Page 7 of These Violet Delights
Freddie winced. “More…m-more than some.”
“Christ, Freddie, the years march on, yet here you remain, an utter fool.”
“What!” His brother retreated, hugging his arm to his stomach and perching on the sill. In the early evening light, his brother looked perfectly angelic. Freddie was anything but; the man had left a string of broken hearts across the county, seducing anything with long lashes and a coy smile. Alasdair went to find the brandy he knew would be hidden in the globe near his writing desk. The compartment, however, was empty, filmed with dust, and he groaned.
“If you only saw her, you would understand.”
Alasdair snarled, turning and leaning against his desk. “If I saw her, I would ignore her and choose quite literally any other woman in England. Use your head, brother; where the Richmonds are concerned, there is but one rival for Mother’s hatred, and that’s the devil himself.”
“I know,” Freddie whined, dragging out the words. He continued gazing out the window, though now Alasdair knew it to be deep and pathetic pining.
“Cut her out of your thoughts,” Alasdair told him, sharp. “What is forbidden is always tempting, but you were given a mind to temper your heart.”
“Cut her out of my thoughts? I would sooner cut off a limb! Can you not at least try to take my side against Mother’s? She is so dour now, so unhappy; a wedding would cheer us all.”
“You will please leave your arms and legs where they are and forget this misguided obsession. In time, you will see it for the distraction it is. What’s more, Mother will not be swayed; nothing nourishes a sick mind quite like a grudge.”
There was one other place Alasdair kept a hidden bottle: a retracting drawer on the top of his desk. He flicked the handleopen, hoping for luck, but was confronted with scarcity. Scraps of paper had been left behind there, the beginnings of a Sunday sermon. Alasdair rammed the drawer closed and punched his hands, knuckles down, into the worn surface of the desk.
“Bloody Danforth,” he spat.
“And what, pray tell, makes you so qualified to dispense this advice, brother?” Freddie sneered, though there was no malice in it, just desperation. Could it be? Did little Freddie actually care genuinely for a woman? No, it didn’t matter. Anyone associated with the Richmonds was out of the question. “Is a wife soon to follow you here? Has love come for you at last?”
“No.” An image of Julianna flashed across his mind unbidden. He ground his teeth together until the muscles in his jaw ached. “No, I have returned to rebuild our home. For me, there is Clafton and nothing else.”
3
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
Hamlet—Act 3, Scene 2
The women ventured out early on a brisk, bright autumn day. Violet and Emilia left Pressmore by the rear doors that spilled out onto a stone path that wound down to a broad, still pond. The water was sapphire glass, unmoving, sluggish from the bracing cold. Near a cluster of climbing wisteria along the back wall of the house, Ann’s scraggly gray goat, Puck, munched along the verge. One of the Richmond tenants had tried to get rid of the creature, but Ann, with her too-big heart, had taken pity on the thing and let it come to Pressmore. Everyone regretted it and came around to the farmer’s view, for Puck lived up to his name, mischievous and wayward, and prone to putting his horns to unexpecting backsides.
Violet, who also had a too-big heart but didn’t know it, likewise chided Ann for taking in the impish goat; lately she had been hardened against many things, specifically romantic love,men with spectacles, the color green, and the French. She had been at her cousin’s estate in the country for months undergoing this darksome transformation, and though most of the household remained consumed with the arrival of Ann and Lane’s first child, care had been taken where Violet was concerned.
Unspoken yet felt was the fear that, now sullied, Violet would be tempted to slide further into ignominy; she had damaged her reputation by dallying with the Frenchman, and she could not afford even the specter of misbehavior.
By and by, her good humor returned, but not, unfortunately, her appreciation of spectacles and love. Once more, to the rich and meddlesome Aunt Eliza and Aunt Mildred, it had become clear that the Arden women could not be trusted with the safekeeping of their own destinies.
Violet and Emilia were two footsteps outside when Cristabel Bilbury appeared, yawning and wrapping a knit shawl tightly around herself. Cristabel was Ann’s doing. Ann Richmond, pretty, fashionable, connected, knew everyone who was worth knowing in London and, concerned that Violet would give up her painting just as she had been forced to give up Monsieur Moncelle and her tolerance in general for the French, had arranged for a new painting teacher. Cristabel, decidedly English, had arrived at the estate just after Violet.
“Forgetting something?” Cristabel asked.
“Oh!” Violet blushed and scrambled. “We thought it would be rude to bother you so early in the day…”
“And we weren’t going far!” Emilia added, helpful.
Violet fidgeted with the foldable easel under her left arm. Cristabel went where Violet did, part tutor, part chaperone.
Grinning at Emilia, Cristabel shook her head of lush, graying curls and shivered beneath her shawl, then stepped out tojoin them. “You are not so quiet or so sly, and you are fortunate only I heard your giggling…”
Violet narrowed her eyes. “Then you will tell no one that we tried to sneak away?”
“That depends entirely on the quality of your painting today.” And with a gleeful cackle, Cristabel took her by the arm, leading Violet away from the house. The older woman’s grip was strong; Miss Bilbury possessed a tall, broad frame, hale and reliable, her every word and gesture precise, utilitarian. In short, she was nothing like the Frenchman.
