The Countess Conspiracy

He did look at Violet then. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open. He smiled at her—he couldn’t help himself—and looked up at the rest of the crowd.

“I give you Violet Waterfield, the Countess of Cambury. Her ladyship will be—”

A rumble swept over the crowd, a thousand murmurs of surprise and disbelief.

“Is this a joke?” someone called from the side.

They’d know it was serious soon enough. The moment she started speaking, they’d recognize her mastery.

“Her ladyship,” Sebastian shouted into the din, “will be lecturing on her latest discovery, which, you will soon see, is her most exciting to date.”

For a second, he thought Violet was going to be ill. She sat in her seat breathing hard, looking down. But then Jane, seated beside her, squeezed her hand. Violet’s mother patted her knee. Violet took a deep breath. The greenish cast left her face and she rose to her feet.

She glided to the front, turned, and…

And she smiled. She smiled as only Sebastian had ever seen her smile before, a smile that filled the room, fierce and powerful.

This is not a joke, that smile said. You will have to deal with me on my own terms, from here on out.

Sebastian had never felt so proud. He stole to the seat she had vacated, sliding between Jane and Violet’s mother.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Violet said. “Today, I give you the chromosome.”

Until this moment, only Sebastian had seen this side of her—the side without sharp prickles, the side that was nothing but sheer exuberance. Damn anyone who said that she wasn’t beautiful. She was now.

“You don’t know what a chromosome is—yet.” She beamed at the crowd. “But you will. Let me start with the work of my colleagues. Mr. Malheur is one, and he has sold his contributions rather short. I could not have managed this work without his lengthy and comprehensive work on violas, as you shall see. I must also give equal credit to Bollingall here at Cambridge, whose work was vital.”

She left off any other designation, which Sebastian suspected was a deliberate choice. She had spent hours talking the matter over with Mrs. Bollingall.

And then she was off. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t flinch. And even though Sebastian was aware of a couple whispering behind him—whining, in truth, because apparently Violet giving the lecture rather than Sebastian had upset some ridiculous plan of theirs—he had eyes only for Violet. She was utterly incandescent.

He noticed the gentleman behind him only when the man stood and left twenty minutes in—a deeply boorish choice.

Violet did not falter despite that rudeness. He was fairly certain she didn’t even notice it.

By the time she started showing the enlarged sketches they’d made of Alice Bollingall’s photographs, the murmurs had nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with her work. When she brought the talk to its triumphant conclusion, Sebastian was not the only one on his feet, shouting and stamping.

He barely registered that the gentleman who had left earlier had come to stand near him.

Jameson eventually waved the crowd to silence. They subsided reluctantly into their chairs—all but that one gentleman, who remained standing. Sebastian cast him a glance. He held a paper in his hand, and sported a ridiculous set of mustachios.

“This has been most illuminating, I’m sure,” he said. “And I’m sure we all have years’ worth of questions. But the schedule allots only twenty minutes. And so, gentlemen…”

He frowned and glanced at Violet, and then shook his head in confusion.

“…And, uh, ladies. If you might…”

The mustachioed gentleman stepped forward. “There will be no questions,” he said in a booming voice.

Jameson frowned. “Who are you?”

“I am John Williams, third constable for Cambridge.” He held out a paper with a flourish. “And based on the activities seen tonight, I have obtained a warrant from the magistrate.”

“A warrant?” Jameson stepped forward; Violet stepped back.

“A warrant,” the man said. “For the arrest of one Violet Waterfield, on charges of inciting a riot, uttering lewd and lascivious statements in a public place, and disturbing the peace.”

Chapter Twenty-three

THE CROWD SWALLOWED VIOLET and the constable like an amoeba extending its pseudopods around a morsel of food.

An amoeba, Violet thought feverishly. A thingy-blobby. Thingy-blobbies had brought her here, and now thingy-blobbies were bearing her away. She was aware that she was not quite in her right mind.

They moved en masse to the magistrate’s court a few streets down.

In the press of those who surrounded her, she couldn’t see any of the people who mattered—not Sebastian, not her mother, not any of her friends. She still hadn’t quite wrapped her mind around what had happened.

She recognized the constable. It was William—he with the high-pitched, whining spouse—and he’d no doubt been looking for an opportunity to do this for ages.

“I’m a countess,” she whispered to him as they brought her before the bench. “I’ll have your badge for this.”

He regarded her with lazy intent. “I had to nip out to adjust the warrant,” he finally said. “I had planned to bring Malheur in, but you’ll do instead. I’ve had enough of these disturbances. If this ungodly work is yours, I hope you enjoy being branded a criminal.”

He’d even managed to muster three magistrates; they faced her, solemn in dark robes and white wigs.

Before the proceedings could start, Violet’s mother came to the front.

“Your Worships,” she said, “you have no power to hold my daughter. The warrant is sworn for Violet Waterfield, but your constable neglected to inform you that she is the Countess of Cambury. As a peeress, she can be charged with a felony only in the House of Lords.”

The magistrates looked at one another in sudden doubt.

“God,” one muttered, audible to Violet’s ears. “What a mess.”

“Is her husband present?” asked another.

“He is deceased.”

“So she’s a dowager countess, then?” He frowned.

“No,” Violet’s mother said. “The new Earl of Cambury is eleven years old.”

There was another frown. One of the magistrates rubbed his forehead. “Do the privileges of peerage accrue to peeresses whose husbands predecease them?”

“How should I know?” the other magistrate replied. “We’ve never charged a peeress before.”