The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister #3)(76)

“Oh, good,” Sebastian said. “Is he finally going to take your advice?”

The doctor glanced over at him. “Yes,” he said. His mouth pinched, as if he had unpleasant news to deliver. “He asked me to tell you to stay away for a handful of days, until he’s sure you won’t bother him.”

Chapter Twenty

“IN SUMMATION,” SEBASTIAN SAID, “today, I think we have managed to offend or kill all our nearest relations.”

He was standing on the other side of the gardener’s shed. Violet smiled, because that was what he wanted her to do. Because she could tell by the way he looked about, so distracted, his smile not quite settled on his face, that he was worried about his brother. Because jokes—even terrible jokes—helped make the awful feel bearable.

“Your cousins are still friends with you,” she said. “And I haven’t talked to my mother yet, so we’ll have a fresh catastrophe come tomorrow.”

“Ah, yes. Them. Perhaps we could aim your mother at Robert and Oliver. If anyone can frighten them off, it’s her. Heaven forbid we have any friends at all.”

“Only you could make a joke at a time like this,” she told him.

“What, two days until the world discovers the truth?” He grinned, as if there were nothing in the world but her. As if her talk and her worries were all that mattered, and his were nonexistent.

“I was talking about your brother.”

He poured a tumbler of brandy and brought it over to her. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow—well, the day after tomorrow—we will be shunned.”

She cast him another sidelong glance, but let the matter slide away. If he wanted to make light of it, who was she to stop him? “Speak for yourself,” she said, but her tone was light. “Tomorrow I’m talking to my mother. I dread that more than anything. After her, the rest of the world will seem like a walk in the park.”

“All the more reason to drink.”

He pushed the tumbler at her again, and this time she took it from him. The liquid was amber; it sloshed about a little, leaving trails on the glass. Its aroma, thick and heady, volatilized in the air. Even the vapors coming off it were potent.

“You’re trying to make me tipsy,” she commented.

“So I can have my wicked way with you.”

It seemed a joke, but still her heart thumped at that. That was the thing about Sebastian; he made everything seem a joke, especially those moments when he cared the most. She contemplated him over her glass of spirits.

Even her fear was beginning to fade. He’d spent the last days holding her, making no demands at all, letting her become accustomed to the feeling of being wanted, of wanting again. As if he knew that once want became familiar, that shot of panic would began to dissipate, turning to mind-fogging vapor.

“I once drank half a bottle of thistle spirits,” she informed him. “If you think an inch of brandy will do me in, you are sadly mistaken.”

She tilted back the glass. The liquor burned her tongue—a pleasant burn.

He wasn’t drinking.

It took the smallest cues to understand Sebastian. He wore his smiles and his jokes as assiduously as another man might wear a cravat—an item of apparel that was not to be taken off except among his most intimate acquaintances, and even then, only under great duress.

He’d related the story about his brother offhand, glossing over the argument and what had been said with a simple, “He was angry and had every right to be,” and then mentioning that he’d ended the visit by fetching the doctor. He’d made no comment about his feelings, as if he didn’t want to share his worry.

“You don’t have a glass,” she informed him.

“No. It’s a wicked trick on my part.”

“Oh?” She looked at him. He was smiling as if nothing were wrong, as if he had not a care in the world. As if he expected to lift her burdens and his own, too. She curled her finger at him. “Come and join me.”

He came to sit beside her.

Violet took another sip of the liquor—a longer draft this time—and set down her glass. Before she could lose her nerve, she kissed him. Their lips met. His mouth opened to hers, and she traded him that sip of brandy. Their tongues met in a heady mix of warmth and spirits. His hands pulled her close. She could have lost herself in the taste of him, the warmth of his hands sliding around her waist, but not this time.

This time, she wanted him to lose himself. She let it start as a soft, sweet, comforting kiss, and then let it grow, her hands running down his chest, until what arced between them was headier than the brandy they shared. The kiss went back and forth between them until she felt almost tipsy.

When the taste of brandy dissipated, she pulled away.

“You see?” He was breathing heavily. “It’s a wicked trick. That’s what happens when you kiss a rake of my stature; I scarcely have to do anything, and you seduce yourself.”

Violet leaned forward. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” she said. “I was already seduced.”

She was close enough to see his pupils expand, to hear his breath hissing in. That first involuntary reaction, though, was soon covered by a wide smile. “And all it took was two sips of brandy? I should have tried that years ago.”

It should have put her in a panic, the thought of what she was about to do. But the fact that she was doing it—that he was not demanding it of her—made all the difference. She put her hands on his shoulders and then slid them down, down his chest. He let out another exhalation.