The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister #3)(4)

“Sebastian!” she said. There was a pleased note in her voice. She’d forgiven him for last night, then. But the smile she gave him slowly died as she saw the look on his face. “Sebastian? Is everything all right?”

“I should apologize,” he blurted out. “God knows I should apologize. I should never have spoken to you that way, and especially not in public.”

She waved this off. “I should have known better. I should have thought of the strain you’re under. Really, Sebastian, after everything we’ve done for each other, a few harsh words hardly signify. Now, there was something I needed to tell you.” She frowned and tapped her lips. “Let’s see…”

“Violet. Don’t get distracted. Listen to me.”

She turned back to him.

Nobody else thought Violet pretty. He had never understood that. Yes, her nose was too big. Her mouth was too wide. Her eyes were set a little too far apart for classical standards of beauty. He could see those things, but somehow they’d never mattered. Of all the people in the world, Violet was the closest to him, and that made her precious in ways he didn’t want to consider right now. She was his dearest friend, and he was about to rip her apart.

“Is something amiss?” she asked carefully. “Or—rather—” She cleared her throat. “I know something is amiss. How can we fix it?”

He held up his hands in surrender to the entire world. “Violet, I can’t do this anymore. I’m done living a fraud.”

Her face went utterly blank. Her hand reached out, falling on her magnifying glass, clutching it to her chest.

Sebastian felt heartsick. “Violet.”

There was nobody he knew better, nobody in the world he cared for more. Her skin had turned ashen. She sat looking at him, totally devoid of expression. He’d seen her like that once before. He’d never imagined he would be the one who made her look that way again.

“Violet, you know I would do anything for you.”

She made a curious sound in her throat, half sob, half choke. “Don’t do this. Sebastian, we can figure out—”

“I’ve tried,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, Violet, but this is the end.”

He was breaking her, but then, he’d come to the end of even his ability to perform. He smiled sadly and looked around her greenhouse. At the shelves and shelves, filled with little pots, each one labeled. At the beds of plants in various stages from tiny clusters of leaves to brilliant green growth. At the bookshelf in the corner, holding twenty leather-bound volumes of notes. He looked over all the evidence that he kept waiting for everyone else to discover. Finally, he looked at Violet—at the woman he had known all his life and loved for half of it.

“I will be your friend. Your confidante. I’ll be a helping hand when you need one. I will do anything for you, but there is one thing I will never do again.” He drew a deep breath. “I will never again present your work as my own.”

Her magnifying glass slipped from her fingers and landed on the paving stones beneath her chair. But it was strong—like Violet—and it didn’t shatter.

He reached down and picked it up. “Here,” he said, handing it back to her. “You’ll need this.”

Chapter Two

THREE HOURS LATER, VIOLET found herself dawdling outside Sebastian’s home.

In the years in which they’d worked together, they had found a hundred ways to meet without exciting comment. When they were in Cambridge, meeting was relatively easy: their houses were a mere mile apart, a twenty-minute walk along a wooded path. Thick trees hid their passage from gossip. Violet’s greenhouse was shielded from the prying eyes of servants by a tall shrubbery, while the path to his study was obscured by a maze of head-high boxwoods that allowed her to come and go without knocking at his door.

She waited now within that maze, marshaling her breath and her nerves. She had to make this right, had to try and figure out a way to continue. But she could remember the look on his face, that look of sad determination, and she didn’t know how to change that.

She sat on a stone bench and kicked the crushed white stone of the path in frustration. If she just laid out everything in order, there had to be a solution. A proper, reasonable solution.

Stone crunched; she looked up in consternation.

It was Sebastian. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, but even in his shirtsleeves, that serious expression made him seem formal. He had one hand in his waistcoat pocket and he was watching her with an unreadable expression.

She thought about standing—thought about it so long that she realized that the moment had passed. She’d look a fool popping to her feet now, half a minute after he arrived.

She settled for inclining her head in his direction. “Sebastian.”

“Violet.” He didn’t move any closer. “I expected you to arrive almost forty-five minutes past. I’m shocked it took you so long to come and debate with me.”

Her fingers twitched. She thought of objecting on principle, but that was what she had come to do. “I was trying to figure out my best arguments. I made a list of everything I might say.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A list? I must see this. You did write it down, didn’t you?”

She thought about denying it, but he knew her too well. She drew the paper from her skirt pocket and handed it over. He unfolded the page and flattened it between his palms.