The Countess Conspiracy

  Some families believed that children should be seen and not heard. But Violet’s sister had too many children to do anything more than cast haggard glances at that particular rule. The entry to Lily’s house echoed with the shrieks of children at play.

  Lots of children.

  Violet handed her things to the footman and waited. Lily always made time to see her sister, no matter what wreckage her children were making of the house.

  Violet wasn’t sure if Lily loved her—their family was not the sort to talk of such things, and Violet was difficult to care for. But Violet loved her sister, and Lily needed Violet. In the end, for someone like her, it all came out to approximately the same thing: When Violet was in need, she went to her sister.

  After weeks of trying to forget Sebastian’s words—weeks of staring at plants that she’d sprouted with Sebastian at her side—she needed to comfort someone.

  Thinking of Sebastian still felt like pouring boiling water over her chest. Two weeks, and it still burned to remember what he’d said to her. I have standards. You don’t meet them.

  She sniffed and looked away, waiting for the pain to dissipate. It didn’t, so she simply handed her things to the footman who’d met her.

  “Tell the marchioness that I am here, if you please,” she said.

  “Of course, my lady.” The man gave her a bow. “If you’ll allow me to show you to the—”

  “Wait!” The call came from up the staircase.

  Violet looked up to see her eldest niece waving madly at her. Amanda spilled down the staircase, darting around the tin-soldier fortifications with a coltish awkwardness that made her seem even prettier. A young lady seventeen years of age couldn’t help but be pretty. Amanda was fresh and smiling and exuberant, unwilling to believe that life would bring anything other than the best things to her.

  Violet hoped she was right.

  “Aunt Violet,” her niece said breathlessly, grabbing hold of Violet’s arm. “Thank God you are here. I must talk to you.”

  Violet looked down at her niece’s fingers overlapping her sleeve. Violet knew she was a formidable woman. Most people were frightened of her. They didn’t touch her or embrace her. They certainly didn’t grab hold of her arm with such an air of familiarity.

  God, she was glad that someone did.

  She sniffed and surreptitiously brushed her fingers against Amanda’s hand. “What is it?”

  “I need to speak with you,” Amanda repeated, glancing up the stairs. She bit her lip, and then looked over at the footman who’d answered the door. “Billings,” she said, “Go get Mama and tell her that Aunt Violet is here.” She didn’t look at Violet. “But please do me the favor of walking very, very, very slowly.”

  Billings turned and began walking toward the stairs at a stately pace.

  “More slowly,” Amanda suggested, and the man slowed to an even glide.

  “Come,” Amanda said. Even Violet’s stiff glowering had not put her niece off. Amanda took Violet’s arm and led her into the front parlor.

  The room, as always, was warm and welcoming. The thick side curtains had been drawn back so that only thin, gauzy panels of fabric shielded the window, letting in sunlight and the warm, swirling suggestion of a square ringed by grand houses. The furniture was cream and gold, the colors of an early spring sun. The paintings on the walls suggested new growth—flowers and apple-green leaves and fields of ankle-high grass.

  But it was coming on June and no matter what lies the walls told, the room was still too hot. Amanda gestured Violet to a seat and sat daintily on a cushioned chair opposite her. But instead of talking, Amanda twiddled her thumbs.

  Whatever Amanda had on her mind, Violet was going to have to start this conversation. “How fares your Season?” she finally asked.

  It was utterly ridiculous to think of the girl having a Season. That would mean that Violet was old enough to have a niece on the marriage mart. But Lily, a mere handful of years older than Violet, had married at seventeen and had managed to produce her first offspring within the year.

  At Amanda’s age, Violet had been pushed out into the hubbub of social calls and balls, too.

  It had been terrible for her, but it would likely turn out better for her niece. For one thing, Amanda was not nearly as awkward as Violet had been. Her eventual husband would want more than one thing from her.

  Violet folded her hands as she sat on the embroidered sofa in her sister’s front parlor and tried not to shift uncomfortably. The cushions were too soft; it took an effort to stiffen her spine and not slouch.

  Across from her, her niece was examining the embroidered fabric of her cuffs.

  “Come, Amanda,” Violet suggested. “Sit up straight and talk to me.”

  Amanda lifted her head. She had a gentle smile on her lips, and wide, innocent eyes. “My Season,” she said, her voice sounding like the tinkle of merry little bells, “is going excellently.”

  Of course it was, if she was that good at lying. Violet frowned. “Oh?”

  “Indeed,” Amanda said. “Mama thinks that an earl is going to offer for me. Can you think of it? Me, a countess?”

  Anyone else would see a silly, foolish little girl—one with stars in her eyes from her first Season, dazzled by the possibility of an offer from one of England’s highest peers.

  Violet shivered, imagining Amanda as the sort of countess that Violet herself had become. Cold as stone, with no possibility of more.

  “He’s only a few years older than I am,” Amanda continued, “and handsome. And…” She trailed off, looking into the distance. “And…”

  And that was the end of his virtues. Violet waited, but nothing more was forthcoming.

  “Didn’t Grandmama teach you anything?” Violet finally asked. “If you want someone to think you’re excited about the match, you need to have better praise for your prospective husband than ‘not old’ and ‘reasonably good-looking.’ I suggest ‘kind’ or ‘romantic.’”

  Amanda’s lips twitched, but she didn’t lose that look of false starry-eyed innocence. “Right. I’ll try again. He’s my age. He’s handsome, kind, and dreadfully romantic. You know all the advantages that will inure to me once I become a countess.”

  Violet tasted a hint of vinegar on her tongue. “I do.”

  “Once I marry him, I’ll come to love him. Won’t I?”

  Violet knew what her niece wanted her to say. Yes, you will. Of course you will. Maybe she’d accept a more cautious, it’s likely.

  “I did,” she finally said. “And my husband loved me. You’re a caring person, Amanda. The first few months of a marriage are intimate. It brings people together, even if they were not quite there when they first married.”

  Amanda nodded slowly, contemplating this.

  It was what came after those first months that really mattered.

  “I know people who entered a marriage without love and found it nonetheless,” Violet said. “I know people who married for love and hated each other at the end of the year. And I had a friend who did not love her husband when she married him, convinced herself that she did as the first months passed, and…”

  “And what?” Amanda asked.

  “And then she realized she was wrong,” Violet finished stiffly. “If you have an ounce of independence in you, a husband will chafe. He’ll give you rules, and you’ll be expected to follow them. If he wishes, he can control your friends, your idle pursuits, your leisure activities. Some husbands want to mold you into another person, and it doesn’t matter if you’re made of marble instead of clay—he’ll push and push at you nonetheless, and unless you break for him, he’ll make you feel that you’re the lowest, most selfish person in the world.”

  Amanda’s hand rose to her lips. “Is that what happened to you?”

  “Nonsense,” Violet said brusquely. “I told you already. I’m talking about a friend.”

  Amanda swallowed. “But you didn’t break, Aunt Violet. Look at you.”

  Violet looked
upward. “We are not talking about me.”

  “Oh, very well. Your friend didn’t break, did she?”

  Violet sat very straight and made herself look her niece in the eye. “She was not made of the kind of material that would break. But even if one doesn’t crack in two, apply enough pressure and everyone starts to wear away at the edges. Like crumbs from a scone. We’re all friable matter.”

  Amanda took this in silence. “I’m made of breakable material,” she finally said. “I would break. I’m already breaking. All I have to hear is Mama asking me what’s wrong with him, and when I have no answer—when I say he’s a perfectly nice fellow, but I don’t wish to marry him, then—”

  The door opened, and Violet’s sister swept in.

  When they were younger, people used to say that Violet and Lily looked exactly alike—that they were twins despite the two years between them. All those people had been idiots. Lily was obviously much prettier. Her hair was a glossy, waving brown, her cheeks round and dimpled. She was always smiling, always a delight. She saw Violet now and her face lit. She sailed across the room, and before Violet could say anything, took hold of Violet’s wrists, hauling her to her feet.

  “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?”