The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister, #3)

by Courtney Milan

Of all the people in the world, Violet was the closest to him, and that made her precious in ways he didn’t want to consider right now.

“Is something amiss?” she asked carefully. “Or—rather—” She cleared her throat. “I know something is amiss. How can we fix it?”

A bird sang overhead. Blue sky shone brilliantly above the clipped shrubbery. It wasn’t weather for giving up, and Violet didn’t intend to do so.

“When the two of us begin to forget that this is a lie, it’s time to stop. I can’t tell anyone the truth any longer, and every little lie piles up.

Three-quarters of respectable England hates you.” “Half,” Sebastian replied with a smile. “It’s really only half. Judging by my correspondence, it may be as little as forty-eight percent. And of those, only a small number want to cause me bodily harm. The rest just wish to have me gagged or thrown in prison.”

You’ve made yourself the biggest scoundrel in all of England.” Sebastian felt his fist clench at his side, but he refused to let his anger show. He tried for a lazy smile instead. “But at least I’ve been superlative about it. That’s worth something.” Benedict winced. “Yes, Sebastian,” he said quietly. “You have been superlative.”

“Being good means you don’t ask questions,” Benedict said. That seemed like a really boring rule to Sebastian, but he held his tongue.

“I see why your mother fobbed you off on me,” she commented dryly. “You’re being logical.”

“Sebastian, you can’t talk of seduction to my unmarried niece.” Another man might have blushed and apologized. But Sebastian just gave her a cocky smile and a wink. “I wasn’t talking of seduction,” he said. “I was talking of not seduction, which, as I’m sure you have surmised, is the exact opposite of seduction.”

“The column of everything that is not an elephant does not include not-elephants?” he inquired, innocently examining his nails. “That’s counter-intuitive.” “The column of conversational topics,” Violet stressed, “that are not elephant related does not include a discussion of the elephant-shaped hole in the conversation!”

“I’m going to explode,” she muttered. “Into a cloud of dust and despair.” “Don’t do that,” Sebastian said, looking at her in mock worry. “It’s such a nice day, and I’d hate to have the weather ruined.”

Amanda frowned. “I can’t tell if you two are fighting with each other, or if this is your normal mode of conversing.” “It’s normal,” Violet replied. But as she spoke, Sebastian said, “We’re fighting.”

“I just don’t talk about them. What’s the point? Talking never changes them.”

I don’t belong, and I spend all my time pretending I do. Sometimes I get weary of it, and that makes me angry.”

“Do you want to know why you don’t meet my standards?” he asked. She shook her head in mortification. “Too late,” he replied. “Here’s my most important rule: Never have intercourse when one of the parties is in love with the other. It won’t end well.”

“I know.” He didn’t look away from her. “Isn’t that what I said? Only one of us is in love, and it isn’t you.”

Tentatively, she added two and three and verified that they still made five. They did. And what of three and two? They also made five. The commutative property of addition was still in force, and yet her entire world had just tilted upside down. Sebastian had said…

“It’s purely platonic,” she repeated. But she heard her own voice rising in question. “Right?” “No,” he said. “God, no.”

“You’re one of the only people that I can work around. Being around you is like being around nobody at all.” “Thank you,” Sebastian said gravely, trying to hide his smile in response. Only Violet would say something like that and intend it as a compliment.

“Wait one moment. I was trying to avoid you.” She spoke with perfect bluntness. “For God’s sake, I was writing you an angry letter.”

“You mean I sat here for an hour watching you shout at me in your head?” He was unaccountably tickled by the notion.

She’d do anything for the people she loved—anything, except take compliments from them.

Do I have to set your maid on you?” “Won’t work,” Violet muttered. “Louisa’s too timid. That’s why I hired her.”

You’re my…” He leaned forward. “My best friend,” she concluded. “And I hate you for it.”

world. I hate you was not part of their code, but it felt like it: words that Violet used because she couldn’t bring herself to say what she really meant. It had not been lost on Sebastian that when Violet needed codes for I need you and come see me, she’d chosen phrases that bordered on rude. “That’s so sweet,” he said gravely. “I hate you, too, Violet.”

“That would be extremely annoying.” “I do not consider that a detriment.”

“Mathematics are never wrong!” Sebastian said, aghast. “Only misapplied!”

“Only you, Sebastian. Only you would think that ‘my scheme is like running a gaming house’ counts as an exculpatory analogy. It doesn’t.”

idiculous,” Violet said. “Utterly ridiculous. Although I suppose I should expect no less from a man

Stubbornness was almost like ignorance, almost like bliss.

He was smiling—as if telling her that his brother was dying and being an ass all at the same time was an amusing little anecdote.

And it is codswallop for your brother to say that you have done nothing. It is an insult to the name of accomplishment.”

If she’d been completely indifferent to him, it would have hurt, but he could have given up. That she cared for him—so much, and yet not quite enough—made the situation both bearable and impossible all at once.

A pink snapdragon is only a snapdragon that is half white and half red, and nothing anyone does can pull the red from it. It cannot breed true, because there is no truth to it. Our eyes fool us; only years of experience can reveal the truth.”

He might envy the embroidered cushions of the sofa because they caressed her form.

“I realized years ago,” Sebastian said, “that having you as a friend wasn’t second prize. It wasn’t something to chafe against. It was an honor.”

“Violet,” Sebastian said, “you took in a baby owl with a broken wing for three months, ignored the fact that it shredded the antique furniture in the room where you kept it, and when your maids were too squeamish to capture mice, you did it yourself.” Her eyes flashed. “That was curiosity.” “I heard you cooing to it,”

Look, he wanted to say. Look what I did. But it was more than that. Look who I am.

And you think to prove something by dazzling their best minds with mathematical conjuring tricks?” “God, Benedict,” Sebastian said. “That…” Hurts, he might have said. But that simply word didn’t encompass the sting he felt, the ache deep inside. He’d wanted to bridge the gap between them. He’d hoped it was possible.

But I thought you would at least give me a chance.” “A chance? A chance at what?” Sebastian raised his chin. “A chance to prove that I’m your equal. That no matter how many missteps I’ve made, we can have something in common.” Benedict set his jaw. “But you want more than that. I know how you operate. Of course you want me to approve of

“Name one thing, Sebastian—one thing that you’ve wanted that you haven’t received.” Sebastian looked away. “Your approval.”

But nothing I did was ever good enough for you. I tried and tried and tried, and no matter what I accomplished, no matter what I laid at your feet, I always got the same answer. What I did had no value.” He leaned forward. “That is codswallop, Benedict.”

The gap between them could never be bridged; Benedict would never respect him. It didn’t matter. Sebastian respected himself—so

“What are you waiting for?” she asked, pushing forward in miserable defiance. “You’re a rake and you want me. You said you did.” “First,” he said, trying to marshal his thoughts, “I’m a rake who uses sheaths, and I don’t keep any in my greenhouse. Second—”

“And one last thing. I said I loved you. What part of that makes you think that I would slake my lusts on you, in complete indifference to the fact that—that—” “That what?” she growled at him. “That you’re on the verge of tears.”

“You came to me because I know you better than anyone else. Because you needed someone to tell you that you matter.” She stopped breathing. “Because even though you’ve been invisible to the entire world,” he said, “I have always seen you.”

“There is only one thing I know,” she finally said. “One thing that I am sure of.” She looked up into his eyes. “You are precious to me, too.”

“Come, Violet. I know better than to woo you with confusing data sets.” “Clearly, you don’t know me as well as you think. Confusing data sets are my specialty.”

Yes, & I want a Violet to woo me with confusing data sets too 😻

“But until then,” Sebastian continued, “I’ll keep looking. Because I would rather fail at violets than succeed at anything else.”

The heart was one of the most disgusting pieces of meat in the body. Even the intestines were better looking. She wasn’t going to let something so ridiculous make her decisions.