Page 19 of How to Start a Scandal

Violet’s throat felt thick suddenly and the threat of crying in front of her niece seemed like a very real and awful possibility.

‘Please excuse me a moment.’ Violet did not bother to wait for Felicity to acknowledge her statement or offer any indication she had heard her.

Violet didn’t rush to her room where her footsteps would clatter noisily and give away her location in the quiet house. No, instead she sought her solace in the one place where she’d always sought comfort: in the garden.

Away from everyone, even the servants.

Violet let her head fall back against the closed door and breathed in the summer scents of the garden. Rich dirt mingled with the sweetness of sun-warmed grass and the delicate perfume of flowers in bloom. A balmy breeze brushed her face and drew her from the tiled steps, out into the narrow garden. She sank on to a marble bench under the shadow of an elm tree and let her ears feast on the blissful nothing around her.

Carriage wheels rumbled over the streets in the distance, a clattering of dishes came from within the house, somewhere a dog barked a high, pitching yap. She closed her eyes and let herself be pulled in by her senses, yielding to it for reprieve.

Another sound entered her awareness—the distinct click of a door being shut.

Her eyes flew open and she glanced back towards her town house, but no one was there. Movement over the hedge separating her property from the one next door caught her gaze and her heart went still.

Lord Dalton.

He was alone as she was. The same as when they were children and would speak together between the hedges. Sometimes even skirting the small gap between the foliage that never quite closed all the way between the two properties.

She doubted he remembered such childhood romps.

But she did. In fact, she recalled them fondly, with the exception of when he’d referred to her as hearty. Of course, that was all before his rebelliousness when he grew a bit older. It was then he alternated between pretending she didn’t exist and flirting with her so keenly, he robbed her of breath.

Suddenly, she did not want to be there, to be seen by him. She carefully slid down the bench to put herself from the line of his gaze.

‘Lady Violet,’ he called. ‘Is that you I see under the tree?’

Violet hissed a soft exhale. Not this. Not now.

But all the wishing in the world wouldn’t change the situation for what it was: she’d been caught.

There was nothing for it but to swallow down her trepidation and speak to the man. She peered around the elm’s peeling trunk and saw his dark gaze fixed on her.

Be still her pathetic heart.

Seth thought he’d been imagining things when he first laid eyes on Lady Violet in the garden next door. He stepped closer to the hedges separating their properties and found himself searching to see if the narrow gap between the dense green leaves was still there.

‘Lord Dalton.’ Violet watched him from the bench where she sat like a forest nymph.

She got to her feet and approached the hedge. ‘What brings you into the garden?’

His mother. Her waspish words. A respite from the verbal assault. A reprieve from a conversation about—of all things—Almack’s.

Because being outside cleared his head of the nightmares that threaded through the dark recesses of his mind like ubiquitous cobwebs.

He said none of this, of course. In fact, he should say nothing beyond bidding her good day and returning inside.

His curiosity at his neighbour’s nocturnal activities, however, kept him locked in her presence.

He put his hands behind his back and stood at attention like the soldier he’d been. ‘I don’t strike you as the type to peruse a garden for its simple enjoyment?’

‘You do not, my lord.’ A smile teased at her lips.

‘Then I may surprise you.’

She lifted her brows. ‘Oh?’

‘Yes, I often come out to admire the...’ He turned to a patch of pink flowers on long pale green stems. ‘Uh...the...’