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Chapter 20
“Maybe it is for the best, miss?” Sherborne said as he took the tailcoat off Violette.
She couldn’t say anything in reply. It had been an awful evening. She had to suffer another one of those awkward evenings with all the brothers, bar one, fawning over Lady Helen. The only light relief had come from Laurie’s occasional jests on the matter.
When it came to the dancing, she had been forced to watch the man she loved dance not just once with Lady Helen, but four times. At the beginning of the fourth dance, she decided she couldn’t put up with this torture anymore and decided to retire for the evening.
“Miss?” Sherborne prompted when she said nothing. She took off her Hessian boots and passed them to him to put away in her closet as she sat down in an armchair by the window that looked out over the estate. “Do you not think it is for the best?”
“I know what you mean,” she said quietly, though she could muster no joy at the idea.
“At least this way you get to stay being Victor Blake. You get to hold onto that freedom you always wanted!”
“I know,” she said, trying to smile, though it faded quickly. “That’s what I always wanted, after all. Now…being Victor Blake doesn’t seem to hold as much happiness as it used to.”
Sherborne offered a sad sort of smile as he finished putting the boots away in her wardrobe. He seemed to be trying to take on more and more of the usual duties of a valet, though of course, there was always a line that they never crossed, with him never actually helping her to get changed.
“Perhaps it is best you move on again, Miss?”
“Move on?” she asked in surprise, whipping her head back toward him.
“You need money,” Sherborne said, exasperated. She ran her hands through her hair, loosening the locks that were beginning to grow a little longer again.
“I still have money left. It’s not all gone yet.”
“And how long will it be until it is all gone?” Sherborne asked, his tone surprisingly wild, prompting Violette to snap her gaze toward him, staring at him through the candlelight.
“A while,” she said noncommittally. In truth, she knew it wouldn’t be so long before it was all gone, but she had another problem to face.
“Then you need a job.”
“I am not trained for any such thing,” she said with anger. “Had I been born a man, then my education would have been longer. As it is, my knowledge is limited. I highly doubt anyone would give me a half-decent position.”
“How do you know unless you try?”
“I will try,” she said with feeling, sitting back in her chair. “But—”
“But not yet? Pah!” Sherborne laughed in a derogatory way. “So, you intend to just stay here and torture yourself instead?”
“Sherborne. What I intend to do with my life is my business,” she said sharply. “It is not your decision to make.”
“No, I agree. But can you not listen to the advice of your valet?”
“Sherborne!”
“Very well, then listen to the advice of a friend.” Sherborne grabbed a nearby candle and brought it closer to Violette, placing it down heavily on a table beside the armchair so that light flooded the small space between them. “You are making yourself miserable by staying in this place, tormenting yourself with someone you can never be connected with. Whilst you pursue this dream, your own position is hanging by a thread. You want to live a life as a man? Then live a life as a man!”
“Sherborne, that is enough!” she shouted and got to her feet. Her move was so sudden that silence descended between them, and he backed up a few steps. “I pay you to be my valet and to keep my secret, not to lecture me.”
“It is not a lecture—”
“I said no more!” Her voice echoed off the walls back to them again. “Go, Sherborne. Leave me in peace.”
He said nothing, though he snatched up one of the candles, his abrupt manner making his anger plain before he hurried out of the door and closed it behind him, rather louder than usual. She flinched at the sound before retreating into the chair.
Violette spent a few minutes there, leaning forward with her face resting in her hands before the anger at having quarrelled with Sherborne overtook her. She didn’t want to quarrel with him, least of all when she knew there was truth in his words. If she wanted to hold onto this freer life, then she had to work to keep it.
“Do I want to keep it?” she whispered into the candlelit room.
