The Countess Conspiracy (9 page)

A
T PRECISELY NINE MINUTES BEFORE FOUR,
Sebastian arrived home, a gratifyingly large stack of paperwork tucked into his briefcase. He’d had one encounter with Violet in Hyde Park already today, and he both feared and anticipated their next meeting. But he had to be ready to brave lions—or Violet. Whichever he happened to encounter first.

Lions would have been easier to convince, he thought ruefully, and less dangerous.

But whether he was meeting a pride of lions or a single Violet, preparations had to be made. He gave his valet the rest of the day off, settled the details of the evening meal with his cook, and retreated to his back garden with strict orders that he didn’t wish to be bothered.

That he
had
a back garden, and one of this size, had been a matter of the utmost necessity. He had needed space—space where he might retreat and speak with a woman without any of his servants discerning that he had done so. Today, he walked through the gap in the hedge that surrounded the outdoor terrace, whistling merrily. He went past the shed that had been converted into an office, the greenhouse that he used to bamboozle visitors. He slid behind a pair of bushes that nestled up against the back wall. From there, it was a matter of opening the hidden gate and sliding through.

That gate opened onto a dark alley. Calling it an
alley
exaggerated its status. The space was nothing more than an abbreviated gap between two walls, formed because fifty years ago, one homeowner had wanted a garden wall of brick, while his neighbor wished for one of stone. This gap, scarcely two feet wide, was cluttered with old leaves and—because it had been a while since they were both in London—three months’ worth of cobwebs. Twenty-four yards down this uncomfortable passage, in the other wall—the wall of brick, not the wall of stone—stood another gate, this one overgrown with ivy.

Sebastian made his way there. Ivy creepers had wrapped little tendrils around the iron gate; he clipped the strands free, and stepped into the lion’s den. Otherwise known as Violet’s back garden.

Long ago, they’d chosen a simple code.

Farewell
meant
I’m not available today.

Until next time
meant
I’ll be in my garden until three.
There were fifty-two other possibilities, and they all came down to the same thing.
I don’t have time for you any longer
meant that Violet had wanted to meet with him this evening.

What could happen? Sebastian couldn’t guess.

The view of Violet’s house was blocked by a tall screen of lime trees, one that helped preserve their privacy. Violet’s London greenhouse wasn’t as large as the one on her Cambridge property—a few hundred square feet. A sign on the door proclaimed:
The countess is NOT to be bothered except in the cases of Death, Disembowelment, the Apocalypse, or the Arrival of her Mother.

Sebastian ignored this dire warning and stepped inside. The entry was a mere pace or two wide, but there was enough room for him to shrug into a smock, find a pair of gloves, and check himself for insects. When he’d done so, he passed through the second door.

A set of wheeled shelves stood on either side. These were crammed with hundreds of miniature clay pots scarcely higher than his thumb. Each of them was marked; the ones nearest him read
CD101, CD102.

Sawhorses elevated massive beds of soil waist-high. They stretched from where Sebastian stood down to the end of the greenhouse.

Violet stood at the far end before one of the beds. She wore a white gardening smock over her dark gown and dark gloves over her hands. Her hair was covered by a white cap.

She didn’t look up when Sebastian entered. He wasn’t even sure that she’d made note of him, although he hadn’t tried to be quiet.

They’d done this a thousand times—met in the greenhouse while Violet planted or made markers on orangewood sticks, explaining to him what she was doing and why. In order to play her, he’d had to understand every step she completed.

Today, she had one of her notebooks open in front of her. She was wielding a needle—a long, thin piece of metal, not so different from the knitting needles she carried in her bag—to transfer pollen from one flower to another. There was a grace to her movements—the quiet grace of a woman performing a task she enjoyed.

His throat tightened.

He’d been imagining this moment ever since he saw her in the park earlier. It had been weeks since they’d argued with each other in Cambridge. He’d missed her, missed her so much that he’d wanted to find her and apologize for everything, to just put all his uncomfortable emotions back where they had come from, ignoring them for another six months. It wouldn’t do any good, though; they’d only return.

He was used to feeling more than Violet did. He was resigned to it, in fact. Possibly even at peace with it. But he didn’t know what to do with a world where she felt nothing at all.

He’d missed her madly, and he wasn’t even sure that she had noticed he’d been gone. She hadn’t noticed his arrival, after all.

He came up behind her. He knew better than to interrupt her in the middle of her work, so he stood back and watched.

It would be odd to say that Violet was a mystery to him. He knew her better than he knew anyone. When she smiled, he usually knew the joke that had tickled her imagination. When she bit her lip, he knew what she wasn’t saying. And yet there were some things—so many things—that he couldn’t make sense of.

She reached to her side, picked up a little bag made of parchment paper, and slipped this over the head of the flower. She tied this all in place with a silk thread, picked up her pen, and made a notation in her book.

AX212: cross of BD114 with TR718.

She’d made ten thousand such notations over the years: crossing plants one with the other, transferring pollen by hand, noting parentage, covering the fertilized flowers with parchment bags so as to make sure that she gathered all resulting seed.

She folded her arms and stared off into the distance. Sebastian didn’t know what she was seeing or why her brows furrowed the way they did. He didn’t even know if she was aware of his presence. Sometimes, she wasn’t.

Finally she spoke. “My sister thinks I’m difficult.”

He took a step forward to stand next to her, letting his hands trail in the soil. It was loose and friable, a perfect blend of black dirt and decaying woodchips, slightly moist against his fingers. It smelled of earth and humus.

“Your sister is right,” he finally said.

“I’m not difficult,” Violet said. “I’m simple. I like good books and clever conversation and being left alone much of the time.” She took the needle she’d used and set it in a bucket—one overflowing with a dozen other such needles. She unwrapped gauze from the next needle and bent over a new plant. “How does that make me difficult? I make sense. I don’t talk about my feelings, of course, but then, I don’t want to.” She shrugged. “So that’s reasonable.”

Sebastian smiled despite himself, a smile that felt bitter even to him. “God, no,” he said, looking up at the ceiling of the greenhouse. “Not
feelings.
Heaven forbid that you have anything so messy.”

Her face was bowed to the plant and her shoulders stilled. “I
have
feelings.” She spoke stiffly. “I just don’t
talk
about them. What’s the point? Talking never changes them.”

It was an oblique message, one he understood all too well.

Don’t ask what I want.

“I take it all back,” Sebastian said. “You’re not difficult.”

She huffed.

“Some people are like a blacksmith’s puzzle—intricate loops of iron fitted together in some convoluted manner. You can play and pry at them over and over, but if you don’t know their secret, you’ll never take them apart. Those people are difficult until you know their secret. Then they’re easy.”

Her nose wrinkled, and she turned to the flower next in line, carefully separating its petals. He wondered, offhand, if she realized how erotic the action was—Violet calmly fertilizing flowers, spreading their petals wide and sliding the pollenated needle in. The analogy made itself. She spent half her life in this clinical, insect-free structure, functioning as both birds and bees. As she leaned over, her hips shifted against her smock.

He could steady her with his hand. One hand, right there on her hip…

He didn’t move.

“I see.” Violet straightened from the task and slipped this needle into the discard bucket with the others. There was a touch of scorn in her voice. “You know the secret of me. Is that what you’re saying?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t think you have a secret. It’s like you were made by some fiend of a blacksmith. You’re a puzzle without a solution. There is no way to undo you. All I can do is learn to avoid the razors.”

She breathed out slowly and picked up her pen. “Yes,” she said softly. “That’s me. Good for nothing but cutting. Made by an insane blacksmith.”

While she made the notation, he picked up the parchment sack and bagged the flower head. Sometimes, he knew her so well. Compliments made her freeze. Touches—even the lightest, least suggestive of touches—made her back away. But say something like this and she slipped into stony silence. There were no safe paths with Violet, only lions all the way.

“Thank you, Sebastian,” she said. “I shall have warnings embroidered on all my handkerchiefs. ‘Sharp blades ahead. Watch your tongue.’”

“I didn’t mean it as an insult.”

She looked up. “No? Then maybe you should listen to your words. ‘Oh, that Violet—never showing any feelings! It’s like she keeps her true self hidden from the entire world.’ Why would that be, do you think?” One hand gravitated to her hip, right where he’d wanted to slide his hand. “You, of all people, should understand. I keep everything hidden because there’s nothing about my true self that anyone likes. I’m not
difficult,
Sebastian. I’m the easiest person around. I don’t belong, and I spend all my time pretending I do. Sometimes I get weary of it, and that makes me angry.”

Violet sighed, set aside her pen, and turned back to her flower bed. She reached for another gauze-wrapped needle, and then shook her head and turned to him.

“It’s not fair to the people around me when I lose my temper.” Her jaw squared. “I say awful things when I’m angry. But it’s not fair to me, either, that I was made this way. You think it’s hard spending time with me? Imagine
being
a blacksmith puzzle made by a madman. You’re unable to perform the basic functions of your existence. You never bring anyone joy. You learn not to hope when someone picks you up. Because no matter how high their anticipation runs upon starting, you know what will happen in the end: They’ll throw you away in disgust.”

Disgust. Was that what she thought he’d expressed? “Violet,” he said softly. “I wasn’t—I’m
not
disgusted by you. That’s the last thing I am.”

She stared straight ahead. “It comes out to the same thing, whatever name you give it.” Her voice was as stiff as her arms at her side. “Don’t worry about your conscience, Sebastian. Everyone tires of me eventually. Lay me aside and walk away.”

He let out a frustrated sigh. “You’re being ridiculous. You’re acting as if there’s nothing to you but your work—as if once I walk away from that, I stop caring for you at all. It doesn’t work like that.”

Her lip twitched in dismay at his words—right on
caring for you
—and Sebastian sighed and pressed his fingers to his forehead. “There
is
more to you than your work.”

She turned away. “Do you remember when you first submitted my paper?”

It had been before her husband passed away. She’d written up her work and asked Sebastian for advice—which he’d been unable to deliver at first, as he’d never read a scientific paper, either. They’d studied a number of them together, Violet writing and rewriting until they were both satisfied.

The first time she submitted it to a journal, it had been sent back to her with a note that perhaps a ladies’ journal on home gardening might prefer her modest contribution. The next publication hadn’t bothered to explain its rejection, nor the one after that nor the one after that.

“That’s bollocks,” Sebastian had told her when that last slip had come in the mail. “They aren’t even reading it.”

Violet had been sick at the time. She had never told him what ailed her. He’d only known that she’d become weaker and weaker. Her skin had been like wax, and she’d been given to fainting spells.

She’d refused to talk about that, too.

She’d simply sat in her chair, unable to even stand, and refused to look in his direction. “It must not be very good. Likely they have all sorts of excellent submissions, and this didn’t make the cut.”

“If I were the one submitting—a man with a university education—they’d give it a second look,” Sebastian had said in a fury. “And a third one too, I’d wager.”

So she’d put his name on the paper. “Go ahead and try,” she’d told him.

Sebastian had ridden into Cambridge the next day and handed it to a former professor for advice. The man had read it in stunned silence and then looked at Sebastian. “Malheur,” he’d said in a strangled voice, “this is brilliant.”

Several months later, it had been accepted for publication and Sebastian’s first lecture had been scheduled.

At that lecture, Violet had smiled raptly for the first time in nine months. That smile of hers—the color that had come temporarily to her cheeks—was the only reason he’d agreed to keep doing it.

But she wasn’t smiling any more. She was glaring at the dirt in front of her, and Sebastian wished he could make this right again.

“Just as well that Violet Waterfield never got her start publishing scientific works,” Violet said. “I’d be a pariah. A nothing. My sister would hate me.” She picked up another needle, but didn’t use it. She brandished it instead as if it were a sword. “My mother already does. Nobody would have paid the least attention to my work. So it’s just as well. This way, at least I’m someone, even if nobody knows who I am.”

“That’s heartbreaking,” Sebastian said.