The Countess Conspiracy

by Courtney Milan

  “That’s unfair.” He looked away. “I don’t think I could prove anything to you. You’ve made that perfectly clear. But I thought you would at least give me a chance.”

  “A chance? A chance at what?”

  Sebastian raised his chin. “A chance to prove that I’m your equal. That no matter how many missteps I’ve made, we can have something in common.”

  Benedict set his jaw. “But you want more than that. I know how you operate. Of course you want me to approve of you. You thrive on bedazzling others, and it grates on you that you can’t fool me. You’re all spark and no substance. Look at this circular making the announcement. It’s utterly ridiculous. ‘In honor of our two-hundredth anniversary gala, we are pleased to present a series of lectures on the future of trade, given by the thinker of the century.’ Then they name you.” He let out a hearty chuckle. “Tell me, Sebastian. How is that not a joke?”

  Sebastian’s stomach sank. “‘Thinker of the century’ is a little overwrought,” he said stiffly, “but if the most important, intelligent people in your Society think I have something worthwhile to say, couldn’t you consider the possibility?”

  Benedict stood. “You forget. I understand you. They didn’t grow up with you. Every person who meets you today walks away with stars in his eyes, blinded by brilliant lights. But I’ve seen you all my life, and you can’t hide from me. Behind your jokes and your pleasant words and your flashing smiles, you’re nothing.”

  Sebastian felt as if his brother had thrust a sword through his stomach.

  “The rest of the world will give you all the accolades it has to offer. But someone has to remind you of the truth about yourself, and that person is me.” He pushed the circular back to Sebastian. “You want to know what I think of this? I think that my Society has made a mistake—a horrific, bleeding mistake—and when you’re finished wreaking your usual havoc, I will be left to clean up the damage.”

  Sebastian couldn’t say anything. He grappled for words—anything—but they all slipped away from him.

  “Next time you think to make me proud? Don’t besmirch the name of an organization I love.”

  Benedict spoke as if he were offering Sebastian kind, loving advice. Sebastian’s hands were growing cold.

  His brother pushed to his feet. “Do something real, and I will recognize you for it. But this…”

  It should have been obvious long before now, but Sebastian hadn’t wanted to admit it. His brother stood before him, his face a dark thundercloud, his arms crossed over his chest. Perfect Benedict, he’d thought. Benedict never set a foot wrong. Benedict always set so high a standard with his own conduct that Sebastian could not help but fall short of the mark.

  Perfect Benedict was a liar.

  “I see,” Sebastian heard himself say. “I thought I was at fault for the distance between us. But I was hardly alone. There is nothing I can do that will make you think well of me. You’re sending Harry to his grandmother because you don’t think I’ve accomplished enough to raise your son? How many pounds has she earned in business?”

  Benedict frowned. “That’s hardly the point.”

  “Isn’t it? You want your son to have an example of gentlemanly conduct. How many lectures has she delivered to your bloody Society?”

  “You’re out of line, Sebastian. Don’t curse.”

  “You cursed yourself, not two minutes ago!” Sebastian glared at his brother. “When was she inducted into the Royal Society? At what age? What papers has she published?” Sebastian took a step forward. “It’s not about what I do. It’s not about what I don’t do. It’s about the same damned thing, Benedict—the thing that this has always been about. I am someone—someone intelligent and capable—and you’ve never seen anything good in me. Well, I’m done trying to prove I deserve your respect. You’d never grant it to me, no matter what I did.”

  Benedict drew back, his cheeks turning pink. “What a terrible thing to say.”

  “Oh, it’s terrible, all right. Imagine living it,” Sebastian said. “Imagine growing up, knowing that the person whose good opinion you most wish to win has already deemed you good for nothing. All my life I’ve let you tell me that I was nothing but a fribble—a pointless, ridiculous, foolish rake, someone who contributed nothing to the world. But you know what? I have a lot to be proud of. Try it, Benedict. Tell me one good thing about myself.”

  His brother’s jaw worked. His nostrils flared; he looked away. “Well. You’re likable—I’ll grant you that. It has always been your undoing: You’re likable. Everything has always come so easily to you—friends, women.” He shook his head. “Money. Prestige. Life is a game to you. The rest of us struggle through, trying our best to leave the tiniest of marks. And you just have it all handed to you without lifting a finger. Because you’re likable.”

  Christ. Benedict couldn’t even give him a compliment without turning it into an insult.

  “I can’t help it if people like me.” Sebastian folded his arms. “And I have not had everything I wanted simply handed to me.”

  “Name one thing, Sebastian—one thing that you’ve wanted that you haven’t received.”

  Sebastian looked away. “Your approval.”

  “Oh, one difficulty! Very good. After more than three decades of easy sailing, you’ve discovered one thing that cannot be had for the price of a joke and a smile.”

  “No,” Sebastian set his hands on the desk. “Your approval was the only thing I ever wanted as a child. All I have ever wanted was for you to be proud of me. For you to look me in the eyes and say, ‘Good work, Sebastian, I knew you could do it.’ But nothing I did was ever good enough for you. I tried and tried and tried, and no matter what I accomplished, no matter what I laid at your feet, I always got the same answer. What I did had no value.” He leaned forward. “That is codswallop, Benedict.”

  Benedict tossed his head. “Oh, don’t try and arouse my pity. If you had done anything worth doing—”

  “Do you know why I want your son?” Sebastian interrupted. “Yes, it’s because I love him. Yes, it’s because he’s a wonderful boy and I would count it an honor to raise him. But it’s also because I see you doing to him what you did to me. Nothing he does is good enough for you. All he receives are reprimands. ‘Stop playing make-believe,’ ‘You’re not old enough for real work,’ and yet, ‘You’re too old to play.’ Nothing he ever does is right. I want him because I want him to know that he’s good enough. Because I’m the only person in the world that believes that about him, and damn it, I do not want him to grow up like I did.”

  Benedict’s eyes darkened. “You’re questioning my abilities as a parent?”

  “Yes,” Sebastian said, “I am. You mucked everything up with me, and now you’re mucking it up with Harry. I’m not going to let you do that to him.”

  Benedict sighed and rubbed his forehead. “You think I was too hard on you?” He took a step forward. “You think that you did your best, and I should have rewarded your substandard, foolish little efforts because otherwise, I might hurt your feelings?” His face was red. “You could have had my respect. It’s never been withheld. All you had to do was earn it.”

  “Name one thing I could do!” Sebastian snapped. “Just try—name one thing, Benedict, that I could do that would make you say, ‘Well, Sebastian, you really are worthy of respect.”

  Benedict’s mouth worked. “Just—just stop lazing about, and—”

  “I have not lazed about!” Sebastian shouted back. “Look at me. Really look at me, Benedict. Look at who I am and what I’ve done. These things I’m putting before you—they’re not accidents. They are who I am. It’s not my fault that all you see in me is a ne’er-do-well.”

  “I see what you are!” Benedict snapped back. “And what you are is a fraud.”

  Sebastian felt cold all the way through. “No.”

  But there was just enough truth in his brother’s accusation that his protest came out a mere whisper.

  “You’re a frau
d,” Benedict said, “playing at being a man. You’re a fraud, a fraud, a horrible—” He stopped mid-sentence, breathing hard. His face mottled red and he bit back the rest of his sentence.

  And in that moment, Sebastian knew that his brother was right. He was a fraud—a horrible one—and even if Benedict didn’t know all the reasons, he had the right of it. He’d been afraid of losing his brother, and yet here he was, driving him away.

  Sebastian knew his brother had a heart complaint, and he’d angered him anyway. God, he knew better than that. He’d just…forgotten. He hated losing his temper. It made him forget everything important.

  He was more than what his brother thought—not just a jester, not just a man who made people laugh. But Benedict was right. At heart, Sebastian had never wanted to be more than the man who made people smile. Every time he forgot that, the people he loved paid the price.

  He had accomplished things—but he was also the man who’d spent three years crossing flowers, hoping to find something profound, reaping only confusion instead.

  Benedict’s face twisted in agony; his hand drifted to his abdomen.

  That’s what comes of being serious. You know better than that.

  He stepped forward. “Stop,” he said gently. “Stop. You’re right. I’m sorry.” He reached out and brushed his brother’s shoulder. “Don’t get angry. I don’t want you to get angry.”

  Benedict flexed his fingers into a fist. “Damn my heart. If I can’t yell at my brother…” He grated those words out, as if speaking through pain. “If I can’t yell at my little brother, there’s no point in living.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “Here—sit down. Sit down now. I’ll go get the doctor.”

  “It’s nothing,” Benedict muttered, but he sat heavily, his fist balled against his leg, pressing hard as if to ward off pain. “It’s nothing at all. Just a touch of indigestion.” He took a deeper breath. “It’ll pass,” he said. “But…” His eyes drifted shut.

  “Right,” Sebastian said softly. “Now is not a good time to talk.”

  But he knew what he was really saying.

  There would never be a good time to talk. The gap between them could never be bridged; Benedict would never respect him.

  It didn’t matter. Sebastian respected himself—so much so that he didn’t need his brother’s approval to continue. It didn’t matter how little his brother valued the skill. So long as Sebastian kept Benedict smiling, he’d account himself a success.

  And if Benedict didn’t think much of him for it…well, at least he’d be smiling.

  “UNCLE SEBASTIAN,” A SMALL VOICE SAID from the stairwell as Sebastian descended. “What is happening to my father?”

  Sebastian looked down. Harry sat on a chair in the entry. It was an adult’s chair, and his legs didn’t quite reach the ground. He sat, his arms folded, waiting patiently as Sebastian had never been able to do at that age. His nephew’s dark hair spilled in every direction; his expression was set in childish worry.

  “Why were you and Papa yelling at one another?” Harry looked scared.

  “Because we couldn’t agree,” Sebastian finally said. “Sometimes it happens. People can’t agree.”

  Harry slid off the chair. He was clutching a wooden horse. He slowly came up the steps until he met Sebastian halfway. With Sebastian on the upper step, it made Harry seem even smaller than he was, barely higher than Sebastian’s knees.

  “Are you going to go away and never come back?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Another pause. “Is Papa going to die?”

  “Why…” Sebastian licked his lips. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because the doctor comes so often. He did that last year with Mama.”

  It wasn’t Sebastian’s place to tell Harry about his father’s illness. But he couldn’t bring himself to lie, either. “Ask your papa,” he finally said.

  Harry’s face crumpled. “That means yes.”

  “Shh.” Sebastian sat down on the steps next to his nephew, removing that awful difference in their heights. “It will all work out, somehow.” He let out a breath. “I’ve been making your father angry these last few weeks, and that isn’t good for him.” He looked up. He didn’t know what to make of his brother anymore, didn’t know what was right, except that yelling wouldn’t change anything. “I’m not going to do that anymore,” he promised. “That will help. Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not,” Harry said.

  And he wasn’t. His shoulders shook convulsively, but he didn’t let out so much as a sob.

  “I’m not crying,” Harry repeated. “Papa said men don’t cry, and so I’m not crying now.”

  Don’t be ridiculous, Sebastian thought of saying.

  Or: Crying is allowed when you’re sad.

  But Benedict wouldn’t appreciate Sebastian’s interference with his parenting, and in the end, Harry was Benedict’s child. It was his decision, no matter what Sebastian thought of it.

  “Right,” Sebastian said, sliding his arm around Harry. “Good. You’re not crying. I’m here, not crying with you.”

  “VIOLET,” LILY SAID, taking her sister’s hands. “How did you know that I needed you so?”

  They were in Lily’s private study, the door locked. Lily had threatened her children with tarring and feathering if they interrupted her within the next hour, which meant they had at most fifteen minutes. Lily sat at her desk, her eyes wide and beseeching.

  Violet hadn’t known. She’d needed Lily—needed to be reminded that someone needed her, if only to talk sternly to Frederick about how the dignity of his tin soldiers could not be upheld if they continued to conduct excursions in his chamber pot. With Lily, she served a purpose, a real one.

  Violet folded her hands.

  “Help me,” Lily said. “This is more than any mother can bear.”

  “What is wrong?” If one of Lily’s children had been ill enough to occasion concern, surely she would have sent for Violet already.

  “Look what I found in Amanda’s things.” Lily’s hands were shaking as she took a key from the ring in her pocket and unlocked the drawer of her desk.

  Suddenly, Violet had a very bad feeling about what Lily was about to produce.

  “This.” Lily pulled out a volume. “This.” Her voice trembled.

  It was only with great effort that Violet kept the emotion from her face. “Pride and Prejudice,” she said calmly. “And a first edition at that. Good heavens. Those have become quite valuable now. Did a suitor give it to her? You’re right. She never should have accepted such a thing from a man, no matter how thoughtful the gift. She’ll have to return it.”

  Not lies. Not the truth, either, but none of it was outright falsehood.

  “Open it.” Lily looked away. “Just…open it.”

  Violet did, even though she knew what she would see. It wasn’t the frontispiece of Pride and Prejudice.

  The Higher Education of Women, by Emily Davies.

  Violet looked up into her sister’s eyes. “Emily Davies,” she said so calmly that she’d never have known how her own heart raced, had she not felt it beating wildly in her chest. “I have not heard of a novelist by that name.” Also true; the Emily Davies Violet knew wrote essays, not novels. “Does she write improper fiction?”

  “She’s not a novelist,” Lily spat. “She’s one of those…awful women. She writes about the rights of women.”

  “Oh. Dear me.”

  “I knew you’d understand. My own daughter has been sneaking about with that sort of subversive literature! She won’t tell me which of her friends gave it to her. I don’t know who is attempting to lead her astray. It’s not enough that she’s harboring such vile thoughts; it has made her tell me falsehoods.”

  “Falsehoods?” Violet said. “Surely she did not tell actual lies.”

  “As good as,” Lily said scornfully. “Truths designed to mislead are just as bad as lies.”

  Violet licked her lips. “She loves you, you know.
She’s not sly by nature. Maybe she felt you’d not be open to having such a discussion.”

  “Well, of course she thought that! I’m not open to such conversation. Who would be? Nobody of good family. This talk of higher education may be an unfortunate necessity for women who cannot obtain a respectable offer, but Amanda is not in that situation.”

  Violet didn’t say anything.

  “You and I,” Lily said, “we understand. The female sphere is not lesser, merely because it is relegated to the weaker sex. We may not be as strong as men, as clever as men, but we have our purpose. To have Amanda shirk that…”

  “Purpose,” Violet said ruefully. And then, after a pause, “Remind me what that is again?”

  Lily looked at her sister. For a moment, she simply looked, as if only now remembering that Violet had neither children nor husband. As if wondering how she would be able to look her sister in the eye after telling her flat-out that she served no purpose.

  “This is why I love you,” Lily said awkwardly. “Because no matter what our outward differences may be, you still understand me. You know what is in my heart, just as I know what’s in yours.”

  Violet sat in frozen silence, scarcely able to nod in reply. She’d always known she had to mislead Lily in order for her sister to love her. Not just about her activities or her thoughts; she had to lie about everything.

  It had never occurred to her that Lily—warm, sweet, open Lily—was lying to her, too. That Violet wanted her to do it, because even the illusion of love was preferable to the utter lack of it.

  “When I find the fiend who gave my daughter that dreadful material,” Lily was saying, “I’ll ruin him. Or her. That sneaking, lying, selfish, false-faced coward.”

  She was lying to Lily. She was lying to Sebastian. She was lying to everyone who mattered to her.

  She had no idea what she said to end the interview, how she took leave of her sister. It began to drizzle on the way home; she heard the drops against the roof of her carriage. She was met with an umbrella at her home and ushered into the warm interior, but she didn’t belong there either.