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“I cannot have this,” Lord Brunlow said, blocking Violette’s path toward Lord Northrive.
“Father, but I—”
“You have been led astray by this man, haven’t you?” he said with a kind of insult in his tone. “Good lord! What he has induced you to do this summer!”
“Father, listen to yourself,” she said, pushing in his back and attempting to prod him out of the way. When he didn’t go anywhere, she attempted to walk around him again, connecting her gaze long enough with Lord Northrive’s to see the hope there, before her father took her other arm and dragged her back away from him.
“You have led her astray, and you have ruined her, haven’t you?” The accusation was too much for Violette to bear, and she could handle it no more.
“Do you think I do not have my own mind!?” she called out the words, having to shout over her father to be heard. “Do you think someone else would have to ‘lead me astray’ as you call it for you to accept that I vanished this summer? I went from you willingly, of my own accord. For I was so desperate to be away from you.”
Her father said nothing at first. He paled, with his mouth agape in surprise at her outburst. It gave her the opportunity she needed not to stop.
“I wanted my own life, Father. I didn’t need anyone to persuade me otherwise, or to draw me into leading a different life. I wanted a new life.” With the words, she tore her arm from his grasp again, backing away from him. “Do you think it’s easy for any of us to be here with you? Victor ran off to do his Grand Tour as soon as he could, I fled the house, and my mother…” she paused and gestured back to her. Rowena hung her head forward again, letting that curtain of curls cover the bruise. “Look at what you have done to her.”
Lord Brunlow took a step back, though his expression was difficult for her to decipher. What she could garner from it was the way he glanced at Lord Northrive, perturbed to have the son of Marquess witness their family’s implosion.
“None of us wish to live the lives you have outlined for us, least of all me,” she said, unable to look at Lord Northrive at this moment. Now she had started with her father, she had to finish it. “I wish to live a life of my own choosing, one you may have never cared to hear about, but one I will take regardless. And…” she paused, glancing at last to Lord Northrive. “If I wish to marry Lord Northrive, I will do so. With or without your blessing.”
Lord Northrive smiled at last. The simple move lit up his features in a way that made her long to cross the last distance between them and take his hand. She took a step forward, ready to do just that when her father spoke up again.
“As long as you are under my roof, you will do as I say, Violette.” His voice was dark, even though his face had turned beetroot red with embarrassment. “That is my final say on the matter.”
“Then here is mine,” she said with confidence, lifting her chin higher. “My mother and I will move out of this house today, and we will no longer be under your roof or your control.”
“What!?” he said, stepping forward. Violette turned her eyes to her mother to see Rowena frozen to the spot.
“We can leave?” she said as if the idea had never occurred to her.
“No, you cannot!” Lord Brunlow said insistently.
“Mother, by law, Father has to pay for your keep. That doesn’t mean you have to stay in the same house as him. If you want to leave, we can leave.” Violette could see her words lodged a grain of hope in her mother, for she stood a little taller with her eyes widening. “Would you like to leave?” she asked, holding out her hand to her mother.
Rowena answered by taking Violette’s hand.
“What? No. I will not stand for this.” Lord Brunlow was insistent, but Violette was done talking to him. She towed her mother across the room toward Lord Northrive.
“You are certain of this?” he said in a whisper to her.
“I have never been more certain of anything,” she said hurriedly. “Meet me outside in a few minutes? I must get the maids to pack our things.”
“I’ll be there,” he said with his lips flickering into another one of those tantalizing smiles.
Violette smiled back and pulled her mother from the room, determined to fetch her lady’s maid at once and pack their things. Now there was a new future offered to her, one that she wanted. She wasn’t going to suffer any longer in a house she could not stand to be in, and she wasn’t going to leave her mother to suffer there alone either.
***
Marcus was standing out in the garden, marching up and down with the same restlessness he had felt all morning.
“Was that a yes?” he muttered to himself as he paced back the other way. He glanced toward the house, seeing through the window how Lord Brunlow was sat in a chair in the drawing room, leaning forward with his face still red, in a state of shock. Not wanting to be seen by the man, Marcus walked further away across the terrace garden, toward a line of yew bushes as he waited for Lady Violette to appear.
He could remember more than once, Lady Violette alluding to not all being well at home, but when he had come in to see the state of that awful bruise on Lady Brunlow’s face, he saw the true extent of what Lady Violette had meant.
They both needed to leave this house as soon as possible.
“My lord?” A soft voice called to him. Marcus whipped his head round to find Lady Violette approaching him, her voice bearing the same huskiness it had done before, but this time it was more delicate than when she had spoken as a man. “I am so sorry about that.”
“Sorry? What for?” he said in surprise as she approached him. He was a little distracted to concentrate on her words, thinking of how she was dressed. The gown flattered her incredibly, showing off the narrowness of her waist, the slimness of her curves and the athleticism in the slender figure.
