“Lord Lakefield bought it for me in Windsor,” she admitted finally.
Rose’s mouth gaped open.
“It wasn’t like that!” Violet rushed to add. “He thought it was a philosophy book. We both did.”
“Of course,” Rose said with a smirk.
Violet’s fingers clenched the leather cover. “It’s called Aristotle’s Master-piece. What was I supposed to think?”
“Is it really that shocking?” Lily’s shorter legs hurried to keep up with her older sisters’ quick pace.
Violet shrugged. “Yes and no.”
She rushed past Father’s blue and yellow flower beds, breathing a sigh of relief when they reached the circular red-brick summerhouse. She yanked open one of the small garden building’s four doors, and the girls scurried inside, shutting it behind them.
They huddled together on a section of the benches that ran along the wall, Rose and Lily on either side of Violet. She placed the book on her lap. Large, arched windows over each of the doors illuminated the brown leather binding, but they were placed too high for anyone to see in.
A perfect place for illicit reading.
Violet looked to her fourteen-year-old sister. “Lily, are you sure you want to stay?”
Lily’s chin jutted out. “I’m staying. I’m only a year younger than Rose. If she wants to read it, so do I.”
“We’ll see about that,” Rose said with a smirk.
Violet shook her head. ”Very well. Here was my first clue that it wasn’t the sort of book I’d thought,” she began, and opened the cover.
“Oh, my heavens,” Lily breathed. The frontispiece plate depicted a seated Aristotle with a bare woman standing beside him. Lily quickly shielded her eyes. ”Is it…is the book really by Aristotle?”
“I’m sure not!” Rose scanned the title page opposite. “There’s no author listed, no printer’s name or date or place of publication.” Even she looked apprehensive now. “It must be truly scandalous.”
“It’s not what you think.” Violet turned the page. “I nearly tossed it in the fireplace myself when I saw the frontispiece, but then I read the subtitle.”
“‘The Secrets of Generation in All the Parts Thereof,’” Rose read aloud. Her brow creased. “‘Generation?’”
Lily peeked from between her fingers. “It sounds like an academic volume.”
“Sort of. It’s more like a manual.” Violet drew a deep breath. “Only the subject is…”
“The marriage bed.” Rose supplied.
Lily’s hands fluttered into her lap. “Oh.” Her blue eyes were round as the moon through Ford’s telescope.
Violet nodded. “Exactly. Now, are you certain you want to stay, Lily?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. I’m not sure Mum would approve, but…” She looked down, and her hands fisted in her skirts. “But I’m going to find out one way or another, aren’t I? In just a few years, I’ll be old enough to marry.” She lifted her gaze to meet Violet’s. “I’d rather know what to expect in advance than find out on my wedding night.”
“Hear, hear!” Rose cheered.
Violet couldn’t argue with such a sensible way of thinking, so instead she turned the page and regarded the introductory text. “It begins with advice to parents.”
“To parents?”
“Of young girls.” She cleared her throat and began to read. “‘It behooves parents to look after their children, and when they find them inclinable to marriage, not violently to restrain their affections, but rather provide such suitable matches for them, lest the crossing of their inclinations should precipitate them to commit those follies that may bring an indelible stain upon their families.’”
Rose giggled. “Sounds as though Father and Mum ought to make certain we marry before we get ourselves with child.”
“Rose!” Lily’s mouth dropped open.
“Hush,” Violet said. “There’s more.” She swallowed and turned the page. “‘For when they arrive at puberty, which is about the fourteenth or fifteenth year of their age, then the natural purgations begin to flow—’”
“They have already,” Rose said. “For all of us.”
“Rose!” Lily looked past Violet to glare at her.
“Just listen, both of you. ‘…and the blood stirs up their minds to venery: for their spirits being brisk and inflamed when they arrive at this age, if they eat hard salt things and spices, the body becomes more and more heated…’”
Violet’s face was becoming heated just hearing her voice say the words aloud. But remembering Lily’s understandable determination to become informed, she forced herself to continue.
“‘…whereby the desire to c-carnal em-embraces’”—Violet’s cheeks were positively on fire now—“‘is very great, sometimes insuperable.’”
Rose crossed her arms. “So if we eat salty or spicy foods, we’re doomed to become fallen women?”
“How awful!” Lily wore a look of panic, as though worried she might fall at any moment.
“I don’t think it works that way,” Violet said thoughtfully. “We all had salt fish for breakfast this morning. Are either of you overwarm?”
It was comfortably cool in the summerhouse, if a bit humid. They both shook their heads.
“Do you feel insuperably desirous of a man?”
“What does ‘insuperable’ mean?” Lily asked.
“Impossible to overcome.”
“Oh. Well, no.”
“Me neither,” Rose said. “Not at the moment, anyway.”
Violet rolled her eyes. “Well then, it seems we have nothing to worry about.”
Lily’s features relaxed. Rose waved an impatient hand. “If you say so, Violet. Just keep reading.”
“Where were we? Ah. ‘And the use of this so much desired enjoyment being denied to virgins, many times is followed by dismal consequences, as…’” Violet paused, her eyes landing on the next words: Short breathings. Trembling of the heart. Eager staring at men, and affecting their company.
Her stomach knotted.
Her thoughts whirling, she remembered the way her breath caught whenever Ford touched her. The strange trembling she’d felt in her chest that day on the boat. That when they locked eyes, she was incapable of looking away. And that, despite all her grumblings over having to bring Rowan to Lakefield House, she always seemed to find herself in Ford’s company…
She suddenly felt overwarm.
“Violet?” She could barely feel Lily’s hand on her shoulder. “Are you
