Mrs. Martin's Incomparable Adventure by Courtney Milan

Author:Courtney Milan [Milan, Courtney]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Courtney Milan

Chapter Six

Two weeks later

Violetta stood at the top of the staircase in the rooming house she definitely did not own, about to execute what was both the brightest and the stupidest idea that she had ever had in her life.

She was going to hell. The only question was which path she would take on her road to the inferno.

She was certainly going to pay for her misdeeds. The last weeks had been torture. Torture for the Terrible Nephew; in the days past, they’d pelted him with eggs and dusted him with flour. They’d left putrid cheeses outside his room, and coaxed goats upstairs, convincing them to eat his undergarments.

They’d also been torture for Violetta. She’d pulled back from Bertrice as much as she could, limiting their physical contact to the brush of a hand. Sometimes she could not help herself, and their eyes met in a blaze of radiation that took her breath away. In those moments, she felt like her want was leaking from her, incapable of containment. She wanted to be loved. She wanted to be desired. She wanted someone who saw who she was.

But every time she allowed herself to let her guard down, she remembered the truth. She didn’t want someone who saw her as she was, not at all. She was a liar. She couldn’t want to be seen.

And so every time, she yanked her hand away or cut her gaze to a corner of the room, and gathered her wanting back inside her.

Violetta didn’t know if her destruction would come in the form of Mr. Toggert, who—despite his foolishly lengthy absence—would soon discover that she was altering the leases of his tenants.

Perhaps it would be Mr. Cappish who brought the authorities on their heads. In the past few days, on the strength of Violetta’s nonexistent authority, Bertrice had convinced every tenant except the Terrible Nephew to escape the hellish landscape that had once been a peaceful rooming house.

Maybe it would be Bertrice herself. She’d promised to look after Violetta, but that wouldn’t last, not once she knew the truth.

It was just as the vicar had promised when she was young. One little lie sent out roots and branches, burgeoning in madcap fashion until her whole life was blossoming with falsehoods. She was probably going to hell. She was certainly going to prison.

And, well. It seemed a very far-off thing. She could panic about it later. Imprisonment was a form of planning for her dotage, wasn’t it?

“Up here,” she called to the plasterer she had engaged yesterday. “The work is up here.”

Beside her, Bertrice snickered.

Oh, her current plan would not buy food. It would not keep her from any of the punishments that awaited. It would not give her anything except a private, desperate joy, but when shelter and food faltered in the years to come, it would be a joy she could hold on to.

Years ago, Violetta had been tasked with combining two rooms into one more luxurious set of rooms. It was from that experience that this idea had sprung.

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