit his lip. “But what other thing were you talking about?”

“Being good means you don’t ask questions,” Benedict said.

That seemed like a really boring rule to Sebastian, but he held his tongue. If he had to field Harry’s incessant questions all day, he’d probably think differently.

Sebastian glanced at Harry. “Doesn’t he…”
Doesn’t he know that you’re dying?

“No,” Benedict said easily. “I don’t believe in teaching a boy to ride a horse until he’s capable of comprehending the dangers.”

“Can I show Uncle Sebastian the owl’s nest?” Harry asked.

“Go ahead.” Benedict nodded to Sebastian. “But remember what we talked about, Sebastian. I’ll see you in the house.”

Sebastian followed his nephew out the swinging stable doors. All he had to do now was meet Benedict on his own ground. To show him that Sebastian was more than what he’d seen. And once that was accomplished…

He glanced down at Harry.

Once that was accomplished, he’d see what else followed.

“Are these fierce owls?” he asked his nephew as they exited the stable, trotting through the meadow. “Owls as large as dragons, with thick claws and razor-sharp beaks? Have we been sent by the queen to make them stand trial for their crimes?”

“Yes!” Harry agreed happily. “These are—” He stopped. “Oh, no. I can’t. That’s…that’s pretending, isn’t it? Father said I’m too old for that now.”

Another time, Sebastian would have pooh-poohed that concept. He would, in point of fact, have mentioned that he had an extra stick of candy in his coat pocket, and that only the finest owl hunters in the land received the Sweet Wand of Horehound as a reward when they vanquished a nest of the Poisonous Owls of Feathergloop.

But Benedict wouldn’t like it.

“Yes,” he said glumly, “it’s pretend. And if you say you’re too old for it…”

He looked down at his nephew’s head—at that dark cowlick that didn’t quite sit properly, leaving Harry’s hair sticking up no matter how much he swiped it down. Sebastian mussed it fiercely, until the brown strands stood out from his nephew’s head like a halo.

“Let’s just go look at the owls.”

I
T HAD BEEN TWO WEEKS
since Violet had last seen Sebastian—two weeks that she had hoped would lessen the sting of his words. Somehow, she managed to pretend nothing was amiss—going about her daily tasks as if a gaping hole had not opened in her life. But routine didn’t help; it only reminded her of everything that she’d lost.

It was proof of Violet’s disquiet that she had eventually given up pretending and come to this comfortable Mayfair home. From the outside, it looked like any genteel residence: white paint, black trim, flowers in boxes at the front windows. When Violet was let inside, there was the usual marble entryway, the normal formal sideboard. But there was also a small army of tin soldiers encamped on the wide steps leading up to the first floor, abandoned by their generals in the midst of battle preparations.

Some families believed that children should be seen and not heard. But Violet’s sister had too many children to do anything more than cast haggard glances at that particular rule. The entry to Lily’s house echoed with the shrieks of children at play.

Lots of children.

Violet handed her things to the footman and waited. Lily always made time to see her sister, no matter what wreckage her children were making of the house.

Violet wasn’t sure if Lily loved her—their family was not the sort to talk of such things, and Violet was difficult to care for. But Violet loved her sister, and Lily needed Violet. In the end, for someone like her, it all came out to approximately the same thing: When Violet was in need, she went to her sister.

After weeks of trying to forget Sebastian’s words—weeks of staring at plants that she’d sprouted with Sebastian at her side—she needed to comfort someone.

Thinking of Sebastian still felt like pouring boiling water over her chest. Two weeks, and it still burned to remember what he’d said to her.
I have standards. You don’t meet them.

She sniffed and looked away, waiting for the pain to dissipate. It didn’t, so she simply handed her things to the footman who’d met her.

“Tell the marchioness that I am here, if you please,” she said.

“Of course, my lady.” The man gave her a bow. “If you’ll allow me to show you to the—”

“Wait!” The call came from up the staircase.

Violet looked up to see her eldest niece waving madly at her. Amanda spilled down the staircase, darting around the tin-soldier fortifications with a coltish awkwardness that made her seem even prettier. A young lady seventeen years of age couldn’t help but be pretty. Amanda was fresh and smiling and exuberant, unwilling to believe that life would bring anything other than the best things to her.

Violet hoped she was right.

“Aunt Violet,” her niece said breathlessly, grabbing hold of Violet’s arm. “Thank
God
you are here. I must talk to you.”

Violet looked down at her niece’s fingers overlapping her sleeve. Violet knew she was a formidable woman. Most people were frightened of her. They didn’t touch her or embrace her. They certainly didn’t grab hold of her arm with such an air of familiarity.

God, she was glad that someone did.

She sniffed and surreptitiously brushed her fingers against Amanda’s hand. “What is it?”

“I need to speak with you,” Amanda repeated, glancing up the stairs. She bit her lip, and then looked over at the footman who’d answered the door. “Billings,” she said, “Go get Mama and tell her that Aunt Violet is here.” She didn’t look at Violet. “But please do me the favor of walking very, very, very slowly.”

Billings turned and began walking toward the stairs at a stately pace.

“More slowly,” Amanda suggested, and the man slowed to an even glide.

“Come,” Amanda said. Even Violet’s stiff glowering had not put her niece off. Amanda took Violet’s arm and led her into the front parlor.

The room, as always, was warm and welcoming. The thick side curtains had been drawn back so that only thin, gauzy panels of fabric shielded the window, letting in sunlight and the warm, swirling suggestion of a square ringed by grand houses. The furniture was cream and gold, the colors of an early spring sun. The paintings on the walls suggested new growth—flowers and apple-green leaves and fields of ankle-high grass.

But it was coming on June and no matter what lies the walls told, the room was still too hot. Amanda gestured Violet to a seat and sat daintily on a cushioned chair opposite her. But instead of talking, Amanda twiddled her thumbs.

Whatever Amanda had on her mind, Violet was going to have to start this conversation. “How fares your Season?” she finally asked.

It was utterly ridiculous to think of the girl having a Season. That would mean that Violet was old enough to have a niece on the marriage mart. But Lily, a mere handful of years older than Violet, had married at seventeen and had managed to produce her first offspring within the year.

At Amanda’s age, Violet had been pushed out into the hubbub of social calls and balls, too.

It had been terrible for her, but it would likely turn out better for her niece. For one thing, Amanda was not nearly as awkward as Violet had been.
Her
eventual husband would want more than one thing from her.

Violet folded her hands as she sat on the embroidered sofa in her sister’s front parlor and tried not to shift uncomfortably. The cushions were too soft; it took an effort to stiffen her spine and not slouch.

Across from her, her niece was examining the embroidered fabric of her cuffs.

“Come, Amanda,” Violet suggested. “Sit up straight and talk to me.”

Amanda lifted her head. She had a gentle smile on her lips, and wide, innocent eyes. “My Season,” she said, her voice sounding like the tinkle of merry little bells, “is going excellently.”

Of course it was, if she was that good at lying. Violet frowned. “Oh?”

“Indeed,” Amanda said. “Mama thinks that an earl is going to offer for me. Can you think of it? Me, a countess?”

Anyone else would see a silly, foolish little girl—one with stars in her eyes from her first Season, dazzled by the possibility of an offer from one of England’s highest peers.

Violet shivered, imagining Amanda as the sort of countess that Violet herself had become. Cold as stone, with no possibility of more.

“He’s only a few years older than I am,” Amanda continued, “and handsome. And…” She trailed off, looking into the distance. “And…”

And that was the end of his virtues. Violet waited, but nothing more was forthcoming.

“Didn’t Grandmama teach you anything?” Violet finally asked. “If you want someone to think you’re excited about the match, you need to have better praise for your prospective husband than ‘not old’ and ‘reasonably good-looking.’ I suggest ‘kind’ or ‘romantic.’”

Amanda’s lips twitched, but she didn’t lose that look of false starry-eyed innocence. “Right. I’ll try again. He’s my age. He’s handsome, kind, and dreadfully romantic. You know all the advantages that will inure to me once I become a countess.”

Violet tasted a hint of vinegar on her tongue. “I do.”

“Once I marry him, I’ll come to love him. Won’t I?”

Violet knew what her niece wanted her to say.
Yes, you will. Of course you will.
Maybe she’d accept a more cautious,
it’s likely.

“I did,” she finally said. “And my husband loved me. You’re a caring person, Amanda. The first few months of a marriage are intimate. It brings people together, even if they were not quite there when they first married.”

Amanda nodded slowly, contemplating this.

It was what came after those first months that really mattered.

“I know people who entered a marriage without love and found it nonetheless,” Violet said. “I know people who married for love and hated each other at the end of the year. And I had a friend who did not love her husband when she married him, convinced herself that she did as the first months passed, and…”

“And what?” Amanda asked.

“And then she realized she was wrong,” Violet finished stiffly. “If you have an ounce of independence in you, a husband will chafe. He’ll give you rules, and you’ll be expected to follow them. If he wishes, he can control your friends, your idle pursuits, your leisure activities. Some husbands want to mold you into another person, and it doesn’t matter if you’re made of marble instead of clay—he’ll push and push at you nonetheless, and unless you break for him, he’ll make you feel that you’re the lowest, most selfish person in the world.”

Amanda’s hand rose to her lips. “Is that what happened to you?”

“Nonsense,” Violet said brusquely. “I told you already. I’m talking about a friend.”

Amanda swallowed. “But you didn’t break, Aunt Violet. Look at you.”

Violet looked upward. “We are not talking about me.”

“Oh, very well.
Your friend
didn’t break, did she?”

Violet sat very straight and made herself look her niece in the eye. “She was not made of the kind of material that would break. But even if one doesn’t crack in two, apply enough pressure and everyone starts to wear away at the edges. Like crumbs from a scone. We’re all friable matter.”

Amanda took this in silence. “I’m made of breakable material,” she finally said. “I would break. I’m already breaking. All I have to hear is Mama asking me what’s wrong with him, and when I have no answer—when I say he’s a perfectly nice fellow, but I don’t wish to marry him, then—”

The door opened, and Violet’s sister swept in.

When they were younger, people used to say that Violet and Lily looked exactly alike—that they were twins despite the two years between them. All those people had been idiots. Lily was obviously much prettier. Her hair was a glossy, waving brown, her cheeks round and dimpled. She was always smiling, always a delight. She saw Violet now and her face lit. She sailed across the room, and before Violet could say anything, took hold of Violet’s wrists, hauling her to her feet.