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For a moment, they remained clasped tightly in one another’s arms, the only sound their heavy breathing.
After a moment, he whispered, “No, I will not return, alas. But I’ve enjoyed what we shared.” He held her away from him and gently touched her lips with his forefinger. “It was a…particularly satisfying intimacy I could never engage in with a young lady I’d only just met.”
“You just did.”
“With a marriage prospect, then.” He cleared his throat and seemed to try for a brisker, more lighthearted tone. “Well now, my clever Violet who possesses such attention to detail, it has been an absolute pleasure meeting you.” He dropped his hands and made for the door. “I wish you all the best for your life. You never know, perhaps I’ll send a postcard from the Sudan or Cairo, for I don’t expect I’ll forget you in a hurry.”
“Please do. You can address it to Miss Violet Lilywhite," Violet murmured, wanting to imprint it on his brain. “And you can always ask for me by name if you can toss out your scruples and step over Madame’s threshold. Remember, it’s Violet, not Victoria. Violet like the colour of the sunsets you dream of experiencing in the dark continent and Lilywhite because” She touched her heart. “Though my soul may seem black with sin to you, now, it was lily white when I stumbled into this house.”
A shadow flickered across his face. He looked about to question her. Then he smiled; genuine and regretful as he put his hand on the doorknob. “I’m afraid I shan’t be back, but I shall certainly relive this lovely evening with you when I recline in my chair in the heart of the African bush and gaze at the setting sun. And I’ll certainly recommend you to the more discerning of my set. Decent fellows, they are. Because a girl like you deserves the best.”
Chapter 2
When Max stalked into the breakfast parlour at ten o’clock, feeling distinctly jaded following his exploits of the night before, he was dismayed to find it occupied.
“Rather late for you to be breakfasting, Aunt Euphemia,” he remarked, for she generally rose at six and liked to eat shortly afterwards.
“I’m not such a creature of habit,” the old lady said with a clearly fabricated attempt at artlessness. Max knew she’d been doggedly sitting here for hours just so she could waylay him. As of course she’d feel obliged to do.
Not that he intended calling her out on it.
Or indulging her desire for revisiting yesterday’s events.
After helping himself to haddock and eggs from the sideboard, he took a seat opposite her then pulled the newspaper towards him before hesitating. Did he really have the fortitude to see his public shame laid out in newsprint for the world to see? No doubt Aunt Euphemia had read the article three times.
“I don’t think you should read it, Max,” she said, dabbing her eyes with her lace handkerchief before stifling a little cough she was soon unable to con
trol.
A fortuitous interruption which might deflect her entirely from mentioning that which Max intended never to mention again. His marriage. Before, present, or future. He’d dodged a bullet and he was off to Africa to celebrate.
“I wonder if you’re well enough to be up and about, Aunt,” he said, frowning. “Has grandfather not called the doctor?”
“I’ve been consulting doctors for months and there’s nothing a doctor can do for me now, Max.” Her tone of resignation made him glance up from his food.
“What do you mean, Aunt?”
She didn’t meet his eye, but he studied her as she daintily tore a croissant in half. Her fingers had always been birdlike, but he observed for the first time that the rest of her was distinctly more birdlike than he remembered. Aunt Euphemia had never been a robust figure of health, but she’d dished out justice and hugs with the necessary strength to satisfy a young orphan boy who’d craved both.
“We all must go sometime, Max.”
He felt unaccountably panicked as he searched her face for refutation of that which she’d implied. “You’re far from old, Aunt Euphemia.” He didn’t know if he should grip her hand or what he should say. “You’ve caught a chill. We all suffer from inflammation of the chest but you’re taking a little longer to get better this time.”
Knowing that the sadness in her smile was sympathy for him and not self-pity doubled his pain. Watching her distress as another hacking cough gripped her was unbearable.
“I’d have liked longer but there it is,” she managed, dabbing at her mouth. She looked so frail in the harsh sunlight that filtered through the window that Max felt like leaping up and enfolding her in his arms. The buttered toast he tried to swallow tasted like ashes.
“I had so hoped to see you settled and happy.”
Max nearly said that the two certainly did not go together where he was concerned but thought better of it. Aunt Euphemia had always been such a hopeless romantic, and if it gave her pleasure to believe Max was like any normal, red-blooded young man who aspired to marrying the ‘right’ girl, he’d do it.
“I don’t know what possessed Mabel to do what she did. That letter she sent you made no sense at all.”
Max grunted. He’d received Mabel’s hastily scrawled missive when he’d arrived back from Madame Chambon’s, but by that stage was so buoyed up by spirits—whisky and euphoria from the wonderful time he’d had with that damned fine barque of frailty he’d met there—to care a jot for Mabel’s reasons for crying off.
She’d said she simply didn’t love him as he deserved to be loved, so what was good for the goose should be good for the gander. Clearly, romantic love was more important to Mabel than Max had understood, in which case she deserved better than be bound to him for life.
Aunt Euphemia coughed delicately. “You’d have been a good husband, Max. Kind. Considerate. There are few enough men who fall into that category. Mabel has made a grave error, and I only pray she’ll come to her senses before I’m in my grave.”
