The Countess Conspiracy

“Not me.”

She glanced back at him. “You don’t know everything.”

IT WAS GETTING WORSE.

When Sebastian was around, Violet thought of the oddest things—of touching him, of kissing him, of simply holding him close and breathing in comfort from his warmth. When he wasn’t, she could feel the memory of him lingering, waiting to catch her unawares. Those unwanted thoughts came to her at the oddest times. She would pull on a glove and think of his fingers entwining with hers, that smile glowing on his face—just for her. He’d pull her close…

She shook her head, banishing the thought before it could give rise to real want.

But desire always found a way to creep back in, and next thing she knew, she was imagining laughter, the kind that took her breath away. The kind where he would hold her close as she shook with mirth.

Another shake of her head, and that fantasy would slink shamefully away, vanquished, albeit temporarily.

You’re not allowed to be that person, she reminded herself. Want is a danger for you.

Late in the evening was the worst. When night fell, when even turning the lamps up full-bore only made the shadows deeper, she remembered his words.

Platonic? God, no. I don’t love you platonically. I want you very, very much. If you wanted to go to bed with me, Violet, I’d take you there. Right now.

Late at night, it was hard to remember that she was ice. That platonic love was all she dared allow herself to have. Late at night, she remembered what it was like to touch, the sensation of skin sliding against her own. That feel of warmth against warmth, of the delicious friction of fingers against her hips, pulling her close… That was a memory more luxurious than the softest silks. She remembered what it was like to drown in a kiss, to forget everything as bodies joined. She could remember what intercourse had been like, before it had gone sour.

But just as surely she also recalled what it had turned into: the slide into icy nothingness, every thrust of his hips attempting to erase her from the world.

She remembered it all, and she wanted it, and she feared.

So she did what she always did: She found something else to take the place of that cavernous, treacherous want. She cut up scientific journals—even though anything she discovered from here on out would land only in silence. She slid the articles between the pages of her periodicals, turning the pages of La Mode Illustrée not from gown to gown, but from article to article, from topics that covered everything from sexual inheritance to the latest experiments in multiple exposure photographic methods for enhancing microscopic results. She pored over sketches of cells while pretending that she cared about woodcut drawings of pink tarlatan overskirts instead.

She read and read until there was no room for want. Until she’d reduced herself to pure thought and work, a being with no feelings, no sensations, no desires. None of that had ever served her anyway.

But thoughts were insidious, and if there was anything her scientific work had taught her, it was this: Almost every organism, no matter how small or how large, yearned to reproduce. It was a desire bred into every cell, and she could not drive it away, no matter how harmful she knew that want to be. She could only keep her yearning at bay.

Sometimes at night, she failed.

She felt the bed beneath her back that night, and remembered the feel of her husband on top of her, pushing inside her, leaning down to her as if for a kiss.

The first few years, he’d whispered words of encouragement and affection. Darling and sweet and good. Later, he’d lapsed into silence.

Near the end, though…

What the hell is the use of you? He’d whispered in her ear as he took her. Selfish bitch.

Those were the words that punctuated his thrusts. And with every passing cycle—every few months—she’d proved him right, subliming like ice in winter, turning into so much vapor.

Selfish. Pointless. Bitch.

How many more lovers do you need?

Only one more.

But Violet could never be anyone’s one more. She was a blacksmith’s puzzle made by a fiend. All anyone could do was be driven mad by her.

She let out a breath in the darkness. Lily. She would visit Lily tomorrow, and Lily would need her.

And oh, Violet needed to be needed. At the moment, she needed it more than anything.

Chapter Twelve

THE SUN WAS HIGH AND SEBASTIAN’S JOURNEY from London had been pleasant. He’d managed to bury all of Violet’s revelations deep in his heart. He hid them in the pleasant sun, in the too-humid air presaging some later storm.

It had been a week since he’d last seen his brother and not quite that long since he’d first met with the leadership of the Society for the Betterment of Respectable Trade in London. He couldn’t have hoped for a better response from them.

His brother, however…

He made his way through his brother’s house, led by the servants, and came into his brother’s study. He didn’t say a word. He just handed over the circular he’d brought with him.

He could hear the clock ticking seconds away. He didn’t dare count them; he didn’t want to know how long it would take Benedict to realize what he was reading.

His brother smoothed the page in front of him against the desk and shook his head. He seemed to move so slowly. Once again, he frowned and started reading for the third time.

Benedict’s lips twitched into a frown. His fingers tapped against the table, as if he could change the words if only he jarred the paper hard enough. He read through the end for a third time, and after his eyes had stopped moving down the page—long after—he simply stared at the paper.

Sebastian couldn’t breathe. Some part of him still felt like he was still a younger brother, dancing around the older, showing off some skill that the elder had perfected years before. Look, he wanted to say. Look what I did.

But it was more than that.

Look who I am.

All these years he’d let his brother tell him he was nothing, that the sum total of his accomplishments were the jokes he’d made, the wrath he’d incurred from respectable people outraged by his words.

But Benedict was wrong.

Finally his brother shut his eyes and shoved the paper away.

“Sebastian.” The word came out on a sad sigh, and he shook his head as he spoke. “How the hell did you manage this one?”

“Am I supposed to feel ashamed?” Sebastian asked in surprise. “I went to visit the Society in London. I talked with the leadership there. They were interested in my work on shipping, and even more interested to hear about the application of numerical methods to trade.”