The Husband Trap (21 page)

“Oh, poor girl.” She stood, turned to Kit. “You will have to excuse me. I must go see if there is anything I can do for her.”

Kit stood, as good manners dictated. “Of course. You must let me know how she fares.”

March and the duchess left the room. Kit closed the door behind them and turned to resume his seat. With all the hubbub, he might be able to elude detection for some time. That being the case, he decided to indulge himself in a short nap while he had the opportunity.

His gaze alighted upon his sister-in-law’s chair and the corner of what looked to be a book, poking out from between the chair’s side and the seat cushion. Curious, he walked closer, tugged the volume from its hiding place.

The
Aeneid.

He blinked, stared at the spine. How very singular, he thought. What on earth was such a bloody literary bore doing in Jeannette’s chair, of all places? Surely she had noticed the wretched thing digging a hole into her hip when she’d sat?

Just holding it gave him shudders.

He flipped open the front cover, eyes glazing when he saw it was written in the original Latin. For a fleeting instant, he’d hoped it would be a translation. He might have gotten some use out of that; Dittlesby adored plaguing him with passages from Virgil. But Adrian, crafty bastard that he was, had seen to it that all the English versions of the books Kit was studying had been removed from the library shortly after his arrival. He was going to have to have a chat with his older brother soon. This blatant harassment must end, even if he had brought most of it down upon his own head.

So what was he to make of finding this book in Jeannette’s chair? She wasn’t exactly the scholarly type. He doubted she ever cracked open a book. It was certain she hadn’t been reading this one. Lord, he couldn’t read it, even if he wished to. Perhaps Adrian had carried it into the room—he was, wouldn’t you know, fluent in Latin—and had forgotten it on the chair. Wasn’t like big brother to be careless with a book, though. Adrian was never careless with anything. It was, Kit concluded, a confounded great mystery.

He pondered it for a few moments more, then decided he really should get moving on that nap business while the chance was ripe. Returning the book to the place he had found it, he added a log to the fire, stretched out comfortably in his chair and closed his eyes.

Chapter Twelve

Another letter for Jeannette arrived the next morning.

As with the first, Violet didn’t immediately recognize its significance. All innocence, she lifted the missive from the silver salver March placed at her elbow and broke the seal. The scandalous words leapt off the page, smacking her hard between the eyes.

My dearest darling. How I ache for want of you…

Hastily she refolded the letter, clutched it in her suddenly damp palm. Blast Jeannette. Obviously she hadn’t written to discourage her lover. She probably hadn’t even tried.

Violet contemplated the fire burning in the grate. Such a simple thing to toss the letter in and watch it blacken to ash. Yet ultimately the small act of cowardice would solve nothing, give her little more than a temporary respite. And there was her conscience to consider—annoying thing that it was—chiding her to remember the letter was not hers to destroy.

She would have to write Jeannette again, she decided. Stress most emphatically that this dangerous correspondence between her twin and her mystery lover must end.

With that in mind, she crossed to the fire. Heating the metal letter opener in the flames, she used a skillful hand to repair the wax seal. Satisfied with the result, she found ink and pen and began to compose her letter.

A completely different sort of letter arrived from Adrian’s mother a couple of days later. Deciding there was no point in delaying a response, Violet went to the first-floor drawing room to draft her reply.

Kit and Vicar Dittlesby were already there, working hard, as they generally did in the afternoons. Although there were other places she could have sought out pen and paper, the drawing-room writing desk was the most convenient. Her plan was to slip in, barely noticed—it was, after all, a very spacious room—and quietly compose her message.

Both men rose to their feet at her entrance.

She waved them back into their chairs. “Please do not trouble yourselves over me. I have come to write a few letters. I shall be ever so quiet. Forget I am even here.”

“Good afternoon, Duchess.” The vicar bowed, sending the puffed white wig on his head into a perilous quiver that threatened to topple it to the floor. “Are we disturbing you?”

He raised his tin listening horn to his ear, all attention.

“No, no, I fear I am the one guilty of causing a disruption,” she said. “Pray continue with your lesson.”

The vicar nodded, his voice loud. “Yes, we are having a lesson. We can work elsewhere if you would prefer that we withdraw.”

She met Kit’s eyes, which glittered with resigned humor. “Sister,” he greeted.

“Kit.” She nodded, then turned back to the vicar. She modulated her voice in hopes of being better understood this time. “Do not leave. Pray sit.” She motioned him down with her hands. “Continue your work and pay no mind to me. I shall be at my desk, composing a few letters.”

“Letters? No, we are presently reviewing the conjugation of irregular Latin verbs. Your attention to such matters does you credit. You are a most refined and gracious lady.”

She goggled at him for a moment. “Yes, well, thank you. Carry on. As I said, I shall be writing a few letters.” She smiled, pantomiming the act. Understanding lighted suddenly in the old man’s eyes. He nodded, bowed again.

She shared another amused look with Kit, stifled a smirk and retreated to the escritoire. The men resumed their lesson.

With a quick glance around to make certain they were occupied, she donned her glasses, angling her head so her face could not be easily seen.

She began the letter to her mother-in-law by inquiring after the dowager’s health, and that of Adrian’s sister Sylvia and her family. Last Violet had heard, Sylvia’s pregnancy was progressing well. Although her sister-in-law had recently taken to her bed for several days after an unfortunate incident involving her five-year-old son, an afternoon tea party and a jar full of frogs.

She smiled, chuckling softly at the recollection of the droll story as she continued her letter. She listened with half an ear to the progress being made behind her. Poor Kit, she thought, he was having a dreadful time of it, struggling over a subject he so obviously detested.

Personally, she enjoyed Latin. Women generally were not exposed to such disciplines, concentrating instead on proper female pursuits: needlework, watercolor painting, geography, French, maybe a little Italian. And had it not been for language lessons, she might never have learned Latin either. But the tutor hired to teach her and Jeannette Italian had also been hired to instruct her brother in the classics. The similarities between the old and new languages sparked her initial interest. Helping Darrin complete his translations did the rest. By the time she was fourteen, she was accomplished enough to read Latin on her own.

“That is incorrect, your lordship.” The vicar sighed in obvious frustration. “You should have mastered this long, long ago. You must memorize. Only then will the translations go smoothly. Please recite all tenses of the imperfect subjunctive of
ire.
”

She listened, silently repeating them with him. She willed him to find the correct answer through each long, painful pause as he fought to find the words.

Finally, they moved on to the next. “
Nolle,
your lordship, pluperfect active.”

She murmured them to herself as she wrote another sentence of her letter.
“Nolueram, nolueras, noluerat, nolueramus, nolueratis, noluerant.”

Kit muddled his way through with only one mistake in third-person singular.

“
Nolle
again, your lordship, pluperfect subjunctive.”

Barely aware she was doing it, she muttered the answers, forgetting to keep her voice as low as she should have.

She didn’t see Kit’s head shift in her direction.

“Continue. Second person, your lordship,” the vicar stated.

“Noluisses,”
she said quietly.

Kit repeated the word.

“Good, good, continue,” the vicar encouraged.

“Noluisset,”
she murmured.

He repeated what she’d said.

“Excellent. And the rest?”

“Noluissemus, noluissetis, noluissent.”

Kit listened to her, incredulous, scarcely able to comprehend what he was hearing. Jeannette knew Latin! How was that possible? Stunned, he’d listened while she said the answers, repeating them back to the vicar in a kind of amazed awe. Jeannette knew the answers. She’d gotten every single one of them right. He stared at her as she bent over her writing. If she’d suddenly sprouted wings and levitated into the air, he could not have been more surprised.

He remembered the book by Virgil that he had found in her study several days ago. At the time, he’d told himself it belonged to Adrian. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“Very well done, my lord. I believe you are improving. Let us try a translation.” The vicar scratched a quotation onto the slate he had set up earlier.

Kit forced his attention toward the board, his mind awhirl from what he had just learned. He struggled to decipher the words. “Patient and stubborn, hurt will be of use?”

“No, my lord,” the vicar said in disappointment. “It begins, ‘Be patient and tough.’ You attempt the rest.”

“Be patient and tough…” he repeated, his brow furrowed.

Jeannette giggled ever so softly. He looked her way and that was when he saw her,
really
saw her, as she peeked over her shoulder to read the indecipherable words on the slate.

She had on eyeglasses.

Jeannette didn’t wear eyeglasses. She had told him once at a party that ladies who cared about their looks found ways to do without spectacles. Lucky for her she’d never had to worry since she was blessed with perfect eyesight.

“My lord,” the vicar encouraged. “Be patient and tough…”

Then he heard her murmur the rest of the saying under her breath before she turned back to her writing.

“For one day this pain will be useful to you.”

Ordinarily he would have chaffed under the vicar’s little dig. But right now he didn’t have time to care about the quotation because he’d discovered a most astonishing truth.

His sister-in-law was an imposter.

The following day at luncheon, while they were dining on a splendid braised veal with tiny button mushrooms, Violet began to notice a difference in Kit. The change was nothing overt. A few longer-than-usual glances her way. An odd glint in his green-gold eyes whenever he addressed a question or comment to her.

At first, she shrugged it off. Overactive imagination, no doubt, brought on by a lack of sleep. Adrian had been in a particularly amorous mood last night. He’d kept her awake until the wee hours, waking her to make love a final time shortly after dawn, much to her sleepy delight. Now she was paying the price for their carnal indulgence, tired and imagining things.

Adrian, she noted, seemed disgustingly well rested and content. He grinned at her after eating a forkful of carrots, then continued his discussion of Gothic architecture with the vicar and Mr. Dalton, who had accepted an invitation to dine.

She raised a hand to her mouth to cover a delicate yawn, and once again caught her brother-in-law staring. She tossed him an inquiring gaze, arched a single upward eyebrow. He met her look with an inscrutable one of his own, then lowered his eyes and continued his meal.

She wanted to question him over his uncharacteristic behavior, but couldn’t, not with the other men present in the room. And afterward, there was no time.

Kit excused himself as soon as the meal was concluded, the vicar shuffling in his wake, eager to continue their studies. Adrian and Mr. Dalton begged her permission to withdraw as well; more business that required their attention.

Leaving the servants to tidy up, she consigned thoughts of Kit and his odd watchfulness to the back of her mind and went to the conservatory. Horatio padded beside her, his nails tapping musically against the flagstone floors.

The vast glass-enclosed room was a marvel of light and air, warm and tranquil even on chill, dreary days such as today. Raindrops pattered against the multitudinous panes, merging into thin watery lines that spiraled and squiggled their way toward the earth.

Flora thrived in a lush abundance of green, packing the space full of color and life. Several varieties of flowers were in bloom, including the roses she had come to snip. On her way toward them, she passed a pair of orange trees, tall and thriving in immense clay pots that must weigh a couple hundred pounds apiece. Spring lilies in shades of pink and yellow and red showed off their trumpet-throated glory, vital despite blooming well out of season.

Violet stopped before the roses. Horatio settled down nearby.