The Countess Conspiracy

Amanda snorted and then looked away. “Ha. What I need is some kind of distraction for Mama. Something to do for now until I figure out a better idea.”

Alarm bells began to ring in Violet’s head. This, she suspected, was not how Lily had hoped the conversation would run.

“Would you go with me to America?” Amanda asked sweetly.

“No.”

“France?”

“Maybe, but not for long enough to avoid the question of your marriage altogether.”

“Aunt Violet, you’re my only hope.”

Lily had said the exact same thing. Violet sighed and stared across the pond.

“I’ll think about it,” Violet said, and proceeded to do just that.

Lily wanted her to convince Amanda to marry. Amanda wanted Violet to carry her away. And Violet’s mother no doubt had an agenda of her own on top of all that, one that Violet was afraid to contemplate.

Violet couldn’t see herself lying to her niece. Amanda would never forgive her. But she also couldn’t see herself telling her the truth: You can do a great deal if you marry. Just make sure your grandmother negotiates an excellent settlement, hope your husband dies, and then find someone else to claim the credit for what you want to accomplish.

God, what a mess.

A gentleman stood in the middle of the path; she scarcely saw him as she puzzled the matter over. Deep in thought, she stepped to the side, drawing Amanda with her.

That was when a voice broke Violet’s reverie. “Well, and a good day to you, too.” That voice was familiar—too familiar.

Violet looked up from her reverie into dark eyes watching her in disbelief.

Once, she would have smiled at a chance meeting with Sebastian. Now, the sight of him hurt. It brought back those words he’d said two weeks ago. She shook her head and looked away.

That memory was a knife that kept on cutting.

He was watching her with a small smile on his face. Sebastian almost always smiled. It might confuse someone who didn’t know him better, but Violet knew exactly what sort of smile this was. On another man’s face, it might have been a grimace—as if he’d smelled something foul and didn’t want to embarrass anyone by pointing out that someone had broken wind.

“Pardon me,” she said brushing at her skirts. “Is something the matter?”

“Were you really going to walk right past me without so much as a greeting?” he asked.

Violet swallowed. “I did not see you, sir.”

His smile never slipped, but his eyes flashed. “Oh, you didn’t see me, did you? Is that the way this is going to play out?”

“No, I mean it. I didn’t see you.” Violet rubbed her eyes. And why was she feeling so contrite, when he had been the one to say those awful things? He’d told her that she didn’t meet his standards. “I literally did not see you. I was thinking about something else. I don’t think I would have seen the queen herself, if she’d been waltzing with a zebra.”

The corner of his mouth twitched up in real, if reluctant, amusement.

“Besides,” Violet said, as reasonably as she could, “I’m here with my niece. She’s in her first Season, and she has a reputation to protect. You should not be introduced.”

Amanda stood next to Violet. Her eyes darted to Sebastian with wary curiosity.

“Just so,” Sebastian said. “There will be no introductions. You must be Lady Amanda.”

Amanda started to give Sebastian a curtsey until Violet caught her arm and shook her head.

“We are not introduced,” Sebastian said. “You do not know me. The person you do not know, incidentally, is Mr. Sebastian Malheur.”

A little gasp escaped Amanda’s lips and she took a step back. “Aunt Violet, you know…him?”

Violet rolled her eyes. “I know him. Your mother knows him. We both know him quite well. He grew up in a house half a mile from the home where your grandmother raised us.”

“Don’t worry,” Sebastian told Violet’s niece. “I’ll try not to seduce you on the spot.”

Violet felt a headache starting to form, sharp little pinpricks in her forehead. “Sebastian, you can’t talk of seduction to my unmarried niece.”

Another man might have blushed and apologized. But Sebastian just gave her a cocky smile and a wink.

“I wasn’t talking of seduction,” he said. “I was talking of not seduction, which, as I’m sure you have surmised, is the exact opposite of seduction.”

“That’s specious,” Violet retorted. “If I asked you not to talk of elephants and you wandered around bellowing about not-elephants, you’d be mentioning elephants with every breath. The column of all things that are not elephants includes marsupials, canines—”

“The column of everything that is not an elephant does not include not-elephants?” he inquired, innocently examining his nails. “That’s counter-intuitive.”

“The column of conversational topics,” Violet stressed, “that are not elephant related does not include a discussion of the elephant-shaped hole in the conversation!”

Amanda was watching them with a quizzical look on her face. “Good heavens,” she said in awe, turning to Sebastian. “You’re good at that. You distracted Aunt Violet into an irrelevant argument without even lifting a finger.”

Violet sniffed, recalling suddenly that they were standing in the path in the middle of Hyde Park.

“I deserve no such credit,” Sebastian said. “It’s just that this entire conversation has gone elephant-shaped. It started with elephants, it continued with elephants…it’s elephants all the way down.”

“Large elephants,” Violet agreed.

Sebastian nodded in pretend sobriety. “All my elephants are large.”

“Sebastian,” she said in agony, but at least this wasn’t a direct reference to seduction. “You can’t—we can’t—” But she didn’t know how to finish that sentence. You can’t try to cajole me into forgetting what you said. “I’m going to explode,” she muttered. “Into a cloud of dust and despair.”

“Don’t do that,” Sebastian said, looking at her in mock worry. “It’s such a nice day, and I’d hate to have the weather ruined.”

She glared at him. She had to, or she’d find herself laughing. She covered her mouth. “No more elephants.”

“If you insist.” He looked off and away. “Here’s a topic of conversation that isn’t about elephants at all. I’ve been wishing I could talk to about it in any event. So, shipping—”