The Countess Conspiracy (6 page)

“Violet,” she said. “I am so glad to see you.”

Almost no one in the world embraced Violet. But Lily did—grabbing her up in a hug so fierce that Violet almost staggered back. It felt lovely. And yet when she raised her hand an inch to pat her sister on the back in return, she felt so dreadfully foolish that she let her fingers hang in midair before slowly—slowly—letting them fall.

Lily pulled back. “Violet,” she said, “I have missed you so. You are the only person—
literally
the only person in the world—who can understand what is happening at this very moment. I need your advice, your help.”

“I see,” Violet said. Thank God. Lily
always
needed Violet, and Violet adored her for it. Lily had everything a proper woman should want: a husband who adored her, a life filled with the things she most wanted, and heaps upon heaps of children. And still she needed Violet. It made Violet feel almost lovable.

“Yes,” her sister said, playfully wagging her finger at her, “you
do
see. You always have. Ever since you were born, you’ve known precisely what I needed. It’s uncanny.”

Violet let that pass without comment.

“You see, it’s—” Lily stopped mid-word and turned around. “Amanda Louise Ellisford, what in heaven’s name are you doing in the parlor?”

Amanda’s eyes widened in lovely, perfect innocence. “Why, I was just keeping Aunt Violet company until you arrived, that’s all. I’m just being sociable.”

Her mother was not fooled by her nonchalant tone any more than Violet had been. One hand went to her hip. “Did you think your Aunt Violet would offer you sympathy and kind words?”

“Aunt Violet? Kind? Of course I didn’t, but—”

“You’re a very foolish girl,” her mother said, “but I’m sure that Violet will talk sense into you. Violet always talks sense. Now stop moping about and start feeling pride in your accomplishment. You’re going to be a countess.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“And don’t use that tone on me.” Lily raised a finger. “I don’t need to see you roll your eyes at me to know that your eyes are rolling inside.”

“Yes, Mother.” This came out a little closer to meek.

“Good. Now give me a chance to talk to your aunt without any of your brothers and sisters interrupting, and when we’re done, I’ll allow you to go for a walk in the park with your aunt. I won’t even come along. Is that fair?”

Amanda’s face lit at that. “Yes, Mother,” she said, and this exclamation was the most respectful of them all. She dropped a small curtsey and left them alone.

Lily watched her go with a smile on her face. “That girl,” she said, half shaking her head. “That girl. She’ll be the death of me.” But there was pride in her smile, a self-satisfied glint in her eyes. “She’ll come around,” she finally said, and then turned back to Violet. “Violet, dearest. I need your help. I need it most desperately.”

Everything was always desperate with Lily. It always had been. Although she’d been the elder, Violet had often felt as if she were the one following behind her sister, trying to smooth things over. That’s the way things were; people liked Lily, and while they were busy liking her, Violet got things done.

It never bothered Violet. She liked having things to do, and if her sister hadn’t been there, they wouldn’t have liked Violet any better. They’d only have ignored her more.

She tried to put a helpful expression on her face.

Clearly, it didn’t work, because Lily let out an exasperated sigh. “Please just listen to me. This time, it’s serious.”

“I’m listening,” Violet said.

“Be that way, then.” Lily tossed her head. “It’s Mama. She’s trying to do to Amanda what she did to us.”

Violet blinked uncertainly.

“You know what that was like.” Lily reached over and touched Violet’s sleeve. “It took me years after my marriage to come to trust Thomas,
truly
trust him as a wife ought. I was so hemmed in with Mama’s rules and shadow rules, what one could say, what one couldn’t. If it hadn’t been for Thomas’s lasting love and patience…” She looked away at the carpet, as if seeing some dismal almost-future. “No,” she said softly. “I can’t have Mama after Amanda that way. She did enough harm to the two of us already, and it’s only by the grace of God that you and I have recovered.”

Speak for yourself,
Violet wanted to say. She didn’t feel harmed by her mother’s rules. She’d needed them desperately. But then, Violet had needed lessons on how to hide herself from the world. Everyone had already liked Lily precisely as she was; she’d had no need to pretend.

Violet looked at her sister. Lily’s eyes were wide. Her nut-brown hair was arranged perfectly. She had a softer version of Violet’s own face: a little less nose, a little more lip. More sparkle in her eyes, fewer wrinkles in her brow. It made her pretty, something Violet had never been able to achieve. It made her soft, and Violet had never been that either. Violet was all angles, a blunt, bludgeoning thing.

“You know,” Violet told her sister carefully, “it wasn’t as if Mama acted the way she did without reason.”

Lily reached out and took Violet’s hand. “That gossip is long dead. Those lies can’t hurt my children now.”

Violet looked away. It hadn’t been gossip. It had been scandal, one that could have destroyed them all.

“Lies?” she asked softly. “What lies?”

Lily waved a hand impatiently. “Yes, yes. I know. Never acknowledge the things that can hurt you.”

Violet hadn’t been referring to their mother’s rules.

But Lily made a sound of exasperation. “We’re family. And I
know
you feel as I do. What Mama did to us—what she made of us—was insupportable. She made us untrusting, hard things for no reason at all.”

God, Lily actually believed that. Had she never seen how desperate matters were? When the ugly details of the coroner’s report had surfaced—those coded words of
likely accident
—the whispers had started. Violet had heard them over her father’s casket. She’d stood there, fourteen years old, feeling awkward and ungainly, holding her nose in the air because she didn’t know how else to keep from crying. She’d clutched her mother’s black-gloved hand, feeling her mother grip too tightly in return.

The next day, her mother had sat down with Lily and Violet at breakfast.

“I am writing a book,” she had announced. “A book on proper deportment, and you two are going to exemplify its teachings.”

Lily and Violet had stared in numb, grieved confusion. “There will be a great many rules,” Mama had told them. “Public rules, which will appear in the printed guide itself, and private rules, which you must adhere to more closely.”

At the time, Violet hadn’t understood. She’d begun her mother’s lessons in bewilderment.

A lady never acknowledges an insult.
That was the public rule, the one that was eventually printed in
The Ladies’ Guide to Proper Deportment.
But the Shadow Guide—as she and Lily had called the private rules their mother had given them—was more explicit.

A lady never acknowledges an insult, but she never forgets one either. She pays it back, no matter how long it takes.

A lady never lies,
the Guide cheerily proclaimed.
Her good word is her most precious possession.

A lady never gets caught lying,
the Shadow Guide grimly countered,
but there are six things every lady always lies about.

A lady shares her good fortune,
taught the Guide. But the Shadow Guide explained:
A lady protects what is hers, and she doesn’t let anyone else have a piece.

Over the year of their mourning, their mother had drummed every rule into the two sisters. Nobody had ever known the lies they told, because they never got caught.

And when they’d come out in society, it was their mother’s newly-published book of rules, the
Ladies’ Guide to Deportment,
that had dominated the conversation. Not the question of whether their father was a suicide. A clever woman, their mother. She’d made everyone watch her daughters for the wrong clues, and taught her girls to hide the things nobody was allowed to see.

They’d been perfect, utterly perfect liars, lying with their smiles and their best behaviors.

Lily might think that was awful, but Violet could see that training for what it had been: necessary. Lily had never forgiven their mother; Violet held the woman in awe.

As a child, she’d never thought of her mother’s private grief. She’d never thought how much it would hurt her mother to smile through the worst innuendo. She recognized it now: Their mother had raised her head and soldiered on, refusing to let her sorrow and her husband’s
likely accident
harm her daughters’ futures.

“It’s completely unnecessary,” Lily was saying. “Every time Amanda visits, Mama starts drilling her on the rules. On all of the rules. She’s teaching my daughter the things that every lady must lie about.” Violet’s sister threw her hands in the air. “It’s never acceptable to lie! She tells me that one never knows when a scandal might break, and that it’s best to be prepared. Have you ever heard anything so unreasonable? What sort of scandal does she expect?”

Violet tried to look suitably blank, to shake her head in what she hoped came across as friendly confusion. But her mind had already leaped ahead of her sister. She had written dozens of papers discussing inheritance—and therefore sexual intercourse—in frank, clear terms. She thought about the paper she’d published explaining the reproductive habits of the peppered moth, the relative incidence of various moth colorings since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, and what that all had to do with Darwin’s evolutionary notions. She thought about the people who visited Sebastian’s lectures—waving placards and shouting epithets—and imagined them following her around instead.

Filthy,
that woman behind her had whispered.
Filthy reprobate.

In theory, Mama didn’t know any of that. In practice, Violet was never stupid enough to wager against her mother. Clearly, she needed to have a talk with the woman.

Lily was shaking her head, oblivious to Violet’s thoughts. “That’s what I thought. There’s no scandal at all. Not unless you’re hiding something juicy.”

There are six things every lady must lie about.

Violet smiled at her sister, as warmly as she was able. “Goodness,” she heard herself say, her words starched and pressed to unbending crispness. “When have I ever been able to hide anything from you?”

“Well,” Lily said slyly. “There is Mr. Malheur.”

Violet blinked at her sister, afraid to say anything.

“His reputation?” Lily said, nudging her playfully with an elbow. “With women? You
are
aware of that? Never say you’ve finally succumbed.”

“Oh.” Violet inhaled. “That. Lily, you know we’re only old friends from childhood.”

We’re not even that anymore.

Lily smiled and set her hand on Violet’s wrist. “I’m teasing you, dear. Of
course
I know you’d never involve yourself with him in that way.” She winked at Violet. “He’s so awful—with those dreadful lectures he gives? If you ever were so selfish as to surrender to his wicked wiles, I’d have to give you the cut direct.” She laughed.

Violet looked at her sister—listened to a laugh that was not quite merry enough, just a little ugly at the edges—and understood that Lily wasn’t joking. That had been a warning, not a tease. She swallowed hard.

This was why Lily never understood Mama. Mama knew what it was like to carry a scandal in her heart, to know that the truth would cause you to be cast out forever. Lily had never understood that.

“You’ll talk to Mama, then,” Lily was saying. “Convince her to stop filling Amanda’s head with such nonsense. She never listens to me, but you…”

“That’s because I understand her,” Violet remarked.

“Yes,” Lily said offhandedly, “you’re difficult like she is. Prickly, hard to understand.” She tossed this off as if it were a simple fact, one that everyone agreed on. “And could you talk to Amanda? She has something on her mind, something ridiculous. She
listens
to you.”

“More fool her,” Violet muttered.

Lily huffed and patted Violet on the shoulder. “Please, Violet. You’re my only hope.”

“Hmph.” Violet sniffed politely.

But Lily knew her too well. It was nice to be needed—if only for this tiny thing.

“I’ll talk to them both,” Violet said.

And if those tasks didn’t take her mind off the words Sebastian had spoken, the ones that cycled through her mind at the most inopportune moments—
I have standards. You don’t meet them
—nothing would.

Chapter Four

“S
O TELL ME ABOUT THIS SUITOR
you do not wish to marry,” Violet said.

It was half an hour after she’d wished her sister farewell. The park was hot and her wide-brimmed hat scarcely shielded her face from the sun. Still, there was nowhere else to talk without interruption. Amanda had seven brothers and three sisters; privacy was in short supply at her home.

Her niece flushed. “I never said I didn’t wish to—”