Quentin was ignoring her out of spite, just to hurt her—and it was working.
She felt awful.
But not nearly as bad as Viv felt ten hours later, when Quentin’s dinner congealed on his untouched plate. Her hurt feelings bubbled into irritation. Expecting her to cook for him and then not even showing up to eat it was incredibly inconsiderate.
She cleaned the dishes and the kitchen, then retook her seat with a deck of cards. Although Viv was dying to finish the book she’d started, she didn’t want Quentin’s arrival home to interrupt a pivotal plot moment, and risk him seeing even the tiniest flash of frustration in her face. She wanted to make up with her cousin, not make the situation worse.
What she needed was a distraction. Work was always the solution, and there was an unanswered pile of correspondence waiting for her.
She strode to the waist-high cabinet lining one wall of the kitchen. The narrow sideboard on top was never used to hold food, but rather as a repository for Viv’s endless stacks of paper.
There were piles for everything: advice column letters to be answered, replies to be posted, plays to be sent to theater managers, drafts in progress, silly scenes she’d dashed out using the wilder anonymous advice questions as inspiration, letters from her playwright friends, and retired scripts that hadn’t found a home anywhere and now lived in a dusty corner of the sideboard.
She carried her pen and ink to the kitchen table and set about crafting replies to her correspondence.
A yipping dog… a bothersome sister-in-law… a quarrel over aninheritance… a husband who’d placed an embargo on new bonnets… a wife who had suffered several difficult pregnancies and did not wish to keep bearing children… a valet who butted heads with the butler… a governess whose unruly charges wouldn’t sit still for lessons… a petulant individual who wished to know the best way to incapacitate his enemies without being caught…
“Not this oatcake again,” Viv muttered, shaking her head.
It sounded like the same man or woman who kept asking for advice on blackmail and kidnapping and robbery. Though Viv turned the outlandish scenarios into scripts, she’d never responded to the letter-writer himself. The farthing she lost out on by not answering was worth the peace of mind of not becoming involved. She couldn’t even imagine why the enthusiast kept sending such scenarios. Soon, she supposed, they would tire of being ignored and move on to pester someone else.
Viv forced herself not to watch the time until she composed answers to all the legitimate questions. There—twenty-three responses. One answer shy of earning two full shillings.
She eyed the vanquish-my-enemies letter. No, absolutely not. Engaging with an unstable individual would be irresponsible. She’d turn the missed opportunity into a comedic script. Much better than encouraging the fan to send in even more of his disturbing scenarios.
After tying a string on the pile of responses to be sent to the newsletter office, Viv carried the enemy-quashing letter over to the sideboard to join the other unanswered letters and their respective scripts.
Naturally, she couldn’t find the proper pile. Quentin had clearly been meddling in her paperwork again. One more argument to look forward to. Her stomach twisted at the thought.
All right, the work was done. She could check the clock.
Midnight. And still no sign of Quentin.
Her heart sank. It wasn’t unusual for him to disappear all daylong with his friends. But thiswasthe first time he’d missed supper and their standing evening game of cards.
He was clearly doing this for attention. To prove some kind of point. Hours ago, Viv had been ready to beg forgiveness. But now it was Quentin who would need to atone for making her worry on purpose.
Itwasa tantrum, wasn’t it?
As the minutes ticked into hours, it became increasingly unlikely that Viv would be able to keep the anger from her face when her cousin finally deigned to return home from his precious club that mattered more than his cousin.
Except that didn’t sound like Quentin at all.
The few bites of supper she’d managed to swallow were now burbling with acid in her gut. Was he all right? Horrific scenarios crossed her mind with lightning speed.Anythingcould happen to an idealistic lad like him.
Quentin was fine, she reassured herself. This was nothing more than her overactive imagination at play.
So she shuffled the deck and played yet another solitary hand of patience while she waited.
And waited.
When Quentin finally showed his face, she would give him an earful—and then cross her arms and await a much-deserved apology for worrying her. And then they would have a long chat about how they could both be better cousins to the other.
But when she woke up bleary-eyed at dawn, with a bent jack of spades stuck to her cheek…
Quentin was still gone.
4
