Chapter Eighteen

L ater that day, Bea had apparently decided not to let Pippa out of her sight again. She hadn't mentioned anything in particular, but she knew what she and Nick had done.

"Do I really have to go in?" Pippa crossed her arms in the carriage when they'd stopped in front of the Langley estate.

"Come on, it's a courtesy visit," Bea said as she tucked a few stray curls into her bonnet and exited the cabin when the driver opened the door. "Plus, you promised to join me."

"You promised to keep my secret." Pippa gave her cousin a sharp look.

Bea chuckled. "Who would I tell that you kissed the handsome doctor in the arboretum? It's not as though I could forever blackmail you with this delicious bit of information." Ah, there it was. Bea's eyes gleamed with mischief, but Pippa knew she could trust her, no matter how annoying Bea's teasing would be.

"I don't know why I need to extend this brat a courtesy where we've already endured her wedding ceremony and breakfast."

"Because she made her debut with us. After all, she caught an earl and is the Countess of Langley now. Time to congratulate her." On the pavement, Bea pulled her day dress straight. Whyever she felt the need to pluck and pull at herself, Pippa would never understand; there wasn't a fuzz that could look out of place on Bea's perfect features. If she didn't love her cousin so much, Pippa would be green with jealousy. But that emotion was usually reserved for Violet, the newly minted Countess of Langley.

Pippa had the same enthusiasm for tea with Violet at her new home as a cat had to swim. She'd instead do anything else, even dine with her stepmother. Pippa shuddered.

"There, there," Bea said as she pushed Pippa up the Earl of Langley's front steps to the lavishly carved walnut door of his home. It was within walking distance of Pall Mall on a lovely street lined with chestnut trees. The sun twinkled between the trees' crowns as if it didn't mind sharing some of its golden brilliance with the home of such a wench; Pippa marveled that the warmth of the sun's rays hadn't thawed Violet's heart in all of her twenty years of life.

"Fine, I'm here." Pippa straightened her back when Bea knocked.

The butler opened and was friendly enough. His light-gray velvet coat matched the flock wallpaper with its off-white and silvery repeating pattern of a bouquet, probably gardenias, and daisies. Pippa's heart jumped with joy that she could now make out the details of even the tiniest patterns on fabrics, throw pillows, and even embroidered handkerchiefs. No more clumsy goose, thanks to Nick.

"Lady Pemberton and Lady Beatrice Weatherby, the countess will be with you shortly. I will order some tea." The butler left with a polite bow.

Pippa surveyed the room, a good-sized parlor decorated in an old-fashioned style. "Do you think his mother furnished this?"

"I have no other explanation," Bea said with a grimace and pushed her lower lip down as she picked up a tattered throw pillow that was as faded a purple as the settee cushions were worn.

"Ah, Bea and Pippa, good afternoon!" Violet came rushing in through the double doors. "Good to see you."

Pippa's eyes widened at Violet's effusive greeting and the way the normally meticulously coiffed and dressed young woman appeared, her normally artfully arranged hair style lopsided and her dress wrinkled.

"Oh, Pippa! I like your glasses. They suit you. Are they helpful?" Violet normally would have teased Pippa about the spectacles; Pippa was taken aback that Violet didn't. Who was this young woman? She certainly looked like Violet, but her demeanor was so different from what Pippa knew that she frowned. Was Violet playing a practical joke on them again?

But the curiously acting countess gestured to the aged settee as the butler entered with a laden tea tray. "I'm so glad to see you, my dear friends! Sit down, please. Here's the tea!" She smiled broadly.

Pippa pushed the spectacles up on the bridge of her nose, self-conscious, and yet determined to go through life with a clear perspective. She'd expected Violet to be the first to tease her about her new glasses, and yet—she appeared not to notice them. How odd!

Even Bea tipped her head back and raised her brows, watching Violet pour tea into the three cups set on the marble-top coffee table with such concentration, like a thief trying to distract them from her guilty face.

Why did she appear guilty? What was she hiding? Pippa frowned at the tea, trying to see if there was something hiding in its depths.

"You look flushed, dear," Bea said, apparently less concerned with potential pranks and more concerned with Violet's appearance.

Violet remained focused on her gesture of hospitality—which was as odd as the way she was disheveled. "Sugar?" she asked without lifting her gaze from the tray. They responded, and she plopped their requested numbers of cubes into each cup with the silver tongs. Then she picked up the correct saucer and cup and offered it to Pippa. "This one is yours."

Pippa gaped. Violet, handing her a cup of tea?

Violet.

She peered into the cup expecting something there—as usual—to surprise her. But there was no frog swimming in the tea, nor did the saucer appear to have a spring that would shoot something out at Pippa. Moreover, the tea was the correct color; it wasn't black with ink, prepared just so to stain her teeth for the next few months. It didn't even have pepper flakes floating on its surface—and she could tell, because she was wearing her new glasses.

It was just a cup of tea, elegantly served to her with her requested two sugar cubes, by Violet, who appeared less elegant than usual. In fact…

"What's the matter with you?" Bea asked, following Violet's movements as she sat and placed her cup and saucer on her lap. Pippa squinted, more out of habit than with a need to focus because her eyes were not fooling her. The back of Violet's dress was indeed tucked into her stocking.

"Violet, ahem…" Pippa nodded in the direction of her friend's leg.

Violet followed her gaze with surprise and then reddened. "Oh my!" She pulled the hem of her dress out of the stocking, shaking out the wrinkles before lifting her own cup to sip at her tea. "Ouch! Hot!" With urgency, like a nervous almost-debutante back at their finishing school—which had never been Violet's role—she set the cup and saucer back on the table with a click.

"Have we arrived at an inopportune time?" Bea asked with the finesse of the ever-knowing social butterfly now fluttering about like a clumsy moth. Pippa didn't blame her cousin. She too was bewildered but she knew could trust her eyes—especially now—Violet was not as she remembered her.

"Last we saw you, you were a bride. How have you fared as the new Countess of Langley?" Of course, her status as Beauty of the Ball meant Bea took the lead in the conversation.

" Ahem ." Violet swallowed and surveyed the room as if trying to unsee what had happened here.

"I heard your husband was confined to bed for a few days. Is he unwell?" Pippa had heard the rumors of various surgeries and treatments that the earl had had done before his wedding to Violet. Father had mentioned something about rejuvenating himself and turning back the hands of time to please his young wife. She'd mostly disregarded her father's comments since whenever he spoke, his accounts were laced with nonsense about healing stones, broths of flowers, and putrid powders.

Violet inhaled slowly and closed her eyes for a moment. "He's fine." She spoke with a tremor, but not one caused by tears. Instead, it was as if she tried to suppress a giggle. "Very fine indeed." Her usual porcelain complexion resembled that of a well-cooked lobster.

"Violet Mae Sheffield," Bea said sternly. "What has gotten into you? Are you drinking at three in the afternoon?"

"No." Violet sputtered and then finally burst into those giggles. They didn't stop until she bit her bottom lip. "Much more wicked than that." She beamed but averted her gaze and brushed her collapsing coiffe out of her face. Then she reached to twirl a strand of escaped hair around her finger and looked at the writing desk near the window. "We… I mean, he …he's wonderful ," she started. Then she plopped back in the settee and melted comfortably into the faded cushions with a sigh.

The old Violet, the mean girl Pippa knew so well, had disappeared. No superciliary frowns, no sly remarks came out of this new, disheveled one. She looked blissful. Tamed.

What could have changed her? Was it possible that she was…perhaps… "Are you in love?" Pippa spoke before she could stop the words.

Bea's head jerked. "I beg your pardon?" She couldn't hide her shock.

"I'm just wondering—"

"Perhaps I am, Pippa," Violet peered up to the ceiling and tapped her lips with her index finger. "Or I am falling."

"With your husband, I hope," Bea interjected. With all her social graces, one aspect of human nature eluded Bea, for she'd never been loved. Admired, adored, desired, envied—yes—but never loved. And in this moment, Pippa realized that she'd rather be loved by one person than have all the empty admiration of many because all of them together didn't amount to as much as she'd started to feel when she was near Nick. Even at just the thought of his kiss and his hard muscles pressed against her had Pippa fanning herself.

"Is he good to you?" Bea asked.

Pippa kicked her sideways and shook her head.

"What? I'm asking to make sure she's well." Bea shrugged.

"Oh, he's more than good to me," Violet sighed dreamily. Then, her eyes darkened. "He's so good, so very good." She practically purred like cat stretching out for a back rub.

"What do you mean?" Bea asked, still with an unbelieving skepticism. Pippa suppressed a smile. "I thought he was in bed recovering from surgery performed soon after your wedding?"

"Oh, he was in bed, yes. He had a little surgery. And then I joined him," Violet said with a sparkle in her eyes that warmed Pippa's heart. Bea, however, looked taken aback as their newly married friend clarified, "I joined him in bed ."

"After the surgery?" Bea squinted.

"Darling, in bed, yes. The surgery went well; it was a small thing. A lens replacement and the doctor was very, very good. In fact, it was he who gave me the idea."

"To bed your husband?" Pippa jested.

Violet paused for a moment. "In a way, yes."

"What?" Bea and Pippa asked in unison.

"Well, I'll tell you." Violet straightened in the settee and leaned forward as if she would give a juicy account of a scandalous seduction at Almack's. "We hadn't yet… you know…" She drew circles in the air. "And then he was scheduled for the surgery and needed to recover at home. I met the doctor when he came the next day, and Henry needed to have chamomile compresses and lavender ointment. You know, for the inflammation and to soothe the—"

"Inflammation?" Bea asked in disgust.

"Nothing major, I assure you." Violet waved it off as if it had been nothing. "It was gone the next day, but he was so grateful to me for applying the compresses and ointment. And it's been four days since…"

"Since what?"

"Since I've come out of his bedchamber," Violet said with a grin, as if she'd swallowed a whole vanilla birthday cake.

Pippa and Bea remained silent, taking in what Violet said. Bea seemed to hear her words but did not comprehend them. But Pippa had a good idea of what Violet had done for four days.

"I mustn't say anymore. If I tell you what Henry did…and does." Violet blushed again and put both hands on her mouth.

"Do tell," Pippa urged her, ignoring her shell-shocked cousin clutching the empty cup of tea as if it were her last stronghold. "I thought he was a little…how can I put it… Experienced? When I saw him at your wedding, he looked like he was at least a decade your senior." She was certain that some of the old Violet must still have been in there and could be cracked with a provocative remark.

"He's not old, Pippa. Please! He's two and thirty."

"That's twelve years older than you, Violet," Bea said.

"All right, I will admit it. He's a bit more mature than I. But I am learning and catching up now." Violet spoke like a patroness of Almack's and folded her hands primly in her lap.

"Catching up on…?" Pippa nudged her further.

"Experience," Violet said, reddening so much that it looked like her dark hair grew out of a cherry rather than her usually pale head.

"Tell me everything." Pippa leaned in.

"I mustn't say what he's done to me, Pippa. Not to you." Violet shook her head. "It's not appropriate."

"Oh please, Violet. You've never been proper. Don't be now. Do tell!" Pippa begged.

"Tell me then," Bea joined in, slightly flushed herself.

Violet looked over her shoulder and then got up to shut the door. She stood then, with one hand crossed behind her back and the other still on one of the door handles. And then she began to whisper, excitement in her tone, of provocative and incredible things. Acts she and her husband and done.

Pippa's insides warmed as she imagined what Violet told her. Like three schoolgirls all those years ago, they huddled together, the two of them hanging on every word Violet whispered. "…and when he kisses me, not on my mouth, you see… he kisses me and uses his hands somehow to make me scream with pleasure." Violet combed her fingers through her hair as if to hold on to her wits. The rest of her coiffe spilled from its pins, falling over her shoulders like a cape. "He's so big and strong."

"But I've heard the rumors of the bad habits. His physique…" Bea's question hung in the air.

Violet shook her head. "I know. I think it's all true. But he's of good health now, well and strong and big especially…well, let me tell you about it." Minutes passed. Perhaps hours, for it had grown dark outside by the time Violet began to run out of things to share. They had eventually moved away from the doors to sit down once more, finishing the tea and hurriedly sending the maid away when she came to ask if they wanted more.

Finally, Violet flopped back against the settee and smiled up at the ceiling. "In short, my husband makes me feel what I've never known my body could…especially when he puts his face down there, and when he touches my breasts and—"

"Stop!" Bea waved her hands in the air. "I can't hear anymore! It's too scandalous!"

"Listen to me," Violet said as she sat up to grab Bea's hands. "It's not what they taught us at school. Nobody ever told me that I was capable of this, Bea. Or of what he could do. But especially, they never told us—it's not bad at all. It's wonderful!" She clasped her hands together and appeared, somehow, to glow.

Pippa had an inkling of how she felt because she was fairly sure she'd glowed after Nick's kiss. But would she glow after…if…? "Is that why you came in such a state when we arrived?" she asked.

"Oh that… I was dressed already… ahem …well, dressing when he found me at my vanity table."

"And?"

"And he put me on it to kiss me again."

"On the table? Why?" Bea's voice rose.

"To lay me on it and gain access under my petticoat."

Bea tore her hands away from Violet's grasp and covered her ears. "I don't want to hear it; it's too wicked." She squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head, clutching her ears shut. " La, la, la, la… Bobby Shafto's gone to sea, Silver buckles on his knee; He'll come back and marry me, Bonny Bobby Shafto."

Pippa looked at her in amazement. How could the Beauty of the Ball recite nursery rhymes instead of listening to the bride's juicy tales of seduction?

Violet turned away from Bea and looked at Pippa. "I'm not mad, you must know."

Pippa gave her what she knew was a warm smile, one that she'd never expected Violet would receive from her as deservingly as she did this afternoon. "I'm happy for you, Violet."

"You are?" Violet appeared stunned. "Really?"

"Why does that surprise you?"

"B-because I was always so cruel to you, Pippa. And I'm so sorry for that. I was an immature wretch."

"And now, you're not?"

"I hope my husband will teach me to grow up." Somehow, when Violet said that it sounded sinfully wicked.

"I hope so, too, Violet. And I truly am happy for you. By the sound of it, the earl has just the right amount of experience to teach you…"

There was a click, and then a dark, masculine voice pierced the air. "Ladies." The three of them turned to see that the white double doors had opened, and a tall, attractive man in beige breeches and a tightly fitting blue coat with golden lapels stood at the door. The earl!

He was a striking figure; his hair, a soft hue of blond that glittered in the ambient light, was neatly combed back, revealing a forehead that hinted at his wisdom and experience. His eyes, a charming shade of blue, sparkled with mischief and warmth, their light-hearted twinkle softening his otherwise stern features. His smile was rakish yet inviting, a disarming combination that could undoubtedly intrigue any lady in the room. But there was only one lady he focused that smile on, and she was blushing and melting into her seat on the settee.

"My lord." Pippa rose from her seat and curtsied. "We were just about to leave."

Bea dropped her hands from her ears and joined Pippa. Her face was bright red, and she appeared to be looking everywhere in the room but at the earl. In fact, if her eyes hadn't been firmly ensconced in her skull, Pippa was sure they'd be bouncing around the room. "My lord. We've overstayed our welcome."

"Not at all, Bea. I hope you shall both visit us again soon," Violet said with a newfound friendliness and a warmth in her voice that Pippa hadn't ever heard there before. She didn't act coy or haughty at all. Instead, standing next to the earl, Violet had an air of serenity and happiness that Pippa had never seen in her. Not even when she was victorious in the most elaborate of schemes or when she had been the one to find and spread the meanest, most salacious gossip.

Violet was changed. And this dashing man in the blue coat was responsible. He gave his wife a warm look, one kinder than any Pippa suspected Violet had ever received.

Indeed, a moment unfolded between Violet and her husband when their gazes met. His face brightened. He was her elder, and looked like a man who'd lived, suffered, and conquered. But when Violet's eyes locked with his, Pippa couldn't help but notice a boyish gleam in his gaze. At that moment, he wasn't an earl, but a man in love with a woman.

Pippa warmed to him, for she'd seen that look before. Nick had looked at her like that just yesterday. She'd received a boyish sparkle and a dark, hungry look that suddenly made her insides twirl like a fairy on a frozen lake.

The earl and his countess accompanied Pippa and her cousin to the front door, where he paused and gave her an inquisitive look. "Your eyeglasses are quite fetching, Lady Penelope."

"Thank you, my lord. They are rather new." Pippa gave Violet a nervous look, fearing the old Violet would lash out if Pippa received a compliment from her husband. "The nurse who made them for me, Miss Folsham, was very kind, and I feel rather lucky to have them now." Pippa felt the need to explain herself.

"Folsham, you said?" Violet said brightly. "That's the name of your oculist, Henry." She looked at her husband with brilliantly sparkling eyes.

"It is indeed." He wrapped his arm around Violet as if they were speaking about an old friend.

Pippa swallowed hard.

"Are you acquainted with Dr. Nick Folsham, then?" the earl asked.

"Indeed, my lord." Pippa was eager to leave lest she blush and give away just how well acquainted she was.