SEATED IN her customary spot in the summerhouse, Violet cleared her throat. “As I was saying…” She sent Rose a severe glance before raising the book. “‘In this concavity are diverse folds, wrinkled like an expanded rose.’”
“A rose?” Rose interrupted again. “That ‘concavity’ looks nothing like the roses in our garden.” When her sisters gaped at her, she bristled. “Well, it doesn’t. I’ve looked. With a mirror.” She narrowed her gaze. “Don’t tell me you haven’t.”
Violet just continued reading. “‘The hymen, or claustrum virginale, is that which closes the neck of the womb relating to virginity, broken in the first copulation. And commonly, when broken in copulation, or by any other accident, a small quantity of blood flows from it, attended with some little pain.’”
Silence descended on the summerhouse.
“Little pain,” Lily whispered finally. “That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?”
“I’m sure it’s not,” Violet said firmly.
But they all took a deep breath in unison.
“All right, then.” Violet turned the page. “Listen to this.” She swallowed. “‘There are many veins and arteries passing into the womb—’”
Suddenly they heard a jaunty tune being hummed outside. “Gemini!” Rose exclaimed. “It’s Mum!”
Leaping up, she ran for the door and jerked it open, Lily at her heels. The two of them pushed through at the same time, all but stumbling over each other.
“Good afternoon, Mum,” Rose said. “Come along, Lily. Father is waiting.”
“For what?” Mum asked, frowning at Violet as her younger daughters all but trampled her in their haste to escape.
Shrugging, Violet snapped the book closed and set it face down on the bench. “What are you doing out here?”
Unlike Father, Mum avoided the outdoors, especially on a nice, sunny day like this one. She worried for her creamy complexion. Now she was wearing a big straw hat and carrying a basket over her arm, filled with stale bread. “I thought I’d just take some air,” she said. “And feed the swans.”
When Violet stood, her spectacles tumbled from her lap to the red-brick floor. She bent to retrieve them, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice the book on the bench. “Shall I come with you?”
“That would be lovely.”
She slipped the frames on her face as they crossed the wide green lawn to the river. A multitude of daisies sprouted among the blades of grass; heaven forbid Father leave any part of his land free of flowers.
Mum bent to pick one as they went. She twirled the white and yellow posy in her fingers. “Is the book you were reading interesting?”
Faith, she’d noticed.
“It’s philosophy.” Well, it was. In a sense.
“What is it called?”
“Um…” Violet felt her face heat, but the title certainly wasn’t a giveaway. “Aristotle’s Master-piece.”
Stepping onto the bridge, her mother threw her an inscrutable look. “And is it?”
Her heart stuttered. “Is it what?”
“A masterpiece.”
“Oh.” Halfway across the bridge, Violet stopped and turned to the rail. She focused out over the river. “It’s Aristotle, you know. I’m sure you’ve heard me jabber enough about him.” She reached into her mother’s basket and broke off a bit of bread, tossing it out to the lone swan nearby. “I don’t expect you’d find it very interesting.”
“You might be surprised.”
Violet wondered what her mother meant, but she didn’t want to ask. She had a feeling she was better off not knowing.
More swans glided near, and her mother tossed a few crumbs. “You miss him, don’t you?”
Him. Mum had to mean Ford. But Violet had never admitted to any regard for him, so how could Mum know?
“Miss whom?” she asked.
“Lord Lakefield, of course. Don’t be coy, Violet. For weeks you saw him every day, but now that Jewel is gone, you have no excuse to visit. I know you’re fond of him.”
“He’s very nice,” Violet said carefully.
“You don’t allow a gentleman to kiss you just because he’s nice.”
Violet’s jaw dropped open. She closed it, along with her eyes, then opened them and turned to her mother. “Wherever did you get the idea he kissed me?”
“One of your sisters.” Mum held up a hand. “No, I won’t tell you which one, because it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me! It was Rose, wasn’t it?”
“I won’t be saying.”
Violet was more frustrated than embarrassed by Mum’s revelation. She knew her mother must have kissed her father before they were married—how else could they have been caught in a ‘compromising position’?
But that was beside the point. “I’m not marrying him, Mum.”
Below them, the swans squawked, and Mum broke off more bread. “Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, he hasn’t asked me. And for another, I wouldn’t agree if he did.”
“Can you explain why?”
“Why?” To avoid meeting her mother’s eyes, Violet took a hunk of bread and faced the graceful white birds. “Why should I? With or without my spectacles, I’m not blind. I know I’m no beauty. If he asked for my hand, it would only be to get my ten thousand pounds—heaven knows he needs it, as Rose has pointed out countless times. And I won’t marry for less than true love, Mum. I…I suspect marriage isn’t all it’s purported to be, anyway.”
She wished she could still believe that with the certainty she once had. But she wasn’t quite so sure any longer, not since attending the ball. Now, late at night, she lay in her four-poster bed alone, wishing to feel that feeling again. That feeling of being wanted—cherished, body and soul—that she’d felt in that candlelit piazza.
Mum threw the last of her crumbs to the swans. “I see.”
Violet didn’t care for her mother’s tone. Tossing the rest of her own crumbs, she turned to face her. “You’re not going to try to match me up with him, are you? Because—”
“Goodness, no! I want you to be happy, Violet. Married or not—whatever makes you happy.”
Mum sounded sincere. But as they strolled hand-in-hand back to the house, Violet couldn’t help but wonder.