as pleasant a way to do it as any. The unpleasant part will come tomorrow, with Dinah.
He was particularly good value that night, Violet thought, unaware that in his mind Cobie was treating her like the whore she was.
Chapter Four
M r Grant had been dodging her for the last few days, Dinah thought desolately, which was not surprising. After all, he came here to be with Violet. She was sitting in the Elizabethan Knot Garden looking blindly at the flowers and remembering what she had seen that morning.
She had risen early in order to go riding before anyone else was about, and when she had turned into the corridor where Violet had her suite of rooms, she saw Mr Grant quietly closing Violet’s door: it was obvious that they had been spending the night together.
Shock kept her quiet, so that he had no idea that she had seen him. She had known, of course she had known, that he had been invited for Violet’s pleasure. She had known it since she had first seen him in the library. She had tried to put the knowledge out of her mind in those few, early days when she had walked and talked with him. I like him, she told herself firmly, not because he’s beautiful, but because I like talking to him. He’s so clever, it’s like talking to Faa.
Listening, always listening, because no one ever included her in their conversations, she discovered that he was thought to be something of a charming fool. How could anyone think any such thing? It wasn’t simply that he knew a lot, could play the guitar and the piano divinely, but she had grasped at once that even his most innocent remarks frequently carried a double meaning.
Listening, always listening, she noticed that he was particularly good with Sir Ratcliffe Heneage, whom Dinah disliked intensely. He wasn’t bad with poor Rainey, either. Dinah knew that her half-brother was dissolute and not very clever. It was not that Mr Grant made fun of his hearers, but that he tailored what he said to what they were. Of course, he did it with everyone—except Mr Van Deusen.
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