Page 44 of My Darling Mr. Darling
Still, she opened her mouth and risked their disapproval. “I don’t care to be spied upon, even if it is with noble intentions,” she said, striving to keep her face free of the wince that wanted to settle upon it. “Although I appreciate your concern, I would like to believe myself capable of managing my own life and making my own decisions.”
“Fair enough,” Grey said. “I will leave the managing of John in your hands—although my door remains open, should you become out of your depth. Mouse?”
Serena set her shoulders, her chin notched to a mutinous angle. “Technically, the Runnerswere meant for John, not Violet. I’d prefer to keep them.”
“Ah, Mouse,” Grey chided, with a minute shake of his head.
Violet lifted her own chin. “I don’t want them,” she said, surprised by the commanding tenor of her voice.
“Well, really,” Serena said, on an aggrieved sigh, folding her arms over her chest. “Justone, then, for my own peace of mind. And I’ll have Grey dismiss the rest.”
“Mouse,” Grey said again, squeezing her shoulder in warning.
“This is not a negotiation,” Violet snapped. “Nospies! None whatsoever, and I don’t care for whom theywereintended!”
The air crackled with tension, and for a long moment, Violet feared she had overstepped and very nearly called the words back. But at long last, Serena heaved a great sigh, and her shoulders slumped as a wry pout settled on her face.
“Oh, come,” she pleaded petulantly. “Not evenonetiny, insignificant little Runner?”
Violet choked back a laugh as a wave of relief swept over her. “No,” she said. “Thank you, but no. But…if you would be so good as tonotmention that fact to John, I would be grateful.” She saw no particular need to mention that the marquess’ guard dogs had been called off for the time being.
“Ah,” Grey said. “The threat is as good as the deed, then?” He gave a half-shrug, a flicker of mischief lighting in his eyes. “I suppose it’s not as if the two of you could be accused of anything truly scandalous. After all, youaremarried.”
“Oh, my,” Serena murmured, covering her mouth with one hand as Violet felt her face flame a furious crimson. “Violet, have you been keeping secrets?”
“Dozens, no doubt,” Grey offered blithely. “But, my dear, dear,incrediblynosy wife, I would remind you that whatever secrets she might be keeping are hardly any business of ours. And mine in particular—I would rather not know the details, if it’s all the same to you. What you ladies choose to discuss is between the two of you, but some things a man does not need to know about his friends.”
Violet managed to choke out a strangled, “It isn’t like that,” although it was, of course, exactly like that. Shehadbeen keeping secrets, and shehadbehaved badly—or would have behaved badly, had the gentleman in question in question not been her husband. If only in name. For the moment.
Which did not alleviate her embarrassment in the slightest.
“And on that note, we’re off for a ball at the Featherstonbaughs’,” Grey said, taking hold of Serena’s hand and dragging her bodily toward the door. “For which we are unforgivably late, which ought to be amusing, as they will be obliged to forgive us regardless, however contemptible they may find it.”
“Grey, you loathe balls!” Serena cried, her slippered feet sliding on the slick marble floor. “Andyou loathe the Featherstonbaughs!”
“Believe me, the feeling is mutual,” he muttered, wrangling his wife with more brute force than finesse, as though he expected that Serena would slip his hold to commence with an interrogation of the hapless Violet did he give her half an opportunity. “Should be a vastly entertaining evening, all around.”
Serena dug her heels in, which availed her precisely nothing. “This isn’t over, Violet! I want to knoweverything.”
“Now, Mouse, you can badger her another time. Evening, Miss Townsend,” Grey said, planting his palm in the middle of Serena’s back and pushing her past the threshold. And he added, with a calculating grin, “Or is it Mrs. Darling?”
The door snapped shut behind them amidst Serena’s protestations, and Violet was left alone at last in the foyer, wondering precisely the same thing.
But as she retired to her room and propped her mother’s portrait in a place of honor on her bedside table, and her cloth doll beside it, she realized that Grey’s mention of the ball had given her the perfect inspiration for tomorrow’s lesson.
∞∞∞
When John arrived at Violet’s townhouse the next day, he was not surprised to be greeted by a glowering Davis, who reallyhadperfected the fine art of looming. But instead of being shown into the drawing room, as had become to the custom, he was taken to the ballroom, tucked back against the rear of the house, adjacent to the garden.
It wasn’t a large room. Likely it could have accommodated perhaps twenty or thirty people—just enough for a gathering of close friends or family—but what it lacked in space it more than made up for in opulence. The floors appeared to be polished mahogany; a choice prohibitively expensive for most—except that Grey was undoubtedly rich as Croesus, and had had the townhouse furnished and redecorated for his wife. The molding was gilt-embellished, and every inch of it sparkled and shone in the sunlight that poured through the windows on the far wall. A pianoforte had been situated in a corner, sleek and polished, alongside a number of chairs lined up against the wall.
And though he doubted she had contrived to plan it that way, it did not escape him that the light sparkled over Violet’s dark hair, which had been arranged in a tidy crown of braids, setting streaks of russet and auburn alight. She wore a simple gown of nondescript blue—a shade approximating a hazy winter sky—and a pair of dancing slippers that peeked out from beneath the hem as she bent her head to speak quietly to a slight woman seated at the pianoforte.
“Dancing,” Mr. Green grumbled in distaste, to answering nods from Mr. Simmons and Mr. Collins. “Mother hired a dancing master years and years ago; I see no reason such lessons must be revisited.”
Apparently sound carried well within the room, for Violet lifted her head with a stern stare and said clearly, “A good deal of courtship is conducted in the ballroom, Mr. Green. You’ll be well-served to win a lady’s interest on the dance floor before you attempt to win her heart—or her hand.”
Abashed, Mr. Green murmured an apology.