The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister, #3)

by Courtney Milan

“Well, I do.” She folded her arms and stared at a corner of the opposite room. “And for future reference, my heart is an ass.” He stared at her. “I see. It carries heavy burdens long distances.” He leaned in to kiss her again.

He took a deep breath. “Do you remember on the eve of your wedding, when you were nervous? Do you remember how I joked that you should jilt your husband and elope with me?” “I was eighteen.” She glanced at him. “You were sixteen. You were still in school.” “Yes, well.” He swallowed. “Also, I wasn’t joking.”

We spent the night playing vingt-et-un for pennies.” “Is that a euphemism?” He considered this. “Yes. By ‘pennies,’ I meant ‘half-pennies.’ It just flows better when you say ‘vingt-et-un for pennies.’” “Weren’t you furious with her?” “Should I have been?” He shrugged. “I won three shillings.”

Right now, I’m going to give you a back rub.” She pulled away from him. “Is that a euphemism?” He frowned and looked upward. “Yes,” he said, “it is. When I say ‘back,’ I include your shoulders and neck.”

His brother paid him no attention for another five minutes, and eventually, Sebastian seated himself on the other side of the desk and began to whistle. It was a cheap younger-brother trick, but an effective one. After the third off-key iteration of God Save the Queen, Benedict’s annoyance outgrew his ability to ignore Sebastian.

It took the smallest cues to understand Sebastian. He wore his smiles and his jokes as assiduously as another man might wear a cravat—an item of apparel that was not to be taken off except among his most intimate acquaintances, and even then, only under great duress.

But now it’s my turn.” Her words were turning fierce. “You deserve to be seduced.” “It…won’t take much effort, I can promise you that.” He gulped.

She paused and lifted her head. “Wait, you thought of doing what with my plants?” “It’s a fantasy!” he protested. “If we’re really going to pick it apart, I don’t think that a table made of wood planks and sawhorses could withstand the torque exerted by pounding at that particular angle, either.” She sniffed. “Well. I suppose. But pick another one. I’ll get distracted thinking about the details.”

“We protect what is ours,” her mother said fiercely. “And this—this is yours. You’re going to take it back.”

“Are you introducing me to someone? Your Professor Bollingall? Or—” The thought caught at her and she gasped. “Oh, God, Sebastian, if you’ve brought me to meet Charles Darwin in a train station, I will…I will…”

He was giving her his most hopeful look—so innocent and yearning at the same time that even she could not be so hard-hearted as to refuse.

“I can’t live my life without any risk,” she said. “I tried. A life without risk is one where I tell myself I’m not worthy of taking a chance. It’s a life without hope for the future.”

He tasted absurdly of coffee and cream: rich, bitter, sweetened with a generous helping of sugar. Like coffee, his kiss didn’t steal her senses. It enlivened them, made her aware

So yes, Your Worships. I discovered the truth. I told the world.” She straightened and glared at them. “I’m guilty.”

She’d known they would. She hadn’t expected that thousands of people would care what happened other than to imagine her a curiosity. But here they were—thousands, shouting all at once. “Good heavens,” Violet breathed. “I have an entourage.”

“There were no chains,” Violet said. “It was actually restful. Rather like being on holiday.” A foul-smelling holiday where she talked to nobody at all and had no choice about how she spent her days.

Victory wasn’t sweet; it was devastating and incomprehensible. It reduced her to rubble when she could have withstood harsh words. She kept crying, leaking like a cracked ink-bottle.

“Mama,” she whispered, “where is Sebastian?” Her mother glanced at her. “Waiting to see if you’ll talk to him.” She felt her nose wrinkle. “If I’ll talk to him? Why would he wonder about that? Is he stupid?” “Probably,” her mother said. “Should I send for him?”

She’d been in prison this morning. She’d traveled almost a hundred miles, had heard thousands of voices scream her name. The sunlight was failing, and if she turned around now, she’d have nothing to show for her journey—nothing but Sebastian’s baffled questions. She was not about to be turned away by a solitary butler on a point of etiquette.

Knitting makes even the most conniving soul look innocent. Her mother had it right. For some reason, butlers rarely suspected that a woman who had started knitting would stop and sneak about a house. Idiocy on their part; they were knitting needles, not shackles.

“Am I supposed to call you Mr. Malheur?” she said. “It’s difficult, Benedict. It’s hard for me to be formal when…” When he was sitting in bed looking awful. “When I remember how terrible you are at croquet,” she finished. “I beat you when I was seven and you were fourteen.”

“You let me win. All these years, I thought…” Violet shook her head. “Well, that tears it. I refuse to let you call me ‘my lady’ when you falsely proclaimed me Croquet Championess all those years ago. If you are allowed to lie to me, you must call me Violet.”

“Yes,” Benedict agreed. “And also because my brother was in love with you.” He smiled. “You were the only thing that Sebastian ever wanted and failed to get. You have no idea how much I appreciated you for that.”