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Not that she wouldn’t be paying for it in her own way, of course. Still, pretending was second nature, so she’d better do an adequate job she supposed of making his lordship feel he was getting the return on his investment that he expected.
Deserved, she reminded herself. Not every gentleman of her acquaintance had been so generous.
Max was different, of course. She tensed, trying to banish all thoughts of him, her attention diverted by the billowing of the curtains caused by a sudden gust of wind. Violet hurried to rescue a china horse from crashing from its place on the windowsill just as there was a knock on the door.
She straightened her skirts, her heart pounding in her chest, and did a quick check in the looking glass above the mantelpiece. Lord Bainbridge was very particular about appearance and everything being orderly. Including Violet.
The face that stared back at her had a rather haunted look. She’d tried to hide the dark smudges under her eyes from her restless last few nights, but in this light, they looked an even greater contrast with her pale, transluscent skin.
Resigned, she turned away. Nothing would improve her looks in the seconds it would take to cross the floor, just as nothing would ease the ache in her heart.
Not all the jewels and fine clothes Lord Bainbridge had promised to buy her to augment the beautiful necklace he’d given her two nights before. To celebrate the fact she’d agreed to be his, he’d said as he’d fastened the gold and ruby ‘token of his regard’ around her neck. As she dropped her hand from pushing back a ringlet that fell across her shoulder, a flash of the simple gold band she still wore to mark her sham wedding was not the thing to make her feel better.
The knock came again—louder and more insistent—even though she’d hardly kept him waiting. She stiffened but checked herself. She couldn’t be angry. She’d have to ensure patience and good humour infused her objection to his impertinence, she counselled herself as she flung open the door, saying, “Goodness, but you are—”
Shock robbed her of the words to complete the sentence. For a moment, she could only stare. She’d come face to face with an apparition. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Taunting her.
“Dear Lord, this can’t be true,” she whispered, her legs suddenly feeling as if they had no substance.
“Violet!”
It was Emily. Not her ghost, for the arms that wrapped about her neck and pulled her down for a fierce hug was definitely flesh and bone.
“You’re not dead!”
They spoke at the same time, disbelief shocking Violet into silence while Emily simply said the same words over and over until, with a hiccupping sob, she stepped back to regard her sister with awe. “But you’re here!”
“And would have been to see you if Grandmother had not told me that you had died.” Violet saw no need to soften the truth as she stepped back into the warmth of the house, drawing her sister with her as she glanced over Emily’s shoulder with a frown. For where was her grandmother who must surely have brought her following a crisis of conscience. Oh yes; Violet was very ready to deal with her as required.
“Come in, before you catch your death,” she told Emily. “Have you run away?” And then, in horror, “How did you find me? Who told you to find me here?”
A myriad of lurid scenarios suddenly swept away her joy at seeing her sister. For what if her association with Violet should taint Emily? What if this was a trick on their grandmother’s part to destroy Emily, just as she had her elder granddaughter?
But then the joy was in the ascendant, for Emily was weeping now, and she needed all the comfort she could get, for what horrors might she have endured for her to have arrived, alone and friendless, on Violet’s doorstep?
“Oh Violet, you look so beautiful!” Emily finally gasped when her crying had subsided and she took a step away. Her gaze raked the pink-and-cream polonaise Violet wore, its neat bustle festooned in swaths and adorned with bows at the back while the front hugged her long, shapely figure. Madame and Lord Bainbridge had helped approve this confection and…
Oh Lord, what if her protector should arrive? He was due within the hour. She closed her eyes briefly before staring once more at her sister, realising for the first time that the young girl was dressed in all but rags.
“Did Grandmother throw you onto the streets, Emily?” she gasped, fingering the coarse homespun smock with its inexpert darning in the many places it had simply worn right through. She knew how much Emily had loved pretty clothes and that, as the favourite, their grandmother had indulged her. “Did you walk here? Your hair is wet! Oh Emily, I thought you were dead! What terrible things have happened?”
“Please don’t cry, Violet.” Emily reached up to cup her sister’s face. “A very nice gentleman found me in the rain and took me to an inn where he organised some dry clothes.”
“Dear God, no! You went with a stranger!” Violet’s strangled cry was
interrupted by the closing of the door, and as she raised her face her sense of unreality grew. Max was entering the room, shaking the raindrops from his hat and removing his heavy, damp coat, for water pooled at his feet upon the floorboards.
“No, a very nice gentleman, as your sister just told you,” repeated Max, smiling as he took a few steps forward. “I found her in your village churchyard where I’d gone to lay some flowers upon her grave in a gesture that I’d hoped would give you some pleasure.” He put his hand on Emily’s shoulder. “But instead of a grave, I found something much better, eh Emily?”
Oh, so much better. A joyous gift and piece of magic that he’d magically spun out of the goodness of his kind, kind heart…
Before he left her to go to Africa. Violet’s surge of joy was tempered by the reality, then chipped away further when he added, “Ruislip was hardly out of my way. A short detour only.”
She blinked. Oh, so he’d been curious to see if she’d been telling the truth about her name and origins.
She put her arms about Emily’s and drew her against her body, as if she might use her sister as a shield against the pain of impending loss that was growing within. She had Emily—and that was the greatest gift of all—but how would she look after her sister?
And would her heart ever recover from the loss of losing this wonderful, bighearted man who was smiling at her as if he had no idea how devastating this was for her—and who certainly wasn’t suffering any pangs at departing from her forever.
