Josephine chewed her lower lip. “I confess I hadn’t thought of the asylums at all. I was only concerned with our own tenants. We own a good deal of land in Ireland. Duties lead to illicit distillation, which leads to brutal enforcement, violence, and suffering. Families are destroyed more by the law than by drink. Not to mention the smuggling. That is why I believe the duties must go.”
“But this concerns all of us, particularly our sex.” Viola pleated the folds of her skirt as she talked. “We have so little say in anything that it seems to me doubly important to stand up for those who have even less voice. There are so many women affected. Mrs Burns is only one such person. Imagine the good that could be done with those funds. The hospitals that could be built. Proper institutions. They are confining the mentally ill in gaols for the lack of a better place. And no, they do not segregate the sexes. Imagine if they were to build proper institutions for women. But for that, they need funds.”
“You’re right.” Josephine looked thoughtful. “I hadn’t considered it that way. I shall think on it, my dear friend, though I can make no promises.”
Viola smiled. “I wouldn’t expect you to. You must do what your conscience tells you to do, not what I or my husband or anyone else says.”
She fell asleep in the carriage on the way home, despite the short ride. Her sleepless nights finishing her manuscript were taking their toll, and exhaustion had finally caught up with her. The footman had to shake her shoulder to awaken her upon her arrival. She sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“Is Fane at home?” she asked him.
“Not yet, my lady.”
She nodded. “Leave the carriage ready. I must leave again for Somerset House.”
She had arranged to meet Peregrine at the portrait gallery to deliver her manuscript. She went up to the study, and just as she bent down to open the drawer, a wave of dizziness washed over her. She gripped the edge of the desk to steady herself, pressing her fingers to her temple. Really, she ought to get more rest. Writing through the night had not been one of her better ideas. She gathered the papers from her desk, stuffed them into a leather folder, and returned to the carriage to leave immediately.
“Is that it?” Peregrine took the folder from her hands eagerly. They stood in the grand hall of the Royal Academy Exhibition at Somerset House, before Turner’s freshly hungField of Waterloo. The crowd made it a perfect spot for a chance meeting. No one would consider anything amiss with them exchanging a few words there.
Peregrine tapped the folder. “And it is, as they requested, sufficiently, err, warm?”
Viola waved a hand. “Rest assured, it is a good, solid Selina Sable story. That is all that counts. The publisher has no cause for concern.”
The truth was, she had added none of the explicit scenes Peregrine had demanded. She hadn’t found them necessary. But he would discover that soon enough. No need to alert him now and cause a scene in public.
“I hope you enjoy it,” she said sweetly. “And now, I need to go home and sleep.”
She barely made it to the drawing room. She dropped onto the sofa and fell into the sleep of the exhausted.
It was only much later that she half woke, feeling herself lifted and carried. She burrowed into a familiar warm shoulder with a contented sigh and slept on.
Chapter Seventeen
Sebastian was already riflingthrough his mail when Viola entered the breakfast room the next morning. She had slept through the night at last and awoken brimming with energy.
Her stomach grumbled something fierce. She felt as though she could devour an entire ox. She told the butler she would have scrambled eggs with bacon, toast, buttered mushrooms, devilled kidneys, and crumpets with marmalade and honey, “and several slices of seed cake, in addition to a pot of tea. No, two.”
Sebastian glanced up. “You appear to be hungry,” he remarked before disappearing behind his correspondence once more.
“Ravenous.” She popped two sugar pieces into her mouth and sucked on them contentedly.
Sebastian murmured something and shook his head. Then he reached for the next letter.
The butler served her eggs, and Viola attacked her meal with enthusiasm.
“What are your plans for the day?” she asked between bites. “Aside from Westminster, naturally.”
But Sebastian did not answer.
He had gone unnaturally still, his face bearing an expression she could not quite read.
“Sebastian?”
He turned the letter over and read it from the beginning. When he finally lowered the letter, his face had taken on the same colour as the parchment. “Is this meant to be some sort of joke?”
Viola set down her fork. “I beg your pardon?”
He handed her the paper wordlessly.
