The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister #3)(70)

Violet felt very far away—as if she were watching some strange woman sitting with her sister on a sofa. This was happening to someone else. Someone else was feeling her heart squeezed by a vise. Some other person—not her.

“I am not joking.”

This was met with silence. Her sister turned away from her, stood, and then paced to the window. “You’re joking,” Lily said more decisively. “I don’t care what you are thinking right now; you have to be joking. Think about what it will mean to me, to my children. We’ll hardly be received by anyone. Amanda will already have the most horrific reputation as a jilt; this, why, this will make our family a laughingstock. I know you, Violet. You would never do anything so selfish.”

“Selfish?” Violet asked. “Selfish?”

“Yes, selfish. You never think of anyone but yourself—what will please you, what will bring you a moment’s pleasure. You never think of how what you do will affect me.”

Violet had a curious feeling—as if the world were being stripped of all that was important. It wasn’t some other woman sitting on the sofa, no matter how it felt. It wasn’t happening to some strange person. It was happening to Violet.

“Listen to you,” Violet said. “Calling me selfish as if I never deserve to have anything for myself.” She stood. “But I’m not just doing it for me. I’m doing it for every wife who has disappeared behind her husband. I’m doing it for Amanda, who doesn’t want to marry and has never been told what else she might do.”

Lily’s eyes widened and she took a step forward. “You’re the one who gave her that book.”

“You told me to talk to her,” Violet snapped. “I did.”

“You put this notion in her head—the idea that she could walk away from a perfectly good marriage. You did it.”

“She had that idea on her own, I’m afraid.” Violet shrugged. “If it were really a good marriage for her, why would she want to walk away?”

“Well, she won’t have a choice!” Lily snarled. “She said she wanted an education, of all things. She won’t have that from us, that’s for certain. Not while she lives in my house. Not with my money. There, now—how do you feel about that, Violet? Do you feel you’re doing the best thing for her now?”

“If you won’t have her, she can come to my house,” Violet snapped, “and have her tutelage with my money. I am not going to encourage her to shrink into nothing because your nerves cannot handle the possibility of your daughter being more. I am certainly not going to push myself into a little box for your pleasure.”

“If you won’t think of me, think of my children,” Lily said. “Shunned—ostracized—mocked! Even you would not be so hard-hearted as to wish that fate on them.”

Selfish again.

“If you could not be received in polite society without cutting off your foot,” Violet said, “how long would it take you to chop it off? Would you call me selfish if I harbored Amanda and kept her safe from such a barbaric act?”

Lily frowned. “This is different.”

“Yes,” Violet said. “It’s very different. If what I have to say is of no lasting moment, everyone will forget in a year. And if it isn’t—well, your children will have a famous aunt. Give me the cut direct and do your best to restore yourself to society’s good graces. Your children can decide for themselves which way they will fall.”

Maybe she hoped that even now, Lily would protest. That she’d say she loved Violet, that she could never cut ties with her.

Instead, Lily shook her head. “If that’s the way it must be.”

Not one word of support. Not one word of love. Not even a hint of regret. There was no indication that Violet mattered to her sister at all.

“Lily,” Violet tried one last time. “Think of what this means to me. For the better part of a decade, I’ve choked back the truth. I’ve hid what I could do, what I’ve thought, who I am. I’m the world’s foremost expert on the science of inheritance. Don’t you feel even a little…?” She trailed off.

Proud?

“Disgusted?” Lily finished. She tossed her head. “I’m trying not to think of what you must have done, the thoughts that must have passed through your head. I’m trying not to think of how much you have been hiding from me this entire time. But yes, Violet. I am disgusted.”

THE LIST OF TASKS TO BE DONE was slowly shrinking, but Violet felt no more at ease.

“I can only imagine,” Violet said that evening, “what will happen when I tell my mother.”

They were in London, in the small gardener’s shed that Sebastian used as an office. He’d greeted her with an embrace and a kiss, but even though they were alone, he had not tried to seduce her into more yet.

It was baffling. He acted as if nothing had happened, as if they were still only friends.

Friends who kissed.

“I’ve always had Lily,” Violet said. “Every time I felt miserable, I could go to her and she’d have something for me to do. I find it difficult to imagine a world without her.”

“Maybe she’ll come around,” Sebastian said.

Violet shook her head. It wouldn’t be the same, even if she did. She’d always wondered if Lily cared about Violet beyond her own convenience. Now Violet knew she didn’t.