To Have and to Hoax(97)

“Well, he seemed pretty cut up about this whole business of his father and your mother having orchestrated your meeting—I assume the idiot realizes he should have trusted you now.” Behind Jeremy, Wooton had discreetly slipped back into the shadows, presumably in search of the missing hat—as ever, Jeremy paid little heed to who might be listening to him speak, no matter the topic. Violet felt a sudden wave of cold wash over her, as though she had just been submerged in ice water. Jeremy, who seemed blithely unaware of the effect his words were having, continued on cheerfully.

“I presume he told you about my role in the evening’s events? I owe you an apology, of course—I could have damaged your reputation, and it was quite shabby of me.”

Violet barely heard him, her entire being focused on one single fact: James had lied. He had said he hadn’t discussed anything of importance with the duke this morning, and he had lied.

Why hadn’t she seen it? Why had she been so ready to accept his claims that he had simply realized all at once that he should have trusted her from the start?

Because she wanted it to be true. And this, too, was true: he had told her what she wanted to hear, and she had lapped it up like a fool. But it had been a lie. James hadn’t trusted her—the only thing that had brought him to her bedroom door was confirmation he had received from Jeremy that Violet hadn’t been plotting with her mother all along.

So in all the big ways, nothing had changed. James still didn’t trust her—from what she could make out of Jeremy’s chatter, it seemed that he was the one who was deserving of James’s distrust, and yet there was no sign of any cracking in their friendship. A surge of fury coursed through her, and Violet all at once had no more time for this.

With some sort of sixth sense that she only seemed to possess with regard to her husband, she suddenly became aware that he was near, and darted a glance sideways. He was standing, frozen, at the end of the hallway, a sheaf of papers in his hand—he had mentioned something about needing to see to a pressing piece of business regarding the dratted stables, because even in a postcoital daze, he apparently couldn’t keep his mind off them. His eyes shifted between Jeremy and her, until their gazes locked.

“There you are, Audley!” Jeremy said, still—somehow!—oblivious to the fact that the temperature in the house seemed to have plummeted in the past minute. “I was just asking your lovely wife if you’d successfully groveled, as we discussed.”

“Jeremy,” James said, his eyes never leaving Violet’s, “get out of my house.” His tone wasn’t angry, precisely, but it wasn’t one that left room for disagreement, either.

“I say, Audley—”

“Now.” James’s eyes broke from hers, and Violet could see his unspoken message to Jeremy: Please. I am begging you. Jeremy, apparently, could read this, too, for he departed with a few murmured niceties to Violet and one last, baffled look at his best friend. Wooton rematerialized from the shadows in time to hand Jeremy his hat and close the door behind him, then wisely vanished once more.

Never had a silence seemed so deafening.

“Violet—” James said, taking three quick steps toward her. His tone was calm, soothing, and for some reason this did nothing but stoke the flame of anger that was rising within her.

“You lied to me.” She barely recognized her own voice, so cold did it sound.

“I might have neglected to mention a few things,” James said carefully, then winced, as though even he could see this for the evasion that it was. He looked at her directly, took a breath. “Yes. I lied.”

“So when you told me that you suddenly realized that you were letting your father control your life,” Violet said, striving to keep her voice calm, despite the fact that she felt as though a veritable storm of emotions was swirling within her, “that you realized that you should have trusted me, your wife, all along . . .” She paused, inhaling—her voice had cracked a bit on the word wife.

“It was all a lie,” she said simply. It was not a question.

“Violet,” he said again, not moving this time, though she could see how badly he wanted to. He seemed to sense, however, that a single false step could cost him dearly in this moment. “What I told you was true. I didn’t mention the business with Jeremy because I didn’t want to complicate things.”

“Oh no,” Violet said, her voice sounding brittle, as though it were about to crack and shatter. “Because of course things have been frightfully simple between us lately.”

“Damn it,” he said—he did not raise his voice or alter his tone, but the amount of feeling, of emotion packed into those two simple words was enough to nearly make her take a step backward. “I am sick of quarreling with you.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Violet said, growing truly heated now, and she was grateful for the fury, because for a ridiculous moment she had been afraid that she would begin to weep. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have married me, then. Perhaps you should have married one of those other insipid, simpering girls who made their debut during my Season—the ones you told me you found so frightfully boring.”

“There’s a vast plain between boring and you, Violet,” he said angrily, running his hand through his hair, as she’d often seen him do during their arguments when they’d first married, though it had been so long since they’d had a proper fight, she’d nearly forgotten the gesture. It felt oddly intimate and strange to see it again now, and she welcomed it, even as rage coursed through her.