The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister #3)(94)

“Yes, speaking of the queen!” Free said. “She wants to meet with you. She pardoned you entirely, except for the contempt charges. Apparently, she said you deserved those.”

Violet subsided in her seat. Free was a force of nature; trying to stop her or turn her back was like trying to blow a cyclone away.

“And now you’re famous,” Free said, “and everyone wants to meet you, and Jane hired guards for your home in London—I hope you don’t mind, but you’ll need them for the next few months. Aren’t you just dying of happiness?”

“Yes,” Violet said, and then—to her astonishment—she started to cry. She had never cried before, not since she was an infant. She didn’t shed tears. She just didn’t. She had no idea why she was doing it now. She wasn’t even sad.

But Jane crossed the carriage and put her arm around her, and Free took her hand.

“It’s nothing,” Violet tried to tell them. “Nothing at all.”

But it wasn’t that. She knew how to steel herself for failure and disappointment. She knew how to smile while her hopes were slowly crushed.

All this time, in her secret heart, she’d believed that if the truth came out, everyone would despise her. She’d believed her true self was dark and desperate, that her friends only tolerated her out of an excess of amiability.

But she wasn’t a monster.

Victory wasn’t sweet; it was devastating and incomprehensible. It reduced her to rubble when she could have withstood harsh words.

She kept crying, leaking like a cracked ink-bottle.

“It’s just—they washed my cell with some chemical,” she explained. “To kill the lice. And wouldn’t you know? I think the absence of fumes is bothering my eyes.”

Jane handed her a bright green handkerchief, and nobody contradicted this statement even though it was patently absurd. They held her until she managed to stop embarrassing herself.

“Amanda,” Violet finally asked. “How is it that you are…that you have come…” She couldn’t finish her sentence, couldn’t ask if Lily had changed her mind.

“Grandmama took me,” Amanda said. “Mama said…” There was a longer pause. “Mama said to tell you that if I wish to…” But Amanda couldn’t quite finish her sentence either. She choked back the words and looked away.

Violet wondered if all victories were so bittersweet. She’d won, but at the cost of those she’d loved. Lily, Sebastian… Her heart ached.

“So you’ll be staying with me,” Violet managed calmly.

“For a few years.” Amanda looked away. “Mama told me to tell you that she had to think of the other children. For their sake, she couldn’t…have us any longer. But she told me that when she had the chance, she would…”

Violet swallowed a lump in her throat. “Right,” she said. “Right.” And they spoke no more of it.

There were crowds at the train station they eventually reached, and an even larger mass of people at the London terminal when they arrived three hours later. Someone must have cabled ahead with the news.

Her mother somehow managed to bring her through it all.

Violet did not ask the question that ate at her until she arrived at her home, until they’d made their way through the throng outside her door and shut themselves in a room with the curtains drawn.

“Mama,” she whispered, “where is Sebastian?”

Her mother glanced at her. “Waiting to see if you’ll talk to him.”

She felt her nose wrinkle. “If I’ll talk to him? Why would he wonder about that? Is he stupid?”

“Probably,” her mother said. “Should I send for him?”

“Yes,” she said. And then: “No. I have to take a bath first.”

Her mother looked at her carefully. “Violet, I suspect he won’t care if you smell.”

Violet bowed her head, inhaling. She couldn’t smell herself anymore, and that was a bad sign. If she’d smelled clean, she would have noticed. “I care.”

And so it was almost an hour before Violet walked into her downstairs library and found Sebastian pacing the floor at the far end. They both froze as she entered the door—Sebastian halted mid-step, his body turned half toward her, his eyes lighting, the corners of his mouth curling up in a smile.

And she… Oh, she hadn’t been able to think of Sebastian at all these last days. She would have missed him too much. He’d been mussing his hair as he paced; he looked tired. But then that brilliant smile that she knew all too well took over his face, and all that weariness seemed to flee.

“Violet,” he breathed.

“Sebastian.” She wanted to rush across the room to him, but she still wasn’t sure how he felt. How badly had she hurt him, walking away when he’d begged her not to do so?

He stared at her a moment longer, as if trying to figure out where to start. “I come,” he finally said, “bearing gifts.”

“Gifts?”

“Paperwork, actually. I’ve been acting as your social secretary this last week and a half.”

“Oh.” She felt as if her head was spinning. “Have I been invited to many balls?”

“No, strangely,” he said with good cheer. “Not a one. But King’s College here in London says—well, a great many things, but first, that they’ll waive the residential requirements for receipt of a doctorate, although they will require you to defend a dissertation. Modified versions of your old papers will do.”