To Have and to Hoax(34)

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

“Penvale has abandoned me to the ladies, I see,” James remarked as he entered, having already handed Violet in.

“He and Willingham elected to travel separately when it transpired that I needed his seat for Emily,” Diana said serenely.

“And how, exactly, did you induce your mother to allow you to come?” Violet asked Emily as she settled her skirts around herself.

“Diana can be very persuasive,” Emily said with a small smile.

“Lady Rowanbridge was unconvinced of my suitability as a chaperone,” Diana said disdainfully. “But when she learned that you and Audley would be not just attending but in the very carriage with us, she decided that it was acceptable.” She coughed delicately. “I may have taken your suggestion, Violet, and misled her as to which precise theater it is that we will be attending.”

Emily’s and Diana’s presence went some way toward lightening the atmosphere inside the carriage, which would otherwise have been rife with tension between husband and wife. This was not an entirely new experience for Violet—after all, she and James had had precious little to say to each other for the past four years, but they had taken a fair number of carriage rides together—and yet somehow the silence between them tonight felt entirely different from their usual cool ones. She felt . . . aware of him in a way that she had not in some time. It was not, of course, that she had ever ceased to find him handsome, or that she had not tossed and turned on more than one night, imagining him sleeping one room away, her mind lingering entirely too long on the question of whether he still slept naked—a question that no respectable lady should devote so much thought to, of course. But Violet felt that she never had been entirely respectable, particularly where James was concerned. When she had descended the stairs tonight and seen him awaiting her, immaculately dressed in black and white evening clothes, she had wanted to rip his carefully tied cravat from his throat and lick him.

So: not respectable.

“I was surprised you asked me to the theater this evening,” Emily said, breaking the silence. “I thought you loathed Romeo and Juliet, Violet.” Emily looked much as she always did, which was to say, beautiful. Her golden hair was pulled back neatly, and she was dressed in an evening gown of pale blue silk, the neckline modest enough to be entirely correct for an unmarried lady, and yet offering the slightest tantalizing glimpse of creamy skin.

Next to her, Violet felt rather more daring. She had been extremely irritated as she dressed, still thinking about James’s orders to keep her confined to her room all day, and had purposefully selected a dress that was several years old, one that he had laughingly told her she shouldn’t wear for anyone but him. In fact, this was the first time Violet had worn it before anyone other than her husband—she had bought it for the purpose of dining à deux on the terrace, as they used to do on summer evenings in the early days of their marriage, and it featured a bodice that was daring enough to ensure that they had never once finished their meal before becoming distracted by more pressing physical hungers.

Now, sitting in the carriage, she smoothed the violet silk over her knees, casting a quick glance at James as she did so. Her traitorous heart thumped a quick beat. There was not a single gentleman of the ton whose appearance was not improved by the elegance of a well-tailored jacket and a perfectly tied neckcloth, but none of them, as far as Violet was concerned, could match James. His dark hair was combed back, leaving nothing to distract from the strong lines of his face, his arresting eyes.