The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister #3)(47)

“Violet,” Sebastian said, “you took in a baby owl with a broken wing for three months, ignored the fact that it shredded the antique furniture in the room where you kept it, and when your maids were too squeamish to capture mice, you did it yourself.”

Her eyes flashed. “That was curiosity.”

“I heard you cooing to it,” Sebastian said. “And shall we talk about Herman, the cat you found caught in a steel trap?”

Violet pretended not to hear this. “My husband never hit me,” she said. “Not once. And if you think he was the only one who told me how little I mattered…” She drew a breath. “I was my father’s good luck talisman. Lily always used to tell everyone that Father loved us too much to kill himself. But I have always known better. I have never been enough.”

God, more than anything, he wished it would help to take her in his arms. To squeeze her so tightly that all her fears fled. But this was Violet. She wouldn’t welcome his embrace. She wouldn’t want to admit that she had anything so messy as emotions, let alone that she was besieged by them. She stared out into the darkness, her eyes clear, her face unshadowed.

“So forget about me,” Violet said. “Stop wanting to know. Everyone who understands me eventually becomes disgusted by who I am.”

“Not me.”

She glanced back at him. “You don’t know everything.”

IT WAS GETTING WORSE.

When Sebastian was around, Violet thought of the oddest things—of touching him, of kissing him, of simply holding him close and breathing in comfort from his warmth. When he wasn’t, she could feel the memory of him lingering, waiting to catch her unawares. Those unwanted thoughts came to her at the oddest times. She would pull on a glove and think of his fingers entwining with hers, that smile glowing on his face—just for her. He’d pull her close…

She shook her head, banishing the thought before it could give rise to real want.

But desire always found a way to creep back in, and next thing she knew, she was imagining laughter, the kind that took her breath away. The kind where he would hold her close as she shook with mirth.

Another shake of her head, and that fantasy would slink shamefully away, vanquished, albeit temporarily.

You’re not allowed to be that person, she reminded herself. Want is a danger for you.

Late in the evening was the worst. When night fell, when even turning the lamps up full-bore only made the shadows deeper, she remembered his words.

Platonic? God, no. I don’t love you platonically. I want you very, very much. If you wanted to go to bed with me, Violet, I’d take you there. Right now.

Late at night, it was hard to remember that she was ice. That platonic love was all she dared allow herself to have. Late at night, she remembered what it was like to touch, the sensation of skin sliding against her own. That feel of warmth against warmth, of the delicious friction of fingers against her hips, pulling her close… That was a memory more luxurious than the softest silks. She remembered what it was like to drown in a kiss, to forget everything as bodies joined. She could remember what intercourse had been like, before it had gone sour.

But just as surely she also recalled what it had turned into: the slide into icy nothingness, every thrust of his hips attempting to erase her from the world.

She remembered it all, and she wanted it, and she feared.

So she did what she always did: She found something else to take the place of that cavernous, treacherous want. She cut up scientific journals—even though anything she discovered from here on out would land only in silence. She slid the articles between the pages of her periodicals, turning the pages of La Mode Illustrée not from gown to gown, but from article to article, from topics that covered everything from sexual inheritance to the latest experiments in multiple exposure photographic methods for enhancing microscopic results. She pored over sketches of cells while pretending that she cared about woodcut drawings of pink tarlatan overskirts instead.

She read and read until there was no room for want. Until she’d reduced herself to pure thought and work, a being with no feelings, no sensations, no desires. None of that had ever served her anyway.

But thoughts were insidious, and if there was anything her scientific work had taught her, it was this: Almost every organism, no matter how small or how large, yearned to reproduce. It was a desire bred into every cell, and she could not drive it away, no matter how harmful she knew that want to be. She could only keep her yearning at bay.

Sometimes at night, she failed.

She felt the bed beneath her back that night, and remembered the feel of her husband on top of her, pushing inside her, leaning down to her as if for a kiss.

The first few years, he’d whispered words of encouragement and affection. Darling and sweet and good. Later, he’d lapsed into silence.

Near the end, though…

What the hell is the use of you? He’d whispered in her ear as he took her. Selfish bitch.

Those were the words that punctuated his thrusts. And with every passing cycle—every few months—she’d proved him right, subliming like ice in winter, turning into so much vapor.

Selfish. Pointless. Bitch.

How many more lovers do you need?

Only one more.

But Violet could never be anyone’s one more. She was a blacksmith’s puzzle made by a fiend. All anyone could do was be driven mad by her.