The Countess Conspiracy

Sebastian kept his face carefully blank. “Ah. Well. As to that…”

“No, keep quiet. I’m talking.” He gripped the bedclothes. “I lectured you about my accomplishments because I ∂ humility. And what did you do? You went and made twenty-two thousand pounds over a handful of weeks.”

Sebastian decided not to mention that it had grown to twenty-seven thousand by now.

“I spent ten years earning a mediocre position in the Society for the Betterment of Respectable Trade, and the next thing I know you’re handing me papers announcing that you’ve managed to trump me again. You live a charmed life, Sebastian.”

“Perhaps,” Sebastian said, “it is because I am so very, very charming.”

“Yes,” Benedict said. “You are. My own son lights up when you come in the room. He doesn’t light up for me that way. He never has. Next to you, I’m just boring, stodgy old Benedict.”

Sebastian blinked. “No, no,” he said. “That makes absolutely no sense. You’re perfect Benedict. Benedict does no wrong. Benedict is accepted everywhere. If only I could learn to behave like Benedict. You’re the version of Sebastian that is always respectable, always…”

“No.” Benedict swallowed. “I’m the older brother who was so impossible to like that even the most charming, loving of younger brothers gave up on me. You want to know the truth, Sebastian? I’m jealous.” Benedict’s voice grew quiet. “I’m jealous of you. I’m jealous of everything about you. I spent years wondering why it was you who had these brilliant scientific insights. Why you? You already had everything. Why not me?” He let out a breath. “But I’ve read all your papers. I don’t understand a single one. I can ask myself why Violet didn’t come to me instead of you, but I already know the answer.” He let out his breath. “Not only did she not trust me—not only did she know that I wouldn’t help her the way she needed it—but I’m fairly certain she knew that I wouldn’t have been capable.”

“Well,” Sebastian said, looking away. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do.” Benedict reached out and took Sebastian’s hand. “I have to say this. I’m sorry.” He squeezed Sebastian’s hand. “I love you. And…” He swallowed. “And I should never have let my stupid jealousy get in the way of what was right for my son.”

Sebastian let out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding.

“Now,” Benedict said with a smile, “we’ll work out the details of his guardianship as soon as we have a chance. But at the moment, I believe you have a woman waiting for you downstairs.”

SHE WAS WAITING FOR HIM in the entry, her eyes alight.

When he turned the corner, she beamed at him.

“My lady,” Sebastian said. “Have you given any thought to the offers you’ve had? Cambridge? Harvard? King’s College?”

“I’ll have to find out more. The terms. I’ll have to think it all through.”

Sebastian came down the stairs slowly, stalking toward the woman he loved. “Me, personally? I’m partial to Paris. And I’ve always wanted to be a faculty spouse. I think I shall do well with that.”

“Paris is nice, but…” Violet stopped and looked up at him. “A what?”

“A faculty spouse. I could hold teas for all the other faculty spouses.” He grinned at her. “I’d do an excellent job.”

“Sebastian,” she said, “are you asking me to marry you?”

“Oh, no.” He put his arms around her and drew her close. “Just hinting that you ought to ask me.”

Violet burst into a laugh. “Well. Then.” She put her head against his shoulder. “Next Tuesday? That will surely keep the gossip going.”

He could smell her, sweet and enticing, could feel himself breaking into a smile. “Next Tuesday it is, then. And how clever of you to steal my coach and bring it out here. If we’d both come out on horseback, it would have been extremely inconvenient for my purposes. Guess what I’m going to do with you on the way back?”

She looked up at him, her eyes dark. “Am I guessing? Or are you giving me a choice?”

He found himself smiling. “Both. It’s been…quite a while.”

“Indeed,” she smiled up at him. “I’m exhausted after everything that has transpired.”

He tipped her chin up and kissed her. “Well, then. We’ll have to make sure you sleep very, very soundly tonight.”

Epilogue

Two years later.

MEET ME AT CASTEIN’S BOOKS. Your very own servant, Violet Malheur.

Sebastian smiled, folding the paper that had been delivered to him into quarters before sliding it into his breast pocket.

“Gentlemen.” He stood.

In the low light of the gentleman’s club, the other three men with him blinked up at him uncertainly. Sebastian reached out and began to gather the papers strewn about the mahogany surface.

“Malheur,” one of them complained, “I had almost got it. Just a few moments longer, and I’m certain I would have understood what you were saying. Just start again—start with the second-order corrections you made to the insurance rates, and then—”

“It’s no good,” Benedict said, leaning back in his chair and favoring Sebastian with a smile. “He has that look in his eye. And I happen to know that his wife has been out of town—so I think we can guess who sent him that note.”

“Yes, well,” the other man groused. “Wives. They’re all well and good, but…ah…” He stopped, his words slowing, and then glanced up at Sebastian, as if remembering who Sebastian’s wife was.

“She’s just back from Vienna,” Sebastian said. “She was giving a presentation there. I haven’t seen her in six days.”

“But…”

“But nothing,” Sebastian said. “We’ll meet tomorrow at ten in the morning.”

They took his departure with good grace, in part because Benedict gathered them in. The Underground would transport him faster than any carriage; Sebastian stepped down into its bowels. But he didn’t head to Castein’s Books after all—that had closed nine months ago.

What was the point of code, after all, if everybody could understand it? This one meant: To hell with all of our responsibilities. Come find me as soon as you can.