The Countess Conspiracy

The Countess Conspiracy (2013) Courtney Milan (Brothers Sinister)

Set in England in 1867.

Violet Waterfield, Countess of Cambury, has been keeping secrets all her life. But this secret belongs also to her best friend, Sebastian, and he is done with this secret.

He’d agreed to this charade years ago, when he hadn’t understood what would happen. When it had just meant signing his name and listening to Violet talk, two things that had seemed like no effort at all.

There are so many different parts to this story, and I love all of them. Sebastian and Violet. Violet & her mother. Sebastian & his brother. And science. (SCIENCE!)

But at the heart is Sebastian and Violet bickering and bantering.

“Don’t worry,” Sebastian told Violet’s niece. “I’ll try not to seduce you on the spot.”

Violet felt a headache starting to form, sharp little pinpricks in her forehead. “Sebastian, you can’t talk of seduction to my unmarried niece.”

Another man might have blushed and apologized. But Sebastian just gave her a cocky smile and a wink. “I wasn’t talking of seduction,” he said. “I was talking of not seduction, which, as I’m sure you have surmised, is the exact opposite of seduction.”

“That’s specious,” Violet retorted. “If I asked you not to talk of elephants and you wandered around bellowing about not-elephants, you’d be mentioning elephants with every breath. The column of all things that are not elephants includes marsupials, canines—”

“The column of everything that is not an elephant does not include not-elephants?” he inquired, innocently examining his nails. “That’s counter-intuitive.”

“The column of conversational topics,” Violet stressed, “that are not elephant related does not include a discussion of the elephant-shaped hole in the conversation!”

Amanda was watching them with a quizzical look on her face. “Good heavens,” she said in awe, turning to Sebastian. “You’re good at that. You distracted Aunt Violet into an irrelevant argument without even lifting a finger.”

I love this book.
Rating: 9/10

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