“I do not wish to discuss it, Sarah.”
The carriage moved through the streets. Violet watched London pass the window.
She went upstairs when they arrived. She went to her bedroom and closed the door. It came up at last, in the privacy of an empty room, with no one to see her. A few seconds of shaking, a breath she could not let out evenly. Her vision blurred, and she wiped the tears with the back of her hand.
She straightened and rang for Sarah. Mrs Greer had sent word that His Grace would not be home for dinner. She had not seen him since he turned away from her and accused her of lying. She did not know if he would come to her tonight, whether the anger had hardened and he was now with his solicitor discussing the terms of her removal. She did not know, and the not knowing satin her chest. She feared his coming and feared his absence and could not have said which would be worse.
Later that evening, alone, she poured the cold remains of her morning tea through a twist of muslin and held the residue to the candle. The sediment was finer than tea dust, pale where tea would be dark. She folded it into a paper, wrote the date, and put it at the back of the desk drawer. She did not know what it was. She knew it was not tea.
She woke to boots on the stairs. Heavy and uneven, one heel landing clean and the next dragging half a beat behind.
She lay still and listened.
The boots reached the landing and came down the corridor toward her room. They passed her door. They stopped. Then they came back, the handle turned, and the door swung open.
The duke stood in the doorway with a candle in his hand, tilting. Wax ran down his fingers. He did not seem to notice.
“Violet.”
His voice was thicker than she had heard it, slower, with the consonants softened at the edges. He smelled of brandy and cigar smoke and the cold night air, and beneath all of it a perfume that was not his, sweet and floral.
She sat up and pulled the covers to her chest. The fire had burned to embers, but there was enough light to see him. His cravat hung undone around his neck. His waistcoat was unbuttoned. His hair, which she had only ever seen combed back from his face, had fallen forward across his brow. His eyes would not hold steady on hers.
He set the candle on the corner table, swaying slightly. It took him two attempts.
“You were asleep.” He was pronouncing each word with deliberate care but failing to sound sober.
“I was.”
“I woke you.”
“Yes.”
He pulled at his cravat and let it fall to the floor. He shrugged off his coat, which landed on the chair half on and half off. He sat on the edge of her bed without invitation, and the mattress dipped under his weight. He began to work at his boots. The first came off. The second gave him difficulty, and he yanked at it with both hands until it came free and hit the floor with a thud.
“So many women tonight.” He pulled his shirt over his head, lost his bearings inside it, and emerged with his hair wilder than before. “Beautiful women. You would not… You cannot imagine. Cranbrook had the Fontaine sisters. Wiltshire brought his…” He waved a hand. “They were everywhere. Laughing and touching. A man cannot think.”
Violet said nothing. She sat with her hands in her lap beneath the covers.
He stood and unfastened his trousers and stepped out of them. He turned toward her, already half aroused, and then seemed to remember what he had come for, because he moved to the small table and opened the drawers where the vial of oil was kept.
“Had me thinking about you.” He took out the vial and held it. “All those women, and I was thinking about you. My wife.” He held up the vial and raised it as if to toast. “Is that not… something.”
“No.”
He froze, the vial still half raised.
“No?”
“No.”
He turned to face her fully.
She avoided looking at his naked body while he blinked at her. In the firelight, she could see the silhouette of his lean body. She did not think any wife had ever saidnoto him.
“I will not lie with you when you are in this state.”
“What state?” He looked down at himself as though checking.
