The Countess Conspiracy

by Courtney Milan

  “I’m not giving up, Benedict.” Sebastian leaned in. “I told you already—”

  “And I told you,” his brother interrupted. “I don’t want you risking everything on foolish speculation. I have enough worry to contend with in my final weeks. Stop trying to prove something to me, Sebastian. Your chances of success are not high, and it isn’t worth the risk.”

  Sebastian felt as if he’d been punched in the kidneys.

  His brother clapped him on the shoulder—a brotherly gesture of affection—as if he could set aside those harsh words so easily. “Now,” he said, “what do you say we get Harry and go for a walk?”

  “RIDICULOUS,” VIOLET SAID. “Utterly ridiculous. Although I suppose I should expect no less from a man as terrible at croquet as Benedict is.”

  “It is a little ridiculous,” Sebastian said. “I misjudged the situation.”

  Somehow, it had been easy for Violet to slide back into her friendship with Sebastian: to meet him in the evenings in her London greenhouse and swap stories of their day, uninterrupted by servants.

  He stood next to her now, handing her tools as she worked, telling stories intended to make her laugh. It was almost as if nothing had happened—as if they were still working together, as if he’d never breathed a word about lusting after her.

  She shook her head, refusing to contemplate that. Stubbornness was almost like ignorance, almost like bliss.

  “In any event,” Sebastian was saying, “I did my best to explain—but you know me.” His smile tilted a little. “What came out was ‘it’s like running a gaming house.’ You should have seen his face.”

  He was smiling—as if telling her that his brother was dying and being an ass all at the same time was an amusing little anecdote.

  Violet folded her arms. “As I said. Ridiculous.”

  “I know.” He grinned at her. “And then I realized what I’d said, and—”

  “I wasn’t talking about you.” She sniffed and stretched, plucking another yellowing leaf off a bean plant. “I was talking about your brother.”

  His expression didn’t change. He was leaning against one of the metal support columns that came down through the center of her greenhouse, his arms folded, his lips quirking.

  “Benedict?” he asked quizzically. “Benedict is never ridiculous. Everyone knows that.”

  She set down her shears and turned to him. “I realize that my opinion is of little value on this point. But trust me—your brother is being ridiculous. There is not one person besides him on this planet who would say that you’ve accomplished nothing. Not one.”

  He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “That won’t do, Violet. You know the truth about me. We can fool everyone else—but in here, we both know what I really am.”

  “Yes,” Violet said. “You aren’t the County Captain of some organization that I have never heard of. But you are one of the world’s foremost experts on the inheritance of traits.”

  His smile flattened. “Oh, come now, Violet. We both know that’s you, not me.”

  Nothing had changed between them.

  Everything had changed between them. When he talked to her like that—looking into her eyes and dropping his voice low—she had once been able to dismiss the swirling sparks in her throat as her own misguided, unwanted response. Now, she knew that she wasn’t alone. Some elemental part of her recognized that he wanted her—that even when he was saying things like Come now, Violet, he yearned for her. She had a new name for that dizziness she felt, that heady rush of warmth that swarmed her cheeks.

  Not Violet’s attraction. That she could ignore. This was mutual attraction. How could he not sense it? How could he not know?

  “You and I both know,” he said, “that without you, I would have been nobody. You’re the expert. I’m…” He shrugged. “I’m not even your mouthpiece any longer. I learned a great deal from working together. I enjoyed it most of the time, and I’ll grant you that I’m clever enough. But I’m not a serious fellow, Violet, and Benedict knows that. I didn’t set out to make a career for myself in trade. I just wanted to try a little trick.”

  “Oh, to hell with that,” Violet heard herself exclaim. “And to hell with Benedict for making you believe it. Yes, you tell jokes. That has nothing to do with what you’ve accomplished. I never said you were the foremost expert on the inheritance of traits. I said you were one of them.”

  “But—”

  “You’re not a parrot,” Violet told him. “People have to be able to ask you questions and engage you in conversation. You can falsify the source of your knowledge, but you cannot falsify the knowledge itself. Aside from me, there is not one person in the world who understands what you do.”

  “But only because you—”

  “No. Because you worked and questioned and thought and tried,” Violet continued ruthlessly. “You have worked with me for years. When we needed to learn mathematics to proceed, we struggled together. If we were both men, the credit for our work would have been shared between us. We can quibble about whose name would have gone first, but your name belongs beside mine. You have been with me day after day, night after night. A stupid man, a faithless man, an undependable man—he could not have done what you did. And it is codswallop for your brother to say that you have done nothing. It is an insult to the name of accomplishment.”

  “But—”

  “No!” She exclaimed. “I won’t hear any excuses for him. I won’t. You understood what we were doing so well that you applied the principles of mathematics we used to shipping and made twenty-two thousand pounds. You’re not a stupid fribble, Sebastian, no matter what your brother says. You’re a very clever man who happens to have a wicked sense of humor.”

  For a moment, he didn’t say anything. He just looked at her.

  But to call it looking was like calling an eighteen-course feast a snack. The space between them seemed charged with electricity. She could almost feel her hair rising, strand by strand, so powerful was that charge.

  And his eyes, oh, his eyes. They made her want to take a step forward, to take his hands in hers. She put her hands behind her back instead.

  “Violet,” he said a little hoarsely.

  She took a deep breath. “Really.” Another breath. “I resent Benedict, saying such stupid things.” Making her betray herself, making Sebastian look at her with that compelling intensity. “It makes me very angry. At him.”

  He sighed and looked away, rubbing his lips. She wouldn’t think of kissing him. She wouldn’t.

  “You have to admit,” Sebastian said calmly, as if nothing had just transpired, “that Benedict has a point. Whatever I have accomplished, I have not been very respectable.”

  It was that lack of respectability that made it so impossible to comprehend what he’d told her. He claimed he loved her? Sebastian was a rake; love had never entered in to any of his dealings.

  Sebastian never talked of his…escapades. Not with her, not with anyone else. He was extraordinarily discreet—one of the reasons, she suspected, that he proved so popular. For all she knew, he had a lover waiting for him tonight. He might have three of them. He couldn’t love her. It made much more sense to imagine that he saw her as a potential…candidate. He’d meant love in the physical sense. He had some lust for her, no more or no less than anyone else who had ever caught his fancy.

  She looked away. “Benedict cannot know the extent of your respectability,” she remarked. “Even I don’t.”

  He glanced at her. “Did you want to?”

  Did she want to hear about other women? No. Definitely not. If he told her, she might do something embarrassing—something like imagining herself in another woman’s place.

  “In any event,” Sebastian said after a pause that was not quite long enough to turn awkward, “you’re right, but you’re a little overexuberant. I attempted a bit of scientific research on my own. I never mentioned it to you, because I was embarrassed by my lack of progress. Maybe one day I’ll present the work
as proof of my failure.” He shrugged. “That, at least, would be my own.”

  “Ridiculous,” Violet told him.

  “It’s not ridiculous. I could show you.”

  “It is ridiculous. One failed project is not a failed career. Projects fail all the time for all kinds of reasons. You know that.”

  Once again, he didn’t say anything in response. But he was giving her that look—that intense, dark look, the one that he wasn’t trying to hide any more.

  “Every time,” he said quietly. “Every time I doubt, every time I wonder if I am less than I have imagined… Violet.”

  He didn’t say anything more, but he didn’t have to. She swallowed and looked away. She didn’t want to think about him that way; she simply didn’t. Ignorance may not have been bliss, but at least it was risk-free.

  “Benedict,” she muttered. “It’s all his fault. He’s stubbornly refusing to give you the credit you deserve. That’s all.”

  “I don’t want credit,” he said. “I just want my brother.” He shut his eyes. “But…” He stopped, and then looked up. “But Benedict cares about the things he cares about.” He was speaking more slowly. “And, yes, you’re right—he can be stubborn when he’s made up his mind. He is a little stodgy; no doubt the mathematics were a little much for him. But he’s fair. He’ll change his mind, once he realizes…”

  “Sebastian,” she said slowly, “what are you planning?”

  “Well.” He shrugged. “I don’t really need the money, but someone was willing to pay fifty thousand pounds for my idea. He thinks it has no value. What if I make him see he’s wrong?”

  She stared at him.

  And he grinned. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right. What if I gave Benedict’s precious Society my idea?”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE NIGHT AIR IN LONDON WAS COOL, if not clean. Sebastian had managed to make it through the evening without embarrassing himself. But it had been close, damnably close. He’d managed to take his leave of her, to make it halfway through that dark gap between their garden walls before he’d stopped and leaned against the brick in utter gut-clenching agony.

  The moon was full, spilling a narrow corridor of light onto his face, so bright in the darkness that it almost hurt his eyes.

  He’d seen Violet focused on a subject before. When she was, she was vibrant and full of color. He’d seen her excited about a talk Sebastian was going to deliver, about a paper they were writing, about an experiment she was trying to untangle and understand. This, though, was the first time he’d seen the full weight of her attention concentrated not on her words flowing through him, but on him directly.

  You’re not a stupid fribble, Sebastian. You’re a clever man who happens to have a wicked sense of humor.

  They’d sketched a brief plan. At the end, she’d nodded. “This can’t just be about proving something to Benedict,” she told him. “It’s about determining whether your brother is being ridiculous. If this turns out as we hope, and he can’t accept it, you’ll know that the fault is not in you.”

  And somehow, with those words, his world realigned. He wasn’t a court jester who could make others laugh. He was more.

  He wanted to be more. And God, he wanted to be more to Violet. He wanted her desperately. He wanted to kiss her, to hold her tight. To wrap his arms around her and push her against the steel column of the greenhouse, kissing her until her breath grew ragged and she could scarcely stand.

  He wanted to take her home to his bed. He wanted to have her there, sweaty and slick and ready for him. He wanted to sleep beside her when they were done and wake up next to her in the morning. He wanted to argue with her and make her laugh, to watch her work, to come back to her after a long day examining shipping records. He wanted her. He wanted every damned thing about her.

  If she’d been completely indifferent to him, it would have hurt, but he could have given up. That she cared for him—so much, and yet not quite enough—made the situation both bearable and impossible all at once.

  He leaned back against the wall. The bricks were unevenly placed; sharp edges dug into his spine. He could smell the leaves turning to mulch underfoot.

  And he could still see Violet, angry to the point of shaking, because she didn’t think Benedict had treated Sebastian fairly.

  God. If things were different between them. If only they were…

  He was assailed by a confusion of imagery and need, a physical want that gathered in a lump in his abdomen. He didn’t want to go back to his home—his cold, lonely home, with only his cook to greet him, his valet to wish him good night. He wanted to go back to her—to go back and—

  And—

  And take her. To swipe those plants from the table on the north side of the greenhouse, to lay her down and slide inside her. Her legs would wrap around him, and she’d make a noise in the back of her throat.

  It was dark. He was alone. And he wanted.

  Easy enough to undo his trousers, to grasp hold of his erection in the cold night air. Easy enough to imagine having her—thrusting into her, telling her he loved her. No need for much preparation; a few gentle strokes and his befuddled arousal turned to painful erection. His hand slid over his shaft in smooth jerks, pushing himself. He tilted his face up into the moonlight.

  He took himself to the point where his physical want was big enough, harsh enough, to overwhelm almost everything else he felt. Until he was gasping harshly, spilling on the leaves beneath his feet, letting his orgasm sweep his desires from him.

  When it passed, he slumped against the wall.

  That was when he heard the crackle of leaves.

  He turned, but he already knew what—who—it was. There were only two people who had access to this place.

  It was dark, but not that dark. Sebastian shut his eyes and did up his trousers.

  Violet—and it was Violet standing there, not ten feet distant—didn’t say anything at all. Not for a long minute.

  He wasn’t going to apologize to her. He didn’t feel ashamed. He just wished…wished… He wished for something he could not express in words. He wished for it with all his body, and he knew he was never going to have it.

  “I do want to know,” she finally said, her voice low, “about the other women.”

  He leaned back against the brick and looked up into the moonlight. “What do you want to know?”

  She didn’t say anything for a while. “Do you have one now?”

  “No. It’s been months.”

  She took this in, considering for a few moments before speaking again. “How many have you had?”

  “How many lovers?” He could have given her a straight answer. Dozens. Or, more specifically: Thirty-seven. Thirty-seven, if you counted mutual versions of the conduct he’d just engaged in, and Sebastian did.

  But what he finally said was, “Too many. And not enough.”

  Her face was in shadow. He couldn’t tell if she was disgusted by him, or if this was just a matter of idle curiosity for her.

  She exhaled. “How many would be enough?”

  He smiled sadly. “One more, Violet.” He looked over at her—at her arms folded around herself, at her head, turned from his, as if that would be enough to distract him from the ferocity of his want. “I’ve only ever wanted one more.”

  She lifted her head. The moonlight caught her face, sending shadows across it. She shook her head; her arms squeezed around herself.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  He couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t hold her close. And especially not now.

  “There’s no need to apologize. You’re happy with our friendship as it is.”

  He expected her to agree. To say that she had all she wanted—that their friendship was enough, that more would not please her.

  But she turned away again. “No.”

  She had said no.

  There were ten feet between them, ten feet that he felt instinctively had to be there or she’d
flee.

  He could have asked for an explanation. He could have advanced on her and found out if the more she wanted was what he yearned for.

  But she needed that distance. If she’d wanted to explain, she’d have done so. She stood in the gap between the walls, impossibly far away, her hands wringing together in an unexplained misery.

  After a long pause, he shook his head. “Then I’m sorry, too, sweetheart,” he said huskily. “I’m sorry, too.”

  BY UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT, the next time Sebastian saw Violet, they didn’t talk of his feelings. They didn’t mention what she might or might not have seen in the dark gap between the walls that night. They didn’t talk about that night at all.

  They talked about shipping. They talked of the Society for the Betterment of Respectable Trade, of their nieces and nephews, of their mutual friends. They talked of everything except themselves.

  He didn’t ask her why she was unhappy, and she didn’t volunteer the information. Their lives went on as if nothing had changed: Sebastian gave a presentation to the London members of the Society that was well-received; Oliver and Jane returned from their wedding trip and hosted a dinner. Days dribbled by, and truths remained unspoken.

  But perhaps Violet also felt the lack of conversation, because one night, after they’d exhausted all the usual subjects, she gave Sebastian a wary look.

  “Do you remember the first paper I wrote?” she asked.

  It was an evening in June. Crickets were calling in the darkening twilight, and the two of them were ensconced in the gardener’s quarters at the back of Sebastian’s property, which he’d converted into an office years ago so that they might have a comfortable place to talk away from the prying eyes of servants. The room was just big enough to fit a desk and a sofa, cozy for one and snug for two.

  Violet was curled on the embroidered sofa; Sebastian sat at his desk, trying not to drink in the sight of her, and mostly succeeding.

  “How could I ever forget the snapdragons?”

  She turned and rested one elbow against the arm of the sofa. “Did I ever tell you how I came to write about snapdragons?”