Chapter 5

CHAPTER5

Before Violet could reply, they heard footsteps.

Someone is coming this way.

“It looks like you must make your decision quickly, My Lady,” Xander said. “Are we agreed?”

“Agreed,” she whispered, then grasped her skirt and ran off into the distance, darting into an opening between the yew trees, and then she was gone.

I can’t let her go just yet.

Something in Xander’s gut persuaded him that this night couldn’t end in this way. Was it his anger toward her? Or the passion?

He glanced behind him, wary of seeing the source of those footsteps, but when he saw no one, he sprinted through the garden, running after her.

He saw Violet running down the yew-tree-bordered path, the skirt of her white gown billowing, like some spirit’s wings. He caught up with her, all too easily, for her legs were so much shorter than his own.

He caught her arm and turned her back to face him. She fell into his arms, her palms splayed on his chest. They said nothing for a few seconds but looked at one another, their eyes wide. His hands splayed across the curve of her waist, and, once more, his mind was full of images.

If he hadn’t heard those footsteps nearby, maybe he would have even suggested that she didn’t leave the garden at all but stayed with him, and let him show her a few things.

With such a grip on her, he could imagine all too easily their bodies sliding together, making those dreams of pleasuring the lady from the bookshop come true.

“It was interesting to meet you, Violet,” he whispered, the two of them finding their balance at last.

“Interesting?” she repeated, looking ready to laugh when he bent toward her.

His lips were hovering above hers. He just managed to brush them together, a tantalizing near kiss, though there was no pressure in it.

“You will hear from me soon. Now, go,” he urged, willing himself to release her.

His hands fell numbly to his sides as he watched her run away. At the end of the path, she turned back, her face white in the moonlight, and then she disappeared completely from view.

I hunted her. I ran after her as if I was indeed some animal.

He cursed under his breath at his weakness, his desire for this woman, who was practically a stranger to him, and then those footsteps grew louder.

Xander adjusted his trousers, feeling his hard length straining against the material. He made sure he was completely hidden, just before a figure rounded the corner and stepped onto the path.

“There you are,” Anthony called to him.

Xander turned to face him, breathing a sigh of relief that Violet had run in the other direction. Though, knowing Anthony, he would have merely laughed, had he seen Violet running away with such flushed cheeks.

“I hope the fresh air has done the trick for clearing your mind. Your mother and sister are asking for you.”

“I’m ready to return.”

Yet, Xander glanced once again in the direction in which Violet had retreated, before he went with his friend, heading back toward another door that would lead into the house.

When they entered, Anthony was telling him some story from the ton’s latest scandal sheets, but Xander was barely paying attention. His eyes raked over the crowds, and this time, he didn’t notice nor care about those who were pointing at him with closed fans or whispering. He sought out one face only.

After some minutes, he saw Violet at the side of the ballroom, standing on the staircase alongside Lady Grace and some other ladies. She was looking straight at him, her cheeks still flushed red. She was the first to look away, biting that full bottom lip again.

“Xander! There you are.” His mother’s voice drew his attention, and he looked away from Violet.

Katherine appeared beside him, beaming widely, as if she hadn’t been this happy in years.

“What a smile,” he remarked as she laughed.

“Can you blame me? I feel as if you are where you should have always been.”

At her words, Xander stayed silent, and Anthony at his side cleared his throat and fidgeted, as if he knew exactly what Xander was thinking about these words.

I belong far away from here.

Helena joined them a few seconds later.

“Is it not wondrous to have Xander here with us?” Katherine appealed to Helena for her opinion. “Maybe you will find someone new in this crowd, Xander. Someone you could marry.”

Xander’s hand tightened so much around the wine glass that Anthony had just put in his hand that he actually managed to break the spindle off the base.

“Anthony, my apologies. I will see you are reimbursed for it.”

“Do not worry.” Anthony laughed it off. “It’s a wonder you did not cut yourself, my good man. Here, let me take that.” He took both parts of the glass and handed them to a nearby manservant, before offering another wine glass. “Just don’t break this one, eh?” he whispered, for Xander’s ears only.

I will not marry. Not again.

Xander had no intention of going through that trauma. Trying it once was enough, and if everything went according to plan, then pretending to court Violet for a month or so would allow him to put everyone’s whispers to rest. Then, he would be free to return to his country estate in peace, without anyone’s gossip following him.

“It is a shame you have to return to the country estate so soon, Xander,” Katherine said, her smile dropping as she looked at Xander’s hand, clearly determined to check he was unharmed. “Must you?”

“You know Xander,” Helena said with a roll of her eyes. “He treats everything about the ton as if it is poison, these days.”

“Not everyone in it is,” Xander said pointedly and nodded at Anthony beside him, who smiled victoriously.

“I can hardly blame you for thinking some are poisonous, though,” Anthony whispered and glanced away.

It took a moment for Xander to realize Anthony was looking at his own parents, who were gossiping with a nearby group of people.

They have always suspected me, even if they are not certain.

Anthony’s parents looked at him, then turned sharply away again. Clearly, they were either not certain enough of their suspicions to demand he leave their house, or they were too afraid to cause a scene and add to the gossip.

“I wish you would stay longer in London,” Katherine said again. “Would you at least consider it, Xander?”

“Why not?” Xander turned back to look at his mother and nodded. “In fact, I’ll stay for the whole Season.”

This time, Anthony was the one who broke a glass, dropping his own so that it smashed on the floor. Xander turned to look at him and took his arm, moving him out of the way so he would not step on the glass.

“You will?” Anthony asked, a small smile curling his lips. “You will stay?”

“Why not? For the Season,” Xander said with purpose. “Mother, you could even arrange one of those parties you used to hold. They were something famed once, were they not? Whole groups of guests descending on our house for a week full of events.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” Katherine gushed eagerly. “I would love to hold such an event again.”

Helena, apparently dumbstruck, stood like a wooden board beside their mother, unmoving, her mouth agape. The shock and awe on all three of their faces was evident, but Xander did not wish to talk about the surprise for much longer.

Instead, he sipped his wine and offered to help one of the manservants as they came to pick up the broken glass—something that evidently shocked the servant, too.

When all was cleared up and Xander stood straight, he found Katherine talking hurriedly about the arrangements for the party as Helena and Anthony continued to gape at him, their jaws slack. Xander took the chance to look away and sought out a face in the crowd again.

He caught but a glimpse of Violet as she walked toward the door with an auburn-haired lady beside her. She must have been aware of his look, for she glanced back at him before she disappeared through the door.

He was pleasantly imagining what it might be like to have Violet under his roof for a whole week.

“Celia? Tell me the truth, now.” Violet put her teacup down in the saucer so loudly that it rang out across the room.

Celia merely continued to calmly sip her tea, revealing a mischievous smile as she lowered her teacup a little.

The morning after the ball, Violet had not been able to forget last night. The whole night she had been wakeful, thinking of the way that the Duke of Barlow had kissed her neck and demanded some sort of recompense from her.

Technically, she had won her dare. She had elicited both laughter and outrage from him last night, but she hadn’t told Celia about this yet. She hoped to keep it a secret to herself.

“You made me pick up that dare on purpose, did you not?” Violet asked, leaning toward her sister, and resting her elbows on the table between them in their parlor. “After we had been speaking of the Duke of Barlow, it would have been strange for anyone else in that room to pick up the dare but me.”

“I do not know what you mean,” Celia said with perfect innocence and turned her eyes to the window beside them. “Oh, I do believe someone has just arrived with a big bunch of flowers.”

“No doubt from one of your many admirers.” Violet didn’t even turn to look out the window at the driveway but continued to drink her tea instead. “I know you are not as innocent as you pretend to be.”

“Well, can you blame me after what you said last night?” Celia turned to face her and lowered her voice. She looked around the room, but it was perfectly empty.

This morning, their father had gone for a walk, and their mother was currently checking their correspondence, planning their diary for the Season. Comforted they were not going to be disturbed, Celia went on.

“You are braver than I could ever be,” Ceilia whispered.

“I beg your pardon?” Violet spluttered. “You are remembering which of us our mother calls a wallflower, right? And which she says has more confidence than all the ladies on stage in London.”

“Pah! What does she know?” Celia brushed it off. “You have a career, Vi. You have an income of your own by writing. Our mother does not know that, but I know I would not have had the confidence to do that.”

Violet pursed her lips, saying nothing. She shared the money she made from her writing with Celia.

“Is it so wrong of me to try and persuade you to take this bravery into other parts of your life, too? Even with the Dark Duke?” Celia waggled her eyebrows excitedly.

Before they could discuss the subject anymore, there was a light knock at the door. Celia clearly recognized who had knocked just by the lightness of it.

“Come in, Horace,” she called to the butler.

The door opened, and their elderly butler walked in with a large bunch of dahlias, their contrasting pink and red hues quite stunning.

“Ah, thank you. I wonder who these are from.”

Celia stood to accept the flowers, but before she could take them, Horace cleared his throat. “My apologies, Lady Celia, but these are a gift for Lady Violet.”

Violet froze with her teacup in her hand, and Celia looked quite victorious, clasping her hands together.

“Th-thank you,” Violet stammered, finding her feet as she put down the teacup and stood to take the flowers.

Horace left quickly, leaving Celia to jump up and down like a child excited by the prospect of confectionery.

“Well? Who is it from? I may swoon if it’s who I think it is.”

Violet found at the base of the flowers not just a note but a parcel bound in tissue paper. She pressed the flowers into Celia’s hands, who took them and busied herself with finding a vase from a sideboard in the room.

Violet tore open the note first, finding handwriting on it that was bold and only a little cursive.

“For last night,” she whispered aloud as she read it, though Celia froze, listening to every word with one hand on a vase and the other on the flowers. “I look forward to meeting you again. The Duke of B…” She faltered, not needing to say his full title.

“Vi!” Celia hissed and hurried back across the room. She almost missed the vase entirely as she tried to thrust the flowers into it. “What exactly happened last night when you went to find the Duke?”

“Nothing,” Violet insisted, avoiding looking at her sister as she felt the heat creeping up her cheeks.

“Hmm, if you are going to start being as mischievous and scandalous as I am, then you’ll need to control your habit of blushing.”

“I cannot help it,” Violet protested.

“You will, in time, but I know that look.” Celia pointed at her face with a knowing smile. “Something happened between you, even if you will not tell me what it is.”

Violet ignored her sister and looked at the bottom of the note, reading out something else the Duke had written there.

“Thirty-one and thirty-four.”

“What? What does that mean?” Celia took the note from her, reading it repeatedly, though Violet thought she already had an answer to the question.

Her eyes drifted down to the tissue-wrapped parcel, and she pulled it open. Inside was a book, leather-bound, slim, and with a title embossed in gold on the spine. Vathek.

Violet swallowed nervously as she read the title. Not only was it a gothic book, one she’d heard of many times, but it was considered one of the most licentious and dangerous of the gothic novels that existed. So much so that even her father, who was happy for her to read widely, had persuaded her not to buy the book the last time they had gone to a bookshop.

She turned the pages hurriedly, moving to page thirty-one and word thirty-four. The word was simply and. Confused, she counted again, before she chose a different tactic. Rather than counting the thirty-fourth word, she counted the thirty-fourth sentence on the page inside and read again.

To go to a lover’s house at night, under the cover of darkness, begins the scandalous air of this tale.

“What is it?” Celia asked again, peering over her shoulder.

“It is a code,” Violet whispered, uncertain whether to be more impressed by the way he had written the code to her or excited by what he was offering. “He wishes me to go to his house tonight.”

“Oh, and I am the scandalous one.” Celia roared with laughter and put down the note.

“And you haven’t been to a man’s house under the cover of night?” Violet asked with a small smile.

Celia offered an innocent look, but even she couldn’t maintain it and laughed a second later. “Will you go?” she whispered. “I hope you will be careful if you choose to go.”

There was a sound from the corridor beyond the door, and Violet snapped the book shut. She knew she had to go—hadn’t the Duke insisted that she now owed him, that they had to enact some ruse in order to repair his reputation?

Though even as she told herself she had to go, she knew she would have gone without this discussion. She longed to know if he would kiss her neck again, if he would thrill her with those flirtatious words—the promise of bending all the rules.

“Ah, there you are.” Their mother walked into the room, and Violet turned to face her just as Celia fussed with the flowers. “More flowers, Celia?”

“No, they are for Violet. From a duke, no less.”

Marianne halted. She froze in the middle of the room without moving a muscle, her eyes wide.

“You’d think she’d been touched by the hand of Jack Frost and frozen solid,” Violet said with a witty whisper as her sister guffawed with laughter.

“A duke. A duke!” Marianne was back through the door already. “Send for the carriage, Horace. At once if you please. We must go shopping for new gowns. Celia?” she called back into the room. “You should follow your sister more, you know. The attention of a duke, no less. Oh, what a thrill this is!” She scurried off excitedly. “A daughter for a duchess.”

“Duchess?” Violet scoffed at her mother, though Marianne was too far gone to hear her now. “We will not be getting married.”

“Hmm.” Celia sat down again, resting her palm on her chin.

“What is it?” Violet asked, sitting down on the other side and fidgeting with the book in her grasp. She longed to read it, to find out why the Duke had given her such a gift. “You are afraid of me going to see him?”

“Yes and no.” Celia sighed, glancing at the door once more before turning back to face Violet. “I do not believe the Duke of Barlow had anything to do with his ex-betrothed’s disappearance, Vi.”

“You do not?” Violet said with clear hope that someone at last agreed with her.

“No. I remember the pair of them from when I was introduced to the ton. He was always so careful with his betrothed.” She wrinkled her nose as if struggling to recall the memory. “But he was a rake before the betrothal, and they say he still is.” She lifted the teacup to her lips. “A rake doesn’t have to commit a crime to be dangerous, Vi. He can still break your heart.”