Page 68 of My Darling Mr. Darling

Chapter Twenty Five

There were now four classes left to ensure the gentlemen knew everything they ought. Violet chewed her lower lip as they began to file out, one by one, and thanked her lucky stars that at least every gentlemen present seemed to know his way around a proper place setting.

Conversation was another matter entirely, since Mr. Green in particular seemed too inclined to steer one toward business, which would not endear him to most of theTon. Mr. Collins had at last been broken of his habit of dominating a conversation, though sometimes she suspected he wasn’t listening so much as waiting for an opportunity to speak. Mr. Simmons, however, had turned out to be her star pupil—despite the fact that John had been right, blast him. She had tried to overlook it before now, but the poor man had looked positivelycrestfallenwhen she had announced that Serena’s dinner party would serve as their commencement ceremony.

Violet only hoped she could gently dissuade him from any future attempts at flirtation. Certainly poor Mr. Simmons’ mother would have a thing or two to say about the direction in which her beloved son had cast his eye, given that she had paid Serena a great deal of money to prepare him to court alady—and Violet was certainly notthat.

Except, of course…there was the possibility that one day, shemightbe. If John’s grandfather could not produce another heir. If their marriage could find its way from the purgatory it had inhabited for so many years.

And as John collected his hat and headed for the door, flashing her a glance from beneath his lashes that she wascertainwas a veiled invitation for her to join him at his townhouse later in the evening, she realized…shewantedthat. She wanted to stop living a half-life, to embrace the possibilities that John offered. He was not the husband she had chosen—or, at least, hehadn’tbeen. Until now.

Her heart gave a funny little flip in her chest at the small but eloquent smile that lingered on his mouth as he walked out the front door. Until she realized that a life that did not include him felt unbearably sad and empty. Her grand, childish dream of falling in love had come true after all—it simply hadn’t happened on a crowded ballroom floor, or during sedate walks in the park, or trips to the opera. It had come like a thief in the night, sneaking into her heart beneath the cover of darkness, in concealed corridors. He had stolen her heart a piece at a time, with every class, every revelation, every small moment they had shared together, until at last there had not been even the tiniest sliver left that did not belong to him.

Which was profoundly unfair, given that John had offered no indication that he might feel the same. To not consider love a prerequisite for marriage was more or less a normal occurrence—in John’s social circle, at least. But she could not imagine anything more tragic than being trapped in a marriage where love existed on only one side. To swallow back her heart each and every day, because the man to whom she would have offered it did notwantit—unthinkable.

She wanted a love like the one that her father had, however briefly, shared with her mother. She, who in all her adult life had never livedanywherelonger than a few months, wanted, more than anything, to live in John’s heart.

“Miss Townsend, are you well?”

Violet jumped at the growled inquiry and realized that she had been staring at the front door, which Davis had closed some minutes ago. “Yes. Yes, quite well,” she squeaked, feeling the color rising in her cheeks. “Ah—thank you, Davis. I shan’t keep you; I’m sure you have other duties to attend to.” She made for the stairs, only to be stopped by Davis’ harsh clearing of his throat. Feeling rather like a small child called to account for some untoward behavior, she turned slowly.

“I’ll have the carriage readied for you this evening, miss. Should ten o’clock suffice?” he asked, his gaze flitting away from hers.

“The—” Violet took a breath, her hand hovering over her heart. “The carriage?”

“Got that look about you, miss, if it’s not too forward of me. And, well—Mrs. Bellwether, shedoesworry.” Vivid color burst along his prominent cheekbones, suggesting that perhaps it was notonlyMrs. Bellwether who worried. “Can’t help but to have noticed that on—er—certain mornings, the coachman says he’s not been summoned the night before. Don’t much like the thought of you traipsing about London so late in the evening.”

Was it possible for a body to expire of humiliation? It certainlyfeltit.

“I figure the coachman could let you out in the mews,” he said, his gaze studiously averted, “and you might send round a note when you’d like him back. Or else His Nibs might send you out in his own.” Faced with Violet’s stunned silence, he could only mutter a few invectives beneath his breath and clarify, “Not my place to judge, miss. We just—all of us staff, here—we want you to be safe.”

The embarrassment slipped away from her, replaced with a warm, fuzzy feeling that felt something like security and comfort wrapped into a pleasant glow of peace.

“That’s—that’s very kind of you,” she said softly, stepping lightly back down the stairs. “I thought—I would haveswornthat you didn’t like John.”

His brows furrowed. “He made you unhappy, miss, when he first arrived,” he said simply. “Anyone would have taken a hearty disliking to him for that.” Abashed, he clasped his hands behind him, though his shoulders remained straight and rigid. “It’s clear enough that he doesn’t make you unhappy anymore. The fact is, miss, we’re that grateful to him—nobody wants to see you like you were.”

A queer pang pierced her chest. “How was I?” she whispered.

“Sad,” he said, his voice reflective. “And frightened. A little…lost, I think.”

It hurt some new and fragile part of her to hear it, that she had not been as adept at concealing her feelings as she had thought. And, oh, how lost she had been. How infinitesimally tiny she had felt within a world that had swallowed her whole. How very, very alone and frightened she had been—but she wasn’t anymore. She was only as alone as she let herself be, let herself feel.

Reaching up, she patted Davis’ bristly cheek, affection for her dour, unamiable butler welling up inside of her. “Thank you, Davis,” she said. “I’ll take the carriage.”

∞∞∞

It had been some weeks since John had last joined Alex and Grey for a drink at their club, but he doubted very much that Violet would risk a visit before full dark had fallen—which meant he had a few hours yet before he could expect her. And though he doubtless had a mountain of paperwork waiting for his perusal at his office, recently his thoughts had been occupied by things beyond business.

Curious, how it had ruled his life for years, and yet—lately he had attained an even deeper understanding of what Townsend had meant in the letter he had left. It wasn’t that his business interests left him unchallenged, or bored—it was just that, for the first time, he could see the allure of a life beyond them. He hadn’t particularlywanteda wife at twenty-two years of age, but now…now he could see himself coming home to one. To one womanspecifically.

Violet had become not the burden with which he had been saddled, but the woman who would be his life’s companion. He could picture it in his mind quite clearly—his subversive wife, who would no doubt scandalize the whole of theTonon at least a semi-regular basis. A woman after his own heart; a woman ofbusiness, who engaged in the pursuit of sending pretenders to the aristocracy into their midst.

Despite their penchant for bickering—or maybebecauseof it—his respect for her and her determination, her wit and intelligence, grew daily. She was perhaps the one woman in England to whom hecouldsee himself married. So many years ago, he had, in his hubris, thought that Townsend had been cursed with a daughter who didn’t deserve the praise he had lavished upon her. He had been so arrogant, and so wrong—Townsend had raised a daughter of strong convictions, capable of navigating a man’s world.

And so, when he made his way to the table in a distant, dim corner, where Alex and Grey were already seated, his thoughts simply bubbled over: “I’m going to ask Violet to come home.”

“Come home?” Grey repeated, nonplussed. “Sheishome.”