“I am leaving,” he announced abruptly.
Violet sniffed. “As you wish.”
“I’ve better things to do with my day than trade words with an unreasonable harpy.”
“I wonder that men find marriage such a trial,” she mused aloud. “It seems to me that ladies have far more to complain about, if this is the treatment we are to expect from our husbands.” She sounded vaguely like Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice—a novel she had thoroughly enjoyed—but believed herself justified.
He took his leave of her with an impossibly short bow. If he allowed the door to bang shut behind him with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary—well, she supposed that every gentleman had his limits.
Six
That evening, James visited his club and proceeded to get very, very drunk. Never had he been so grateful that Penvale and Jeremy did not have wives to return home to at a reasonable hour, because they took to this activity with great enthusiasm.
It began with a brandy—or two or three—in the drawing room at White’s. They then took themselves to the gaming tables, where Penvale won a tidy sum off of both Jeremy and James. There was more brandy, and a bottle of claret, before James declared himself done. He might be drunk, and he might be extremely angry with his wife, but that did not mean that he wished to lose so much money that he had to pawn her jewels.
Thus it was, at some ungodly hour of the morning, that the three men found themselves back in armchairs before the fire, sharing a bottle of Madeira, as James stared gloomily into the flickering flames before him.
“All right, Audley,” Jeremy said suddenly, breaking what had been a momentary peaceful silence. “You smell like a distillery, so out with it. What’s sent you into your cups?”
“Matrimony,” James said succinctly, taking a hearty gulp of his drink. He peered into his glass. Was it empty again already? This seemed to be happening more and more quickly as the evening wore on.
“Ah,” said Jeremy knowingly, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Precisely why I haven’t the slightest interest in the institution.”
“Yes, well,” James said darkly, continuing to stare unseeingly down into his empty glass, “I do have to give that wife of mine credit. She has outdone herself when it comes to creating new ways to make my life difficult.”
“What’s she done now?” Penvale asked, and James didn’t think he was imagining the wariness in Penvale’s voice.
Some dim part of his mind registered that sober James, or perhaps even moderately intoxicated James, would prevaricate at this point, or back away entirely from any discussion of anything to do with himself and Violet. However, excessive-amounts-of-brandy-and-wine James had a loose tongue, and little desire to mince words. “Caught consumption.”
Jeremy choked on his drink. “Excuse me?” he managed, after his wheezing had subsided.
“Or at least, that’s what she’d like me to believe,” James continued, feeling a fresh surge of anger as he spoke. It had been devastating, four years prior, to learn that he had misplaced his trust in a woman who, as it turned out, would keep vital information from him. He, who had been so slow to trust in the past, had felt like a fool for being taken in by a pretty face and a charming laugh. Now, on his seeing further evidence of her duplicity, the pain was absent—but the anger was just as strong.
“She’s been acting oddly the last couple of days, and I return home yesterday to find some charlatan of a physician leaving the premises who informs me that she might or might not have consumption, he’s not quite certain.” James could hear the sarcasm in his own voice as he finished speaking.
“How do you know he was a charlatan?” Jeremy asked.
James thought of the calling card with Belfry’s name on it, still sitting in one of his coat pockets. “Trust me,” he said. “I know.” His friends, recognizing the tone that he adopted when he would not be pushed further on a given topic, didn’t protest. He redirected his bleary gaze toward Penvale, who had, until this point, remained largely silent. “And it’s your bloody fault for that letter, you ass.”
Penvale didn’t even blink. “According to my sister, everything usually is.” His tone was the weary one of a man accustomed to a lifetime of unfair accusations.
“Your sister,” James said, pausing, a thought occurring to him. “I’ll bet she knows all about this. Don’t suppose you’ve plans to see her anytime soon?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m engaged to escort her to the theater tomorrow,” Penvale said, with all the cheer of a man facing the gallows.
James frowned. “Violet mentioned the theater tomorrow, too.” Then, suddenly, the pieces fell into place. “She didn’t mention which one, though. Covent Garden? Drury Lane?” he queried innocently, knowing perfectly well what Penvale’s answer would be.
“No,” Penvale said, shaking his head. “The Belfry.”
Jeremy, who had been slouched back in his chair, swirling the contents of his glass around, sat up so quickly that some of the liquid sloshed over the side of the glass and onto his immaculately pressed breeches. “The Belfry?” he said, sounding more like an anxious mama than James would have believed possible. “You can’t take ladies to the Belfry, have you gone mad?”
Penvale seemed to be considering his words with care. “Diana was recently introduced to Julian Belfry. He extended the invitation.”
“I’ll bet he did,” Jeremy muttered, with more feeling than James would have expected.
“She asked Violet to come, too, for the sake of appearances,” Penvale explained. He slumped back slightly in his chair, raising his glass to his lips in a gesture of practiced indolence that was reminiscent of his sister—Penvale and Lady Templeton both shared a particular lazy grace.
“And apparently I shall be accompanying Violet, also for the sake of appearances,” James said wryly. He leaned his head back against his chair, staring unseeingly up at the ornate ceiling of White’s. His mind was full of conflicting desires: the desire to catch Violet out in her lie in the most embarrassing way possible; the desire to learn how the hell Julian Belfry had gotten tangled up in all of this; the desire to tear off that bloody sheer nightgown she’d had on earlier and drag his tongue over every inch of the body that lay—
It was this enticing thought that was occupying most of his mental energy when he was dragged out of the reverie by the sound of Jeremy’s voice.
“West! Fancy a drink, old chap?”
James raised his head. Sure enough, his elder brother stood before them, regarding James in particular with an expression that was a mixture of amusement and disapproval.
“West,” James said shortly.
“James,” his brother replied. “Rough evening?”
“Not at all,” James said coldly, sitting up straighter in his chair.
West raised an eyebrow. James returned the gesture.
He could remember happier days, when conversations with his brother had not always felt like some sort of silent battle. When they’d been children, the duke had largely ignored James, focusing his attention and energies on his eldest son and heir, West. The young Marquess of Weston, it was understood, was the one the family pinned its hopes on. The future duke and steward of the land. The continuation of a long line of dukes. It was West who spent long days riding about the estate with the duke, while James was left behind in the care of a nurse or, later, a tutor.
His father’s motives for favoring West had not been particularly clear at the time to a boy who had spent his entire life in a large house in the country without anything in the way of fatherly affection—and not much of the brotherly sort, either, given West’s frequent absence. He had been sent to Eton, where Jeremy and Penvale had become brothers of a sort to him, and it was only after he’d taken up residence in London after finishing university that he and West had formed any sort of friendship. As an adult, James had come to realize that in some ways he, and not his brother, had received the better end of the deal in regar
d to their father.
The aforementioned friendship had faltered when his marriage had. Immediately on the heels of his argument with Violet, James—admittedly in a rather prickly mood—had quarreled with West, ostensibly over the management of the Audley House stables, but more broadly over their father’s role in his life, his marriage, and his relationship with his brother.
Their conversations in the recent past had been less warm than they once had been.
“West, have you plans for tomorrow evening?” Jeremy asked, interrupting James’s line of thought.
West refocused his attention from his brother. “Nothing specific.”
“Come to the Belfry with us then. We’re bringing the ladies,” Jeremy added in a conspiratorial whisper.
West stilled, looking suddenly and without warning very ducal. His gloves, which he had been slapping lightly against one of his thighs, ceased moving, and everything about him—from his perfectly tied neckcloth to the shine on his shoes—screamed disapproval. “The ladies?” he repeated in a deceptively mild tone. He shifted the walking stick he had used ever since the curricle accident from his side to his front, bracing it with both hands.
“Just my sister and Violet,” Penvale added quickly, but this did not seem to mollify West in the least. His dark gaze left Penvale and Jeremy and refocused on James with greater intensity. James and his brother shared a striking physical resemblance: both were tall and broad of shoulder, with similarly disheveled dark curls and memorably green eyes. From a distance, the only difference between them was the slight limp that had plagued West’s gait since the age of twenty-four.
“How can you possibly be considering escorting your wife to a place like the Belfry?” West asked, giving James a glimpse of the formidable duke he would one day become. His voice was mild, and he was careful to speak quietly enough to ensure that no one beyond Penvale and Jeremy overheard them, but James could sense the anger lurking behind his words.
James rose, feeling this was a conversation for which he would like to be at eye level with his brother. “If you must know, my wife asked me to escort her,” he said evenly, hoping that he was giving nothing away through his tone. Other than Violet, West had always been the person best able to see through his cool demeanor.
“On friendly terms with her again?” West asked, arching a brow.
James’s fist clenched, but he merely said, “No.”
West broke first. “Do what you want, James.” He shifted his cane back into one hand and took a step back. “I assume this is the latest parry in your never-ending war.” He nodded at Jeremy and Penvale in turn and turned back to James for one final parting shot. “I suppose I shall see you at the Belfry tomorrow, then.”
“But—”
“If you’re determined to risk your wife’s reputation rather than have any sort of honest conversation with her, then I suppose, for the sake of the family, I shall have to join you to control the damage.” And with that, he made an unhurried exit.
“Bastard,” James muttered, staring after him a moment before dropping back into his chair.
Jeremy watched West’s exit from the room with interest. “How does he manage to make a limp look so elegant?” he wondered aloud to no one in particular.
“Shall I cripple you, to give you some practice?” James asked pleasantly.
“If this is what marriage does to a man’s temper, I shall continue to avoid it,” Jeremy shot back.
James sank back into his chair and generously refilled his glass from the bottle of Madeira at hand. He took a healthy sip.
“What are you going to do, Audley?” Jeremy asked more quietly, his tone uncommonly serious.
James rolled his head to the side to look at his friends. “I’m going to play her game,” he said decisively, taking another sip from his glass. The room was beginning to look fuzzy around the edges, and he knew he would have a devil of a headache in the morning, but he couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. “And if that requires going to Julian Belfry’s bloody theater, then so be it.”
* * *
There was nothing, Violet reflected the following evening, quite so satisfying as a well-thought-out plan, executed perfectly.
Or so she imagined. She would not know from personal experience. Her own plan, as it were, was proving to be slightly more frustrating than anticipated.
She had awoken that morning, eager to feign a brilliant recovery from the previous day’s illness, but no sooner had she rung her bell to summon Price than she received a visit from her husband. Unlike the previous afternoon, however, he had not lingered; he had merely hovered in the doorway, informing her that he was leaving for his morning ride and that he had given strict instructions to the servants to ensure that she remained abed all day.
“To preserve your strength,” he said solemnly, and then had departed, so quickly that the pillow she had flung to the floor in consternation and the unladylike oath she had uttered had been observed by no one.
The day that had followed had been dissatisfying, to put it politely.
To put it impolitely, she had felt like throwing herself out the bloody window.
One day in bed, particularly when one is, in fact, in the pink of health, is tiresome; two days confined are nearly intolerable. Prior to her “illness,” she had been engaged in cataloguing the complete contents of the library in preparation for a complete reorganization. She couldn’t very well spend her entire day on a ladder in the library, but she had already read all of the most recent editions of the periodicals to which she subscribed and written enough letters to the editor that she felt a satisfying sense of accomplishment, and yet still the hours stretched ahead of her. She picked up and set aside a dozen books in turn. She even, in a fit of desperation, penned a note to her mother, inviting her to tea the following day. And still, it was only midmorning.
Deciding there was only so much one could tolerate, she rang for Price. At the request she made, her lady’s maid’s calm demeanor slipped for a moment—but only a moment. She then offered a curtsey and a calm “Yes, my lady,” as though this request were nothing out of the ordinary. Violet, pleased, leaned back against her pillows and waited.
By late afternoon, she had a pleasing routine worked out. Price would bring her a stack of books—only a few at a time, in case she were observed by Wooton or one of the footmen—and Violet, using the makeshift desk she had created for herself (her tea tray, cleared of its china), would scribble away at the stack of papers that currently comprised her catalogue. While she was working, Price would remove any books with which she was finished, return them to the library, and reappear with a fresh stack. It was perhaps not ideal, but it was certainly better than twiddling her thumbs and reading Pamela for the tenth time.
At some point in the afternoon, she detected voices in the entryway downstairs, and she leapt to her feet, nearly upsetting her ink bottle in the process. She shoved the catalogue, pen, and ink back into her bedside table drawer, but what to do with the books? They wouldn’t fit, and judging by the pace of the footsteps, she had no time to scamper to her desk, which she had resisted using in the event that a maid came in unannounced and should see her sitting there rather than languishing piteously in her bed. She didn’t think James would stoop so low as to have the servants spy on her, but she supposed she couldn’t be too careful. Lacking any other options, she buried the remaining three books underneath her pillows and flung herself back into bed, noting with satisfaction that she had managed to avoid any ink splotches. She picked up the closest thing to hand—the Lady’s Monthly Museum, which she had left nearby to be utilized in the event of just such an emergency—and affected an air of great interest in its contents as she heard a firm knock at her door.
“Enter,” she called, idly flicking a page. She avoided looking up, leaning forward to focus on the rather maudlin bit of poetry on the page before her.
There was a rather loud throat-clearing from the direction of the doorway.
Vi
olet turned another page.
“Violet.”
She looked up innocently.
“Yes?”
James was standing in the doorway, his tall form leaning slightly against the doorframe. He was dressed for riding, and her eyes could not help dropping to admire the clinging cut of his buckskin breeches. His jacket was a dark, dark green, which served to make his eyes stand out even more vividly. Her heartbeat quickened at the sight of him, in spite of their estrangement, just as it had when she was eighteen and so very foolishly in love.
He was staring at her with an unreadable expression. Violet arched a brow.
“Are you feeling improved this evening?” he asked at last, not moving from his position by the door.
“Quite,” Violet said, flipping shut her magazine and casting it aside. She batted her eyelashes sickeningly. “No doubt owing to following your wise counsel to remain in bed, my lord and master.”
Something flashed across his face at her sarcasm, so quickly that she could not identify it before it was gone. “Still feeling well enough for the theater this evening, then?”
“Indeed,” Violet said, sitting up straighter. “Diana sent word that she and Penvale would come collect us in her carriage, so we might all attend together.”
“We have a perfectly good carriage of our own.”
“But it’s more fun to all arrive together, don’t you think?”
“To be squeezed so that we can barely breathe, you mean?”
“Don’t be churlish.” Violet folded her arms across her chest to indicate that she was done with the discussion. James threw his hands in the air and departed, muttering something about not bothering to have his valet press his breeches if he were going to be packed so tightly into a conveyance that he would have to sit on Penvale’s lap. Violet jumped out of bed and began her evening preparations.
So it was that she now found herself mere inches from her husband as Diana’s carriage rattled across the cobblestone streets of London. They had entered the carriage some minutes before to find Emily sitting beside Diana instead of Penvale
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