To Have and to Hoax(64)

One sentence, however, stuck out in unfortunately vivid detail.

“I should have known better. What well-bred miss would go out onto a balcony with Jeremy, of all people? It’s asking to be ruined.”

And the worst of it was, even the memory of that still stung. Because she had gone out onto that balcony with Jeremy—not because she was part of the ludicrous scheme that her mother and James’s father had cooked up, but because she had been eighteen and curious. And James had made the entire thing feel cheap and sordid.

That was one of the many things about that morning she could not forgive. Most of all, she could not forgive him for his distrust in her—she who had never given him any reason to doubt her. She who had just this once spoken overly hastily—who had just this once, and never before, kept information from him, and always with the intention of telling him the full truth. She who had entrusted her entire heart to him and had felt free, for the first time in her life, to be her true, honest self, without feeling the need to suppress any of the things about herself that her mother had insisted were so entirely unsuitable. For him to repay her by losing faith in her at the first provocation was a betrayal that she had at the time considered unforgivable.

Then there was the fact that when she had stormed out of the room in a fury, he had not followed. Had never followed. Had obviously not considered their marriage worth fighting for.

“Well,” said Sophie, finishing the last of her brandy in one healthy and entirely improper gulp, “that is quite the tale.”

“Isn’t it just,” Violet said, not managing to sound quite as matter-of-fact as she might have desired in that moment. To tell the truth, while unburdening herself of this story certainly made her feel lighter, somehow, it also made her feel rather glum.

Silence fell for a moment. Violet, lost in thoughts of that day four years past, watched as Sophie turned her empty tumbler in her hand, the crystal catching the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows. It was a small room but cozy, clearly well cared for. Violet wondered how many solitary hours Sophie had whiled away in here since her husband’s death. She wondered if she ever got lonely. She then reflected—rather grimly—that her own existence over the past four years hadn’t been that different from that of a widow, considering the amount of time she spent in her husband’s company.

The thought was thoroughly galling.

Violet sat up straighter in her chair, her mind working more quickly now. What a fool she had been, she realized all at once. She was twenty-three years old and she had a husband she had once adored, who was living in the same house with her, eating at the same table, sleeping in a bedchamber that shared a connecting door with her own, and yet they barely even spoke. Sophie, meanwhile, lived here in this house, her days only slightly more solitary than Violet’s own, but her parting from her husband had not been due to any lasting argument, but rather to the permanent separation of death.

She thought of that note from Penvale from the week before, and imagined an alternate scenario—one in which she had made it all the way to Audley House, only to find James dead. She thought of never being able to speak to him, touch him, kiss him again—and she felt empty. As if some critical, nameless part of her had died as well.

She had enacted this ruse to punish him for his neglect, for his distrust of her—and perhaps she had succeeded on some level. But she saw now—as perhaps she should have seen all along—that she had really done all of this because she still loved him, and she thought there was something between them worth fighting for.

Oh, to be sure, she was still thoroughly angry with him. He was still in the wrong when it came to their dispute the day of his father’s visit—but perhaps instead of waiting four years for an apology, she should have taken that step forward to bridge the divide herself. She had been so angry at first, expecting him to take the first step, to grovel at her feet. And when that hadn’t happened . . . she had done nothing.

She had done nothing to save their marriage, the relationship most precious to her. He had made a mistake, to be sure—one he still owed her an apology for—but she knew the man she had married. She knew how reluctant he was to entrust his heart to another. And she could imagine the sense of betrayal he must have felt that day, the entire foundation of his marriage having been proved to be based on his father’s duplicity. She could imagine how it must have hurt him, to think that anything about her feelings for him might have been duplicitous, too.

He had been in the wrong, there was no doubt—but he was still worth fighting for. They were still worth fighting for.

Sophie was staring at her curiously. Violet realized how long the silence had lingered between them and smiled apologetically.

“I’m sorry. I was woolgathering.”

Sophie waved a hand dismissively. “As was I. You gave me rather a lot to ponder, I must confess.”

“I seem to have given myself rather a lot to ponder.” Violet paused, then plunged on, an idea already taking form in her mind. “I felt rather foolish when I came here with my original intent.”

“Of asking me to flirt with your husband?” Sophie sounded bemused.

“Quite.” She couldn’t even muster embarrassment anymore. “I was beginning to feel our game rather childish.”

“I thought it was a duel?”

“So did I,” Violet admitted. “But I’m beginning to see it’s nothing more than a game. One that I intend to win, with your help.”