The Countess Conspiracy

“He’s told me very little,” Violet said. “It’s just an interim discussion of research he has not yet finished.”

Jane looked about expressively. “An interim discussion?” she asked in amusement. “Any other interim discussion would bring an audience of what, nine or ten?”

There were almost ten times that many onlookers here.

“Well,” Violet said. “It is Sebastian.”

Three seats behind them sat that annoying couple that had disturbed his last talk. Violet wrinkled her nose and wished that they, at least, had stayed away.

“And he’s told you not a thing?” Jane frowned. “How strange. He came to Oliver three days ago and asked him to come. He acted as if it were important. But it’s a little-advertised event, and when Oliver asked, he said he was presenting work that had little scientific value. Neither of us can make any sense of it.”

“Well,” Violet asked in her most reasonable tone of voice, “why would he talk to me about his lectures?”

“True,” Jane said after a pause. “True. Still, I can’t help but wonder if he’s planning to spring some horrid surprise.”

Violet wondered the same thing. He’d been so nervous telling her about it. A secret project, one he’d hidden from her for years? One that would have revealed his feelings? It made no sense. None at all.

Three seats down from her, the woman with the high-pitched voice squirmed. “This will be awful,” she predicted. “Won’t it, William?”

Violet refused to let that woman set the mood for the day. She looked straight ahead. Luckily, his response was too low to carry to her.

“How can I bear it?” the woman was saying. “We must put an end to this all.”

Violet sniffed and turned to Jane. But there was no time for further conversation. The door to the side of the room opened; Oliver and Robert trooped out and came to sit by them, Oliver to Jane’s right, and Robert on Violet’s left.

“Did you learn anything?” she heard Jane whisper.

“Not a thing, except I’ve never seen him like this,” her husband whispered back.

That door opened once more and the whispers died down. Sebastian and a white-haired man came forward. Sebastian didn’t look nervous, but then, he never did in company. He seemed perfectly at ease, smiling as if the crowd were a group of dear friends.

“Welcome, welcome,” the older man who’d accompanied Sebastian said. “Welcome to our weekly little—ha!—botanical seminar.”

The nine people in the audience who normally attended the less popular version of this talk chuckled.

“Today, we’re honored to have Mr. Sebastian Malheur presenting an interim version of his latest work. He was quite modest in his description. But I’m sure none of you wish to hear me speak, and so I give you Mr. Malheur.”

Polite applause sounded, and Sebastian came forward.

Sebastian never looked at Violet when he lectured; he’d told her once that if he did, he feared she’d make him laugh in the middle of his sentence. But this time was different. Usually she knew every word that would come out of his mouth.

This time, for the first time in a hundred lectures, she had no idea what he was going to say. He looked up, looked around the room. His eyes came to rest on hers.

Her breathing stopped. God, he was looking at her like that in front of everyone.

“This,” Sebastian said, “is a subject matter near and dear to my heart. One that I have studied for years in hopes that I might determine its secrets.” He hadn’t looked away. Her palms grew cold.

“I wanted to understand everything,” Sebastian said. “But some things are not comprehensible, at least not to me. So this is a talk that touches on failure as well.” Now he did look away from her. “It’s a talk of hubris, too. A talk about how one man thought he could take on something that he knew was larger than him.”

He paused, as if for effect, and then looked back at her. His eyes bored into hers.

“This,” he said calmly, “is a talk about Violet.”

Her insides froze. She could scarcely sit straight. Her head was whirling. He’d…he’d said her name in front of everyone. He was going to tell them—everyone would know—

Oh, God, her mother was going to kill her. Lily would never speak to her again. Everyone would know. This was a disaster. This was…

But nobody in the room had turned to her.

“Genus viola,” Sebastian said.

Violet unclenched her hands and smoothed her skirts. This was a case of mishearing. He hadn’t said that it was a talk about Violet. He’d said it was a talk about violets.

She took a deep breath and tried to relax.

Sebastian turned to the draped easel at the front of the room and whipped away the cloth that covered it.

“Here’s a typical specimen.” He folded the fabric as he talked. “The flower that adds color to gardens all around England. This”—he indicated the first card on the easel, a colored drawing—“is viola tricolor violacea, the violet of our country gardens, recognizable by its large, three-colored petals and the palmate stipules of its leaves.”

She could scarcely think for the relief flooding her. She was going to kill him, frightening her like that. Making her think that he was talking about her in front of everyone, when he was merely addressing the subject of flowers.

“Many,” Sebastian said, “think the violet a common flower. That is a mistake, one made only by those who have never subjected it to close study. In reality, the violet is one of the most surprising of blooms. It can be found in woodlands and hedgerows, in alpine desolation and in cultivated gardens. It ranges in color from the flashy gold of viola tricolor lutea to the brilliant white of viola alpestris. Some species of genus viola bloom with flowers the size of my fist; others have tiny blooms, scarcely detectable.”

Sebastian smiled, and Violet felt herself smiling back at him.

“People think viola so common,” he said, “that they judge it unworthy of study. Nowadays, when you see a patch of violets, you look past them, wanting to see flashier flowers. But—as I shall demonstrate—the violet is beyond compare.”

And that was when Violet understood. He wasn’t talking about flowers, even if everyone else in the room thought he was. He was talking about her.

He started by describing the crosses he’d performed between the various subspecies of viola tricolor. But she couldn’t ignore his language. He always had a flair for presentation, eschewing big words and dry sentences in favor of a more colorful, conversational style. This time, his words felt like a caress, not a conversation.