The Countess Conspiracy

She waited now within that maze, marshaling her breath and her nerves. She had to make this right, had to try and figure out a way to continue. But she could remember the look on his face, that look of sad determination, and she didn’t know how to change that.

She sat on a stone bench and kicked the crushed white stone of the path in frustration. If she just laid out everything in order, there had to be a solution. A proper, reasonable solution.

Stone crunched; she looked up in consternation.

It was Sebastian. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, but even in his shirtsleeves, that serious expression made him seem formal. He had one hand in his waistcoat pocket and he was watching her with an unreadable expression.

She thought about standing—thought about it so long that she realized that the moment had passed. She’d look a fool popping to her feet now, half a minute after he arrived.

She settled for inclining her head in his direction. “Sebastian.”

“Violet.” He didn’t move any closer. “I expected you to arrive almost forty-five minutes past. I’m shocked it took you so long to come and debate with me.”

Her fingers twitched. She thought of objecting on principle, but that was what she had come to do. “I was trying to figure out my best arguments. I made a list of everything I might say.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A list? I must see this. You did write it down, didn’t you?”

She thought about denying it, but he knew her too well. She drew the paper from her skirt pocket and handed it over. He unfolded the page and flattened it between his palms.

“Money,” he read. “Land. Your mother’s influence.” He looked up. “These aren’t arguments, Violet. They’re bribes. Excepting, of course, that line about your mother. She’s a threat.”

“Yes. Well.” She couldn’t let him see her unease. She looked him in the eye. “I will give you five thousand pounds, if—”

“I don’t need five thousand pounds,” he interrupted, “and it’s hardly just compensation in any event. Let me explain what I want: I want to never again lie to the people I care about.” He held up her paper. “That’s not on your list.”

She snatched the paper from him. “As I said, I was still contemplating.” The page crumpled ruthlessly between her fingers; she crunched it into a hard, dense ball of sharp corners, one that dug into her palms. “There has to be something.”

A bird sang overhead. Blue sky shone brilliantly above the clipped shrubbery. It wasn’t weather for giving up, and Violet didn’t intend to do so. But by the look on Sebastian’s face, he wasn’t about to surrender easily, either.

“My brother,” Sebastian said, “is dying, and when he told me what he planned to do with his son, he said…” He looked away. “He said he’d send Harry to his grandmother because I was too busy to look after him. I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t do all the work. I could only stand there mutely, wondering how to respond without giving away all our secrets.”

Violet dug her fingers into the ball of paper.

“My friends are worrying about me,” Sebastian continued. “That’s completely backward. I’m supposed to take care of them. But I can’t even explain to them that I’m thirty-two and I’m disappearing—that I’m being praised for work that is not mine, and reviled for thoughts I didn’t think.”

Her throat felt scratchy. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how she could make any of this better.

“And then last night,” he said, “you complimented me on my talk, when we both know that you wrote it.”

Violet bowed her head. “That was a mistake. I know. It was just—”

“When the two of us begin to forget that this is a lie, it’s time to stop. I can’t tell anyone the truth any longer, and every little lie piles up. I’m feeling irritable. I meant what I said: I’m done telling lies for you. I don’t like the person I’m becoming.”

If he walked away now, he’d leave an empty hole in her life. But what did that signify, next to his complaints? She stuffed the balled-up paper into her pocket.

He took a step forward to stand in front of her. “It’s making me irritated with you,” he said more softly. “And that’s the last thing I want. I don’t want to resent you. You’re the only friend I have who understands everything. I don’t want to lose you.”

It almost hurt to look at him. That look in his eyes, the way he advanced on her. She could feel the pull of him, as if she were a moon to be captured, sentenced to orbit around him forever.

She looked away, biting her lip. He probably made all women feel like that. He did it without trying.

“We are friends,” Sebastian said. “Friends beyond just your work. Aren’t we?”

He took another step toward her. A dangerous step. This one brought him too close. Close enough to reach out, close enough to touch her.

The possibility of his touch loomed when he stood this close. It brought out that hidden yearning in her—the kind that wished he would pull her into an embrace.

But Violet wasn’t touchable. She was hard and unswerving.

She forced herself to stare back at him, forced her heart to beat at a steady pace, unaffected by the dark glitter of his eyes. He had no impact on her. He was the kind of man who could draw a response from a rock—but then, Violet was colder than rock.

She had to be.

He took yet another step toward her—her heart thumped despite her best efforts—and leaned over her.

He could lay his hands on her shoulders, pin her to the bench…

She inhaled fiercely and stood, putting distance between them.

“So that’s what this is about,” Violet heard herself say. “You’re annoyed that out of all the women in the world, you can’t make me fall at your feet.”

He let out a breath and straightened.

“Talk all you like about friendship, but clearly, I left the one thing that would convince you off my list.” She raised her chin. “Intercourse. That’s the currency you deal in, isn’t it?”

Her hands were trembling simply contemplating it. She was cold all over, and yet her pulse was racing. She’d left that item off her list on purpose—one didn’t bargain with things one wasn’t willing to relinquish.

He looked at her now—his gaze settling on her lips and then running down her body, down to the lace edging her walking gown, and then up to the ribbons clasping her waist. She could feel him dismissing every aspect of her—those angular elbows, the mud of her eyes.