Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Viola was in a vile mood the next morning, underscored with a pounding headache and a general feeling of malaise, which no doubt led them to have another row at breakfast.
She found him buried in his correspondence again, and Viola had a sudden urge to pick up the salver and throw the entire contents into the fireplace.
She found herself inexplicably jealous of that piece of paper he so carefully held in his hands, which took all his attention. As if it were something precious.
When he finally set his work aside, he looked at her briefly and asked what her plans for the day were.
He clearly meant it as a polite opening to a conversation, but she replied she wanted to visit Newgate Prison again before dropping by Lady Penworthy’s for tea.
There was to be another illicit book club meeting that afternoon, but that she did not share.
Which then resulted in Sebastian telling her somewhat testily that she would have to be more circumspect about the places she visited, for the butler had informed him she had been visiting Seven Dials, and that ‘simply would not do’.
She set her fork aside and folded her hands in front of her. “But why ever not? It’s a place like any other.”
“It certainly is not. I cannot have my wife stroll about in St Giles as if she were on a walk in Hyde Park.” He set down his coffee cup with rather more force than necessary. “Aside from the fact that it is improper, it is also highly dangerous.”
“Ah yes. What would the people think and all that. Reputation and whatnot.” She glared at him.
“What would the world come to if Mr Fane were ever brought into contact with the indecorous and impolite? I must say, last night’s excursion to the Minerva must have sorely tested your delicate sensibilities.
Aren’t you relieved no one recognised you? ”
“You are straying from the point. This has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you.” His jaw tightened.
“I do not understand your perpetual fascination with the morbid, to the extent that you deliberately expose yourself to danger. The Rookery is dangerous. I want you to stay away from it.”
He was being a pompous ass. That he was not entirely wrong only made it worse.
“Nothing much happened,” Viola said with a careless shrug. “It was a wholly futile excursion. I had hoped to glimpse some notorious nest of villainy, but all I encountered was a decrepit gin shop and a few peculiar, drunken figures. Entirely unremarkable, I assure you.”
“Heaven help me,” Sebastian exclaimed, “how can you so much as set foot in such a place and expect to come out alive again?”
“Ellen was with me,” Viola said quickly, as though that ought to settle the matter. “And there is truly no cause for alarm. We brought a pistol.”
That, at last, robbed him of speech. His jaw worked back and forth, a rare and rather impressive sight considering he was one of the most gifted orators in the Commons, a man never known to lack for words.
Viola folded her napkin and placed it on the table. “Well then, if you don’t mind, I shall rise and ready myself for the day. I have a great many respectable things to do.” And with her chin lifted high, and nary a backward glance, she sailed from the room.
Viola ended up staying at the Penworthy mansion the entire day. It was good for her to be surrounded by feminine energy. By women who actually understood her and who did not spare their sympathies when she unloaded her woes regarding her cold, cruel, insensitive husband.
“He has as much understanding of romance and passion as a turnip. When he looks at the moon, he sees an unwashed plate. He’s the sharpest mind in Parliament, yet he turns into a pudding-headed numbskull when it comes to understanding even the basic notion of the ‘sublime,’” she complained bitterly.
“He fails to grasp the essence of what makes it so wonderful, so thrilling. It took all my restraint not to throw my reticule at his head when he called ‘The Monk and The Maiden’ a vulgar play.”
The women clucked disapprovingly. “Well, what else can one expect from Fane? He is well known to be the starchiest stickler of the lot.” Mrs Brownlow, a woman around Viola’s age, sniffed.
Next to Josephine, she was one of her most fervent readers.
“Though one could also argue that Mr Eldon might outdo him in that regard. I heard he declared Mrs Sable’s books to be ‘wanton, depraved tales that unsettle the female mind’, and he went as far as proposing a formal parliamentary inquiry to prohibit such filth. His words. Can you imagine!”
Viola choked.
“And to give Fane credit, he was the one to stand up and shut him down immediately. Called it a spectacular waste of Parliament’s time to occupy themselves with the reading habits of ladies when they had actual problems to attend to.”
Viola’s jaw dropped. “He did not!”
“He did so,” Josephine affirmed. “Sir William confirmed Mrs Brownlow’s story.”
“Well.” Viola swallowed. “That must have happened before we went to see the play…” He hadn’t mentioned that interlude in Parliament. Why not?
“But what prompted Eldon to suddenly go on this crusade? I find it excessively odd behaviour, even coming from him,” asked Mrs Brownlow with a disapproving frown.
“He must have read Mrs Sable’s newest book,” Josephine interjected. “I heard his daughter had a subscription copy delivered early. Secretly, of course. Apparently, he found it in her room and nearly had an apoplexy.”
Viola sat up straight. “We are talking about The Monk and the Maiden, yes?”
“But no, no, no! I was about to announce it myself; I am quite beside myself with excitement.” Josephine got up, picked up a leather-bound tome from her drawer, and waved it about triumphantly.
“Fresh off the press! Mrs Sable’s newest book!
Isn’t it wonderful? I obtained a copy for each of us.
I thought we could start reading it immediately, together. ”
The women crowed in simultaneous rapture.
“What a delight!” Mrs Brownlow exclaimed. “The Demon Lover of Castle Morvino! Ooh! This promises to be such a deliciously naughty read!”
“The Demon Lover? It can’t be. It ought to be The Ghost of Gildenstone Abbey!” Viola picked up a copy and stared at the embossed letters on the cover. The letters swam before her eyes.
“It can’t be,” she gasped. “It is utterly impossible!”
“I tell you, ladies,” Josephine announced, “this promises to be Mrs Sable’s best book yet. Why, based on this brief excerpt I read, she even makes me blush, and you know I normally blush as easily as a brick.” She fanned herself.
Viola flipped through the book hectically. “But how? But why?” How was this possible? Why had this story been printed? What happened to Gildenstone Abbey? How did the publisher get his hands on this story?
Her mind flew back. She’d been in a hurry that day. She’d grabbed the leather folder from the bottom drawer of the desk and given it to Peregrine…
…and closed her eyes with a groan.
There it was. Right there. She must have grabbed the wrong folder.
She’d given the wrong manuscript to Peregrine.
The one with her earliest stories. The one she’d never intended to be published, because she’d been entirely irrational when she’d written it.
Shortly after she believed Sebastian had emotionally abandoned her and their baby.
She’d written it in a haze, a whirlwind of wild pain, yearning, desire, and bristling fury.
Afterwards, when she’d reread it, she’d winced and decided it was too explicit, too unrestrained. She’d left nothing to the imagination. Even she agreed it was too scandalous for publication. So she’d locked it away in that folder and placed it in that drawer.
Yet here it was. Printed, published, and tied with a bow. For the entire world to read.
And according to the giggles and shrieks of her fellow book club readers, who’d already begun devouring it, she’d definitely hit the mark. They cast shrewd looks and whispered with each other as they pointed out certain passages in the book.
Viola whimpered.
For this wasn’t just any story.
She’d immortalised Sebastian in it.
As the villain.
The ceiling tilted.
“Viola!” Josephine rushed to her and took her by her arm, and guided her to the next sofa, where she helped her lie down.
“Some hartshorn salts, quickly!” she called out.
Someone held the sharp, pungent vial under her nose.
Viola groaned. The world continued to spin, then it lessened after a while, and she dared to open her eyes again.
Josephine’s worried face hovered over hers.
“You’ll be all right.” She patted her hand. “I suppose it was all a bit too much. Let us give her some space, ladies. I suggest we each read the book on our own and reconvene at a later date.”
The ladies agreed and filed out of the room quietly, casting sympathetic glances in Viola’s direction.
Josephine helped her sit up. “Are you feeling somewhat better?”
“I can’t believe I just swooned.” Just like one of her heroines. She groaned.
“The best of us do,” Josephine said brightly. “It can happen. Particularly when…but say. Stay for supper, yes? I daresay you will feel even better once you’ve had a bite or two to eat. You will see, it will improve your constitution tremendously.”
The mere thought of food made her feel nauseous.
Anyhow, how could she eat when she’d just discovered that Peregrine had published the wrong book?
“You do not appear pleased at the publication,” Josephine said. “I would be over the moon if that had been my book.”
“Yes, normally I am, but this one is not the one—” She clapped her hand over her mouth and gazed at Josephine with wide, horrified eyes. She’d just admitted that she was Mrs Selina Sable!
A satisfied smile spread across Josephine’s face.
“I knew it. No need to look so distraught, Mrs Sable! I have known for quite some time that you must be that wonderful, highly talented author. And what tremendous fortune that I am to be not only acquainted, no, but best friends with her!” She clasped both hands in hers and beamed at her.
Viola blinked, bewildered. “But when did you realise?”
“At our second meeting. You knew things about these books that none of us, save the author, would know. That suspicion intensified the more often we met. Sometimes you even use exactly the same phrases when you speak.” She nodded with satisfaction.
“I do?” Viola wasn’t sure she liked being told that she spoke exactly like her heroines.
“Oh yes! But never mind all that.” She pulled her eyebrows together. “What worried you so much that it had you swooning? The book is quite brilliant.”
She might as well tell her now that the cat was out of the bag. “It is the wrong story. I never intended to publish this one. It is far too scandalous.”
“The wrong one? Is that truly so terrible? Because this one is wonderful. It will have all those stuffy people sputtering and complaining about it outwardly, then secretly reading it in their own dark little chambers.” She giggled.
Viola felt ill. “It is a disaster.”
Josephine tutted. “It is not. Well, maybe. A little.” She patted her hand. “Not everyone will figure out that the demon lover, Count Morvino, is in reality Fane.”
Viola sat up with a squeal. “You already figured that out?”
“Well, naturally. You gave Count Morvino a blue eye and a green one. That is rather obvious, you know. There are not many tall, dark, strikingly handsome men with Roman noses, a tongue as sharp as a blade, and a blue and a green eye.”
Viola hid her face in her hands and groaned. “He will kill me.”
“He won’t. But never fear. And if people realise, so what? No one will know his wife is in reality Selina Sable. And I promise with my life that I won’t breathe a word to anyone.”
Viola could only pray that this was the case. She smiled wanly at Josephine.
Josephine helped her up. “But come. Let us have some supper now. You will see, as soon as you have eaten a bite, you will feel so much better.”
Josephine was right, for her stomach suddenly growled something fierce.
“You appear very fatigued still,” Josephine said after the footman served them plates piled with food. “No amount of rest seems to make it better, correct?”
“Correct,” Viola said, carefully biting into a delicious portion of cottage pie. “I could sleep the entire day. No amount of sleep appears to make me feel fresher.”
“And you seem uncommonly hungry, too,” Josephine observed. “All the food in the world doesn’t seem to satisfy that craving. Am I right?”
“Absolutely. It is as if my stomach has transformed into a bottomless hole. And I find the oddest combinations of tastes rather interesting.”
“Like pickled gherkins with vanilla custard. That is my particular craving.”
Viola lowered her fork. “Yes! Precisely! There is nothing more delicious in the world. Or even better, I have the oddest craving lately for mock turtle soup, but with a real turtle in it, with lemon tart, but eaten together.” She meditated on it. “Dipped into the soup might be the tastiest.”
Josephine nodded, rubbing her swollen baby belly with a knowing smile. “I understand perfectly. I have found that gooseberry vinegar satisfies some of the craving, too. Does Fane know?”
Viola’s fork froze in the air. “Know what? He is a ninnyhammer and an imbecile. He knows nothing at all.” She knitted her forehead into a worried frown. “Unthinkable if he finds out.” She pushed the plate away, for suddenly the food made her nauseous.
“Of course he is an imbecile,” Josephine said hastily. “I beg your pardon for bringing him up. You are, of course, also very emotional these days. It is quite understandable and entirely normal. Not to mention the shock of the publication. But don’t you think he deserves the right to know?”
Viola played with the prongs of her fork. “Granted, I may be overreacting somewhat. But then, I probably am not.” She shrugged. “How could he be so entirely clueless? Oh, I don’t know. Men.”
“Yes. Men.” Josephine nodded. “They are clueless when it comes to these things. Sir William wasn’t any better, either, though he has improved over time. Still, you must tell him. He has a right to know.”
Viola tilted her head, furrowing her brow. “I do not think we are talking about the same topic. Let him know what, pray?”
Josephine smiled serenely. “That you are with child, of course.”
Viola dropped her fork.