Needless to say, when Jeremy’s brother had died in a racing accident with West, the death duties that Jeremy had been forced to pay when he had inherited the title in turn had nearly bankrupted the marquessate. James often thought it amusing how carefully Jeremy had cultivated the reputation of a carefree rake, when in truth he’d had to fight bitterly—at the age of two-and-twenty, no less—to keep his family estate solvent. James had always admired him for it—and he wondered what, precisely, this had to do with the topic at hand.
The question must have been evident on his face, because Jeremy responded as though he’d voiced the query aloud.
“Your father approached me the week before that evening,” he said bluntly, his gaze never moving from James’s own, and James reflected that this was one of the things he liked best about Jeremy—he might hem and haw about doing what was right, but once he had made up his mind to do so, he never wavered. “He told me that he knew I’d been under a great deal of strain of late, and that he’d be happy to do a bit to alleviate the burden—for a tiny price. Just lure a certain young lady onto a balcony at a certain ball that you’d be attending.” He paused then, breaking eye contact and looking down at his hands. He took a deep breath and raised his eyes once more. “I could lie and say he blackmailed me, or approached me when I was foxed, but it’s not true. I was sober as a judge; he visited me at home one night. I knew how fraught your relationship with your father was, and I did it anyway.” He stated this plainly, without breaking eye contact, making no excuses.
“He offered you money,” James said—it was a statement, rather than a question.
Jeremy shrugged helplessly. “He must have known how desperate I was—he offered me a sum that… well…” He trailed off, looking slightly embarrassed. “It was enough to keep me afloat until those investments could pay off. I wasn’t really in a position to say no.”
James had expected a rush of anger, but he felt oddly… detached.
“Audley,” Jeremy said, speaking more quickly now, “I want you to know—I never would have agreed to it if I’d realized it would actually work.”
“What?”
“What I mean to say is—well—we were only twenty-three! I never dreamed you’d take one look at Violet and become instantly besotted with her.”
“I think it took a bit more than one look,” James said, because a man did have his dignity to consider, after all.
“You say that,” Jeremy said with a trace of his usual smugness, “because you didn’t see your face that evening on the balcony.” He sighed, his levity evaporating once more. “I didn’t mean to trap you into anything, Audley. The past few years, seeing how unhappy you’ve been…” He trailed off again, then cleared his throat uncomfortably. James reflected that he had been friends with Jeremy for nearly twenty years, and yet this might be the most honest conversation they had ever had.
Violet, no doubt, would sniff and say this was typical of men. The thought made him smile—and God, it felt bloody marvelous to smile when he thought of Violet, rather than feel the peculiarly specific combination of anger and despair with which he had become so familiar over the past few years.
“We quarreled about that night,” he said in a rush, without pausing to even consider what he was doing.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The quarrel—this… distance.” He gestured before himself helplessly, as though his hands could encompass the four years of coldness, of slowly inching apart. “It started because I came home to find that my father had called on Violet. I overheard them discussing his and Violet’s mother’s arrangement of that encounter on the balcony.”
“You need to stop listening at doorways.”
“I assure you,” James said, nettled, “that these are the only two occasions on which I have ever done so in my entire life.”
“All the more reason to stop,” Jeremy said sagely, “since it seems you’ve truly abysmal timing.” He paused. “Or I suppose you could start doing it more frequently. If you listened at a doorway every day, you’d be bound to improve your odds of hearing something mundane and entirely uninteresting.”
“The point is,” James said, feeling that someone really ought to keep the conversation on topic, “that I leapt to conclusions. Violet seemed to already know about their scheming, so I assumed she had known all about it from the start. We quarreled over it—she told me I was being an ass, that I should trust her—which I was, and I should have—”
“You mean to tell me that this is the only reason you two have been doing a passable impression of my parents for the past four years?” Jeremy asked incredulously.
“It sounds utterly idiotic, doesn’t it?”
“Dear God, man!” Jeremy said, so animated at this point that he actually leapt to his feet. This attracted considerable attention from the other gentlemen in the room; half a dozen heads turned their way, and Jeremy, belatedly realizing that he was making a scene, waved at them in a way that, far from being reassuring, made him look slightly unhinged.
“I’ve been feeling guilty for years for tricking you into a marriage that made you unhappy,” Jeremy said, lowering his voice slightly as he resumed his seat.
“Indeed?” James arched a brow. “Yes, I can see that the guilt has truly been eating away at you. Put you off food and women, has it?”
“Well, I didn’t say I was in the midst of a bloody Shakespearean tragedy,” Jeremy said defensively. “But I have felt rather bad about it all. No more, though!”
“You do realize,” James said conversationally, “that since our quarrel was originally about the circumstances under which we met—circumstances which you helped orchestrate, I might remind you—it seems to me that now is when you should be feeling most guilty of all?”
Jeremy waved a hand dismissively. “Pish. I’ve spent all this time thinking you two were entirely unsuited and that Violet must secretly be an utter harpy when you’re alone.”
“Afraid not,” James said, feeling—improbably—rather cheerful.
“Indeed! It seems that it is you, in fact, who is the… er…”
“Harpy?” James suggested innocently.
“For lack of a better word.”
“Well,” James said, rising, “as illuminating as this conversation has been, I think it’s time I took my leave of you.”
“Going to grovel at your wife’s feet?”
“Something like that,” James said dryly. “Perhaps a bit more romantic and masculine.”
“I’d stick with groveling,” Jeremy said with the wisdom of a man who had soothed many an offended lady’s delicate sensibilities. “They can’t seem to resist it, bless them.” He paused for a moment, watching James gather his gloves and hat. “Audley—we are—that is to say—” He looked up at James with a look of uncharacteristic uncertainty. “You can forgive me for this?”
James paused a moment, surprised at the realization that he could indeed, without much difficulty. “You’re a good friend, Jeremy,” he said, preparing to turn and leave. “I just wish sometimes you’d take things a bit more seriously.”
“But then—”
“I forgive you,” James said simply, and did not miss the look of relief he saw on his friend’s face just before he turned and left the room.
Fifteen
Violet was in her bedchamber when James returned home.
“Is she ill?” he asked Wooton, though he wasn’t quite able to muster up the appropriate note of husbandly anxiety to inject in his voice. So help him, if Violet were playing the consumptive again—
“I don’t believe so, my lord,” Wooton said, holding his hands out for James’s hat and gloves, which he had practically torn off in his haste. James tossed them to his butler without a second glance and began bounding up the stairs three at a time. He reached the second floor and began striding down the hallway to Violet’s door, at which he did not hesitate to knock firmly.
There was a brief pause, then the muffled sound of footsteps. The doo
r opened, revealing Violet’s startled face.
“James—”
He stopped the rest of her words with his mouth. While not particularly effective as a method of silencing Violet indefinitely, it certainly worked in the short term—and had various benefits to himself as well.
He half expected her to shove him away, after their less-than-warm parting of the evening before, but she responded to him like kindling to a flame. He felt her softening, melting into his arms, her mouth opening under his with a soft sigh, and he suddenly found himself being kissed with an ardor equal to his own. Violet’s arms came up around his neck, her fingers plunging into his hair, and it was all he could do not to groan at the sensation, instead merely wrapping an arm around her waist and hauling her closer.
He managed to drag his lips away from hers and began planting a series of openmouthed kisses down her neck, the sound of her ragged breathing sparking his own desire even further. He felt as though he were on the verge of crawling out of his own body, so great was his need to possess, consume. Could this possibly be normal? Would this feeling never fade? Would he never be able to kiss his wife and not feel as though he were about to burst into flame?
With a herculean force of will, he managed to halt the southerly progress of his mouth, lifting his head and placing a last, more gentle kiss upon her lips. He took a step back, releasing her waist, and she opened her eyes after a moment, blinking at him in such adorable befuddlement that he was unable to resist bestowing another kiss upon her. This one would have escalated in a similarly amorous fashion had James not used both hands to bodily lift Violet away and set her down a foot or two away from him.
“Did you have an actual purpose in calling?” Violet asked casually. Her cheeks, however, were still flushed, and there was a slight hitch to her voice.
James opened his mouth, a dozen different explanations and justifications running through his head, competing for the opportunity to spill out of his mouth, and yet, in the end, the only two words to emerge were the most important ones:
“I’m sorry.”
Had he been a younger, more foolish man, he might have expected these two words to work like some sort of magic spell or healing balm, causing his wife to hurl herself into his arms, weeping copiously, rending his garments, and extracting promises from him to never allow them to be parted in such a fashion again. James could not deny that this vision had its own certain appeal, but, at the end of the day, he had married a flesh-and-blood woman, Violet, his Violet, with her quick temper and grudges and all the rest, and so he experienced a surprising sense of relief that she did nothing of the sort. Instead, she merely arched her brow and said, “I suppose you’d better sit down. This might take a while.”
She turned then, allowing him to follow her deeper into the room. She took a seat in one of the armchairs before the fireplace, gesturing for him to occupy the one opposite, which he did once she had been seated. He took this opportunity to take a proper look at her. She was wearing a morning gown of pale blue muslin, simply cut, beautiful against her fair skin. She looked a bit tired, the slight traces of dark shadows the only flaw to her lovely face, and he wondered if her night’s sleep had been as hard-won and troubled as his own. Her hair was slightly disheveled, no doubt a product of their entanglement a moment ago.
He thought that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Fortunately—as was so often the case with Violet—before he could begin any truly maudlin reflections on her visage, involving pained metaphors or, God forbid, some mangled bits of Shakespeare, she spoke.
“So,” she said, her voice businesslike, “when you say you are sorry, do you mean generally or specifically?” She folded her hands neatly in her lap and shot him a politely inquiring look.
James felt as though he were back at Eton, sitting for an exam for which he hadn’t fully prepared. “Specifically? No, generally?” He resisted the temptation to clutch at his own hair. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“Well,” Violet said, “I was merely curious as to what you were apologizing for. Are you apologizing for our rather heated exchange last night, or for your actions over the past two weeks, or—”
“The past four years, Violet,” James interrupted. “I’m apologizing for the past four years.”
“Oh,” Violet said, and James was pleased to see that, for the moment, she didn’t seem to have any other reply. Since the occasions upon which Violet was rendered speechless were few and far between, James seized the opportunity with both hands.
“You were right last night,” he said, “when you said I should trust you—should’ve trusted you all along.” He paused, struggling for words; he was an Englishman, the son of a duke—these were not traits that led to unburdening himself easily. He had always been taught the value of a stiff upper lip, of a controlled demeanor. He had, it seemed, become rather too good at keeping one, and it was time to unlearn that skill as best he could. Never had doing so mattered more.
“You are my wife,” he said simply, and these four words felt as important to him as any four words he had ever uttered in his entire life. They were, he realized, the beginning and the end of everything; she was his wife, and he loved her. “You should be the person I trust above all others. You’ve never given me cause not to. And I…” He paused a moment, the words coming too fast now, lodging in his throat. He risked a glance at her, and saw that her eyes were shining, and that there was a look in those eyes—those perfect, beautiful, dark-lashed brown eyes—that he hadn’t seen there in quite some time.
Tenderness.
“You acted as anyone with your upbringing might have done,” she finished for him, and he was surprised by the soft, affectionate note in her voice.
“That’s not an excuse,” he said. “Your parents—”
“Are frequently horrid as well,” she finished for him. “I’m quite aware of that, thank you.” Her voice was dry, and he could see a smile twitching at her mouth for a moment before it faded, her demeanor growing more serious. “But it was… different for you. My mother always took an interest in me—too great an interest, in truth,” and in her voice James could hear the memory of a thousand arguments with a countess who never quite knew what to do with a willful, curious, clever daughter who never did what was expected of her.
“Your father…” Violet looked at him, a faint line appearing on her smooth forehead as her eyebrows furrowed slightly. “He didn’t need you, and so he ignored you. And I think that that’s the sort of experience that makes it very hard to trust anyone.”
“It doesn’t matter,” James said hoarsely, and he realized he wasn’t just saying it to appease her, to bolster his apology. He truly believed it. He’d been an ass, and he was beginning to realize precisely how great of an ass—and was feeling ashamed. “I was with you in St. George’s; I stood at that altar with you and spoke those vows. It was… wrong of me to take my father’s word over yours.”
“Well, we can certainly agree on that.” Violet smiled at him, and it was as though the sun had reappeared after a storm. After a moment, however, her smile faded. “It wasn’t just that morning with your father, though. There were all the arguments leading up to those.”
“We always made those up,” James said, frowning slightly.
“We did,” Violet said slowly, giving him a piercing look. “But I can’t help but feel that they were preludes to that last fight, the one we couldn’t get past. Little things, small moments when you proved, over and over, that you didn’t trust our love. That you didn’t trust me.”
James opened his mouth to offer a hasty rebuttal, then paused, giving her words the thought and consideration they deserved—for he could tell by the slight hitch to her voice that they had not been easy for her to speak.
“You might be right,” he said after a long moment. “I’d never considered it in that light, but I believe you might be entirely right.”
“Of course I am.” Violet sniffed, crossing her arms
, and James had to fight hard against the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“I would love nothing more than another chance to not make those same mistakes again,” James said quietly, but with every ounce of feeling he held for her behind each word. Her eyes locked on his, her gaze searching, as though she were looking for some evidence of falsehood in his face. He looked calmly back at her, for once content to let his mask lie unused, his every feeling writ upon his face. After a moment, her smile returned, slowly blooming across her face, and it was so breathtakingly lovely that it made him bold, or perhaps foolish, enough to say mournfully, “Of course, it is tragic that it took such dire circumstances to bring about this realization on my part.”
Violet’s smile vanished once more, replaced by a furrowed brow. “I beg your pardon?”
“Your illness, of course,” James said earnestly.
“James—”
“It pains me, naturally, that we will have so little time to enjoy our reconciliation,” he continued dramatically, ignoring her attempts to interrupt. “But this is the hand the fates have dealt us, and we have nothing to do now but attempt to make the best of it.”
“You are rather an ass, aren’t you?” Violet asked.
“Oh, undoubtedly,” James assured her. “And yet, I seem to recall you always found that one of my more infuriatingly attractive qualities.”
“Did I?”
“To the best of my recollection, yes.”
“My memory is failing me,” she said sadly, looking at him coquettishly from beneath her lashes. “Perhaps you had better remind me.”
To Have and to Hoax Page 28
