The Countess Conspiracy

She was manicured and coiffed. Her maid gave her gown one last brushing. And then she brought out the mirror-stand. No longer homely, Violet once again qualified as barely handsome. As much as she could ever hope for. She stared at herself in the mirror. Her mirror-eyes glinted at her.

It’s not selfish to want to be held.

“You be quiet,” Violet told herself.

“Your pardon? Your ladyship, I didn’t say anything.”

Violet waved a hand in apology. “I was talking to her,” she said, extending a finger to the mirror.

“Oh, then. That’s all right.” Louisa bobbed. “Will there be anything else?”

Violet shook her head and went in search of her best friend.

She would have to tell him something. The problem was that he knew her too well. None of her lies would work on him.

I may have given you the wrong impression, but actually, I don’t want to kiss you. It’s just an unfortunate muscular tic, an involuntary twitch of the heart.

Yes, well, remember how we’re friends? What good friends we are! How lovely is it to have a good friend, someone you don’t want to kiss!

No good. He’d know she was lying.

I do want to kiss you, but it seems like an awful idea.

I do want to kiss you, but I’m scared.

If she gave him the truth, he’d say rational things—things like, it’s just a kiss, and you don’t have to do anything that will risk another miscarriage. True. But the kiss scared her. A kiss was a beginning, not an end. Kissing was like opening a door onto a beautiful sunlit land and saying, “Don’t worry; you don’t have to venture outside.”

Violet knew herself too well. If she opened the door, she would venture.

She hadn’t decided what to say by the time she came to his door. And so she stood there, staring at it. The handle was cunning metalwork, mimicking the opening of a flower, petals flaring. She could have examined it for hours, especially since she had a reason to procrastinate.

“Stupid heart,” she muttered, tracing the edge of one petal. “Why couldn’t you have become fixed on this?” Something inanimate and cold. Something that could never hurt her. She raised her hand to knock…

“Stupid heart,” she muttered again. “I won’t have it. Nobody controls my muscles but me. I will knock, yes, but only when I’m good and—”

The door opened. Sebastian stood on the other side. His eyes widened as he saw her, but he didn’t say anything. And oh, oh, how wrong she had been. Her heart wasn’t just a muscle; it was the muscle that pumped blood throughout her body. She tried to think of it as just the rhythmic movement of ventricles and chambers, but with Sebastian in front of her, it was more. It was a faint flush of heat throughout, a slight dizziness as her blood delivered more oxygen to her tissues than they needed. The functioning of her entire body was tied to his smile, and when he gave it to her, all her efforts to expunge her desires failed.

She took a step forward. He didn’t move back. It felt inevitable, then. She wished she could say that she was no longer in control of her muscles, but she was. She was the one who reached up to touch his hair—still slightly damp; he had taken a bath.

He bowed his head, letting her fingers lace through his hair, letting her draw his face down to hers.

“Sebastian,” she whispered.

“At your service.”

She kissed him. She’d kissed him once before in fury and anguish. But this was different. This was a kiss that came from every ventricle of her heart, every last valve. All four chambers of her heart pumped for him. And it was a damned good thing he didn’t know what she was thinking, or he’d realize that she had gone mad.

No. He knew her too well. He’d probably laugh with her, which wouldn’t be so awful, except she wanted him to kiss her back.

He did. He brushed her lips with his lightly, first, and then again, with greater tenderness. And then he slid his arm around her and pulled her into his room. She scarcely heard the closing of the door, but she felt the plane of the wood against her back, the press of his legs against hers. His hands cupped her face, and his lips parted.

She’d thought his tongue would come next, but instead, he seemed content to trade air from his lungs with hers.

“Violet,” he said. “My most wonderful Violet.” His lips brushed hers. “Violet. Lovely Violet. Clever Violet.”

His kiss overpowered her. She’d always imagined that in the height of passion, all thought would stop. But it didn’t. She thought. She couldn’t stop thinking—of the way his fingers brushed over her nerve endings, finding every last sensitive spot as surely as if he’d examined them under a microscope. She was all too aware of the beat of the muscle that had brought her here—that sequential thump-thump of her atria pumping blood, followed by the ventricles. She’d heard people say they were aware of the blood in their veins, but she was aware of the blood in her arteries, in every last capillary sending oxygen to her starved tissues.

She was aware of it all, until Sebastian straightened and contemplated her. His hand was still on her shoulder, rubbing her collarbone.

“What was that?” Sebastian asked.

“That was a kiss.” Violet brought up her chin. “If you couldn’t tell—”

“No. I mean, what happened there? I thought earlier you wanted more, but then you ran away, and I assumed I’d misjudged.”

What was she to say? That her brain had got into a fight with her heart, and her heart had triumphed?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she told him. “I smelled. I had to take a bath. That’s all.”

He smiled as if he could see right through her. “Violet.” He leaned in. “For future reference, I don’t give a damn how you smell.”

“Well, I do.” She folded her arms and stared at a corner of the opposite room. “And for future reference, my heart is an ass.”

He stared at her. “I see. It carries heavy burdens long distances.” He leaned in to kiss her again.

“That’s not what I meant,” she protested. Now that she’d stopped kissing him, the reasons for not doing so spilled back in. But she couldn’t take back that kiss; it had become his. “This is never going to work. Think about it, Sebastian. I can’t have intercourse, and you love it.”

He didn’t say anything for a while. He simply held her hand, rubbing up and down her thumb, as if he could wash away all her fears with that gentle motion.