“As he said, we’re remotely acquainted, and one day he visited my great-aunt Augusta when I was staying with her in Inverness.” She looked out of the carriage window to avoid hiseyes. Viola had been fleeing the drawing room, where she’d been writing, and had hastily covered her writing with her embroidery, except Peregrine’s sharp eyes had seen all the same. He had picked up her short story and, without asking her, had sent it to a publisher in London. Thus, their collaboration had begun.
“But Lockwood aside, it isn’t good at all that people know I’m married to you. There will be talk, and, and…it won’t be good for either of us,” she ended lamely.
Sebastian went still. “Of course. I had forgotten how burdensome you find this arrangement.” He looked out of the window, jaw tight. “Rest assured, I certainly have not forgotten for one moment that this was never the union you wished for.”
“What? No, that isn’t what I?—”
Suddenly the temperature in the carriage seemed to plummet.
“But what is done is done. And you are certainly correct in pointing out the reputation aspect. Now that the public has been informed, you will be inconvenienced to perform, in public, the part of a politician’s wife. That is, if you insist on staying in London.” His eyes had frozen into icicles. “Otherwise, you will be freed from this obligation if you return to Scotland.”
Viola rubbed her eyebrows. How had it come to this, suddenly? He was giving her the choice to leave or stay. Of course she would stay in London. “What do you mean, play the part of a politician’s wife?”
He regarded her broodingly. “There will be invitations, naturally. And your presence will be expected now that it’s in the open that we’re married. And you are entirely right: appearances need to be upheld. Anything you do will reflect on me and my position in the House.”
Viola began to sweat despite the coldness in the carriage. “That is…rather burdensome.”
“If that is what you believe, then there is really nothing more to talk about.” He looked as if he had been hewn out of marble.
She shook her head wildly. “No. You do not understand in the least. I don’t know how this could ever work. You know how I am. I spill tea over every surface, trip over every carpet, and my hair can’t hold a hairpin for the life of me.” She threw up her hands. “Heaven help me, but I find discussions on dead carcasses of hanged criminals more exciting than some tariff or legislation or other. I shall be an utter disgrace to you every time I even open my mouth at a political supper table.” Her shoulders dropped. “You are truly better off without me.”
“I told you then, as I tell you now, that an annulment is out of the question.” His face was impassive. “As is a divorce. Resign yourself to the reality of married life or leave for Scotland.”
She heaved a long, hard-pressed sigh.
“Well, what is it to be?”
He was merciless.
Stay in London and be his wife and maintain a reputation she could never uphold. Eventually, it would come to a crashing disaster.
Or leave and return to Scotland. The safer, cowardly way out.
If she’d ever cared for him, even just a bit, and by God, she did, she should pack up and leave. It was the only way to protect him.
But never to see him again. To live apart once more. The last nine years had been agony that was only relieved through the passion for her craft. How she could have survived them otherwise was a mystery to her.
She could not bear to do that again.
“Very well,” she heard herself say.
“So, you’ll leave.” His voice sounded oddly dull.
“I’ll stay and do my best to ruin your reputation.” She heaved a sigh.
His gaze snapped back to hers. “I wouldn’t be so sure that is so easily accomplished.” Something shifted in his expression, the ice cracking just slightly. “There is something I want you to understand, Viola.”
When he paused, she lifted her gaze to find him looking at her with an odd expression. If she’d known any better, she’d have said it was sternness mixed with something like tenderness.
“I would never expect you to differ from what you are. Nor would I want you to be.” He paused, then added, “That is all.”
Viola blinked. Did he just tell her he accepted her for who she was, her entire bumbling self, with tea stains and all? And that it did not matter to him?
Something caught in Viola’s throat. She had braced herself for ice, for disdain, for the cutting remarks he wielded so well. She had not braced herself for this.
“That is the nicest thing,” she began, with a thick voice, but found she did not know how to finish.
“There is only one thing I don’t understand,” he said as the carriage pulled up in front of their home.
