Page 65 of To Have and to Hoax
“I apologize. You were saying?”
“We weretalking—did you justsnort?”
“I am a lady,” Diana said with great dignity.
“In any case, I thought we were making progress in the—er—proceedings . . . and then I coughed.”
“Violet! If you were making progress, why on earth would you do that?” Diana looked truly indignant, as though she were a mother reprimanding an unruly child.
“Why is it,” Violet wondered aloud to the room at large, “that I cannot inhale a speck of dust and cough a bit without causing such a reaction? I shall have to instruct the housemaids to be extremely thorough in their dusting, for the sake of any entertaining I wish to do.”
“Oh, come now,” Diana protested. “You must admit, you’ve spent an entire fortnight hacking into a handkerchief at the slightest provocation.”
“Encouraged by you!” Violet said, nettled. “And, in any case, I like to think I did not do any such thing ashack. It was far more delicate than that.”
“Isn’t there a children’s story about this? The girl who cried wolf?” Diana mused.
“Shall I demonstrate the cough for you?” Violet asked. “Because, really, I hardly thinkhackis an accurate—”
“Violet!” Diana set her teacup down with a decisive clink. “Heavens, I wonder if this is what having children is like.” She took a calming breath. “So I take it your cough was accidental?”
“Indeed.”
“That was unfortunate timing.”
“James seemed to agree with you,” Violet said. “He took it as a sign of my . . .” She trailed off, unsure of what word to use.
“Continued duplicity?” Diana suggested helpfully.
“Something like that.” Violet shrugged. “In any case, I rather lost my temper at that point and said some . . . things.”
“Nothing more than the man deserved, no doubt,” Diana murmured.
“I told him to alert me when he was ready to let me love him,” Violet confessed in a rush. “And that I wouldn’t wait forever.”
“Excellent!” Diana said brightly. “Really, Violet, it doesn’t do to moon over a man for too long. I think you should give up Audley and take up a lover posthaste.”
“I thought you were encouraging this scheme of mine!” Violet protested.
“When I thought it was about revenge,” Diana clarified. “Not love.” She looked at Violet sharply. “And that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? That you love him?”
“Yes,” Violet said helplessly. “Though I rather wish I didn’t, if this is how he’s going to behave.”
“Darling,” Diana said. “This can’t go on forever. You’re young and beautiful. Any man would be lucky to have you, and it’s not worth going to all this trouble for a husband who doesn’t return your feelings. I don’t believe in unrequited swooning,” she added, giving Violet a severe look. “It doesn’t do to let a man get an overly inflated sense of his own worth, you know. If Audley isn’t going to rejoin you in your bed, then I say why not let some other chap?”
Violet was tempted for a moment to inquire how Diana felt about James joining her on window seats rather than beds, just to witness the reaction it would provoke, but even she was not so bold as that.
Instead, she merely said, “Ours might not have been the happiest marriage of late, but at least it is still a faithful one, and I intend for it to remain that way.”
Diana sagged. “Morals,” she said simply. “So tiresome.”
Violet arched a brow.
“You seem to have rather a puritanical streak yourself, Diana. You’ve been out of mourning for how long now? And yet I’ve heard no whispers of a paramour.”
“I’m working on it,” Diana said cryptically, but before Violet could give much thought tothatparticular statement, Wooton reappeared in the doorway.
“Lord Willingham, my lady,” he intoned, and stepped aside so that Jeremy could pass into the room.
