Chapter 20
SLOANE STREET, TWO WEEKS LATER
Until two weeks ago, Viveca hadn’t been aware of the existential possibility that one could step through the seconds, minutes, hours, and days of one’s life without feeling much at all.
In the mornings, her eyes had always popped open armed with intention and verve. The same went for how she dressed, ate, unlocked the front door of Sirens, greeted members, shelved books, and sorted through the mail and the occasional manuscript.
It had all been so purposeful and enlivening.
But that was before.
Before Blaze Jagger.
True to his name, he’d blazed through her life.
And now he was gone from it—and all that remained of her was smoking embers.
Even now, as Mrs. Dunlevy excitedly took her through Sirens’ ledgers—thirty-four new memberships in a single week!—Viveca could barely drum up the semblance of a smile as she said, “Isn’t that nice.”
She only noticed a full ten seconds of silence had passed when she felt them—Mrs. Dunlevy’s eyes boring into the side of her face. “Lady Viveca?”
She didn’t turn. “Yes?” For some reason, she was decidedly avoiding Mrs. Dunlevy’s gaze. She’d never concentrated so hard on Sirens’ accounts.
“May I be frank?”
Viveca had no choice. She could no longer put off meeting Mrs. Dunlevy’s probing brown eyes. “Of course.”
The woman gave her a—frank—up-and-down appraisal and nodded, as if she’d confirmed something to herself. “You’ve lost weight.”
“Have I?” She hadn’t noticed, but now that she thought about it, her dresses were fitting a smidge looser.
“And the roses have gone out of your cheeks.”
“Hmm.”
She hadn’t noticed that, either.
But then, she hadn’t looked in a mirror in two weeks.
“You’re sallow.”
“Oh.”
Mrs. Dunlevy directed her next salvo toward Saskia, who just so happened to be passing. “Doesn’t Lady Viveca look sallow?”
Saskia hardly looked up from the book she was reading—she’d perfected the art of walking and reading at the same time—and shrugged. “Nothing an hour of sunshine wouldn’t cure.”
“See?” asked Viveca, grateful for the loyalty of a sister.
Mrs. Dunlevy wasn’t so easily dissuaded. “Look at her, Lady Saskia,” she said. “Frankly—”
Viveca wasn’t sure how much more of Mrs. Dunlevy’s frankness she could endure.
“Frankly,” the woman continued, “Lady Viveca looks terrible. Truly look at her, Lady Saskia.”
And Saskia did just that.
Eyes narrowed in concentration, she truly looked at Viveca, who tried her best not to squirm in her chair and most definitely failed.
A vertical line formed between Saskia’s eyebrows. “Viveca, you do look terrible.”
Viveca didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
So, what emerged was a big, wet sob.
A lengthy five seconds ticked past, wherein the three conversational participants attempted to interpret the import of Viveca’s big, wet sob.
Mrs. Dunlevy lifted a decided index finger and pointed in the direction of the kitchen. “Tea.”
Saskia took that as her marching orders. “Right you are, Mrs. Dunlevy.”
It was the matter of a minute before Viveca was seated at the kitchen table with a blueberry scone in front of her.
After Saskia had discreetly cleared the room of Mrs. Stanton and Alice, she lowered into the chair opposite.
“Now,” she said—very firm…very unflinching…
very Saskia. “Tell me what is going on.”
For the first time in what felt like months, Viveca had the entirety of Saskia’s attention.
Which meant one thing.
She wouldn’t be able to obfuscate her way out of this.
She would have to tell the truth.
Or some of it, at least.
“Well, I’ve…oh…erm…” When had the truth become so difficult? “I, erm, entered into an entanglement.”
“An entanglement?” asked Saskia, confused and wary. “What sort of entanglement?”
“With a man.”
Saskia blinked. “A man?”
“A man.”
“But you haven’t had any suitors coming around.”
“I haven’t.”
“What sort of man, Viveca?”
“That’s a bit tricky.”
“Viveca, you’re not in trouble, are you?”
“Not that sort.”
Though it would be too early to tell, wouldn’t it?
No need to tell Saskia that particular truth.
Saskia’s eyes went wide, and she gasped. “You’ve been conducting a secret love affair.”
“I have.”
“And now…”
“It’s over.”
Oh, there was that big, wet sob again.
“He must be a nodcock.”
Viveca shook her head, adamant. “He isn’t. I suspect I am the nodcock.”
“You’re not a nodcock.”
Oh, wasn’t a sister’s loyalty worth a thousand rubies?
Saskia shook her head, distress writ clear in her expressive blue eyes. “I’m so sorry for not having noticed what you’re going through, Viveca. I’ve just been so busy.”
Viveca felt her head tip to the side. It was a single word that caught her attention.
Busy.
“Have you been any busier with Sirens than me?”
“Oh, I…erm…well…”
As Saskia stammered through an answer Viveca didn’t find worth paying attention to, for it was clearly a hastily cobbled together untruth, Viveca’s mind raced.
Her sister had, in fact, been a distant presence for months—going to bed early…
up at the crack of day, working on…Sirens’ accounts and ledgers.
Viveca’s brow crinkled.
There.
Saskia wasn’t Gabriel or Tessa. Accounts and ledgers didn’t fuel her lifeblood. Saskia was a reader. She even took notes on texts and wrote an essay about every single book she read. So, in that way, she was a writer, too.
Viveca’s brow trenched deeper into her forehead.
A writer.
Before she knew what she was about, Viveca was on her feet and dashing through the kitchen and up the private staircase that led to their private living quarters on the second floor.
Behind her, Saskia was fast on her heels. “Viveca, what are you on about?” she called out. “Are you feeling feverish?”
But Saskia’s voice felt oddly distant as Viveca burst into her sister’s bedroom. A suspicion had formed in her mind, and with each step, it firmed into certainty. She made straight for the desk and began rifling through drawers.
“This is a brazen invasion of my privacy,” Saskia exclaimed, her voice gone up several telling octaves.
It was in the bottom right drawer that Viveca’s certainty was confirmed. “A-ha!” she proclaimed, her hand clutched around a dense stack of papers that she lifted into the air, triumphant.
Saskia’s mouth opened, stayed that way for a full two seconds, then snapped shut.
“You, Lady Saskia Calthorp, are Miss Harriet LaPlume.”
Her sister’s shoulders heaved with a deep inhalation. “I am,” she said on the exhalation.
Though she’d already known it with absolute certainty, Viveca gasped. “Saskia,” she said, “you are Sirens Publishing’s brilliant new writer who is going to make our fortune.”
Saskia groaned. “Could you please stop saying that?”
“I’ll stop saying it. But I won’t stop thinking it.” Viveca crossed the room and took her sister’s hand, giving it an affectionate squeeze as they sat on the bed, side by side, as they always had in the sharing of confidences.
“What a lot you know of love, Saskia,” said Viveca, a bit in awe of her sister now that she knew her true identity.
“Oh?”
“As if you’ve experienced it.”
“Why would you think such a thing?”
“From your own words, of course.”
“My words? Oh, I see. Well, When a Lady Dares is fiction, isn’t it?”
“But one can extrapolate so many facts from fiction, can’t one?” said Viveca.
“I suppose.”
“You’re going to be as famous as Miss Austen.”
Saskia shook her head, eyes glinting with an edge of steel. “The nom de plume stays. That’s not negotiable, Viveca.”
Viveca nodded her reluctant agreement, but she had a question for her sister. “Why did you keep it secret for so long?”
She was trying not to feel hurt, but the fact was it stung. All their lives, she and Saskia had entrusted their most closely held secrets to each other as if they’d shared one heart.
“I needed it to be only for myself for a while,” said Saskia. “I can’t explain it.”
It was in the little, near-indiscernible crack in Saskia’s voice that Viveca, at last, heard and understood.
Saskia had created something, poured her entire self into it, and put this precious thing in Viveca’s hands to be possibly rejected.
This was a tender place for her sister.
And Viveca must accept and embrace it as a place Saskia occupied alone.
“Besides,” said Saskia. A canny light had entered her eyes. “Haven’t you ever felt that way about something? Or perhaps, someone?”
The breath caught in Viveca’s lungs.
Oh.
Her secret love affair.
Blaze.
But she saw now with the wisdom afforded by time and distance it had been a mistake to have kept him secret.
And that wasn’t her only mistake.
You’re impenetrable…impermeable…
Nothing touches you.
He was right to have rejected her.
That was what she understood in this moment.
He wanted more.
He deserved more.
“Oh,” breathed Viveca, her heart hammering in her chest.
Saskia’s brow lifted. “Oh?”
“What day of the week is it?”
“You don’t know the day of the week?”
“I lost track.”
“Wednesday.”
Viveca had hoped that would be Saskia’s answer. “And what time is it?”
“Come on, Viveca,” said Saskia, plainly exasperated. “It’s half two in the afternoon.”
“Oh.” Viveca had already risen to her feet. “There might still be time.”
“Time? Time for what?”
“To catch him.”
“Catch who?”
Viveca was already across the room, fingers wrapped around the door handle. “I have something I must say to someone.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me who he is?”
“If it goes well, you’ll know soon enough,” she called over her shoulder, the words trailing in her wake as she rushed down corridor and stairs. “Wish me luck.”
Don’t you want to marry for love?
Those were the words that dogged Viveca’s every step until she was outside and hailing a hackney cab.
Finally, she understood.
Blaze wanted to marry for love.
That was what had been missing from all her propositions—the mention of love.
The declaration of it.
She’d done little more than make him feel like he was only an interesting source of pleasure to her.
And he was so much more.
He enlivened her.
He was precious to her.
He was everything to her.
What she hadn’t done was tell Blaze the most important thing.
She loved him.
And she must tell him.
Even if it was too late.