“I’m already awake,” Viola announced, for she had just walked into her husband’s dressing room. “I’ve been awake for some time. We have visitors. Who is it?”
Sebastian swallowed as he headed for the door. “My brother.”
Sebastian’soldest brother was not what she had imagined. She had expected someone bulkier, perhaps; a country lord gone soft around the middle from too much port and too little exercise. But Philip looked exactly like an older version of Sebastian: the same tall, athletic build, the same sharp chin and aquiline nose, though with grey-speckled hair and a rounder face.
By the time Viola finally entered the drawing room, having washed and dressed herself in a pale pink day dress, the two men were in the midst of a shouting match.
“This has nothing, I repeat, nothing whatsoever to do with our family name. It doesn’t involve you at all. So why you would think this has anything to do with you is just beyond me. This is my business, so pray, stay out of it.”
She’d rarely seen Sebastian so furious.
“Are you even aware of what they’re saying? Of what is being printed in the papers? The caricatures, the jokes, the gossip?” His brother, the viscount, naturally, would be concerned about the family name. A knot formed in Viola’s stomach.
“And so what if it is? It will blow over like everything else. You can’t tell me that this is in any way bigger than the scandal involving Byron or Brummel. Or, heaven forbid, the Prince Regent.”
Byron had not only separated from his wife but allegedly had an affair with his half-sister. Brummel, after he went bankrupt, was hounded by creditors until he had to flee the country. And Prinny, well, certainly no one could outdo Prinny when it came to scandalous liaisons.
“Good heavens.” His brother shuddered.
“Yes, good heavens,” Sebastian said testily. “So don’t needlessly stir the pot, pray.”
But Philip was still talking, clearly infuriated.
“It isn’t just about her, it’s you, your name. Your reputation. They say you are Count Morvino who takes part in a sordidvampire orgy. The audacity! People take that as a depiction of what happens in your private bedroom.”
At that, Sebastian clapped his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Then I am a lucky fellow indeed, am I not? Besides, Philip, I seem to sense an undercurrent of jealousy there.”
“I am glad you seem to take this entire affair with a sense of humour,” his brother replied stiffly.
“Most certainly. Being married to Viola has trained my sense of humour enormously.”
Viola weighed the comment, uncertain whether it was a compliment, and accepted it as one, regardless.
Her brother-in-law, clearly, remained unamused. “Your wife’s name is being dragged through the gutter alongside yours. Have you even read anything she wrote?”
“Yes, I have. Every word. And I fail to see what is so scandalous. These letters are private. They were meant for my eyes and my eyes alone. I refuse to see anything shameful about a wife writing to her husband, in language that happens to be more eloquent than anything her critics could ever dream of composing.” His voice turned hard. “You want to know what is truly scandalous, Philip? That a woman who has given the reading public more pleasure than any author of this decade is being dragged through the mud for the crime of also loving her husband. That the same people who devoured her novels, who queued at circulating libraries and wept over her heroines, are now sharpening their knives because they have learned she is real, and married, and dared to write passionate words in private.” Sebastian drew a steadying breath. “They will condemn her in the morning papers and read her books secretly in their closets. They are hypocrites, every last one of them, and I will not stand here and wring my hands over their good opinion.” He straightened. “I will have that publishing house sued intooblivion. And if society wishes to make an enemy of me over this, then society will find I am a most inconvenient enemy to have.”
Viola pressed a hand to her collarbone. He had defended her as though she mattered to him. No. More than that.
Warmth flooded through her, and tears rushed to her eyes as she finally understood. He had spoken like a man defending the woman he loved.
He loved her.
Of course he did. But since when? For how long?
Why had she never seen it until now?
She took one, two steps into the room. “Sebastian.”
Both men looked up, startled to find her there.
Viola could no longer hold herself back. She rushed towards him and flung her arms around him. He caught her and held her tightly. “I just wanted to say—you’re wonderful!”
“I know,” Sebastian replied gruffly.
Poor Philip hardly knew where to look.
He cleared his throat, and something in his expression shifted; the stern set of his jaw softening into something almost sheepish.
