The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister 3)

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m eternally grateful.”

Her mother took Violet by the elbow and gently—forcefully—guided her to a carriage marked with her crest.

“Thank you,” Violet said, just as a few others pushed on board with her. Her mother, Amanda, Oliver, Jane, and, a few seconds behind them, Free.

Free pulled the door shut and beamed at Violet.

“My lady!” she said happily. “We did it! We did it!”

“Yes,” Violet said. She knew she wasn’t normally a stupid woman; why was her brain not working? “We did it.” She rubbed her head. “What did we do?”

She hadn’t really wanted to hear, but Free wanted to tell her. Violet could scarce take it all in, what had happened in her absence. The newspaper accounts. The public outcry.

“Imprisoning you,” Free said, “was the stupidest thing they could have done. The Duchess of Clermont said so—she laughed, actually. She sends her apologies for her absence, by the way, but she knew there’d be a bit of a wild crowd.”

“Of course,” Violet said stupidly.

“You’ve become quite the heroine,” Free said. “You should have seen the headlines: ‘Countess of Cambury announces extraordinary new discovery; is sentenced to one month of hard labor.’”

“There was no labor,” Violet remarked. “The warden was quite kind, except for refusing to allow me my knitting.” She shrugged. “The needles, you know.”

Free blinked. “Well.” She soldiered on. “Alice Bollingall wrote an account for the Times of London where she described her partnership with her husband, how they’d shared their work. She detailed precisely who had done what for the discovery you made—your part, her part, Sebastian’s part.”

Violet licked her lips. “And what did—”

Before she could ask what Sebastian had to say about that, Free went on. “There were caricatures of you in chains shouting ‘Eureka!’ while men to your side called for gags.”

“There were no chains,” Violet said. “It was actually restful. Rather like being on holiday.” A foul-smelling holiday where she talked to nobody at all and had no choice about how she spent her days.

“Hmm.” Free said. “Perhaps you needn’t mention that in public? But I didn’t tell you all of it yet. Robert angled an audience with the queen three days ago. He and Sebastian were the ones who went to her. She heard all the particulars and ordered you pardoned.”

“Oh.” That was all Violet could manage. Sebastian had been involved. But what did he think? How badly had she hurt him? Would he ever trust her again? What would he say when he saw her next? “Speaking of whom…”

“Yes, speaking of the queen!” Free said. “She wants to meet with you. She pardoned you entirely, except for the contempt charges. Apparently, she said you deserved those.”

Violet subsided in her seat. Free was a force of nature; trying to stop her or turn her back was like trying to blow a cyclone away.

“And now you’re famous,” Free said, “and everyone wants to meet you, and Jane hired guards for your home in London—I hope you don’t mind, but you’ll need them for the next few months. Aren’t you just dying of happiness?”

“Yes,” Violet said, and then—to her astonishment—she started to cry. She had never cried before, not since she was an infant. She didn’t shed tears. She just didn’t. She had no idea why she was doing it now. She wasn’t even sad.

But Jane crossed the carriage and put her arm around her, and Free took her hand.

“It’s nothing,” Violet tried to tell them. “Nothing at all.”

But it wasn’t that. She knew how to steel herself for failure and disappointment. She knew how to smile while her hopes were slowly crushed.

All this time, in her secret heart, she’d believed that if the truth came out, everyone would despise her. She’d believed her true self was dark and desperate, that her friends only tolerated her out of an excess of amiability.

But she wasn’t a monster.

Victory wasn’t sweet; it was devastating and incomprehensible. It reduced her to rubble when she could have withstood harsh words.

She kept crying, leaking like a cracked ink-bottle.

“It’s just—they washed my cell with some chemical,” she explained. “To kill the lice. And wouldn’t you know? I think the absence of fumes is bothering my eyes.”

Jane handed her a bright green handkerchief, and nobody contradicted this statement even though it was patently absurd. They held her until she managed to stop embarrassing herself.

“Amanda,” Violet finally asked. “How is it that you are…that you have come…” She couldn’t finish her sentence, couldn’t ask if Lily had changed her mind.

“Grandmama took me,” Amanda said. “Mama said…” There was a longer pause. “Mama said to tell you that if I wish to…” But Amanda couldn’t quite finish her sentence either. She choked back the words and looked away.

Violet wondered if all victories were so bittersweet. She’d won, but at the cost of those she’d loved. Lily, Sebastian… Her heart ached.

“So you’ll be staying with me,” Violet managed calmly.

“For a few years.” Amanda looked away. “Mama told me to tell you that she had to think of the other children. For their sake, she couldn’t…have us any longer. But she told me that when she had the chance, she would…”

Violet swallowed a lump in her throat. “Right,” she said. “Right.” And they spoke no more of it.

There were crowds at the train station they eventually reached, and an even larger mass of people at the London terminal when they arrived three hours later. Someone must have cabled ahead with the news.

Her mother somehow managed to bring her through it all.

Violet did not ask the question that ate at her until she arrived at her home, until they’d made their way through the throng outside her door and shut themselves in a room with the curtains drawn.

“Mama,” she whispered, “where is Sebastian?”

Her mother glanced at her. “Waiting to see if you’ll talk to him.”

She felt her nose wrinkle. “If I’ll talk to him? Why would he wonder about that? Is he stupid?”

“Probably,” her mother said. “Should I send for him?”