Haunting Violet

Tucking my nose into a book makes me completely oblivious to my surroundings. I would have made a terrible spy in the army--the first person to hand me a novel would have been able to shoot my head clean off without me noticing.

I was secretly entranced with the idea of a lady novelist. I should dearly love to be one. Or maybe a goblin-fighting-pirate-queen. It was difficult to choose sometimes.

Perhaps I won't marry then. Instead, you and I shall live as spinsters in a cottage by the sea. We'll burn our corsets, eat chocolate morning, noon and night and grow fat as hedgehogs.

I tried not to look as if I was hiding a handsome young lad under the mattress.

If I'd been ten years old again I'd have stuck my tongue out at Caroline. At sixteen, I ought to be above such behavior. I wasn't.

I blinked at him. "What does salt have to do with any of this?" "It protects you from evil." "Salt?" Disbelief all but dripped from my voice. I couldn't help it. "Table salt? How is seasoning myself going to help? This isn't a dinner party.

It wasn't my most fashionable dress, but anyone who called for me at nine o-clock in the bloody morning would have to take what he was given.

Mother was delicate the way badgers were delicate.

You get into trouble the way debutantes get into ball gowns.

Are you serious about leaving?" I touched my aching face. "Yes.But I don't know how." "I'd go with you," Colin said quietly. "Really?" "You know I would." "If you could do anything, what would you do? Would you go back to Ireland?" "Maybe," he said. "I've no family left there but I miss the green hills. I'd love to show them to you, show you Tara and the Cliffs of Moher.We could live in a thatched cottage and keep sheep." I grinned at him. "If you clean up after them." "What would be your perfect day then?" he asked, grinning back at me. "If you don't like my sheep?" "Your cottage sounds nice," I allowed. "I'd like to sleep in late and read as many books as I'd like and drink tea with lemon and eat pineapple slices for breakfast." "No velvet dresses and diamonds?" I rolled my eyes, then stopped when the bruises throbbed. "Ouch.And no, of course not.I don't care about that. Only books." I looked at him shyly. "And you." "That's all right then," he said softly.

Could one write a strongly worded letter to the deceased requiring their full cooperation?

A scratch at the door interrupted us. Colin dropped and rolled under the bed again. One of the maids poked her head in. "Miss?" I tried not to look as if I was hiding a handsome young lad under the mattress. "Yes?" "Lord Jasper sent me up to see if you need help getting ready for a ball." She smiled proudly. "I have a fair hand with a curling iron." "Oh.Thank you." I needed to get Colin out before I ended up naked in the middle of my bedroom. "I,um, could I get some hot water? To wash my face?" "Certainly,miss. I'll have the footmen bring up the bathtub, if you like, before all the fine ladies start calling for their own baths." "That would be great, thanks." I'd never actually been in a full reclining tub before. We had a battered hip bath in the kitchen. The maid curtsied and closed the door behind her. I let out a breath. Colin crawled back out. "They need to sweep under there," he said, sneezing.

He's not good enough for you." "What?" I stared at him incredulously. "I'd say you have that backwords. He's from a good family. Iam not" His fingers slid away from mine. A swallow darted past us. "So if you'll excuse me, I have to go convince his mother that I'm not a desperate fortune hunter with a liar for a mother an a disgusting talent for drugging old ladies." "No" I frowned. "What do you mean, no?Whats the matter with you?" He just stepped closer to me, right on my shadow, which had been the only thing between us. His eyes were angry and conflicted but his hands were gently on my face, wrapping around the back of my neck. He pilled slightly and i stumbled forward. His mouth closed over mine, the kiss sending warmth shooting all the way from my belly down into my knees. His tongue was bold, sliding over mine as if I were strawberry ice cream. I felt devoured, delicious, decadent. He stopped abruptly, pulling back, his breath ragged. "I'm not good enough for you either.

And though Xavier was handsome and well-to-do, he had one major flaw. He wasn't Colin.

I kissed him lightly and used the moment to slip the package out of the inside of his pocket. I was a white handkerchief folded into a square. "What's this?" He pretended to look put out. "Did you just pick my pocket?" "Yes." "Good thing it's for you then." "It is? Really?" I'd only been teasing him when I went through his pockets. I unwrapped it, touched. It was a small brooch made of tin, in the shape of a rose. "Oh, Colin, it's lovely. Thank you!" "I thought the rose would remind you of this place. I guess now you don't need it." he pinned it to my top, just under my collarbone. "I love you, Violet. Could you love a gardener who can't afford real silver, now that you're an earl's daughter living in a fine house?" I leaned forward so my lips were so close to his they brushed lightly when I spoke. "I love you, Colin Lennox." His grin was crooken and wicked. "Then we'll be just fine.

We were so close to home now, I would have tripped an old woman with a cane if she'd stood in the way of the first available chair.

I was going to have to use my teeth to pull the curtains aside. I was leaning over, barng my teeth, when the thick curtain was yanked aside. "What on earth are you doing?" Peter drawled. "You look positively feral.

He shrugged one shouler, looked away. "It's not so bad,not really." "Why do you stay?" I asked quietly. "Is it because your mother mentioned me?" "I knew I shouldn't have told you that," he muttered. "What did she say, Colin?" He didn't answer right away. "Colin?" He sighed, raked a hand through his hair. "She spoke of a girl with violet eyes.That's all." "Do you still miss her?" "Aye." He came closer. "Is that why you stay? To honor her memory? Even though my mother is horrid?" His eyes locked onto mine. "I stay for you, Violet." I suddenly felt warm all over. "For me?

I could think of a hundred things I'd rather do than follow a possible murderess and the ghost of her victim.

Finally, my mother's training will be put to good use. Never mind finding an eligible bachelor, I mean to find a murderer.

We'd been waltzing and eating tea cakes with a murderer.

I'd seen elevated social mamas do far worse in the name of securing a husband for their daughters. An eldery, gray-curled grandmother once tripped an eligible bachelor on his way to the gaming table so he would fall at her granddaughter's satin-slippered feet. Instead he'd landed on a footman and broken his arm.

I can't breathe. I'm joing the Rational Dress Society the very moment we are back in London,and I fully intend to leave their pamphlets under Mother's pillow and tucked into her corsets.

R," Elizabeth breathed. "For what? Rheumatism? Retinue? Richard the Third?" The planchette continued to move, torward the O. "Romantic? It's going to tell us our husband's name! Or else...rotund." She paused. "Is it calling us fat?" W. "Someone's going to have a row?

The sky was as blue and delicate as a porcelain teacup, and the hills rolled gently in all directions, intersected occasionally with the silver ribbon of a river.

You are beautiful as always, Violet," he murmured. His parents smiled at us from where they sat sipping wine. There. Every single one of us was smiling. It was all very pleasant, even if my cheeks were starting to hurt.

I hauled myself over as if I were mounting a horse. Which I'd never actually done before. Needless to say, it was hardly a graceful affair.

Come to rob my sister then,have you?" "Certainly not," Mother replied, her smile brittle. "This fashion for talking to the dead is pure poppycock,if you ask me.Dead is dead." "Agatha,that's rude even for you," Mrs. Gordon said. "Shall we begin,Mrs. Willoughby, before my sister's abominable manners drive you clear away?

I was usually hungry enough to eat what I was given without comment, but if the Earl served boiled tongue or calves' foot jelly, I fully intended to wrap it in my napkin and hide it in the nearest umbrella stand.

Isn't he utterly divine? Beautiful?" "Somehow,I think he'd disagree with that last one." And not enough with the first. "All right," she waved her dismissively. "Handsome then. Do you think he noticed me?" "We were sprawled in a heap of twitching limbs and lace at his feet. He would have had to have been unconscious not to notice us." She wrinkled her nose. "I meant,do you think he noticed I'm nearly on the Marriage Mart now?" I didn't know how to reply. I didn't want to hurt her feelings,but I wasn't sure Frederic noticed anything other than cards and port.He was twenty years old,after all,and quite wealthy. He was acting exactly as he was expected to. Her cheeks were red. "We should return before Mother wonders where we've gone off to.Heaven forbid we might be somewhere enjoying ourselves!