The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister #3)(58)

Jane Marshall was dressed almost demurely—for her—in a dark blue gown, one that had only a mild excess of ruffles. Two seats down from her sat Jane’s sister-in-law, Frederica Marshall. Miss Marshall—known to the family as Free—had begged to come, to see a real Cambridge lecture. It was hardly that, Violet thought, but still, the young woman looked about the room in avid interest. She seemed to drink in every ordinary detail: the wood panels on the walls, the chairs, worn and scratched from years of use, all lined up to face the front.

“Oliver tells me,” Jane continued in a whisper, “that Sebastian has been rather odd about this lecture. Nervous and secretive. As you and he are friends of such long standing, I thought…” She spread gloved hands. Her gloves, at least, were outrageous—spangled with little glass beads that had been sewn on the soft leather in the shape of peacock feathers.

“He’s told me very little,” Violet said. “It’s just an interim discussion of research he has not yet finished.”

Jane looked about expressively. “An interim discussion?” she asked in amusement. “Any other interim discussion would bring an audience of what, nine or ten?”

There were almost ten times that many onlookers here.

“Well,” Violet said. “It is Sebastian.”

Three seats behind them sat that annoying couple that had disturbed his last talk. Violet wrinkled her nose and wished that they, at least, had stayed away.

“And he’s told you not a thing?” Jane frowned. “How strange. He came to Oliver three days ago and asked him to come. He acted as if it were important. But it’s a little-advertised event, and when Oliver asked, he said he was presenting work that had little scientific value. Neither of us can make any sense of it.”

“Well,” Violet asked in her most reasonable tone of voice, “why would he talk to me about his lectures?”

“True,” Jane said after a pause. “True. Still, I can’t help but wonder if he’s planning to spring some horrid surprise.”

Violet wondered the same thing. He’d been so nervous telling her about it. A secret project, one he’d hidden from her for years? One that would have revealed his feelings? It made no sense. None at all.

Three seats down from her, the woman with the high-pitched voice squirmed. “This will be awful,” she predicted. “Won’t it, William?”

Violet refused to let that woman set the mood for the day. She looked straight ahead. Luckily, his response was too low to carry to her.

“How can I bear it?” the woman was saying. “We must put an end to this all.”

Violet sniffed and turned to Jane. But there was no time for further conversation. The door to the side of the room opened; Oliver and Robert trooped out and came to sit by them, Oliver to Jane’s right, and Robert on Violet’s left.

“Did you learn anything?” she heard Jane whisper.

“Not a thing, except I’ve never seen him like this,” her husband whispered back.

That door opened once more and the whispers died down. Sebastian and a white-haired man came forward. Sebastian didn’t look nervous, but then, he never did in company. He seemed perfectly at ease, smiling as if the crowd were a group of dear friends.

“Welcome, welcome,” the older man who’d accompanied Sebastian said. “Welcome to our weekly little—ha!—botanical seminar.”

The nine people in the audience who normally attended the less popular version of this talk chuckled.

“Today, we’re honored to have Mr. Sebastian Malheur presenting an interim version of his latest work. He was quite modest in his description. But I’m sure none of you wish to hear me speak, and so I give you Mr. Malheur.”

Polite applause sounded, and Sebastian came forward.

Sebastian never looked at Violet when he lectured; he’d told her once that if he did, he feared she’d make him laugh in the middle of his sentence. But this time was different. Usually she knew every word that would come out of his mouth.

This time, for the first time in a hundred lectures, she had no idea what he was going to say. He looked up, looked around the room. His eyes came to rest on hers.

Her breathing stopped. God, he was looking at her like that in front of everyone.

“This,” Sebastian said, “is a subject matter near and dear to my heart. One that I have studied for years in hopes that I might determine its secrets.” He hadn’t looked away. Her palms grew cold.

“I wanted to understand everything,” Sebastian said. “But some things are not comprehensible, at least not to me. So this is a talk that touches on failure as well.” Now he did look away from her. “It’s a talk of hubris, too. A talk about how one man thought he could take on something that he knew was larger than him.”

He paused, as if for effect, and then looked back at her. His eyes bored into hers.

“This,” he said calmly, “is a talk about Violet.”

Her insides froze. She could scarcely sit straight. Her head was whirling. He’d…he’d said her name in front of everyone. He was going to tell them—everyone would know—

Oh, God, her mother was going to kill her. Lily would never speak to her again. Everyone would know. This was a disaster. This was…

But nobody in the room had turned to her.