She drew a deep breath. “You know why James and I married.”
“The accidental deliberate kiss.” Poppy frowned. “Or the deliberately accidental kiss.”
Gwen cast Poppy a long-suffering look then returned her attention to Violet. “Go on dear.”
“I had, well, feelings for him then. Feelings that I later told myself were not the least bit, oh, legitimate, I suppose.”
“As one tends to do.” Effie nodded.
“When he kissed me the first time, I thought he felt the same way about me, but had just somehow miraculously realized it.” She shook her head. “It was foolish of me, of course. I was wrong. Then after we married, when he was determined that we lead separate lives, when he didn’t want me—”
“He broke your heart.” Poppy cast her a sympathetic smile.
“The ass,” Effie muttered.
“Last night, when he kissed me, I had just had words with my mother and an unpleasant scene with my sister. And he had just confessed that the kiss that started all this was not a mistake as he had always claimed.” She tried to find the right words. There weren’t any. “I felt as if I were twenty-one again. And everything I’ve become vanished.” She frowned. “I’m not sure I’m making any sense. I’m just afraid if I stay here, I’ll become who I once was and—”
“And James will break your heart again,” Gwen said simply.
Violet rubbed her forehead. “Something like that.”
“Let me make certain I do in fact understand.” Gwen thought for a moment. “You’re afraid of becoming the girl you once were. The girl who fell in love with James. The girl whose heart he broke.”
Violet nodded.
Effie studied her. “Don’t you think the woman you are now is stronger than the woman you were then?”
Violet widened her eyes. “Without question.”
“But that woman worries that the past, including James, is just too prevalent here,” Effie continued, “and she might not be strong enough?”
“Something else I don’t know.” Violet looked down at her hands, clasped together in her lap. She could almost see the ring she’d stopped wearing the day she’d decided to leave London. “The first year, I would have come back had he only asked. Most of the second year, as well. But that year, when I returned to London, it was obvious he had indeed continued to live as if he wasn’t married at all.”
“Other women.” Poppy nodded in a sage manner.
Violet nodded. “I wasn’t thrilled about his behavior but not terribly surprised. James was who he was, after all. Even so, I was angry and disappointed as well. It was time, past time really, that I faced the truth. He didn’t want me. He never had.” She looked up at the elderly trio. “He probably never would.”
Gwen frowned. Poppy sniffed.
“The beast,” Effie muttered.
“So I put him out of my head.” And my heart. “I never saw him whenever I returned to London. In the last few years, Uncle Richard talked about how James had changed, grown up if you will. Richard truly thought James and I belonged together. As much as in some distant portion of my mind that still believes in fairy tales and other such nonsense I wanted to believe Richard, I couldn’t.” She squared her shoulders. “I have been James’s wife for nearly six years. In all that time, he never made any effort to reconcile. He never wrote to me, never followed me, never confronted me and he certainly never fought for me, for my affections. One would think a man who had indeed changed would have wanted to set that part of his life to rights.”
“One would think,” Poppy murmured.
“Men are idiots, dear,” Effie said. “Go on.”
“He has said some things in recent weeks that might lead one to believe...”
Violet struggled to gather her thoughts but her mind was a mess of conflicting ideas and emotions. “How do I know that anything he says now isn’t because he’ll do whatever he needs to do to keep me abiding by Richard’s will?
“And what happens at the end of three years?” She raised her chin. “He didn’t want me once, you see. I refuse to go through that again.”
“You do realize if you leave, he will lose everything,” Gwen pointed out. “As will you.”
“Yes, well, that is a consideration.” Violet hadn’t the vaguest notion what she would do for financial support let alone assist those causes dear to her heart. But at the moment even poverty seemed rather insignificant. She’d exchanged letters about the state of her finances but the explanations she’d received were confusing and made no sense to her. This wasn’t the first time she’d considered traveling to Paris to assess the situation in person and determine if she had any financial hope at all. She did fear there was none. “I suppose I could find some way to support myself. Write about my travels or lead tours to various places I’ve visited. Or possibly open a travel agency. One, I don’t know, specifically directed at lady travelers perhaps. You have no idea how difficult travel can be for women.”
“What a splendid idea,” Poppy said thoughtfully.
“Do not get ahead of yourself, Violet.” Gwen thought for a moment. “It seems to me this has all been rather easy for James.”
Violet drew her brows together. “What do you mean?”
“James needs you to stay by his side, continue this appearance of a happy marriage. He doesn’t have to do much of anything, really, except be charming and thoughtful.” Gwen shrugged. “It’s not altogether difficult for him.”
“You’re absolutely right.” Effie sat up a bit straighter and met Violet’s gaze. “If James wants his inheritance, and you in the bargain, it seems to me, he should be made to work for it.”
Poppy nodded. “To prove he has indeed changed.”
“Making him work for it was my idea when this all started. James has never had to work for anything in his life.” But James had lulled her into a friendship shadowed by the prospect of something more—love, romance, happily ever after perhaps? And she had fallen for it. Apparently James was not the only one susceptible to terrible decisions and dreadful mistakes.
“Your life was going along quite nicely before Richard died,” Gwen said. “A life that was not originally of your choosing. Why should you now be the one inconvenienced because Richard decided to set up this attempt at matchmaking from the grave?”
“Do keep in mind, Violet, that James will not receive his inheritance without you,” Poppy added. “You are crucial to this endeavor.”
“Regardless of how you may feel at the moment, you are the one in complete control of how this turns out. Therefore it seems to me—” Effie looked at her friends who nodded in agreement “—to us, that if you wish to go to Paris or anywhere else, you should do exactly that.”
“And James will have to either follow you or abandon his legacy,” Gwen added.
“James has never been good at following,” Violet pointed out.
“The James you married, perhaps. This James is different, isn’t he?” Poppy asked.
“So it appears.” Violet’s gaze slid from one woman to the next. “Then you think I should go? To Paris and perhaps to Florence and Athens, as well?”
“It’s the only thing to do.” Poppy nodded.
“And if you limit your travel to Paris, you can be back in less than a week if you wish,” Effie pointed out. “Why, it would scarcely cut into the fourteen-days-a-year limit on time spent apart, but it would give you time to decide if you wish to stay here with James or not. If you can overlook the lie that started all this.”
“And the six years since,” Poppy added.
Effie continued. “You were thrust into this situation with very little say in the matter the moment we heard the details of Richard’s will. And you did say you had things to attend to and places you had planned on being.”
“I did and I do.” At once, Violet felt like herself again.
> “Perhaps leaving for a bit will give you the chance to get your thoughts in order.” Gwen offered an encouraging smile.
“And we certainly know how suddenly having a husband around all the time can be trying.” Poppy grimaced.
“You should leave for Paris at once,” Effie said.
“It wouldn’t be at all fair to go without telling him.” Violet smiled grimly. “And yet fair doesn’t seem particularly appealing at the moment.”
“Was it fair of James, or Richard, to put you in this position in the first place?” Gwen asked. “No, it was not.”
“James made me the subject of scandal and didn’t have the courage to tell me the truth for six years. Without the least bit of regard for my feelings, he changed the course of my life.”
“And Richard changed it again,” Effie said. “No one consulted you about anything. That, my dear girl, is what’s truly unfair.”
“Absolutely right.” Violet’s resolve hardened. If James wanted his inheritance, if he wanted her, he did indeed need to work for it.
Voices sounded outside the parlor and she braced herself.
“Violet.” James strode into the room, a rather satisfied smile on his face. As if the fact that he had kissed her and, more significantly, she had kissed him back changed everything between them. She really should have smacked him last night. James turned to the ladies on the sofa. “And how are my three favorite guardian angels today?”
“Goodness, James.” Gwen smiled. “You are a scamp.”
“Thank you.” He grinned. “Has Violet been telling you about her sister’s ball?” He shot Violet an admiring glance. She ignored it. “She was a rousing success, and I was the envy of every man there.”
“We have no doubt of it.” Poppy smiled.
Andrews appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Davies is here, my lord.”
Marcus stepped into the room. “James, I need...” He stopped short and nodded cautiously. “Violet, ladies, lovely to see you again.”
“You’re just in time. I believe I might have interrupted something interesting.” James adopted a teasing frown. “Are the four of you plotting something?” He glanced at Marcus. “Conquering the world no doubt.”
Marcus chuckled.
“I wouldn’t call it plotting exactly,” Poppy said brightly.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Gwen smiled. “I rather like the idea of plotting.”
“Plotting it is, then.” Effie grinned.
James laughed. “Dare I ask exactly what you’ve been plotting?”
Violet rose to her feet. Best to get on with it. “I have business I need to see to in Paris. There are, as well, engagements elsewhere I promised to attend. I plan to leave this afternoon.”
James stared. “You’re going to Paris?”
“I believe that’s what she just said,” Marcus murmured.
James’s brow furrowed. “Surely you’re not serious?”
“I have never been more serious,” she said pleasantly.
“What kind of business?” Suspicion edged his words.
“None of your concern.” She smiled. “You’re simply going to have to trust me.”
“Why? You don’t trust me.”
“I have every reason not to trust you,” she said sharply.
“If I might have a word,” Marcus said. “You do realize being apart for more than fourteen days will violate the terms of the will.”
“I am well aware of that.” She turned to James. “But I’ve changed my mind. About abiding by the stipulations of the will, that is.”
“What do you mean?” he said slowly.
“Now I want something in return.”
Marcus winced.
James studied her cautiously. “What exactly do you want?”
“You keep saying the most charming things. How you want to atone for your mistakes. How marrying me was the best thing you ever did. And so on and so forth.” She scoffed. “It’s rubbish, James. Complete rubbish.”
“It is not.” Indignation sounded in his voice.
“You can’t make up for six years with a few nice phrases and an emerald necklace.”
“You said it was magnificent.”
“It is, but that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is it’s time to pay the piper. To prove you mean what you’ve been saying. And that’s what I want.” She narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t been the least bit inconvenienced by Uncle Richard’s will. Your life hasn’t changed one iota.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” James said under his breath.
“My life has been completely disrupted. A life, I might point out, that was not of my choosing. There are things I had planned to do before all this happened, people I had intended to see. I have friends, James, as well as obligations. I have made commitments and I intend to honor them.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “For six years you have paid no attention to me whatsoever. To where I was, to what I did. Why, you never even summoned up the courage to stay in the same house with me.”
“I was only doing what you wanted.” He glared. “You said you never wanted to see me again.”
“And you made no effort to change my mind.”
“I was abiding by your request!”
“You were a coward.”
He sucked in an indignant breath.
“Oh, my,” one of the ladies murmured.
Violet shook her head. “You refused to make the best of the situation we found ourselves in. The situation you put us in. On purpose. You never fought for me, for us. You never lifted so much as a finger. You didn’t make the tiniest attempt at a proper marriage.”
“I’ve admitted that was a mistake.”
“Now, you say you’ve changed. You claim you want your wife. You want me. Now...” She smiled slowly. “I want you to prove it.”
“I think last night proved something.” A smug note sounded in his voice.
“Goodness, he can’t go around kissing her whenever it suits his purposes and think that’s all he need do,” another of the ladies said with quiet indignation.
“Oh, it was a more than adequate kiss, James, but then you’ve had a great deal of practice.” Violet smirked. Let him be smug about that.
“That’s not entirely—”
“I intend to resume my life. The will requires only that we are to be together—it does not stipulate where. It seems to me you have three choices.” She ticked the points off on her fingers. “You may accompany me. You may follow me. Or you may begin looking for a position of employment.”
“If you only go to Paris,” he said slowly, “you could be back in less than fourteen days.”
“I could and indeed I might, should I so decide.” She met his gaze. “Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”
His jaw clenched. “I said I had no desire to travel.”
She shrugged. “And I had no desire to marry a man who didn’t want to marry me.”
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“More than I had six years ago.”
His gaze locked with hers. She refused to so much as flinch. “You said you forgave me for that.”
“I forgave you for the mistake. I did not forgive you for the deliberate act.” Her voice hardened. “Or the years that followed.”
“This is a test, isn’t it?”
“You may call it whatever you like.”
“I’m not going to Paris today,” he said coolly.
“Very well.” The oddest wave of disappointment washed through her. But really, what did she expect? “In that case, I have arrangements to make. Mrs. Ryland will accompany me.”
It was for the best, really. The longer she stayed here, the more likely all would end in disaster. She would be a fool to think it could possibly
be otherwise. She turned to the older women. “Ladies, thank you for your wisdom and your sound advice. I shall see you when I return.”
The ladies were right. She needed time to clear her head. Time to decide whether saving James’s future was worth the risk to her heart. At the moment, she was entirely too angry to make rational decisions. She nodded at her husband and his friend then took her leave in as serene a manner as she could manage.
One did what one had to do even if it wasn’t at all easy. And given the dull ache somewhere in the vicinity of her heart, entirely too late.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“WELL, THAT COULD have gone better,” Marcus muttered.
“Sarcasm, Mr. Davies,” Lady Blodgett reproached, “is not helpful at the moment.”
Marcus winced. “Sorry.”
Life had indeed been going quite nicely until the moment James walked into the parlor. Certainly Violet was upset about his revelation, but that would pass. She had forgiven him, after all, even if that forgiveness came before she knew the truth of the matter. But last night he had kissed her and she had kissed him back in a most enthusiastic manner. He had felt that kiss right down to his toes, which had nothing to do with the fact that he hadn’t kissed anyone for quite some time and everything to do with the woman in his arms, the woman who should always have been in his arms. It had also triggered the most delightful dream last night that no longer seemed entirely far-fetched. He’d been confident that kiss was a turning point as well as a first step toward the future. Apparently, he was wrong.
“Ladies.” James eyed the elderly trio. “What do you know about all this?”
“Lady Ellsworth has business to see to in Paris.” Mrs. Higginbotham gestured in an unconcerned manner. “Although she did mention something about a party she had planned to attend. A birthday celebration and something of a charitable event, I believe.”
The Lady Travelers Guide to Happily Ever After Page 17
