Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Viola had expected dinner at Lady Beringbroke’s to be an intimate affair. Nothing had prepared her for the sumptuous, glamorous event that awaited them. And all those people!
It appeared half the ton was invited.
Viola felt decidedly ill at ease, and was, for once, relieved that she’d followed Georgiana’s advice and put on a forest green dress with a matching shawl, and her hair was once more braided and tucked upward.
She’d left off her cap and her spectacles, as Georgiana had demanded, and now she had nothing to hide behind.
She’d entered with Georgiana and her husband, Lord Fenleigh, and now she stood about, holding a glass of champagne in her hand, knowing absolutely no one.
Until Peregrine sauntered into the room.
Viola choked on her champagne.
He paused, smirked upon seeing her standing awkwardly beside a massive blue-white porcelain vase, yet thankfully pretended not to know her, and turned to talk to a gentleman with a striped waistcoat who looked every bit the dandy like him.
“Lockwood,” Georgiana sighed next to her. She was wearing a mauve dress with a gigantic peacock feather that was said to be all the crack. “It turns out he is married, but has his wife hidden away in Scotland.” She waved her matching peacock fan slowly.
“That’s what I tried to tell you that very first day, but you barely listened,” Viola told her. Peregrine rarely mentioned his wife. Theirs had been an arranged marriage, and they had a similar agreement as she and Sebastian.
“We have agreed to live separate lives,” he’d told her once. Married but strangers.
Viola understood that arrangement only too well.
“So many eligible gentlemen,” Georgiana sighed. “And all of them so unapproachable. Earlier, I saw Greenwood and Conway and Metcalfe, all perfectly eligible. Oh, and Fane, too. Here he is now.”
“What! He is here?” Viola looked up just in time to see him striding into the room, and the hostess, Lady Beringbroke, fluttering towards him, taking his arm and leading him to a group of gentlemen who stood at the other side of the room. She did not know he’d be here.
“Naturally. It is a Tory gathering here if I ever saw one.” She fluttered her fan. “Lord Beringbroke is a tremendous Tory supporter, you know.”
She hadn’t known.
“Ah, Mr Mainwaring.” She nodded regally at the man who had just approached them.
“Lady Fenleigh, you look as charming as ever.” He bowed over her hand. “And Lady Viola! What a pleasure to meet you again. As everyone knows, this is a prodigiously important evening where many politicians are gathered. It promises to be a tremendously interesting evening.”
Viola surprised herself by feeling slightly relieved to see him; however, that did not last long.
He took her hand and held it for a moment longer than was necessary. She gently pulled her hand away and resisted the urge to wipe it on her dress.
“I am to take you to supper,” he told her happily and offered her his arm.
Supper.
Goodness, that was one of the most tedious suppers she had ever experienced in her entire life.
Sebastian, thankfully, was sitting far away from her at the head of the table, next to the host. He was possibly unaware that she was sitting right there at the same table with him. Or if he had seen her, he staunchly ignored her.
Which was just fine, for they had agreed to do just that, had they not? To ignore each other and to pretend they were total strangers whenever they met. To not even make eye contact, not even once, and to avoid, under all circumstances, acknowledging the other’s existence.
Lady Beringbroke touched his sleeve gently and smiled at him, nodding at something he had said. She clearly adored every word that came out of his mouth.
Viola gripped the knife rather harder than was necessary, so it squeaked on the porcelain.
He was leaning back now, listening attentively to his host before responding.
The topic was—how could it be otherwise?—politics.
Some sinking fund, or the precise number of shillings at which foreign wheat ought to be permitted entry. She hardly knew. She hardly cared. The gentlemen grew heated over decimal points while the ladies smiled glassily at their fish.
Mr Mainwaring, however, had followed it all with interest, then turned to Viola to ask, “What is your view, Lady Viola? Surely you must have an opinion on the matter?” He brushed her hand quite by accident.
“Truth be told, I find anything pertaining to politics monstrously dull,” Viola confessed, somewhat louder than intended, right into the silence.
The heads snapped towards her.
There was some snickering.
Sebastian’s mouth hardened, and something flickered across his expression.
Oh, bother. He had clearly heard her. So much for him not noticing her.
Viola flushed and buried her face in her wineglass. Well, it couldn’t be helped.
But Mr Mainwaring was visibly dismayed. “But Lady Viola, how could you not find it of profound interest to debate about the precise price threshold at which foreign corn should be permitted into the country? Let me tell you, things are as follows: as everyone knows…” And then he went off again, expounding at length about a topic she cared little about.
She suppressed a yawn. She nodded at appropriate intervals and wondered whether it would be a terrible breach of etiquette if she were to kick off her slippers since they pinched something dreadful.
After supper, when the gentlemen retreated, leaving the ladies to their tea, she slipped out to the lady’s room.
Just at that moment, the door to the billiard room, where the gentlemen were gathered, opened, and a gentleman emerged.
Viola suppressed a groan.
Peregrine.
If she hurried, maybe he wouldn’t see her. She had almost reached the door to the lady’s retirement room when she heard rapid footsteps behind her.
“Viola. A word.”
She turned with a sigh. “Peregrine. What now?”
“In here.” He opened the door to the library and waited for her to follow.
With a sigh, she entered, and he closed the door behind her.
“I thought we agreed you would leave me alone until I delivered the manuscript. It isn’t ready yet, and I still have three months to finish it.” She crossed her arms and tapped a foot on the floor.
“That isn’t the issue,” Peregrine paced nervously. “How far are you with the current manuscript?”
Viola weighed whether to tell him the truth or a fib, then went for the truth. “I just started.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Because you need to start over again.”
She started. “What? But you haven’t even seen what I’ve written. Why are you asking me to revise it blindly?”
“Because the publisher now wants us to go in a different direction.”
“What do you mean?”
“With the success of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein this summer, a simple tale of terror will pale in comparison. Even if it is written by the ever-popular Selina Sable.” He gave her a nod of acknowledgement.
Viola could see the argument. She threw up her hands. “Well, what am I to do, then? Pack my bags and leave the field to Shelley?”
“No, no, that isn’t what I’m saying.” He took another turn around the floor.
“Then pray, Peregrine, say what you mean and don’t hedge around.”
“Your books are as beloved as ever. But at the moment, it might not be a good move to launch one that is in the same genre as Shelley’s, not when her novel is such an immense success. The publisher thinks you should veer ever so slightly.”
Viola blinked at him with irritation. “I have no idea what you mean. Veer how?”
“It’s simple, really.” He waved a manicured hand about. “You write sensationalist romance with verve and success. Except this time, you veer a little more into the, you know,” he made a helpless movement, “into the, ahem, more explicit direction.”
“Explicit direction.”
“Well, yes.” He cleared his throat. “Be a little more, you know. Honest? Revealing? Descriptive? Regarding certain amorous scenes, that is.”
Viola planted her hands on her hips and stared at the ceiling. “In other words, you want me to write smut.”
“Well, not precisely in that manner, not exactly, to be true, but dash it, yes, that’s exactly what they want.
Think about it.” He leaned forward eagerly.
“Your stories have always had this sumptuous, sensuous, seductive undertone; it is what makes a good Selina Sable story. Your stories are titillating and addictive. Your next book will be just a tad, no, let us say, explicitly more…explicit.”
“You want me to write filth.”
“Goodness no! I am not talking about anything quite as salacious. Just a teeny tiny bit more…explicit.” He pinched thumb and forefinger in front of her to indicate a minuscule amount. “Use your imagination as freely as you will. I guarantee if you do, it will sell like wildfire.”
“I don’t know, Peregrine—” Viola began.
“I know you can do it, my girl. I know you can! Think of the success we will have. You will have,” he quickly corrected himself. “The success will be all yours, and yours alone. Think about it, will you? I expect to read the first chapter in a month, my dear.”
“Peregrine!”
But he’d already moved to the door, tapped two fingers to his temple as a way of saying farewell, and departed, leaving her standing in the library flummoxed, angry, and annoyed.
By the time Viola had composed herself and returned to the salon, where the remaining guests were assembled, she found it had turned into a battlefield. Except that here they were fighting with words, and not with swords.
“It is sound economic reasoning.” A voice cut through the room, cold and scathing.
“You’ve personally examined the customs ledgers, have you?
No? Then you are parroting a number you read in a penny pamphlet written by a man who has never set foot west of Bristol.
I have lived in Dublin. I have read the account.
Your figure is a fiction, and a lazy one at that. ”