“What?” She braced herself for some reproach or criticism.
“What on earth do you find so fascinating about rotting carcasses?”
She uttered a surprised, relieved laugh. “Oh, many things! Did you know that putrefaction begins within two days of death, and by the fifth day, the body has bloated to nearly twice its size? It is tremendously fascinating. The timing is remarkably predictable.” She smiled sweetly. “You could even work this tidbit into one of your parliamentary debates.” She imitated his cool tone: “‘If the honourable member deliberates any longer on the question of duties, a corpse will have bloated, burst, and been picked clean by beetles before he reaches his point.’ I imagine it would enliven the proceedings considerably.”
“Good Heavens.” Sebastian was torn between horror and laughter. “I don’t really talk like that, do I? But one thing is certain: you never cease to astonish me.”
Viola beamed at him. “Thank you. That is a lovely compliment, indeed.”
Chapter Thirteen
Viola satat the breakfast table in her nightgown, cross-legged in her chair, scribbling away furiously. The story was finally flowing. She had reached the part where the heroine discovered the body hidden in the abbey. Except what did the woman die of, and how? And was her husband the murderer? Did he perhaps murder his previous wife? Or wait, this was better: a lover? Or maybe?—
“I said, you appear to be quite engrossed in your writing,” a crisp voice cut into her thoughts.
Viola looked up blankly. Sebastian sat across from her. His plate was empty. His coffee cup sat at his elbow. The morning post lay open beside him, already read. He appeared to have been watching her for quite some time with an expression caught somewhere between curiosity and amusement.
When had he appeared? When she had come to the dining room an hour earlier, she had been quite alone.
“What is it you are writing?” He eyed her papers curiously.
Her hand instinctively covered her writing. “Ah. Uh. Nothing in particular. I’m just trying my hand at a story.”
“It must be quite fascinating, seeing that you are so immersed in it.”
“Yes, certainly.” Viola cleared her throat and tucked several strands of hair behind her ear. Only now she realised she wasn’t even wearing a morning coat; her hair was hanging curtain-like about her face and she had no idea where her slippers had gone. She untucked her bent knees and set her feet on the ground, and straightened her shoulders. Then she picked up a piece of sugar and popped it into her mouth, sucked on it thoughtfully for a while, then took a sip of her tea.
Sebastian’s mouth twitched.
“Say,” Viola said after she swallowed. “If you were to kill a woman, say your wife, or your lover, but I think probably your wife, how would you go about doing it? Would you bludgeon her to death, or would you use something more subtle, like poison, or would you choke her in her sleep with your neckcloth?”
Sebastian, who was just taking a sip of his coffee, spluttered. He picked up his napkin and coughed into it violently.
“Alternatively, he could try to wall her up in the dungeon, which is a most elegant way to kill someone, though probably the slowest way to die. But I see you are entirely overcome with this question, so don’t feel pressured to answer,” she said kindly.
“And here I thought we might discuss the weather. Is that what you are writing? On the various gruesome ways in which a husband might kill his wife?”
“No need to look so scandalised. I daresay it happens, and more often than we would like to think.” She tapped a finger on the newspaper in front of her.
Sebastian picked it up and glanced at the headline with a frown. “Grisly Murder in St Giles: Husband Kills Wife.”
He shook his head. “Must he kill her in the first place?”
“Alternatively, he could clap her into a lunatic asylum—” She broke off. She was going to continue saying, “But I have used that plot device in one of my earlier books so I can’t use it again,” but she couldn’t exactly say that, could she? Notwithout revealing her identity as the most scandalous writer of this decade, Selina Sable. And that she could never do. Not to Sebastian.
What would he do if he were to find out? Banish her to Westwood Hall? Divorce her? No, that, he’d vowed, he’d never do. She wondered what, ultimately, would prove worse for his reputation: a divorce, or the discovery that his wife was an infamous author of depraved tales. Now that was something interesting to ponder on.
“You meant to say?” He lifted an eyebrow, encouraging her to finish her sentence.
“Lunatic asylum,” she repeated lamely, not knowing how to end the sentence. “Speaking of which.” She took off her spectacles, which had slid to the tip of her nose. “What are you going to do about them?”
“Now that is an unanticipated change of topic.” He set down his cup with a frown. “Why all this interest in lunatic asylums to begin with? Particularly the ones in Ireland.”
Viola shifted in her chair. “I know someone who has been confined to one. She writes to me, and her story moves me.” That was absolutely true. “She also tells me about the harrowing conditions inside that institution. It happens to be in Dublin.”
His hand stilled on the newspaper.
She tapped her pencil on the table in an impatient staccato.
