Page 46

Viola entered in her nightgown, her hair braided for sleep, her eyes big in her pale face, her arms folded around some sort of book. “Roz says I’m despicable. Am I?” she asked.

Chapter Fifteen

Cordelia climbed up into the bed and made room. Viola closed the door and settled next to Cordelia, leaning back against the pillows with the thick calfskin-covered book in her lap, her toes sticking out from under the hem of her gown. She gave a heavy sigh.

“Is this why you feel so low?” Cordelia tapped the book.

“It is supposed to be Graymont’s secret plan to tear down the castle, and I got hold of it when no one was looking, so we could stop him. I was a spy, like one of Wellington’s traveling gentlemen, gathering information to make a strategy.”

“But you discovered that it’s not a secret plan after all?”

“No.” Viola sighed again. “It’s a useless book of sketches. Of buildings. It’s … like a diary or a journal. Graymont draws buildings. He makes little notes of the date and place, Rome, Egypt. It’s rather dull. He’s obsessed with ruins.”

Cordelia smiled to herself. So Graymont had made a young man’s grand tour of ancient sites. “So, it’s not a dangerous plan of attack on Delamere.”

“No,” Viola admitted, “but look at this.”

Viola flipped the pages of the sketchbook to a drawing of blackened ruins of some fine house that must have been consumed by fire. Graymont had drawn the ruins from above as if he’d sat on a hill, looking down. The sketch conveyed an extraordinary mood of grief. Cordelia knew at once that the scene was no part of his grand tour. He had recorded a moment of private loss. Gently she closed the sketchbook.

“And you stole it.” Cordelia used the word deliberately.

Viola nodded, running her fingers along the top of the sketchbook, silent.

Cordelia waited. If only her sister would stop and think before she acted. But Viola was fifteen. At fifteen one made rash choices. One acted passionately without thinking. One wanted to be heroic, to have adventures, to lead. And Viola had no father present to teach her how the world saw girls, to march her down to the ocean and make her swim and swim and swim against the sea, against that thing so much larger than herself on which she could make no impression, only survive with her person intact.

“It didn’t seem like stealing. I went to Delamere to give Graymont that message so that he would go away. But those men were taking apart our tower, our home. There were big piles of stone everywhere, and then the scaffolding fell. You have no idea how frightening it was. If Graymont had not leapt back, the planks would have crushed him.”

Cordelia shuddered. The thought of Graymont in danger brought to mind the image of him laughing at her, the water lapping at his waist, wholly alive.

“Do you think I’ll be sent to jail, like that lady who stole lace in Bath?”

The strange case was famous. Pamphlets told the story of the wealthy woman who had stolen a lace card from a shop she had long patronized. She had been held in a private jail for months with a potential sentence of transportation to Australia hanging over her. Cordelia gave Viola’s shoulders a squeeze. “To jail? No.”

“But when they look for the book and they realize I was there … they could come after me. That man Finch is so cold.” Viola shivered.

“You could return it,” Cordelia suggested. “An apology would not be amiss.” She hoped her sister would come to that conclusion in the end.

Viola shook her head. “That would be giving in, and they would send me to jail for certain.”

“You don’t want to give in.” Cordelia knew the feeling. Ever since they’d left Lady Frome’s drawing room, Cordelia had been thinking of how to change Graymont’s mind about the ball.

Viola turned to her. “You won’t give in, will you? You want us to have our ball and move home. You won’t let Graymont defeat us.”

“We have to return the book, but I won’t let them send you to jail.”

“Can you stop them?”

She didn’t know. A penitent Viola might move Graymont to compassion, but Viola was unlikely to remain penitent for long. “Let me return the book.”

“Would you?”

Cordelia nodded. Graymont wouldn’t send Viola to jail. He was enjoying his victory too much. Perhaps Cordelia’s returning his prized possession would encourage him to reconsider the cancellation of their ball.

*

At their dawn meeting place, Cordelia hugged the sketchbook to her chest, trying to clear her head so that she could meet Graymont unshaken by fear or doubt. He could, if he wished, involve the magistrate. He had witnesses. Viola’s theft would shock them. No man would see the fortnight of provocation in Graymont’s takeover of their home that was driving Viola to wild behavior.

If Cordelia was impatient to see him, it was only to protect her sister. It was not to pit herself against him in the sea. She needed to be in the water more than ever, needed to release the feelings coursing through her. There was a breeze, and the sea had a chop on the surface. The waves wore peaked caps of foam. She wanted to dig in and face the elements, not think about Graymont swimming next to her with his easy strength. First, she had to return his book.