The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister #3)(60)

He felt strangely deflated, exhausted and yet exhilarated. As he’d hoped, Robert and Minnie, Jane and Oliver, and Free took over the conversation, giving Violet time to consider. To think and make sense of everything he’d said. She hadn’t said a word to him since his talk.

Jane, bless her, was making Violet laugh. If Violet could laugh, maybe she wasn’t furious with him.

“What on earth happened to your gown?” Violet was asking. “It’s almost fashionable.”

Jane made a face. “It was an accident,” she said. “A horrible accident. I had absolutely no intention of wearing anything so respectable. It’s been sitting in my wardrobe for months, and then Oliver told me about this event.” She shrugged. “For once, I thought it might be nice not to draw everyone’s attention.”

Jane usually wore bright colors—oranges and pinks and greens so vibrant that they looked as if they belonged in one of the jungle greenhouses in the Cambridge Botanical Gardens rather than an English drawing room. She wore them as naturally as another woman might have donned brown silks, supremely comfortable with the weight of everyone’s attention.

“I’ll have to make up for it,” Jane said, “with a truly outrageous creation. Something breathtakingly bad. Alas, I feel as if I’ve reached a plateau of offensiveness. I must strive higher. Any ideas?”

She addressed the group. Minnie looked thoughtfully into the distance; Oliver scratched his head.

“Have you considered non-fabric items?” Violet asked. “Wood? Metal?”

“Feathers,” Oliver added, “although honestly, I have such a fondness for feathers.”

Jane smiled sweetly.

“Clay.” This came from Free, Oliver’s sister. “It would be heavy, though. And rather brittle.”

Jane snorted. “Can you imagine? Walking into a ballroom in a gown of clay, having to make sure that you didn’t brush against anyone, because if you did your skirts would start to break off in pieces.”

“Leaving a little trail along the ballroom floor,” Robert picked up. “It would be like bread crumbs. Anyone who wanted to find you would have to follow them.”

“Which we would all have to do,” Sebastian put in. “As you would be in hiding, because your skirts would have been smashed to pieces by the crowds.”

Everyone paused, grinning in contemplation. Everyone including Violet. God, so long as he could still make her smile…

“This reminds me,” Minnie said. “There was a gown in La Mode Illustrée the other day that made me think of you. It was—oh, God, I can’t remember. I meant to bring it for you.”

Violet frowned. “Was that the one with the half-capes? Because I was thinking the same thing—those double half-capes are well and good, and then there was that one illustration that had three of them. Isn’t more always better? What if you had, say, eighteen of them?”

“That would be the equivalent of nine full capes,” Jane said in amusement. “I don’t think I could stand erect.”

“It wasn’t the half-capes,” Minnie said. “It was… Drat. Why can’t I remember? I used to remember everything. Then I had a child.” She shook her head ruefully.

“I brought several copies with me,” Violet said. “Let me send for them.” She stood and rang a bell; when a servant came, she whispered. A few minutes later, she was brought the voluminous bag she often brought with her. The conversation had moved on—the suggestion that Jane consider a gown made of bread had quickly given way to pastry. Sebastian was fairly certain—only mostly certain—that everyone had ceased to be serious a long while back.

He leaned back and listened with half an ear, watching Violet rummage through her bag through lidded eyes. Apparently, everyone else thought she could be ignored, but even this, the most prosaic of actions, made him smile.

“I’m partial to butter cream,” Robert was saying.

“You don’t get a vote,” Oliver countered. “You don’t get to eat my wife’s gown. I feel that would be improper.”

Violet began to empty her bag: Yarn. Needles. More yarn. A half-finished scarf.

Nobody was watching her by that point—nobody but Sebastian. Nobody but him saw her smile of triumph. Nobody saw her pull out the fashion magazine with a flourish.

The flourish was a mistake. She held it up in triumph; as she did, sheets of paper slipped from between the pages, cascading to the floor.

Violet’s face grew pale.

Sebastian could not read the pages from this side of the room, but he could recognize their format even from here. Two columns, that stiff-looking heading, sketches that he could identify even from here as single-celled organisms.

Scientific papers. Violet kept scientific papers sliced up in her fashion magazine. They were all over the floor. If anyone saw them, they might guess her secret.

He wanted to guffaw, but if he did, he’d draw attention to her. And for better or for worse, this was a secret between the two of them. Violet kicked a page under her skirt.

“Jane,” Sebastian said heartily, leaning forward so that everyone looked at him, instead of glancing across the room. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. How do you order a gown by accident?”

It worked; everyone’s attention turned to him.