Page 42 of Duchess By Condition
Violet hesitated, then nodded. “I can,” she admitted. “And if you’re willing to do it…perhaps you are better equipped than I am to have that discussion with him. Perhaps you are the one who should reprimand him. As long as you promise me that you aren’t going to be overly harsh.”
“I promise,” Jonathan assured her, meeting her eyes.
He looked sincere. She believed him.
But as he left the room, she couldn’t quite suppress a tremor of anticipation, a thrill of fear that things had slipped beyond her control and were somehow about to go very wrong.
CHAPTER 23
Jonathan stopped outside Noah’s bedroom door for a few moments, doing his best to calm himself down. To release the anger he felt.
Seeing Violet sprawled on the floor like that had stirred something agonizing within him. And then, when she had tried to get up and had fallen again, the lance of fear he had felt had cut him more deeply than anything that had affected him in the last few years. He had believed something was seriously wrong with her—why wasn’t she able to stay on her feet? In the moment when he had picked her up in his arms, he had been on the verge of running for a physician while carrying her.
Thankfully, reason had prevailed, and he had taken the time to ascertain the truth of the situation before rushing off with her. Once she had been seated on the bed, it had been clear that nothing was wrong with her, and that the fault lay with the gown.
He just couldn’t believe Noah had been so audacious in his behavior.
He knocked twice at the door. Even when receiving punishment, he felt, the boy was entitled to a bit of privacy. But that was a privilege he would lose if he didn’t correct his behavior.
“Who is it?” Noah’s voice was sharp and suspicious, almost as though he was anticipating a rebuke.
Jonathan opened the door.
Noah was sitting in the chair beside the window. A large book was open in his lap, but he wasn’t looking at the pages. He was watching Jonathan instead, his eyes narrowed.
“What are you reading?” Jonathan asked him.
“Just a book.” Noah’s tone was defensive. Mistrustful.
“What’s the book about?” Jonathan heard the challenge in his own voice. He was responding to the defensiveness, yet he knew he was escalating the situation, making it more fraught.
Noah didn’t answer.
“Did you take a book from the library and bring it back here as a prop?” Jonathan asked him. “So that you would look as if you were doing something when I came in here? You knew that I wasgoing to come, didn’t you?” He thought about it for a moment. “You must have realized when you heard her scream. Is that right?” The memory of the scream made his blood hot and cold at the same time. When had he last felt that kind of horror?
“I didn’t know she was going to be that upset,” Noah defended himself.
“So you mean to tell me that you did know she would be upset. Just notthatupset.”
“It was only a joke.”
“Why don’t you explain to me why these jokes are funny, Noah?” Jonathan suggested, his tone biting. “Why don’t you see if you can clear this up for me. Because this is what I see—you ruined Violet’s gown by spilling tomato juice all over her. Is that part right?”
“It was only…”
“And then,” Jonathan pressed on, “she went out to the modiste to have some new things made, in part to replace what you ruined. And as soon as her new gowns arrived, you took to them with scissors so that they were ruined too.” He shook his head. “Why would you do that? I can’t understand it. I thought you liked Violet. Didn’t you tell me that you didn’t want us to be enemies? That you wanted the three of us to all be friends?”
“I do want that!” Noah’s eyes went so wide that Jonathan couldn’t help but think he was being sincere. “We are friends, aren’t we?”
“Well, would you think someone was your friend if they came in here and destroyed your things?” Jonathan asked him. “What if I did that? What if I came into this room while you were out and took something that was important to you, and I ruined it for no reason—just because I thought it would be funny to do that? Would that be all right with you? When you saw me next, would you laugh at the joke, or would you be angry with me for daring to touch your things and for destroying them?”
Noah bit his lip. “I…I would be angry,” he murmured, looking down.
“And can’t you see that that’s what you did to Violet?” Jonathan asked him. “She went to a lot of trouble to pick out those new gowns. You know that. For you to sneak into her room and destroy them when she wasn’t looking…before she ever even had the chance to wear them. That was cruel, Noah. You ruined something she was excited about. You took away a piece of her happiness. Don’t you see that? How can you do such a thing and say that you think of yourself as a friend to her?”
Noah’s lip quivered. “It was only a joke,” he whispered. “I thought she would laugh.”
“But why would she laugh? She was devastated that her gowns were ruined. Not to mention the fact that she tripped on the cut skirts and nearly fell,” Jonathan added. “That’s the second timea prank of yours could have caused an injury, you know. You do these things without thinking about the consequences, and that isn’t acceptable. Not while you’re living in my house.”
