The Countess Conspiracy

Maybe someday, she could let herself imagine that someone could be her. So long as it stayed in her head, she would never be hurt.

But he smiled as if this Violet—this prickly, difficult, impossible Violet—was enough for him.

“Friends?” His voice was low, so low that she could almost feel the word reverberating through her chest.

She pulled her hand away from his. “Friends.”

MAYBE IT WAS THE WEDDING. Jane glowed at the forefront of the small chapel, laden in jewels the likes of which New Shaling had never seen before. Everyone, Oliver most of all, had been unable to take their eyes off her. Maybe it was the return to London afterward with Robert and Minnie sitting next to one another and holding hands.

Maybe it was something in the summer air, because from then on, everywhere Violet looked, she saw couples. Couples promenading in the park, with the lady’s eyes cast down daintily, the gentleman beaming at her possessively. Couples on a picnic. Couples driving out together, looking for sharp turns as an excuse to lean into one another. There were happy couples everywhere.

Her visit to her sister only reinforced that. Violet was shown into the parlor. She was made to listen to her sister recite the happenings of the night before, the details of Amanda’s continuing conquest of the Season, when the door opened and Lily’s husband entered the room. He greeted Violet politely. And then the Marquess of Taltley came up behind his wife and murmured in her ear.

Violet looked away. She really did. But there was only so far one could politely avert one’s gaze without risking getting a crick in one’s neck, and she couldn’t help but see when his fingers slipped down to her sister’s shoulder.

Lily playfully slapped at her husband’s hand. “No, go away,” she said with an impudent grin. “And stop looking at me like that. I’ve only been out of confinement for seven months.”

Violet smiled, but the corners of her mouth felt brittle—as if her face might crack and fall into dust at the slightest breeze.

Lily stood and took her husband’s arm, ushering him to the door. Violet tried not to notice the way he leaned in to whisper something else in her ear. She turned away so she wouldn’t have to see that faint flush on her sister’s skin, a flush that had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with something far more intimate.

She didn’t want to see her sister squeeze her husband’s hand, didn’t want to imagine the promises that were being whispered back and forth.

“Get on with you,” Lily finally said, holding on to her husband’s fingers. “Don’t you have bills to read? Speeches to write?”

“I always do better with inspiration.” He leaned down to her lips.

Violet’s hands compressed.

Lily simply stepped aside. “Out,” she said. “We ladies have things to discuss.” She shut the door on him, but stood there against it for a moment, one hand on the knob, swaying slightly.

In that moment, Violet hated happy couples. She felt the weight of that emotion, a burdensome, unworthy resentment, one that tugged at her. She’d never begrudged Lily a thing, but sometimes it felt unfair. Lily had so much, and Violet…

Lily smiled dreamily. “I know what you are thinking,” she said. “You’re thinking of Mama’s rules: ‘A lady never contradicts her husband, and a daughter never contradicts her father.’”

Violet exhaled slowly. Lily had never known what Violet thought. It was why Violet loved her so dearly. She took all of Violet’s most horrible thoughts and transformed them into something almost human.

“A wife takes her consequence from her husband,” Lily continued. “To undermine him is to lose her own place in society.”

“That wasn’t the point of that rule,” Violet said. “It wasn’t about submitting to your husband, but about public perception…” She trailed off.

Lily rolled her eyes. “Public, private. How is there any difference? I feel awful. I have to tell him no occasionally. If he so much as sneezes in my direction, I get pregnant.”

Violet’s nails cut grooves into her palms. Better that sharp pain, though, than to speak her regrets aloud, to allow them to dig into her heart.

Lily’s eyes jerked wide open. She turned to Violet. “Oh, God.” She reached toward her sister. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said—I wasn’t thinking…”

Violet chose her words carefully, imagined that each one was an iron block, walling her off from her fierce resentment.

“There’s no need to apologize. If we could not talk of children with one another, we’d have little enough to say.” She took a deep breath, and met her sister’s gaze squarely. “And if you think I was unaware that you caught a child at every turn, you must imagine me the most unobservant sister ever. After your fifth child, it was obvious to even an impartial observer that children came rather easily. As you’ve just managed number eleven…” She managed a shrug.

“True.” But Lily still looked stricken. “Still, there’s no need for me to rub your nose in it. I’m so sorry. I feel awful. I should never have said a word.”

If Lily felt so awful, then why was Violet the one comforting her? Because that’s the way Lily is.

“Stop worrying,” Violet told her. “If you imagine I’m harboring jealousy about your ability to conceive, I am not. I promise you.”

“But—”

“I promise you,” Violet said, “on our father’s grave. Have I ever lied to you?”

Her sister’s face cleared. “No.”

Violet kept her own face impassive. Quite technically, she had never told Lily an outright lie. She’d only misdirected and falsely implied. Lily—forthright, trusting Lily—had never considered that Violet might be withholding…everything. And now that Violet had held back years of dark secrets, there was no way to make it right.

“I don’t weep over my lack,” Violet said, trying for something closer to familial friendliness. “I love your children. They’re enough for me.”

Lily smiled a little sadly. “You don’t weep at all, Violet.”

“Why should I? Nothing makes me sad.”

Lily was sunshine and openness. She was warmth and smiles. She was everything Violet could have been, if only… There were too many if onlys in the way for Violet to find herself in her sister. Lily was the warmer version of herself. It would be foolish to say that Violet was jealous of her. Jealousy was so plain, so unforgiving. One couldn’t love jealously, and if Violet knew one thing, it was that she loved her sister. Watching Lily’s life was as close as Violet would ever come to experiencing normalcy: children, affection, trust, family, love.