To Have and to Hoax(77)
“Are you sure you’re not thinking of yourself?” Emily asked innocently, calmly fanning herself. “That seems rather more your style than Violet’s.”
“The point is,” Violet said loudly, seeking to steer this conversation back on course, “I should rather like to continue that conversation. So I think I am going to do just that, if you will excuse me.”
She stood without awaiting a reply, shoving her gloves into her reticule rather than putting them back on—her mother would probably deliver an ear-blistering lecture at the sight of such impropriety, so Violet made a mental note to exert even more effort than usual to avoid her. She did not reenter the ballroom, since she knew James would not be there; instead, she continued down the hallway, peering into each room she passed until she spotted James and his friends—Penvale, Jeremy, Belfry, and, to her surprise, West—around a table littered with glasses.
She hesitated, unsure whether James would welcome the interruption—but at that precise moment West looked up, noticed her, and arched a brow.
Violet was nothing if not quick to respond to a challenge, and she did just that. “James,” she called, and the gentlemen looked in her direction as one, five heads craning around to register her presence in the doorway. There was a brief pause, then the cacophony of several chairs scraping the floor at once as their owners all rose respectfully.
“Please, do sit down,” she said, taking a couple of steps into the room. “I just wished to have a word with my husband, if you can manage without him.”
“Of course,” James said promptly, dropping his cards without a second glance at them and offering his companions the barest of nods before joining her.
“Is something wrong?” he asked in a low voice, taking one of her hands in his own. He looked intently at her face, and Violet quickly smiled to reassure him.
“Everything is fine,” she said. “I just wished to continue our conversation of earlier, and I didn’t really wish to wait. If you’d rather finish your card game, however . . .” She trailed off and tried to assume a nonchalant air. She disliked vulnerability, and had too little faith in the fragile peace they were forging to display any now.
In truth, however, his reply mattered a great deal.
“I think the cards can wait,” James said dryly, his mouth curving up a bit at the corners, and Violet felt a flash of warmth rush through her. James took her by the arm and led her from the room, then paused once they were in the corridor. “Do you want me to send for the carriage?” he asked. “Are you feeling unwell?”
There was a teasing glint in his eye. Violet let out a sickly cough without breaking eye contact with him. “My health is, of course, always delicate, but I think I can carry on.”
“I am delighted to hear it.” James led her across the hallway into a room directly opposite. He glanced in quickly, apparently ascertaining that it was empty, and then pulled Violet in behind him and shut the door. They were in the Rochefords’ library—it was dimly lit, but Violet could see floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and some rather uncomfortable-looking armchairs. She wandered deeper into the room, surveying the volumes on the shelves. They did not look heavily worn.
“I doubt we’ll be interrupted here,” she said, opening a book whose spine cracked with the motion—it had never been touched. “An excellent choice.”
“If memory serves, I recall it being little used,” James said from behind her, and there was a strange note in his voice—strange enough that Violet set the book back on the shelf and turned to look at him inquiringly. “Have you forgotten?” he asked quietly, taking a couple of steps toward her.
“Forgotten—oh!” Violet said, and it all came back to her in a rush, her cheeks warming. The year she and James had met, the Rochefords had held their ball much earlier in the Season, before Violet and James had married. They had been engaged at the time, and had managed to sneak away together to the Rocheford library, where they’d been slightly naughty on one of the window seats.
“I wonder if that window seat is still here,” Violet said, curiosity overtaking embarrassment, as it so often did with her.
“I can’t imagine they’ve torn out a window seat in a two-hundred-year-old room,” James said wryly, and followed her toward the windows in question. Violet could feel his presence behind her—the warmth of his body against her back raising the hairs at the nape of her neck and causing her arms to break out in gooseflesh.
They arrived at the window seat, and Violet flung herself down upon it. “We should have one of these installed in our library,” she said, patting the cushions. “It’s extremely comfortable.”
“Whatever you wish,” James said, but from the way he was looking at her, Violet wasn’t at all sure that he had heard anything she had said. “What was it you wanted to speak about, Violet?”
“Um,” Violet said, unaccountably nervous, “I enjoyed our waltz this evening.”
She sounded inane, she knew.
“As did I,” James said, stepping closer to her. She tilted her head back to peer up at him, his head framed by the dim light surrounding him. “Violet . . .” He hesitated, and Violet leaned forward. She could see some sort of internal war being waged within him, and in that instant she wished desperately that she could read his thoughts. When he spoke, however, his tone was guarded, and he merely said, “That can’t be the only thing you wished to tell me.”