Page 65 of More or Less a Countess
“He’skind, Hyacinth. Perhaps it’s not the first thing one notices about him, but he has kindness in his heart.” Violet looked down at her hands as a familiar dry ache pressed behind her eyes. He’d been kind to her, and she’d offered him nothing but lies and betrayal in return.
“Then he’ll be a kind husband, won’t he?” Hyacinth settled her hands on Violet’s shoulders until her sister met her gaze in the mirror. “Promise me something, Violet. You don’t…” Hyacinth drew in a breath. “You don’t always have to be brave. If he isn’t kind, or if he unintentionally hurts your feelings, you must let him know it, or else he won’t know not to do it again.”
Violet reached behind her to grip Hyacinth’s hand. “I’ll try.”
* * * *
By noon the wedding cake had been reduced to crumbs, the champagne had run dry, and the new Countess of Dare’s trunks were packed and waiting in the drive for the servants to load them into the carriage.
Within the next hour, Nick and his new bride would be on their way to West Sussex.
He had his countess, just as he’d planned, and he’d gotten her more quickly and with far less bother than he’d dared hope for. He should have been satisfied, but as he and his aunt waited in the entryway for Violet to appear, gratification was as distant as it had ever been. So distant, in fact, if the Marquess of Huntington pressed a gun to his temple at this very moment and demanded he appear joyful on his wedding day, Nick couldn’t have forced his lips into a smile.
Heshouldbe satisfied, but he wasn’t.
Lady Westcott had been quiet all morning, but now she laid her hand on Nick’s arm and pinned him with the same penetrating gaze he remembered as a child—the one that seemed to see right through him. “Miss Somerset looked terrified when she greeted us before the ceremony this morning. Her face was quite gray, and the poor thing looks as if she hasn’t slept in days.”
Nick flinched. Did his aunt think he hadn’t noticed? Only a brute could fail to see how pale and exhausted Violet looked. He had his flaws, but Nick was no brute, and the moment he’d laid eyes on her this morning a weight had settled on his chest. “I noticed.”
“You might have said something to comfort her, Nicholas. The young lady is distraught, and a few words from you would ease her. I know you’re still angry, but it isn’t like you to withhold your forgiveness to punish someone, least of all a frightened young woman who’s clearly sorry for what she did.”
“Punish her?” Nick gaped at his aunt, aghast.
He wasn’t trying to punish Violet, but if his aunt believed he was, then mightn’t his bride think so, as well? Is that why she’d been unable to meet his eyes when she whispered her vows to him this morning? “I’m angry she deceived me, yes, but…”
But he understood why she’d done it, perhaps better than Violet understood it herself. It wasn’t just because she’d wanted to get the sketches for her book. No, he’d offered her far more than that with his courtship—he’d offered her something a lady like Violet Somerset was helpless to resist.
Freedom. Knowledge, and an unmatched chance to pursue it. It was such a simple thing to want, and one she shouldn’t have to fight for. How could he hold it against her that she had?
“I don’t wish to punish her, Aunt. I just…I’m not sure how…”
I care for her, and I don’t know how to go on.
He’d been stunned and angered by her deception, certainly, but any lingering resentment paled in comparison to the regard he had for her—
Regard?
Nick shook his head in disgust. If he couldn’t even find the proper words to explain to himself how he felt about Violet, how would he ever find the words to explain it to her? How could he make her understand she was unlike anyone he’d ever known? That he was stunned by her? That her blue eyes made his knees weak, and he dreamed about her smile?
When she talked about bare-knuckle boxing, he wanted to ravish her. Her ink-stained fingers drove him mad, and he was sure she was the only lady in England who could make cobwebs look enticing. He’d stand in the Thames all day for her—he’d ruin every pair of boots he owned if she asked him to. Christ, he even wanted her to sing for him again, and if that wasn’t love, then he didn’t know what was.
How could he ever explain how grateful he was to her?
She would always be the lady who pulled every string, who seized every chance so she could turn it over and over in her hands until she saw it from every angle. The man he’d been—that lonely man still frozen with grief, so weary of life and so certain it had nothing left to show him—since he’d met her, every moment had become an opportunity, a wonder, another chance to be amazed.
Because ofher.
She was everything, and he was a tongue-tied, besotted fool. “I don’t know how to show her, or how to make her understand that I…”
His aunt’s gaze softened, and Nick knew she understood what he didn’t know how to say.
“Oh, Nicholas. It’s so much easier than you think it is. Talk to her. Reassure her of your affection for her. She’s wary of you now, and ashamed of having deceived you. You can hardly blame her for being skittish, given the circumstances, but despite her reticence, it’s plain to see she cares for you.”
Nick’s heart leapt with hope, because at one time he’d thought she cared for him, too.
That day at the Hunterian Museum, those moments afterwards in the carriage, when she’d kissed him…that hadn’t been a lie. There’d been nothing false between them then. He’d known it, had felt it with every brush of her lips against his, in every frenzied beat of his heart. The moment she’d kissed him, Nick knew he belonged to her, and now…
She washis, just as surely as he was hers.
