The Countess Conspiracy

He leaned back and listened with half an ear, watching Violet rummage through her bag through lidded eyes. Apparently, everyone else thought she could be ignored, but even this, the most prosaic of actions, made him smile.

“I’m partial to butter cream,” Robert was saying.

“You don’t get a vote,” Oliver countered. “You don’t get to eat my wife’s gown. I feel that would be improper.”

Violet began to empty her bag: Yarn. Needles. More yarn. A half-finished scarf.

Nobody was watching her by that point—nobody but Sebastian. Nobody but him saw her smile of triumph. Nobody saw her pull out the fashion magazine with a flourish.

The flourish was a mistake. She held it up in triumph; as she did, sheets of paper slipped from between the pages, cascading to the floor.

Violet’s face grew pale.

Sebastian could not read the pages from this side of the room, but he could recognize their format even from here. Two columns, that stiff-looking heading, sketches that he could identify even from here as single-celled organisms.

Scientific papers. Violet kept scientific papers sliced up in her fashion magazine. They were all over the floor. If anyone saw them, they might guess her secret.

He wanted to guffaw, but if he did, he’d draw attention to her. And for better or for worse, this was a secret between the two of them. Violet kicked a page under her skirt.

“Jane,” Sebastian said heartily, leaning forward so that everyone looked at him, instead of glancing across the room. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. How do you order a gown by accident?”

It worked; everyone’s attention turned to him.

“Oh.” Jane frowned. “It happens like this. I have a pair of the most wonderful gowns. They are dyed the most brilliant colors. My favorite of the lot is fuchsine—this bright, ungodly pink that you absolutely must see to believe.”

Beside her, Oliver smiled faintly.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian saw Violet leaning down, ever so carefully, gathering up the papers. One crinkled. She winced, but nobody turned.

“The dye itself,” Jane continued, “is an aniline derivative—a new invention. There was another green aniline dye that I adored, although the gown made from that one was sadly ruined by a rainstorm.”

“I can vouch for that,” Oliver said with a lopsided smile. “I have very fond memories of that one.”

Violet grabbed for another page, then another, and then finally had the lot gathered up. All she had to do was stuff them away in her bag. Sebastian breathed a sigh. Violet straightened, opening the mouth of her bag.

“And so I thought,” Jane said, “that I needed to expand my wardrobe. Fuchsine is utterly shocking the first time you see it. By the time you’ve worn it in public five or six times, though, people begin to grow accustomed to it.”

Violet stopped. In the middle of the room, she glanced down at the article she held. To Sebastian’s horror, she frowned and… Oh, God, no. She started to read.

He wanted to shake her, to grab hold of her and remind her where they were, what she was doing. Not now, Violet. Don’t get distracted now. But he didn’t dare draw attention to her.

When Sebastian was twelve, he’d wagered Lucas Jimmeson that his hound was the fastest dog around. They’d engineered a contest—one where they would throw a stick and see whose animal managed to retrieve it first.

The stick had sailed in the air; the count sounded. On three, Sebastian had loosed his dog. His animal had immediately jumped into the lead, chasing with a fervor that put his neighbor’s dog to shame.

And then, two feet before his jaws could close on the prize, his dog had stopped, turned—and taken off after a squirrel.

Sebastian felt like that now. Violet wasn’t a dog, but that same sense of amused frustration filled him. Wrong contest, Violet. You’re trying to win the wrong contest.

“So I ordered a quantity of the dye,” Jane was telling everyone, “with the highest of hopes. But look. Such a disappointment. It’s just blue. A pox on aniline blue.”

That was the moment when Minnie looked up and saw Violet standing in the middle of the room, staring at those pages.

“Did you find the issue?” she asked.

Violet didn’t answer.

“Violet?”

They were going to see it at any moment. Their subterfuge would be shattered. Any moment, someone would ask—

“Violet, what are you reading?”

Just like that.

Sebastian stood. “Oh, is that one of my scientific articles?” he asked jovially. “I must have left it on the table. Here, Violet, hand me the pages.”

He stepped toward her. She didn’t respond.

“Hand me the pages, Violet.” He didn’t even dare give her a meaningful look, lest anyone else wonder. But look or no, she still didn’t budge.

“Violet,” he said a little more loudly. “Let me take those from you. Go join everyone else.”

It was wrong to say she wasn’t moving. She was, actually. She was swaying ever so slightly, as if there were a wind in the room that only she could sense. Her eyes darted down the page; her whole face lit.

And that was when Sebastian realized how dire things truly were. She wasn’t merely distracted. She was off chasing through the woods, baying full-throatedly at an idea only she could sense.

“Violet.” He put his hand over the abstract, blocking her vision, and dropped his voice. “Stop. You don’t want to do this. Not now. Not here.”

For a moment, he was certain she heard him. She blinked, looking up at him. And then she gave her head a shake. “No,” she said. “You were totally wrong, Sebastian. Completely wrong.”

“I’m fairly certain—”

She looked up. Her eyes were lit with a brilliant fervor. “It’s the snapdragons all over again,” she said, which made no sense. “Your violets. They don’t cross; of course, not all species do, no matter how similar they may appear. But I have an idea.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I have an idea,” she repeated. And then she whirled around. “Jane, I need all your aniline blue.”

“What?!” Jane said.

But Sebastian could have told her that Violet wasn’t really listening. She was somewhere inside her mind, grappling with some concept that had her whole body lighting up from head to toe.

“Also,” Violet said, “I need a microscope. I need a microscope right now.”