“No,” she breathed. Her legs buckled beneath her, and she sank onto the sofa.
Peregrine resumed pacing. “I had every intention of returning them to you, of course. Unread. It was entirely unintentional. But then I couldn’t help perusing them, naturally. Not when you presented them to me like that on a silver salver.”
“Peregrine!” She sounded as though she were drowning, everything crashing about her. Having her scandalous story published accidentally was one thing. The similarity to Sebastian was there, but there was no actual proof it was him.
But if Peregrine had handed the letters to the publisher as well, it was the end.
For they were the letters she had written but never sent, all these years.
Love letters to the Hon. Sebastian Fane, MP, signed by Lady Viola, aka Selina Sable.
The ultimate proof.
Chapter Twenty-One
He had triedto stop the publication, Peregrine told her. He really had. But it was out of his hands. Her letters were a godsend to the publishers, who intended to publish them alongside her collected works as a sort of commentary on her books, since she had freely discussed her writing in them. They could not stop them, either, because once the letters had been handed over, there was no retrieving them. No court would move fast enough to halt the presses.
“I’m truly sorry, but my hands are tied and there is nothing I can do.” Peregrine put on a chagrined mien. “But looking at the bright side of things, it will bring in tons of blunt, and you’ll be flush in your pockets for the rest of your life.” Viola had grabbed him by the collar and thrown him out of the house.
Rubbing her head, which had pounded again, she stepped back into the corridor, where she heard raised voices from the dining room. Cousin Georgiana, after having sent Lily with her maid ahead, had stayed behind to give Sebastian a thundering scold.
Viola stood in the doorway, wringing her hands.
“You are prattling gibberish, ma’am,” Sebastian’s voice finally cut in icily. “Not that this is any of your business, but Ihave never given my wife cause to doubt my fidelity. So pray stop spinning Banbury tales where there are none.”
“Here it is. It’s all in here.” A sound of slapping, as though she struck her hand against the leather tome. “How can you deny it when it’s all printed in black and white?” She flipped through the pages. “Here. Read this. This part.”
Sebastian took the book, flipped it to the cover, and read, “The Demon Lover of Castle Morvino. Good heavens.”
“Read!”
With an exasperated sigh, Sebastian read. “The full moon emerged from behind the clouds, stroking slowly over her bare throat, gliding over the swell of her bosom, the rapid flutter of her pulse beneath her skin. She trembled, awaiting his touch, sighing.” He paused. “Why does this sound so oddly familiar?”
“There it is. Proof! It is familiar because you have, of course, experienced it,” Cousin Georgiana replied with scathing triumph.
Sebastian’s brow furrowed, and he read on. “‘Look into my eyes,’ she sighed. And he pierced her with his stony stare, otherworldly and strange, emerald green and azure, fey and devilish, his eldritch eyes coruscating with an unholy fire that did at once ravish and annihilate her very essence.”
A heavy silence fell over the room.
“Well?” Georgiana placed her hands on her hips and scowled. “Do you still dare deny it?”
His cheek twitched. His jaw trembled. And then he did something that Viola, not in her wildest dreams, would have imagined he would ever do.
He threw his head back and laughed.
“An unusual and creative choice of words, I grant you,” he said once he had recovered. He wiped his eyes. “Eldritch. Coruscating.” He shook his head, still chuckling. “Most excellent. One learns something new every day.”
“I am shocked. I must say. Shocked! To be seduced by not only one, but by three, I repeat, three! Women. Creatures. Vampires or some such. Simultaneously, too!” She fanned herself with her hand. “The description in here has entirely overwrought my senses.”
“Was he? By Jove. Simultaneously, you say? Most excellent of him. And you have devoured every word, hm?” He patted the book with a grin.
Georgiana blushed. “Of course I have not! Who would ever read such drivel?”
He snapped the book shut. “You, evidently, Cousin. Or else you would not be standing here in my dining room reprimanding me about it. Clearly mixing up reality with fantasy.” He tossed the book onto the table. “So the lucky fellow who gets to have his wicked way with three female vampires has one green eye and one blue eye. Very much like me.”
“Yes, and if that is not proof, then I do not know what is.”
“It is balderdash, that is what it is. And proof of exactly nothing at all, other than that I seem to have inspired that lady, whose acquaintance, I assure you, I have not made in my entire life.” His eyes drifted to the doorway. To Viola. He paused, the smile still lingering on his lips.
