“Mum did the exact same thing to me and Rand!” Lily exclaimed when they were settled in her drawing room. Swiveling on her petit-point stool, she turned away from the beautiful inlaid Flemish harpsichord Rand had surprised her with after their wedding. “Before our betrothal, she insisted on hosting Rand at Trentingham. She even asked me to keep him company, alone, on several occasions. But then after that—”
“Let me guess,” Rose said. “You felt like you were the Crown Jewels and Mum was hired to guard you?” When Lily nodded, Rose slumped in her elegant lemon-yellow chair. “She let you go to Rand at Hawkridge, though.”
“With you along to chaperone—and spy on us.”
Lily’s expression dared her to deny the truth. Surprised and sheepish, Rose didn’t dare. She wasn’t used to being challenged by Lily. My, how her sweet younger sister had changed since she’d won Rand.
“Anyhow,” Lily went on, “once Lord Hawkridge had consented to a wedding date, I was only allowed to see Rand once before we married. It was torture.”
“Sheer torture,” Rose agreed.
“I’m not sure the fact that Mum kept us apart once we were betrothed is really most relevant.” Violet removed her spectacles and wiped them with a handkerchief. “Frustrating, true, but that can be attributed to propriety, after all. I find it more odd that she left us all together with our men before we became betrothed. As if she had no concerns that anything untoward would happen.”
Lily shrugged. “She probably wasn’t worried about me and Rand, since everyone thought he was going to marry Rose.”
“That’s just it.” Replacing the spectacles, Violet blinked her eyes into focus. “I mean, no offense to Rose, but even I could tell you were the one Rand wanted, and I’m half blind.”
Rose pursed her lips. “What are you suggesting?”
Violet turned to her. “I’ve been thinking about what you said last week. That it’s unusual for Mum to misjudge people.”
“And?”
“And isn’t it curious that, after a perfect record matching dozens of other couples, she was so very wrong about all three of our matches?”
Rose looked to Lily, but Lily was looking elsewhere. “What other explanation is there?” she asked Violet.
“That she only pretended to be wrong.”
Rose narrowed her eyes. “To what end?”
“To…” Violet swallowed. “To arrange our matches without our knowledge.”
The room went very quiet. Violet stared at her lap, toying with the end of her plait. Lily rubbed an old scar on the back of her hand. Rose’s temples began to throb.
Lily’s cat rubbed against her skirts, seeming to sense her distress. She scooped it into her lap and rhythmically stroked the cat’s striped fur.
“It can’t be true,” Rose burst out.
“What can’t be true?”
The girls turned to see Lily’s husband standing in the drawing room entrance, unfastening his academic robe. His sudden appearance spooked the cat, who leapt away to join a sparrow and a squirrel that seemed to be chatting on the windowsill. Lily and Rand had moved to Oxford from his father’s estate only last week, just in time for Michaelmas Term to begin, but her animal friends had found her already.
“What can’t be true?” Rand repeated, draping his robe over the back of another yellow chair. He wore breeches, a shirt, and a waistcoat underneath.
For once, Lily’s big blue eyes didn’t soften with love and awe at the sight of her new husband. Instead they looked uneasy.
Rose answered for her. “Violet thinks Mum secretly arranged all our marriages.”
Rand’s face drained of color while his neck and ears turned bright red. Though his reaction betrayed some shock, it made an even greater impression of guilt.
Rose gasped. “You knew!”
“He only recently found out,” Lily mumbled, her eyes trained on her lap.
It was Violet’s turn to gasp. “You knew?”
Rand crossed to the sideboard and reached for a decanter of brandy.
“Lily,” Rose prompted through her teeth.
Lily rose from her petit-point stool. “Truly, we only just learned—”
“When?” Rose demanded.
“The first night Kit came to dinner at Trentingham. Ford told Rand—”
“Ford knew?” Violet cried.
“He didn’t know everything.” Rand pressed a goblet into Violet’s hand and watched her take a generous gulp. “Ford only knew that your mother had given him advice on how to win you.”
“Mum gave him advice?” Violet downed the rest of her drink.
Refusing the brandy Rand offered her, Rose rounded on Lily with daggers in her eyes. “You’ve known about this for weeks. Were you ever going to tell us?”
“I wanted to tell you, but I…” When Lily finally looked up, she flinched at Rose’s expression. “Violet, you have two beautiful new babies, and Rose, you’re about to get married. I just couldn’t bear the thought of spoiling all your happiness. I know I was wrong—”
“You’re deuced right you were wrong,” Rose huffed.
“Don’t blame her, Rose. This isn’t Lily’s fault.” Violet’s knuckles were white from clenching the gilded arms of her chair. “It’s the fault of the knaves who lied to us.”
Rose’s jaw dropped. She’d never heard her sister call her husband a name that wasn’t nice.
“Who are you calling a knave?” Rand demanded. “I never lied. And Ford, he just—”
“Just kept this from me for four years?” Violet regarded her husband’s friend with overbright eyes.
Rand fell silent.
Lily rushed to her and wrapped her in her arms. “Oh, Violet, you know Ford hid it out of love for you. Because he feared upsetting you or even losing you.”
Violet made no reply.
Rand downed the brandy Rose hadn’t taken.
Rose’s voice pierced the heavy atmosphere. “And what of Kit?”
Lily didn’t release their sister, but turned her gaze on Rose.
“Has Kit kept this from me, too?” Rose’s eyes burned with suppressed tears. “Has Mum been advising him?”
The silence blanketing the room was all the answer she needed.
SIXTY-TWO
“WHAT WILL YOU do now?” Rose asked Violet that evening as their carriage neared home.
“Hmm?” Violet said vaguely. She was staring out the window, though Rose wasn’t sure why. In the dim twilight, naught was visible but the lumpy outlines of a
