She Walks in Scandal by Elizabeth Essex

Author:Elizabeth Essex
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oliver-Heber Books

CHAPTER 8

Violet took twelve minutes to dress as required in her best velvet and wool riding habit —no matter her haste, habits were complicated things. And she had refined, disdainful standards to maintain.

“Rotten Row,” was her father’s only direction. He knew her well enough not to say anything more.

Oh, yes, Viscount Rainsford was no fool.

Violet followed him to the famed stretch of Hyde Park corner, where he directed her to take a sedate canter up the row until he achieved his object—the Earl of Wrexham and his son riding in the opposite direction.

“Wrexham, Holt.” Her father reined to a stop to tip his hat to the pair. “What an excellent opportunity—I’ve wanted to speak to you, Wrexham, if you have a moment?”

Her father turned his mount alongside the earl’s in such a way that left Viscount Holt no choice but to greet Violet.

“Miss Worth.” He touched his tall hat.

“Viscount Holt.” While she didn’t consider herself “prickly,” she was in no mood to be any kinder than the young man deserved.

“How nice to see you again,” he began, perhaps in an attempt to make up for his chilly civilities at their first meeting. “Shall we?”

“Naturally.” It seemed to be her only safe reply that morning.

Holt turned his mount next to hers. “I am glad for a chance to speak with you privately. I want to apologize for any appearance of ungraciousness when we first met.”

Violet was a little put out of countenance at the reasonableness of his plea—she wanted to stay angry, or at least indifferent, to him. She wanted her affection and loyalty to Nicholas Gowan not to waver in the face of her father’s dire predictions for her future.

“You were right to take me to task,” Viscount Holt offered by way of his apology. “I was not as open and candid as you were, Miss Worth. The truth was, I was more than a little intimidated by you.”

Nicholas hadn’t been intimated by her. He treated her as if she were neither too prickly nor too precious, but as if she were worthy of love, just the way she was.

But poor Holt’s only fault was that he wasn’t Nicholas Gowan.

And that he loved another.

“It seems,” she echoed his own words, “a hopeless business.”

“Yes, I did say that,” he admitted. “But that was also untrue—there is some hope.”

How ironic that the formerly fearful viscount should have discovered his courage just as she was losing hers. “How so?”

“I need you to understand why I think our marriage might work, despite what I told you privately.” He cast his gaze around to make sure they were alone and could not be overheard. “You see, I told you only a part of the truth when last we spoke.”

“Was it not the truth that you are in love with another woman? Or was there some greater impediment to happiness that I—”

“Miss Worth.” He said her name quietly, but it was enough of a plea to make her stop, and look, and listen.

He took a visible breath, as if gathering his strength, but his voice went so low it was nearly a whisper.

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