Page 51 of A Proposition for the Comte
Had he learnt something of Harland’s proclivity to hurt others? Could he have found out more of her husband’s death in the stables of Addington or of her part in it? There had been a misstep between them, but she could not quite understand where it had happened.
Whatever it was, the distance between them seemed heightened, quivering under the pressure of what was known and what was not.
As the orchestra ground to a halt, however, she could do nothing more than follow him to rejoin Major Lord Shayborne who watched them from one side of the room. She was glad that Antonia and her brother had moved away in the interim.
Every time she met Aurelian de la Tomber she was upended and more than surprised. She almost expected it now, this topsy-turvy uncertainty. When he excused himself to find them a drink, Summerley Shayborne was quick to speak.
‘Lian is the only man in the world who I trust implicitly, but he has been hurt before and I should not wish to see him be so yet again.’
Somehow Violet did not think Shayborne meant the physical scars. No, these words were being given to her as a warning.
‘My wife says he should marry and settle down. She thinks all men reach that point where home is paramount.’ His glance travelled across the room to where Aurelian stood.
Such an observation had her heartbeat rising and she wondered suddenly how much he might have told Shayborne about her fractured past.
But Viscount Luxford did not seem to regard her in the way of a foe. Instead there was some odd notice there that she could not quite put her finger on.
Overcome by her thoughts, Violet excused herself. She needed to be away for a few moments in a place of silence and calm. Seeing the Comte besieged by women here worried her, for there were many in society who would have made admirable wives. Perhaps Summerley Shayborne did know of his friend’s plans and was not saying.
Violet had always been so careful to keep suitors at a distance until Aurelian de la Tomber. Until he had swept her off her feet and made her into a woman she barely recognised.
She had reached the ladies’ retiring room now and sat down on a chair propped beneath the window. Outside it was snowing and the night looked cold and dark. Lady Elizabeth Grainger suddenly appeared from nowhere, her eyes full of interest.
‘I was just saying to my friend Lady Drayton that you are looking very fetching lately, Lady Addington. I do hope the incident in the park the other day has not continued to upset you.’
‘I am well, thank you, and that person has been dealt with.’
‘By the Comte de Beaumont?’
‘Mr Mountford and Mr Cummings also helped,’ she added, trying to form a layer of legitimacy around Aurelian’s actions.
‘I saw Douglas Cummings in Chichester a few weeks back and he looked most agitated. He is not a man with the propensity to hide his feelings, unlike the French Comte who manages it beautifully. Were I a young girl again I think I might be joining the ranks of others here in the hope of knowing him better.’ She stopped. ‘He watches you when you are not looking and I gather he is more than interested in what he sees.’
‘I am a widow, Lady Grainger, and no longer young. There is not much to see.’
‘You sell yourself short, my dear. You have endured one marriage to a man no one could stand and emerged out the other end of it almost intact. I salute you in that.’
This time Violet smiled. The woman was so undiplomatic it was almost refreshing and she’d heard that Elizabeth Grainger was neither a tittle-tattle nor a gossip.
‘I knew de la Tomber’s mother once. She was the kind of woman whom people were drawn to. Very much like yourself, in actual fact, and unconscious of it. The true and great beauties are always like that, I told my sister just the other night after seeing you and de Beaumont in the park.’
Flabbergasted at such praise Violet sat still, relieved when another of the woman’s friends came in to join them and she could escape.
She could not actually believe that such compliments were in any way deserved, but the elderly woman’s words had been sincere in their delivery and they had warmed her heart.
Aurelian de la Tomber had disappeared by the time she returned to the ballroom and it was not long before she also made her goodbyes.
Lady Elizabeth’s summation of the character of Douglas Cummings was also interesting and the Chichester connections rang alarm bells for this was the city near which George Taylor had been murdered and the timings were similar.
Was she imagining things that were not there and finding straws of guilt where none existed? She wished she could speak alone to Aurelian and tell him of her conjectures because of all the men in the world she knew he was the one who could make sense of them.
She awoke in the early hours of the morning to find him there standing at her window and looking out.
‘I wanted to make certain you’d arrived home safely and I had not said goodbye.’
‘Perhaps because you were besieged by women and they had your whole attention.’ This was petty, she knew, but she could not take it back.
He simply laughed.
