Page 81 of My Darling Mr. Darling
“Perhapspermanently?”
A disinterested flick of Grey’s fingers followed. “I suppose it depends upon whether or not I choose to allow him to return. Of course, Mitchell is not well pleased by this happenstance—but that’s neither here nor there. Now that he’s served his purpose, he’s been permitted to remain only so long as he minds his manners—and I’ve got my thumb on several of his key shipping contracts to keep him in line. You really would not believe how simple it is to beggar a man, when you have the right tools to do so.”
John could only be thankful that all of Grey’s Machiavellian tendencies were reserved for the aid of his friends—and count himself lucky to find himself among that number. “And Mitchell’s sister?” John inquired. “Does she…have certain expectations?”
“Happily, Serena informs me that Catherine is a lovely woman who seems to be genuinely unaware of her brother’s foibles. I doubt she was even informed of her own supposed engagement.” Grey polished off the last of his liquor, setting the glass aside. “That reminds me—in the matter of the favor you requested of me. Have you informed Violet of whom exactly she will be meeting today?”
John shook his head. “No. I thought for it to be a surprise.”
“I’m not certain that’s wise,” Grey said. “Something Mouse said to me some weeks ago keeps tumbling back into my thoughts.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug, as if he couldn’t pinpoint precisely what it was that bothered him so, but understood it was significant nonetheless.
“What did she say?” John asked.
“It was just an offhanded comment, you know, but—she mentioned that Violet seemed overly burdened by shame over what occurred at that wretched school.” Grey shook his head, puzzling over it. “Of course not a bit of it was her fault, but…the mind is a mystery.”
Shame. How strange it was that Grey had mentioned the word now, when just last evening—
Just last evening, Violet had made herself vulnerable enough to allude to the fact that she felt there were shameful things that she had done in the past which she thought might make her unworthy of love.I need you to love me anyway, she had said, as if that fact had been in doubt. Perhaps becauseshecould not love herself, feeling as she did.
It was not the first time she had made such a reference, in retrospect. It was just the first time it had been so baldly stated. If he thought back, he could recall other times she had made some oblique remark that had confused him at the time—confused him still, to be honest. What could she possibly have to be ashamed of?
Grey pitched his voice low as if he were sharing a secret. “When Mouse first came to me, her self-confidence was…practically non-existent,” he confided. “There is just something about enduring something so traumatic that twists the mind into knots. It seems a person can convince themselves of just about anything, under the right circumstances. Even things anyone else with some distance from the situation would know to be untrue immediately.”
“Not that you’d know anything about that,” Alex said pointedly. “Would you, John?” There was a wealth of exasperation in his piercing green gaze, as if he simply could not believe that John had fallen victim to a similar mindset. But then, it was the privilege of those unencumbered by such dark thoughts to not understand them.
John didn’t have to understand Violet’s particular set of secret fears. He only had to understandViolet.
But he did—he truly did at last. And she would want him at her side, holding her hand in his.
Chapter Thirty One
The prickle of unease that Violet had experienced upon waking had become a fully-fledged rumble by the time she arrived at the Granbury townhouse—and it exploded into honest fear as John came careening down the stairs into the foyer, his face drawn.
“John? What—”
“I need you to take my hand,” he said, offering it to her, “and trust me.”
She swallowed hard and set her hand in his. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all, truly—but I fear you might not see it that way.” Simpson, the butler, politely averted his eyes and withdrew from the foyer as John drew her into his arms and kissed her, their joined hands trapped between them. “I meant for it to be a surprise,” he said, “but it has occurred to me just recently that some surprises are pleasant, and some are…less so. And perhaps the person for whom they are intended might prefer a bit of a warning about them.”
“I don’t understand,” Violet said, and reflexively she squeezed John’s hand—as if it anchored her. “What surprise?”
“You must know,” he said, “that I’ve spent no small amount of time interviewing students from Mrs. Selkirk’s. About what had happened to them. About what had happened toyou.”
She remembered the folio she’d taken from his desk, filled with pages and pages of testimony—the abundance of evidence of things that she’d tried her damnedest to forget. The girls she had tried to put from her mind, lest her guilt over abandoning them consume her. “I remember,” she said.
“Some of their families closed ranks around them,” he said. “Some did not wish to speak at all, preferring to let the matter rest in the past. But those ladies that were willing, those that helped me compile the information I needed to press for the closure of the school—they’re here.”
Violet felt the blood drain from her face in such a fantastical rush that her head swam along with it, and she swayed on her feet before John’s arm caught her, holding her upright. “What?” she whispered. “Why—how?”
“I invited them. They’re the ladies’ class.” Again his lips brushed her temple, and for some reason that tiny, reassuring gesture pressed back her encroaching panic just a shade. “Except for Catherine Mitchell—who was added by Grey—each lady was once at Mrs. Selkirk’s with you.”
This. This had been what her fickle brain had chosen to overlook. If she thought back to the tidbits of information she had gleaned from Serena, she could see it so clearly. Julia, Cecily, Samantha—she had recognized all of those names. They had been her schoolmates. But the names hadn’t been souncommonthat she had understood the significance of them straight off.
“They needed a place,” John whispered at her ear, “where they wereunderstood. Where they could speak freely amongst others who had shared their experiences. Vi, they’ve been waiting to meet you again.”
A shudder slipped down her spine, and her breath backed up into her throat. “How can I face them?” She turned her face into his shoulder, closing her eyes against the sting of tears. “How can I face them, after I abandoned them?”