It loomed with all the joy of a prison sentence.
There was Charles, she reminded herself. And he was a good man. Handsome, intelligent, calm and poised, well-titled, family fortune still relatively intact, though the previous earl had been a wastrel and a spendthrift before his untimely death when Charles had been but a lad. Charles was pragmatic. Cautious. He showed no indication of excess or cruelty. His teeth were good.
Dear heavens, is this what you have been reduced to? asked Wicked Violet.
Yes, it was.
“The conservatory is within our sight, is it not, Lady Almsley?” asked Aunt Hortense smoothly just then, bless her heart. “I cannot find fault in a couple about to be married walking about amongst plants. Can you?”
Of course she could. Charles’s mother found fault in everything related to Violet, even an ill-timed blink of her eyes. It had happened once. Violet had managed to get a stray lash in her eye, and Lady Almsley had found affront in her excessive blinking. As Charles had explained to her afterward, his mother had believed Violet was insinuating they did not employ enough domestics to keep up with the dusting.
“We will be gone but a few minutes, mother,” Charles told his mother now, in a calm tone calculated to sway her.
Lady Almsley cast her aggrieved expression in Violet’s direction before Violet could avert her gaze once more. The elder woman’s lip curled. “Very well. A few minutes, no more, and do not go beyond our sight.”
“We would never dream of conducting ourselves in any fashion other than that most becoming to a gentleman and a lady,” Charles said seriously. “We shall be back in a quarter hour’s time, just long enough for us to take an informed turn about the hothouse.”
Charles had redesigned a portion of the townhome to accommodate a small conservatory, connected to the drawing room by a wall of glass, so he could enjoy his plants whilst entertaining. Yes, he was eccentric. A bit odd. Far too enamored of his mother. But for all that, he was a good man. Fine and decent. A lady could suffer far worse, it was certain.
Not precisely a glowing advertisement for the earl as a future husband, she realized grimly, rising on cue when he did and joining him. She accepted his outstretched arm, aware his mother’s glare bored holes into her back the entire time.
It was not until he had swept her into the sun-drenched confines of his conservatory, filled with his projects and specimens and plants in varying stages of growing and blooming and budding, that she felt comfortable. Here was Charles as she knew him and liked him best, at ease amongst his plants.
She waited for the calm blanket of familiarity to envelop her, to warm her, to soothe over any frayed or jagged nerves. He was the same Charles, and she should be grateful for their respite from his harridan mother, relieved to have some time alone with him, and yet all she could do was compare him to another.
To Strathmore.
There was no comparison, not truly, and the realization filled her with guilt and dread in twin measures. No one had ever moved her the way the duke did, and though Charles had been the most appealing of all her suitors, and she had convinced herself she could find contentment with him, now…she was no longer certain.
The winds of life could shift and change too easily, so suddenly. One day, she had been convinced marrying Charles was her fate, even if it was not what fulfilled her—it would have been safe—and the next day, she could not fathom binding herself to such a life.
To his mother.
To forever be answering to another, to be judged and found lacking, to be looked down upon and ordered about. It was not the life she wanted, and if she could not find a means of keeping Lady Almsley in check, Violet was beginning to fear for future happiness more by the moment.
“I am dreadfully sorry for Mother’s mood today,” Charles apologized softly, as if sensing the bent of her thoughts. “I do hope you did not find offense. She loves you as a daughter already, as I am certain you know.”
Charles was a good man, the sort who believed the best of everyone around him, even when he shouldn’t. Especially when he shouldn’t. Violet herself was an excellent example of that.
She frowned, her grasp on his crooked elbow tightening. “I do not think she loves me as a daughter. Indeed, I do not think she loves me at all.”
“Nonsense,” he said, leading her to a grouping of orchids in various stages of growth.
Some were dormant, others blossoming with vibrant beauty, faces outstretched to absorb the heat of the sun. The conservatory was warm, and it smelled of dampness and soil and ever so faintly of the dung he used upon his plants. She tried to imagine herself spending time within its glassed confines with him, and failed.
Plants did not interest her, and they never had.
In truth, she was not certain what, if anything, did. Lucien was so protective of her because of what had happened with Mama that she had not had the opportunity to experience anything of life beyond the walls of Lark House and his country seat since she had been a child.
They stopped before an orchid that looked sickly, its leaves drooped.
She turned to him, searching his familiar, handsome face and soft brown eyes. “She does not like me, Charles.”
“She is overjoyed we will be wedded in two months’ time.” He took her hands in his, giving them a gentle squeeze of affection. “I know she can be trying at times, but her intentions are good. She loves me and wants to see me happy. When we are wed and she sees how very happy you make me, all her reservations shall fall away. I am certain of it.”
Oh how she wished she could borrow his certitude. But all Violet felt was alarm.
Two months. They would be married in two months. Her freedom was dwindling. Her chance to escape fled her more and more by the day.
It was awful of her, and she knew it. Accompanying the dread came guilt, vicious and raw. Charles was so earnest, his face unfettered and honest. He believed she could make him happy, when Violet very much feared she could never find contentedness as his wife.
It had been a fear before she had kissed the Duke of Strathmore.
But now, that extant fear was a painful open maw, enormous and threatening. She liked Charles. He was comfortable and familiar and kind. She knew what to expect of him. He never quarreled with her, and he cared for her. He would make an excellent husband for the right woman.
Violet feared she was not that woman.
The problem was, she did not love Charles, and she most certainly did not love his mother.
“You do not seem yourself today, my darling,” he said, interrupting her wildly vacillating thoughts with his gentle voice. So calming, so soothing.
She scoured his face, stared into his eyes, looked at his mouth, and wished she could summon even a speck of what Strathmore sparked within her. “Would you kiss me now, Charles?” she asked suddenly.
He blinked at her, owlishly. “Now? Here? We are within view of Mother and Lady Beaufort.”
She had a suspicion that if she had posed the same question to the Duke of Strathmore, his glorious mouth would have been upon hers in the next breath. But Charles was not an impulsive man. Nor was he a particularly passionate one, unless it came to his plants.
All the more reason for you to be kissing Strathmore instead, taunted Wicked Violet.
“Is there not a place we can be where their range of sight is obstructed?” she asked Charles, trying her best to keep the frustration from her voice.
“I…um, perhaps. That is to say, we shall find it.”
His stammered response did not inspire her with hope.
He looked about, then led her to a far corner of the conservatory safely obscured by a barrier of vined plants and small shrubs. He stopped them in a place that sent a shaft of sunlight straight into her eyes. She blinked, momentarily blinded, and shifted so the sun hit a plant beyond her instead.
There. Take that, Wicked Violet.
Her brief triumph aside, the silence that fell between them was awkward. Stilted. There was non
e of the pent-up anticipation and desire that filled her whenever she had been alone with the duke. Instead, she waited, wondering if Charles would take advantage of the opportunity for a kiss, or if he would instead start waxing on about his plants.
“Are we out of sight?” she asked softly, gazing into his eyes and attempting to lose her concerns and fears.
Charles loved her, she reminded herself. She would put her inconvenient attraction to Strathmore aside. She would not think of his full lips nor the way they felt, owning hers. She would not think of his tongue in her mouth nor the rigid press of his maleness against her. Nor would she contemplate his masculine beauty.
No. She would think only of Charles, of his—
Oh dear.
His mouth was upon hers now, in lieu of his response. But it was hard. Too hard. It was an aggressive mashing of his mouth on hers, closed-lipped and dry. There was precious little finesse in this kiss. Violet stood still, partially from shock and partially from disappointment. His hand came between them, finding her breast, delivering a gentle squeeze.
Mere days before, another man’s hand—Strathmore’s—had been upon her breast. But when the duke had touched her, even though it had been unintentional, her flesh had come to life. When Charles touched her there, she felt a curious…nothing.
Not one single thing.
She stepped back so suddenly, her skirts connected with a series of shelves at her back. She realized her mistake, but not before it was too late to correct herself. Pots crashed to the tiled floor, smashing. All around them, black earth spilled forth. Bulbs split. Buds broke. Leaves wilted and lay limp and sad in the aftermath of her attempt at gaining a simple kiss from her betrothed.
The shattered remnants of his terracotta pots and his projects littered the floor, and Violet could not help but think it a foreshadowing of what was to come between them. The mess and carnage certainly seemed an ominous portent of their future.
You are not meant to be, warned Wicked Violet.
“I am so very sorry,” she apologized to Charles, at last finding her voice and ignoring the part of her that longed to be reckless.
“The fault is all mine,” he said in stilted tones that suggested he meant anything but, bending low to attempt to rescue what he could from the shards and dirt.
“Have I ruined anything?” She looked down at the soil and broken bulbs and leaves scattered about, a fresh wave of reproach hitting her.
“It was my newest orchids, I am afraid. The bulbs I recently imported at a rather dear expense.” His head was bent as he scraped the soil and plant fragments into his hand.
Of course she would have decimated his latest acquisitions. Violet frowned before sinking down to aid him in his attempt at recovering bulbs and roots and shoots. Soil was everywhere, so too the shards of his pots, one of which scored the sensitive flesh of her finger. It left a jagged cut, blood rising to the surface and trickling down her palm to her wrist.
“Oh good heavens.” She held her finger to her lips, sucking on the painful pad as if she could excise all discomfort. “I have cut myself.”
“Damnation,” Charles rumbled, cradling two glossy orchid leaves in his hands with as much ginger care as he would devote to the body of a loved one. “It is quite ruined, I fear.”
It was not lost upon her that he was more concerned with the state of his fractured plants than the state of her cut, which was bleeding rather profusely by this time. Irritated with him, she grasped her finger in a tight grip, stemming the flow of blood.
“Have you a bandage, my lord?” she asked tightly.
He glanced at her for the first time since she had upended his pots. His expression was open, startled. “Have you injured yourself, my dear?”
He had not even noticed she had cut herself.
How telling is it that he thinks more of his plants than he does of you? asked Wicked Violet.
And for the first time, she was beginning to think Wicked Violet was not entirely wrong. Perhaps she would embrace Wicked Violet from this point hence, and no longer have any tolerance for the nonsense others continued to attempt to visit upon her.
“I am bleeding,” she announced, rather irritated with him.
Perhaps she had no right to be so aggrieved after she had kissed another man on two separate occasions, but she could not help but to be disappointed by his reaction to her injury. Charles was plainly more concerned with the state of his orchids than he was with her well-being.
And his kiss had been…
Disappointing.
Bland.
Forgettable.
“Perhaps we ought to return to Mother and Lady Beaufort,” he suggested. “My orchids are not in their best state. They have been dampening off, some of them suffering from a green fungus which I cannot yet contemplate how to combat. Given a few weeks—when we wed, perhaps—I will be capable of showing you my plants. This evening, however, seems as if it would be best devoted to other tasks.”
“But your plants,” she protested, still feeling guilty.
“They will be cleaned up and restored,” he promised easily, rising to his full height once more and offering her his hand. “Come now, my dear.”
She accepted his hand, and she went. For what other choice did she have?
Chapter Five
They were on their way back to Lark House, carriage swaying in familiar, lumbering gait, when something odd happened.
An explosion, to be precise.
It began in the front right corner of the conveyance and it exited in the rear left. Clean. Abrupt. So quick and unexpected, for a moment, Violet was not even certain it was real. Until she noted the sunbeam pouring through the ragged hole in the upper corner of the carriage.
She stared for a moment more, her mind attempting to comprehend.
Had it been a stone thrown aloft from another carriage? But how could a stone inflict so much damage?
The force and trajectory of the object seemed suspect. Confusion and something darker swirled…suspicion. But no, it could not be. Could it?
“Good God! Someone has taken a shot at us!” exclaimed Aunt Hortense.
Surely her aunt was being melodramatic, jumping to ridiculous conclusions, issuing statements without any fact to back her claims, Violet was certain of it. The carriage swayed wildly, almost as if the horses drawing it had spooked. The agitated voice of their driver could be heard, muffled by the walls of the carriage and the din of London’s late-afternoon traffic.
She stared again at the holes pierced in the roof of the carriage, giving her a tiny portal to the foggy sky; yellow and gray today, thick and mysterious, cloaking everything in a cloying layer of gloom.
Suddenly, the carriage sustained another attack. This time, the missile was aimed lower, hurtling through the wall of the carriage, and then the empty air separating her from Aunt Hortense, before exiting through the rear.
And it was in that moment that reality, stark and grim and frightening, set in. It had not been a rock. Nor had Aunt Hortense been suffering from a fit of the vapors.
Someone had shot at their conveyance. Twice.
Close enough that the bullets had pierced the cab, entering one wall and exiting the next.
Dear, sweet heavens.
“Get down and shield yourself,” she ordered her aunt, shock and fear mingling within her.
Aunt Hortense sank to the floor of the carriage with great difficulty thanks to her arthritis, scarcely managing to fold her knees. Issuing a heavy groan, she settled herself, arms raised over her head. Violet wanted her aunt safe, but all too soon, a fresh emotion charged through her, barreling like a locomotive.
Rage. Indignation.
Someone had shot at them, and not just once, but twice. Whilst in the midst of London’s best neighborhoods. It was not as if they were traversing the stews or the docks or—for heaven’s sake—a battlefield. Violet’s heart beat frantically, a marked change of pace after the dullness of the afternoon spent with Lady Almsley and Charle
s.
How dare they?
The carriage rocked and swayed as the driver ordered the horses into a faster pace. It had to be the Fenians shooting at a carriage marked with the coat of arms of the Duke of Arden. She swallowed hard, going to the window of the carriage and drawing back the curtains to peer into the wilderness of the London streets.
All she saw was the standard men and woman going about their day, carriages lumbering past, nothing to suggest outright warfare was being committed in Mayfair, of all places.
“For God’s sake, get away from the window,” ordered Aunt Hortense. “If they see you, they shall shoot you.”
Violet wanted to dare them to, whoever they were. The shadowy, faceless menace had first filled her with fear, but that fear was budding and blossoming into something else altogether. How she wished she was armed herself. If she had a pistol, and if she possessed decent aim, she could defend them.
How awful it was to be helpless, no remedy save lying down on the floor of the carriage and praying a bullet would not strike her.
Her hand still smarted from the cut she had received in Charles’s conservatory, and now this. She vowed, then and there, that she had endured enough. She had tolerated Lady Almsley and her thinly veiled insults and barbed comments. She had allowed herself to become betrothed to a man who prized his orchids more highly than his future countess. And now, she had been shot at in broad daylight by someone who either wanted her to experience fear, or someone who wanted to kill or injure her.
To the devil with that person. And to the devil with Lady Almsley, and even Charles, if he did not realize she would need to take precedence over his mother. And if he thought more of his bloody orchids than he thought of her.
If she did not come first, how could she ever shackle herself to him forever?
She was becoming a new Violet, and the new Violet did not want to tolerate nonsense. She did not have to tolerate nonsense.
Why had she ever done so before?
It seemed so logical and clear that she need not.
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