The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister #3)(54)

His eyes widened. “I had no idea.”

“It was so new, we didn’t want to tell anyone.” She sniffled. “I miscarried after seven weeks.”

He didn’t have anything to say to that, so he just pulled her close. “Oh, Violet. I’m so sorry.”

“The second time was shortly after that. I wasn’t ready, but the doctor said that miscarriages were common in young brides, and my husband said that when a horse threw you, you had to get back on right away. So I did. It was so easy to get pregnant, Sebastian. Lily told me once that she gets pregnant when her husband sneezes at her, and I’m no different. It takes nothing to get me pregnant.” Her fingers bit into his arms. “I just never stayed that way. Eight weeks, ten weeks. That’s the way it was with me. Year after year.”

“Year after year?” Sebastian repeated numbly.

“I kept getting back on that horse,” Violet said. “Nineteen times, over and over…” She took in a large gasp of air.

God. It hurt hearing it. It hurt, knowing what she’d gone through. He’d known she was prickly; he’d suspected there was a reason. But this?

“After years of that, the doctor said we had to stop trying. That it was taking too much out of me.” She swallowed. “That if he didn’t stop, I was going to die. But my husband didn’t want to stop. He wanted his heir.” Her voice had started to shake. “I told him no, you understand. I told him no, and he never forced me when I did. But my no never stuck. He’d come back and argue. He’d wheedle and explain. He told me I was selfish to withhold myself. That the earldom needed its heir, that it was bigger than just me. I could have refused, if it was just that one no, but he only had to get one yes. One yes, and he’d be on me again. One yes, and he’d make me feel like nothing—like my whole life, my whole body, was worth nothing more than the chance to get me with child. And I was a selfish, conniving bitch for wanting anything else.”

Sebastian felt sick. “He was wrong,” Sebastian said. But the anger that welled up in him at that thought had no object save a dead man, no place in this conversation. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her. “He was so wrong.”

“I tried to think that. But when he died… It was a horrible accident. I listened to person after person offer their condolences. And I couldn’t make myself feel the least bit sorry. I was glad.” She gasped. “So, so selfishly glad that he died. He wasn’t wrong. My life didn’t mean anything to him, but his meant as little to me.”

“Shh,” he whispered to her.

“And look at what I’ve been doing to you. Lying to you, hurting you, because I can’t bear to think what it would mean to have to say no to you like that. It killed my marriage, Sebastian. It would kill us, too. I couldn’t bear that.” Her fingers clutched his arm. “My way, at least, there was no risk. I’m such a coward, Sebastian. I’m such a damned lying coward that I let you think I didn’t want you.”

Her breaths had begun to calm.

“And so you came to me,” he said softly.

She flinched. “Sometimes I want you so much I could scream. But I…I don’t dare. I don’t dare want.” Her voice shrank and she pulled in on herself.

No. After what she’d told him, he had no doubt why.

“I can’t be anyone but who I am,” she whispered. “I’m a cold, sharp blacksmith’s puzzle. If I let you in, I’ll cut us both to shreds.”

She’d come here and thrown herself at him. Thrown herself at him, told him she didn’t need sheaths. She’d come here thinking that he would take her, that he would do to her what her husband had.

God, how could she think he would do that?

She wasn’t looking in his eyes. “I owe you an apology, Sebastian.”

Her husband had told her that she was nothing. He’d done his best to erase her, taking her to bed, knowing what that would mean. He remembered Violet those last years of her marriage—ill half the time, scarcely able to move, and yet so determined to live, to do something, to have that paper on snapdragons published.

She’d thought it had been the end of her life.

“Of all the horrible things I’ve done to you,” she was saying, “I think this is the worst. I came here because I wanted to disappear. Because I was ashamed of myself and I thought if I told you how I felt—if I just let you know—you would help erase me, too.”

He thought of Violet fading as she had, and slowly, ever so slowly, he leaned his head against hers. “No, you didn’t think that.”

She huffed. “Yes, I did.”

“No.” Sebastian leaned down to her, until his lips were near her ear. “You came to me because I know you better than anyone else. Because you needed someone to tell you that you matter.”

She stopped breathing.

“Because even though you’ve been invisible to the entire world,” he said, “I have always seen you.”

She let out a long breath. He pulled her closer, gathering her up, wet as she was, running his hands down her shoulders. Her face tilted up.

He might kiss her. He’d dreamed about it long enough. His body was still alive with want, every part of him wishing for her. This would be a real kiss, not a scalded fury of an embrace like the one she’d hurled at him earlier. It would be sweet and tender and loving—as effortless as breathing.