The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister #3)(65)

Why wasn’t Violet afraid?

“Good God,” Violet heard herself say disdainfully. “Why would any of you want to know?”

She couldn’t wait for the answer, couldn’t watch her friends flinch from her, now that they knew the truth. She felt visible, picked out in vibrant colors, when she’d only ever wanted to hide away.

She stood. “Now if you’ll excuse me. I have to—I have to—”

God, what did she have to do?

“Sleep,” she said. “Change.” Hide. She touched Alice’s shoulder. “I’ll call on you when we’ve both had a chance to rest.”

Nose in the air. Don’t look at anyone. Don’t let them see how much you care.

Those were her mother’s rules, and even though her mother would hate to see them used under these circumstances, she was grateful to have them. Her mother had taught Violet how to be reviled, how to pretend that nothing mattered. It came so easily to her—that haughty brush past Oliver and Robert.

But then Jane stepped forward.

“Violet,” she said softly. “We want to know because we love you.”

Violet stared at her friend for a moment in unblinking befuddlement. Her words didn’t make sense. Didn’t Jane realize what Violet had just disclosed? What she’d done? Who she was?

Jane set a sympathetic hand on Violet’s arm. Violet didn’t understand sympathy. She couldn’t make sense of any of this. She felt hollow inside. Hollow and utterly brittle.

“I’m going.” She turned and fled.

“No,” she heard Sebastian saying. “Let her go. She needs a little time to figure out how she feels.”

But he was wrong. Violet knew how she felt already: Empty. Utterly empty.

VIOLET FELT EMPTY when she escaped into Sebastian’s study. She was totally devoid of all proper feelings.

It felt good to be in a familiar place—here, at his desk, where they’d gone over paper after paper together. The clock made a comfortable sound, its steady ticks slowing her heart. The books smelled of Sebastian.

She sat in her usual chair and put her elbows on his desk.

God, what a mess. Two people could keep a secret. Even the addition of Alice could have been hidden—she and her husband clearly had their own set of secrets, and they’d have been motivated to join the charade.

But the idea had sprung into Violet’s head and she’d charged straight on with it, paying no attention to the fact that Oliver, Robert, Jane, Minnie, and Free—Free for God’s sake, Frederica Marshall was practically unknown to her—were all present. What had she been thinking?

“I wasn’t thinking,” she snapped aloud. “That was the problem.”

But as soon as she said the words, she knew them for the lie that they were.

She had thought. For a split second, when she’d glanced at the sketches in the paper and had that inkling of an idea, she had thought.

You can’t do this. You had better wait.

She hadn’t wanted to wait. She’d selfishly shoved aside all thoughts of her future, her reputation, her family, caught up in the blaze of a brilliant idea. The fear that if she set it aside, it would vanish.

Even now, she wasn’t properly afraid. Her arms curled around herself. How could she have made such a mess of things? One moment of selfishness. One moment, and everyone she cared for would pay the price.

Selfish. That’s what she was.

She’d escaped to Sebastian’s study so she could be alone, so she could let her thoughts wind out to the point where she might sleep. She knew she was tired—exhausted beyond belief. The room was papered in blue and silver; a small writing table sat against one wall, and shelves of books lined the walls. A full-length mirror was propped up next to the table, reflecting the volumes back to her.

She stood and turned the mirror toward her. Her eyes looked back, dark and solemn. She was not much to look at. She could aspire to “handsome” when she took pains with her appearance, but if—for instance—she stayed up the entire night peering into a microscope, she was unabashedly homely.

Dark circles lined her eyes. Her skin was waxy; her hair could have passed for a nest of dark snakes hissing about her shoulders. Add a few warts and Violet suspected she could get herself burned at the stake.

Not pretty, and also selfish. Selfish to feel pride at what she’d done. Selfish to want…

She looked at herself in the mirror, her head tilting.

It wasn’t working. Usually when she called herself selfish, she squirmed and stuffed the things she wanted away.

But today, it wasn’t working. Maybe she was too tired.

“Selfish Violet,” she said aloud, but stripped of the shame that usually accompanied them, the words rang false. Selfish?

No. She wasn’t empty. Those words had lost their place in her heart. Today she had another refrain in her head, one that had been playing so quietly that she hadn’t even heard it until that moment.

Clever Violet. Resilient Violet. Sweet Violet. That whispered memory left no room for selfish.

Was what she’d just done was selfish? What did the word even mean?

Violet contemplated the mirror. When her husband called her selfish for refusing to go to bed with him, what had he meant?

I deserve my chance to have an heir more than you deserve to live.