The Countess Conspiracy

“Mr. Malheur sent me,” Violet lied shamelessly. “I have an errand to run and my street is a little crowded at the moment.”

“Ah, most likely it is.”

“He offered up your services. If it would please you?”

“Of course, my lady.” The driver frowned. “Where to?”

She’d told Sebastian to wait in her library. Obviously she hadn’t thought this through. The afternoon was more than half over, and her destination was ten miles away. He was going to be waiting a very long time.

Nothing to be done about that.

“To Mr. Benedict Malheur’s house,” Violet said. “Of course.”

They didn’t complain or ask questions. They simply hitched the horses, handed her into the carriage, and then left.

Violet had brought her bag with her; that meant she had knitting. She pulled out the mass of yarn—a thing she hadn’t worked on in weeks now—and stared at it. A scarf. A scarf of green and gray stripes. That’s what she’d been making. She counted the rows of green to remind herself where she’d left off—five more before she switched—and started to knit once more.

“HE’S NOT RECEIVING VISITORS,” the butler told Violet.

She stood on the wide front steps, Sebastian’s carriage behind her, and blinked at the man in front of her.

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.

Still, there was no reason to be rude. Yet.

“Naturally,” Violet said. “But I’m not a visitor.”

The man squinted at her.

“I grew up practically next door,” she said as sweetly as she could manage under the circumstances. “When I was five, Benedict Malheur saved me from a plague of frogs brought on by the Jimmesons half a mile away. I came as soon as I heard he was ill. Under the circumstances, I hardly count as a visitor.”

The man frowned at her. “Here,” she said, handing over a card. “Take this to him. Let him decide.”

He took the thick paper in his hands. Not a flicker of expression showed as he glanced at her name.

Maybe he didn’t know who she was. Although that seemed unlikely. More likely, he knew that Violet’s name had been linked with Sebastian’s, and he’d understood the connection.

In either case, he could not leave the Countess of Cambury waiting on the doorstep. So he ushered her inside.

“You may wait in the parlor,” he said. “I’ll go see if the master’s awake and well enough to talk.”

This, she understood, was the polite way to say “I’ll pretend to ask before sending you away.”

Still, she nodded pleasantly. “Thank you,” Violet said, and settled herself into a comfortable chair. To set him at ease, she took her knitting from her bag and started on the next row.

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.

Violet focused on her needles, purling as if she had nothing on her mind except the flow of yarn between her fingers. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the man go up the stairs. He turned around a bend and disappeared from her sight.

She dumped her needles in her bag and carefully crept after him.

The house was quiet, as if everyone in it were keeping silence in hopes that it would help their master recover. Her footsteps seemed too loud by comparison. Wood creaked as she put her weight on one stair. But there was no turning back. She could only hope that nobody would notice.

She came to the top of the staircase just in time to see the butler open a door and step inside.

No point waiting to be caught. She didn’t have time to dilly-dally. She marched down the hall and yanked the door open.

The bedroom beyond was dimly lit, the curtains drawn. Benedict Malheur was sitting up in bed—she hoped that was a good sign—with his butler standing before him, arm reached out, in the act of handing over Violet’s card.

Both men turned to Violet. The butler frowned; Benedict simply looked resigned.

“My apologies,” she said, entirely unapologetically. “But after I handed over my card, I realized that I had completely forgotten to tell you the purpose of my visit. I hope you don’t mind the interruption.”

The butler took a step toward her.

But Violet had been counting on Benedict—mild-mannered, good-tempered Benedict—to put things right. “Of course I don’t mind,” he said. “There’s nothing duller than a sickbed. I’d be glad of a little company.”

The butler huffed. “So long as he does not get excited…”

“Don’t worry,” Violet said airily. “I have little desire to see your master dead.”

Benedict’s mouth quirked up at that—an expression so like Sebastian’s smile that she wanted to smack him over the head for his temerity in reminding her of him.

“Pull up a chair for the Countess of Cambury,” he said with a smile, “and then, Smith, you may leave until I ring for you.”

“Very well, sir.” This was said with an air of faint disapproval.

The butler chose a chair from the wall—the one with the thinnest cushion, Violet noted, and set it several feet from the bed at an uncomfortable angle. Violet sat, and then, when Benedict gave another firm nod, the servant disappeared.

“Well, Your Ladyship,” Benedict said. “I’m pleased to see you, although I only wish that the circumstances were more auspicious. Obviously, this is a reminder that I shouldn’t wait until ill health strikes to spend time with old friends.”

No comment at all on recent events.

She had never trusted his smile or his pleasant demeanor. She leveled a look at him. “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.”

“Yes,” he said. “You did, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question, and there was something altogether too mild in his tone.