To Have and to Hoax

by Martha Waters

  James glanced down at the card in his hand, and his suspicions were confirmed. The elaborately engraved card read LORD JULIAN BELFRY.

  * * *

  Violet heard the footsteps on the stairs and sprang into action. She tightly screwed on the lid to her ink bottle and wiped her pen with a handkerchief, then hastily shoved both, along with the sheet of paper upon which she had been writing, into a drawer of her bedside table. She had just flung herself back against her pillows, folding her hands calmly atop the blankets that covered her, when she noticed an alarming splotch of ink on her index finger. She rolled over and frantically opened the drawer once more, grabbing the ink-stained handkerchief and scrubbing at her finger. She had, after all, supposedly just been examined by a doctor while lying docilely abed, and therefore could not afford any suspiciously fresh ink spots—the result of a highly emotional letter to the editor of Ackermann’s Repository about a planned exhibition of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.

  Shoving the handkerchief under her pillow, she forced herself to recline calmly, as any true invalid would. She had been lying abed in a state of some anxiety for quite a while now; Lord Julian had arrived that morning, as they had arranged, and lingered in her room until James returned home. He had brought along a sheaf of papers, which Violet thought might have been a script, and had spent a quiet few hours perusing them, occasionally muttering to himself. She had written three letters, read a volume of scandalous poetry, read the latest issue of Ackermann’s Repository, and begun writing another letter. It was exactly what she would have been doing on any other day, but being forced to do it from the confines of her bed—since she had to keep up appearances, for the sake of any servants who might wander in—had made it inexpressibly more tedious. It had never occurred to her how dull a life of espionage must be at times, and she was very grateful that James had returned home early today.

  Lord Julian had sprung into action as soon as they’d heard James’s voice downstairs—they had kept her bedchamber door cracked for just this purpose—and had vanished out the door, false whiskers in place, before Violet could offer so much as a thank-you.

  She hadn’t been able to catch any of the conversation downstairs, had heard only muted male voices, but she heard James’s footsteps now, loud and clear, and it occurred to her that she would recognize his tread anywhere. She knew the precise weight of his footfalls, the length of his strides, and she tried not to contemplate the number of evenings she had lain abed, listening to those footsteps passing by her bedroom door on the way to his own.

  Her own door flung open with a bang, not at all like the quiet knock he had offered just days before. She firmly resisted the temptation to fuss with her hair. She was supposed to be ill, for heaven’s sake.

  James stalked into the room, reaching behind himself to shut the door, thankfully with less force than he had employed in opening it. His dark hair was in slight disarray, as though he had run a hand through it roughly, as she knew he was wont to do when frustrated or upset. She felt a sudden, piercing desire to smooth it for him, and her heart clenched at the thought, even as she gave herself a stern mental shake. She was supposed to be punishing the man, not soothing him.

  There was an odd look on his face as he approached her bedside—assessing. He seemed to be sizing her up, perusing her from head to toe and back again. His green eyes were glittering, and there was more color in his cheeks than usual. She lifted her chin, waiting for him to speak first, and casually laced her hands so that the telltale ink-stained finger was hidden.

  “Why the devil was there a physician leaving the house as I arrived?” he barked, coming to a halt approximately a foot away from her. “Wooton said he had been here for some time.”

  “You asked me to speak to a physician,” Violet replied.

  “I suppose it was too much to ask that you perhaps inform your husband before doing so?” He phrased it like a question, but did not wait for a response before halving the distance between them and seizing her hand. Most unfortunately, it was the hand with the ink-stained finger.

  “I wasn’t aware that such courtesies were expected between us these days,” she said, hoping to distract him from the noticeable dark stain. His only reaction was an involuntary squeezing of the hand he now held firmly between his. Or not so involuntary, as it transpired. He flipped her hand over so her palm faced upward atop his own and began poking at it with no great finesse.

  “Might I ask what you are doing?” she asked, reining in her temper with some effort. The pokes were not as gentle as they might have been. And was the ink stain visible? From this angle, likely not—but she thought it best to bring an end to these proceedings as quickly as possible.

  “Checking your pulse,” came the curt reply, as the hand palpitations continued.

  “I think you’ve missed it a bit,” she said dryly, as his hand inched up her inner arm.

  “Yes, well, I’m not a trained physician.” Was it her imagination, or was there extra emphasis on those last words?

  “I know,” she said, yanking her arm out of his grasp. “That’s why I consulted one.”

  He paused a moment, eyeing her, his expression inscrutable. She thought longingly of the days when his every thought and idea had seemed to rest openly on his face when he looked at her, secrets that were hers for the taking laid bare. The fact that he hid so much of himself away from everyone else had made it feel even more special, like a gift he offered to her alone.

  “And what did this physician have to say, precisely?”

  She looked at him for a long moment—hadn’t Lord Julian spoken to him? Had something gone amiss downstairs? She thought quickly, then hedged. “He had a good many things to say.”

  “What sorts of things?” he asked with deadly calm, sitting carefully down on the edge of her bed. The bed was large enough that he still was not touching her, but she braced herself with one hand to ensure that she did not accidentally roll toward the depression he had created.

  “Well,” she said, drawing the word into several syllables, “he seemed very interested in my lungs.”

  “In your lungs, or the breasts that cover them?” he asked darkly.

  Violet sputtered.

  His eyes, which had been fixed for a moment on the assets in question, flicked to her face. “What I meant to say,” he added hastily, clearly attempting to salvage the situation, “is that I can’t have a lecherous doctor treating my wife.”

  Violet nearly snorted. Lord Julian had barely looked at her in the time he’d been in the room, so engrossed had he been in the script in his hand; he had occasionally summoned one of the servants to bring hot water or tea, for the sake of appearances, and had at one point taken a dramatic trip to the library to consult some sort of medical text. Or so he told Wooton, who had lurked in the hallway like an anxious mother hen. Violet had never seen him so fussed.

  “I don’t think that Briggs had lechery in mind, my dear husband,” Violet said, resisting the impulse to bat her eyelashes at him. “He was rather elderly.”

  “Was he?” James looked at her closely, and she felt that she was being tested, somehow, though she couldn’t quite tell what exactly he wished—or didn’t wish—her to say.

  “He was,” she confirmed, her mind on Lord Julian’s absurd set of false whiskers. “You saw him, I trust? Or is your eyesight failing now, as your own age advances?” She was testing him, too, and she knew she shouldn’t, but something about him had always made her want to prod at his stiff exterior until it shattered. His jaw tensed and, glancing down, she saw his hand drumming a pattern on the counterpane, one of his few tells.

  “What did the doctor say, Violet?” The words were terse and clearly enunciated.

  “Didn’t he tell you? Or did you not speak to him?” She was hesitating, and she wasn’t certain why. Hadn’t she looked forward to the chance to see the look on his face when he learned of her supposed illness? Wasn’t this the revenge that she had wanted? And yet, it was proving less
satisfying than she had expected. James was behaving so very strangely, and she found difficulty summoning the words.

  It was one thing to concoct a (thoroughly half-baked, to use Lord Julian’s words) scheme; it was quite another to lie to the face of the man she had once promised before God and a church full of people to love and cherish. She’d mentally crossed her fingers when she’d gotten to the bit about obeying, but the rest of the vows she had meant wholeheartedly. The fact that for the past four years he had believed her to be (at best) a liar by omission and (at worst) conniving and manipulative did not make the telling of this lie any easier. She didn’t relish the idea of being as untrustworthy as he had unfairly believed her to be.

  “I did speak to him,” James said, his expression unreadable. “But I was rather curious to hear what he told you.”

  “Well,” Violet said again, “as I said, he was very interested in—”

  “Your lungs, yes, I know,” James said, and she was perversely pleased to hear the note of impatience in his voice. As ever, she counted it a victory whenever she managed to crack his cool facade, even for a moment.

  “Consumption!” Violet burst out, and then clapped her hand over her mouth as though doing so would somehow take back the word that lingered between them. She hastily turned this movement into a small coughing fit—not one of her best, though, if she were to offer an honest evaluation of her performance.

  “Yes,” James said after her coughs had subsided. His tone was odd, and she gave him a long look. He met her gaze evenly, and she felt trapped, pinned to the pillows behind her by its strength. “Well,” he said, standing up, his manner suddenly businesslike, “I suppose if this physician of yours is to be believed, then we had better start packing our bags.”

  This was not the reaction Violet had been expecting.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Our bags,” James said slowly, enunciating each word clearly. “I don’t suppose you plan to travel in that nightgown, lovely as it is?” Violet sat up straight, and his eyes dropped to her breasts. She was tempted to cross her arms over her chest, but the heat of his gaze kept them still at her sides. She chanced a quick glance down, wondering what had caught his attention, and realized that her sudden motion had caused the thin fabric to press against her chest in interesting ways. She leaned back slightly, letting him look his fill. She was not above admitting that it was thoroughly gratifying.

  “You were saying?” she asked after a moment, feeling that this had gone on quite long enough. Although she had to admit, it considerably soothed her ego—she had wondered more than once if James had found comfort in someone else’s arms during the years of their estrangement, but this seemed a tick in the box of evidence in the negative. Breasts were all very well, but no man who was enjoying bedsport on a regular basis looked at a pair with such an expression of wistful longing.

  He wrenched his eyes away from the sight and blinked twice to refocus his attention on her face.

  “Packing?” she prodded gently.

  “Ah, yes.” He took a step back, and his voice had returned to its usual distant tone. “Packing. You see, I understand that on the Continent they have sanitariums that offer rest cures for consumption, so it seems that we should pack your bags and make arrangements to leave immediately.”

  “To go where?” Violet asked warily.

  “Switzerland.”

  “Switzerland!” She shoved back the blankets that covered her—it was too bloody warm in this room, anyway—and came up onto her knees. “I’m not going to Switzerland!”

  “If this physician of yours is correct, and you have consumption, then I don’t see that you have much choice.” James looked around the room thoughtfully. “Shall I ring for Price immediately, or would you like to take a nap first? I know it’s been a trying day for you.” He reached out, placed a hand on her forehead. “And you are starting to feel feverish.”

  Violet swatted his hand away; playing the invalid was all well and good, but she was hardly prepared to be carted off to some patch of grass on the Continent. “I certainly am not! I’m just warm from being trapped in bed all day in the middle of the summer.”

  He tsked once, now reaching out to press the back of his hand against her cheek. “That’s what you would say if you were truly feverish, so I don’t know that I should trust your word in this regard.” He paused, looking at her thoughtfully. Unlike when he’d been evaluating her a moment before, there was nothing remotely amorous in his eyes now.

  “I am not going to bloody Switzerland!” Violet half shrieked. Belatedly remembering she was supposed to be ill, she offered a sort of hacking swoon that resulted in a not-terribly-graceful collapse back onto her pillows.

  “I’m not certain I should respect your wishes in this case,” James said, eyeing her with a show of concern. “Switzerland’s supposed to be very healthy. All that Alpine air. And the goats.”

  “Goats?” Violet repeated blankly.

  “Goats,” James confirmed with a nod. “They’re healthy sorts of creatures, aren’t they?”

  “Er,” Violet said, words momentarily failing her.

  “If Switzerland is good enough for a goat, it’s good enough for you,” he declared grandly.

  “How very romantic,” she murmured, privately wondering if perhaps an actual physician should be summoned to examine him. “But I don’t have the slightest desire to go to Switzerland, goats or no. I’m certain that it’s very lovely, but I don’t think that’s quite necessary yet.”

  “Well, a second physician certainly is.” His tone was flat, and any trace of lightness that she might have seen in him was suddenly absent. He crossed his arms over his chest, and the only wildly inappropriate thought she seemed capable of summoning was that his doing so did very enticing things to the muscles in his arms.

  “James, I don’t want another physician,” she said, only slightly belatedly. She sat up straight again, and again his eyes dropped to her chest. She really must find a different nightgown to wear, she determined—or perhaps not, on second thought, given the wicked light that gleamed in his eyes as he looked at her. “I do not feel terribly poorly, truly,” she added before adding a faint cough as punctuation. She didn’t want to be bedridden—and she certainly didn’t want an actual physician to come and tell him she was perfectly healthy—but it wouldn’t do to seem too much recovered.

  “Briggs seemed to think that my condition would vary wildly by the day,” she improvised, hoping that James knew nothing at all about the course of the illness, and cursing her own foolishness in not doing a bit of research. “He said there was no reason I shouldn’t carry on with my usual activities on the days I felt up to it.”

  “You’re in bed,” he pointed out. “In the middle of the day. Clearly, you don’t feel up to much of anything. Unless this is an invitation?” he added, and, to her fury, she found herself blushing. Her mind was instantly filled with memories she had done her best to suppress over the past four years, so as not to drive herself mad. Memories of bare skin, entangled limbs, the warmth of James’s mouth on unspeakable parts of her body.

  “I’m a bit fatigued, is all,” she managed, and before she even realized what she was doing, she had reached out to place a hand over his own. He froze, his eyes looking down at their hands.

  It was not that she had never touched him over the course of the past four years. A polite bow and a formal kiss on the hand were not uncommon, and he had helped her in and out of many a carriage. But those were scripted touches, ones deemed acceptable—even necessary—by society. This was sudden, unplanned, for them and them alone.

  And it still felt so right.

  Before she could think better of it and remove her hand, he had turned his palm-up, capturing hers in the grasp of his much larger hand. His grip was firm, his skin very warm against her own. She didn’t dare look up at his face, instead directing her comments to their linked fingers.

  “I’m certain I shall be feeling better in the morning,
so there’s no need to concern yourself overmuch. In fact, Diana has invited us to the theater with her tomorrow, and I should like to attend.”

  “The theater?” he repeated slowly, and she risked a glance upward, to find that she was being surveyed with a narrow-eyed gaze. He looked… suspicious. Suspicious was not good. “A bloody physician has just told you you have consumption and you want to go to the theater?”

  “Well,” Violet hedged, thinking fast—or at least, as fast as was possible when half of her attention was still devoted to the feeling of his hand clutching hers. “It’s tomorrow, not today. And I do think I am improving already.”

  “This is ridiculous,” he said, dropping her hand. “I am going to send for Worth at once for a second opinion, and then, if he confirms this quack’s diagnosis, we can consult with him on a plan of treatment.”

  “Considering how my concerns and wishes were not given any thought during your recent health scare,” she said through gritted teeth, “I find it a bit rich that you are attempting to be so high-handed about all of this.”

  He stilled, and gave her a long look that she could not interpret. She refused to be the one to break first, though, and met his eyes evenly. His green gaze traveled the length of her body, leaving a trail of heat in its wake; Violet found herself feeling exposed, vulnerable, as though every secret and desire within her were laid bare for his perusal. She was irritated to find that she would very much like him to do considerably more than look at her. With his slightly mussed hair, the color still high in his cheeks from fresh air, he was dangerously enticing.

  “I see,” he said at last, and there was something in the way he said it that she did not like at all, though at the very least it dragged her thoughts away from the lustful direction they had veered toward. He swore under his breath. “This is why men refuse to marry. It’s not worth the bloody trouble.”

  “And those charming words, spoken at the bedside of your beloved wife, are the reason that I am disinclined to take your concerns into account, my lord,” Violet said, an edge to her voice.