The Countess Conspiracy

by Courtney Milan

  “This,” he said calmly, “is a talk about Violet.”

  Her insides froze. She could scarcely sit straight. Her head was whirling. He’d…he’d said her name in front of everyone. He was going to tell them—everyone would know—

  Oh, God, her mother was going to kill her. Lily would never speak to her again. Everyone would know. This was a disaster. This was…

  But nobody in the room had turned to her.

  “Genus viola,” Sebastian said.

  Violet unclenched her hands and smoothed her skirts. This was a case of mishearing. He hadn’t said that it was a talk about Violet. He’d said it was a talk about violets.

  She took a deep breath and tried to relax.

  Sebastian turned to the draped easel at the front of the room and whipped away the cloth that covered it.

  “Here’s a typical specimen.” He folded the fabric as he talked. “The flower that adds color to gardens all around England. This”—he indicated the first card on the easel, a colored drawing—“is viola tricolor violacea, the violet of our country gardens, recognizable by its large, three-colored petals and the palmate stipules of its leaves.”

  She could scarcely think for the relief flooding her. She was going to kill him, frightening her like that. Making her think that he was talking about her in front of everyone, when he was merely addressing the subject of flowers.

  “Many,” Sebastian said, “think the violet a common flower. That is a mistake, one made only by those who have never subjected it to close study. In reality, the violet is one of the most surprising of blooms. It can be found in woodlands and hedgerows, in alpine desolation and in cultivated gardens. It ranges in color from the flashy gold of viola tricolor lutea to the brilliant white of viola alpestris. Some species of genus viola bloom with flowers the size of my fist; others have tiny blooms, scarcely detectable.”

  Sebastian smiled, and Violet felt herself smiling back at him.

  “People think viola so common,” he said, “that they judge it unworthy of study. Nowadays, when you see a patch of violets, you look past them, wanting to see flashier flowers. But—as I shall demonstrate—the violet is beyond compare.”

  And that was when Violet understood. He wasn’t talking about flowers, even if everyone else in the room thought he was. He was talking about her.

  He started by describing the crosses he’d performed between the various subspecies of viola tricolor. But she couldn’t ignore his language. He always had a flair for presentation, eschewing big words and dry sentences in favor of a more colorful, conversational style. This time, his words felt like a caress, not a conversation.

  Instead of talking about viola tricolor alba, he called it “beautiful violet.” Viola alpestris became “resilient violet”; viola odorata was “sweet violet.” He was announcing, over and over, to everyone here, how he felt about her.

  She’d been avoiding thinking about his feelings in the weeks since he’d confessed them, transforming them into tepid, safe emotions. She hadn’t allowed herself to think it was love. It couldn’t be love. People didn’t love her, not once they knew her.

  But he was detailing research—years of research spent faithfully recording every aspect of genus viola—done simply so that he could stand in front of a crowd and talk about violets. Lovely violets. Resilient violets. Clever violets.

  She was such a fool. He’d told her that this would reveal his feelings. This wasn’t a lecture; it was a…a… She didn’t know what it was. The closest word that came to mind was seduction.

  Every compliment slid around her like an embrace, one she dared not accept. She sat erect in her chair, afraid to move an inch. Afraid to draw attention to herself—afraid that if she so much as breathed too heavily, the crowd would see her laid out on Sebastian’s easels, all her secrets exposed.

  But none of them knew. To them, she was a nonentity. If they knew she existed, they thought of her as the Countess of Cambury.

  Jane’s hand slid into Violet’s. “Breathe,” Jane whispered. “You have to breathe, Violet.”

  Or…maybe, some people would notice.

  Sebastian continued on, talking about the crosses he’d performed between species. How alpestris and tricolor violacea crossed beautifully, but alpestris and calcarata refused to cross at all. He went through experiment after experiment: failed crosses, crosses with poor germination, crosses that resulted in stunted plants with flower buds that refused to open.

  He ended with a chart of his attempted crosses, a spider’s web of confusing marks that he presented with self-effacing humor.

  “I’m sure there is an animating principle,” he said, “one that would explain why some species cross and others do not. But what that principle is, I don’t know. One gets the sense that if only one little fact, one overlooked piece would come to light, we could understand it all.”

  I have no solution, Violet thought. Just blades.

  “But until then,” Sebastian continued, “I’ll keep looking. Because I would rather fail at violets than succeed at anything else.”

  The applause was light, the questions good-humored. God. She didn’t know what he wanted of her. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do. How was she to look at him?

  Three seats down from Violet, the woman of the high-pitched voice folded her arms. “There was nothing objectionable in that,” she complained. “Nothing suggestive at all.”

  It just went to show. Some people never understood anything they heard.

  SEBASTIAN HADN’T HAD AN OPPORTUNITY to talk to Violet since his lecture. They’d returned to his Cambridge home, along with their friends, in two separate carriages, gathering together for a light repast. After, they’d all sat and talked.

  He felt strangely deflated, exhausted and yet exhilarated. As he’d hoped, Robert and Minnie, Jane and Oliver, and Free took over the conversation, giving Violet time to consider. To think and make sense of everything he’d said. She hadn’t said a word to him since his talk.

  Jane, bless her, was making Violet laugh. If Violet could laugh, maybe she wasn’t furious with him.

  “What on earth happened to your gown?” Violet was asking. “It’s almost fashionable.”

  Jane made a face. “It was an accident,” she said. “A horrible accident. I had absolutely no intention of wearing anything so respectable. It’s been sitting in my wardrobe for months, and then Oliver told me about this event.” She shrugged. “For once, I thought it might be nice not to draw everyone’s attention.”

  Jane usually wore bright colors—oranges and pinks and greens so vibrant that they looked as if they belonged in one of the jungle greenhouses in the Cambridge Botanical Gardens rather than an English drawing room. She wore them as naturally as another woman might have donned brown silks, supremely comfortable with the weight of everyone’s attention.

  “I’ll have to make up for it,” Jane said, “with a truly outrageous creation. Something breathtakingly bad. Alas, I feel as if I’ve reached a plateau of offensiveness. I must strive higher. Any ideas?”

  She addressed the group. Minnie looked thoughtfully into the distance; Oliver scratched his head.

  “Have you considered non-fabric items?” Violet asked. “Wood? Metal?”

  “Feathers,” Oliver added, “although honestly, I have such a fondness for feathers.”

  Jane smiled sweetly.

  “Clay.” This came from Free, Oliver’s sister. “It would be heavy, though. And rather brittle.”

  Jane snorted. “Can you imagine? Walking into a ballroom in a gown of clay, having to make sure that you didn’t brush against anyone, because if you did your skirts would start to break off in pieces.”

  “Leaving a little trail along the ballroom floor,” Robert picked up. “It would be like bread crumbs. Anyone who wanted to find you would have to follow them.”

  “Which we would all have to do,” Sebastian put in. “As you would be in hiding, because your skirts would have been smashed to pieces by the crowd
s.”

  Everyone paused, grinning in contemplation. Everyone including Violet. God, so long as he could still make her smile…

  “This reminds me,” Minnie said. “There was a gown in La Mode Illustrée the other day that made me think of you. It was—oh, God, I can’t remember. I meant to bring it for you.”

  Violet frowned. “Was that the one with the half-capes? Because I was thinking the same thing—those double half-capes are well and good, and then there was that one illustration that had three of them. Isn’t more always better? What if you had, say, eighteen of them?”

  “That would be the equivalent of nine full capes,” Jane said in amusement. “I don’t think I could stand erect.”

  “It wasn’t the half-capes,” Minnie said. “It was… Drat. Why can’t I remember? I used to remember everything. Then I had a child.” She shook her head ruefully.

  “I brought several copies with me,” Violet said. “Let me send for them.” She stood and rang a bell; when a servant came, she whispered. A few minutes later, she was brought the voluminous bag she often brought with her. The conversation had moved on—the suggestion that Jane consider a gown made of bread had quickly given way to pastry. Sebastian was fairly certain—only mostly certain—that everyone had ceased to be serious a long while back.

  He leaned back and listened with half an ear, watching Violet rummage through her bag through lidded eyes. Apparently, everyone else thought she could be ignored, but even this, the most prosaic of actions, made him smile.

  “I’m partial to butter cream,” Robert was saying.

  “You don’t get a vote,” Oliver countered. “You don’t get to eat my wife’s gown. I feel that would be improper.”

  Violet began to empty her bag: Yarn. Needles. More yarn. A half-finished scarf.

  Nobody was watching her by that point—nobody but Sebastian. Nobody but him saw her smile of triumph. Nobody saw her pull out the fashion magazine with a flourish.

  The flourish was a mistake. She held it up in triumph; as she did, sheets of paper slipped from between the pages, cascading to the floor.

  Violet’s face grew pale.

  Sebastian could not read the pages from this side of the room, but he could recognize their format even from here. Two columns, that stiff-looking heading, sketches that he could identify even from here as single-celled organisms.

  Scientific papers. Violet kept scientific papers sliced up in her fashion magazine. They were all over the floor. If anyone saw them, they might guess her secret.

  He wanted to guffaw, but if he did, he’d draw attention to her. And for better or for worse, this was a secret between the two of them. Violet kicked a page under her skirt.

  “Jane,” Sebastian said heartily, leaning forward so that everyone looked at him, instead of glancing across the room. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. How do you order a gown by accident?”

  It worked; everyone’s attention turned to him.

  “Oh.” Jane frowned. “It happens like this. I have a pair of the most wonderful gowns. They are dyed the most brilliant colors. My favorite of the lot is fuchsine—this bright, ungodly pink that you absolutely must see to believe.”

  Beside her, Oliver smiled faintly.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian saw Violet leaning down, ever so carefully, gathering up the papers. One crinkled. She winced, but nobody turned.

  “The dye itself,” Jane continued, “is an aniline derivative—a new invention. There was another green aniline dye that I adored, although the gown made from that one was sadly ruined by a rainstorm.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Oliver said with a lopsided smile. “I have very fond memories of that one.”

  Violet grabbed for another page, then another, and then finally had the lot gathered up. All she had to do was stuff them away in her bag. Sebastian breathed a sigh. Violet straightened, opening the mouth of her bag.

  “And so I thought,” Jane said, “that I needed to expand my wardrobe. Fuchsine is utterly shocking the first time you see it. By the time you’ve worn it in public five or six times, though, people begin to grow accustomed to it.”

  Violet stopped. In the middle of the room, she glanced down at the article she held. To Sebastian’s horror, she frowned and… Oh, God, no. She started to read.

  He wanted to shake her, to grab hold of her and remind her where they were, what she was doing. Not now, Violet. Don’t get distracted now. But he didn’t dare draw attention to her.

  When Sebastian was twelve, he’d wagered Lucas Jimmeson that his hound was the fastest dog around. They’d engineered a contest—one where they would throw a stick and see whose animal managed to retrieve it first.

  The stick had sailed in the air; the count sounded. On three, Sebastian had loosed his dog. His animal had immediately jumped into the lead, chasing with a fervor that put his neighbor’s dog to shame.

  And then, two feet before his jaws could close on the prize, his dog had stopped, turned—and taken off after a squirrel.

  Sebastian felt like that now. Violet wasn’t a dog, but that same sense of amused frustration filled him. Wrong contest, Violet. You’re trying to win the wrong contest.

  “So I ordered a quantity of the dye,” Jane was telling everyone, “with the highest of hopes. But look. Such a disappointment. It’s just blue. A pox on aniline blue.”

  That was the moment when Minnie looked up and saw Violet standing in the middle of the room, staring at those pages.

  “Did you find the issue?” she asked.

  Violet didn’t answer.

  “Violet?”

  They were going to see it at any moment. Their subterfuge would be shattered. Any moment, someone would ask—

  “Violet, what are you reading?”

  Just like that.

  Sebastian stood. “Oh, is that one of my scientific articles?” he asked jovially. “I must have left it on the table. Here, Violet, hand me the pages.”

  He stepped toward her. She didn’t respond.

  “Hand me the pages, Violet.” He didn’t even dare give her a meaningful look, lest anyone else wonder. But look or no, she still didn’t budge.

  “Violet,” he said a little more loudly. “Let me take those from you. Go join everyone else.”

  It was wrong to say she wasn’t moving. She was, actually. She was swaying ever so slightly, as if there were a wind in the room that only she could sense. Her eyes darted down the page; her whole face lit.

  And that was when Sebastian realized how dire things truly were. She wasn’t merely distracted. She was off chasing through the woods, baying full-throatedly at an idea only she could sense.

  “Violet.” He put his hand over the abstract, blocking her vision, and dropped his voice. “Stop. You don’t want to do this. Not now. Not here.”

  For a moment, he was certain she heard him. She blinked, looking up at him. And then she gave her head a shake. “No,” she said. “You were totally wrong, Sebastian. Completely wrong.”

  “I’m fairly certain—”

  She looked up. Her eyes were lit with a brilliant fervor. “It’s the snapdragons all over again,” she said, which made no sense. “Your violets. They don’t cross; of course, not all species do, no matter how similar they may appear. But I have an idea.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I have an idea,” she repeated. And then she whirled around. “Jane, I need all your aniline blue.”

  “What?!” Jane said.

  But Sebastian could have told her that Violet wasn’t really listening. She was somewhere inside her mind, grappling with some concept that had her whole body lighting up from head to toe.

  “Also,” Violet said, “I need a microscope. I need a microscope right now.”

  This was wrong. She needed to stop. She was going to reveal everything, if she hadn’t already. And yet there was something in her voice, something urgent and excited, something that sent an electric tingle racing up Sebastian’s spine
.

  “Right now?”

  “Right now.” She nodded. “Also, I need all your viola species.”

  “My viola species? Why do you need my viola species?”

  Violet shook the papers in her hand. “It’s all in here. I think I know why some species couldn’t cross at all, why some could only cross poorly.”

  Everyone was staring at her. There would be no concealing this. There was only deciding how to deal with the aftermath.

  “It can’t wait.” She shoved the paper she’d been looking at in his direction. “Also, I need Bollingall.”

  He looked down. The paper she’d been holding was titled: A Study of Cellular Division in Single-Celled Organisms. Written by Simon T. Bollingall.

  “He’s not in town,” Sebastian said. “He wasn’t at my lecture today. He sent his apologies, so—”

  “Not Simon,” Violet said. “Don’t you see? We weren’t paying attention. The Bollingall we need is Alice.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “LADY CAMBURY,” MRS. ALICE BOLLINGALL SAID, ushering Violet into an ill-lit parlor. She gestured to a seat next to a table. “It is such an honor to receive a call from you. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting you.”

  As the two of them sat, Mrs. Bollingall glanced demurely at the clock. The clock was almost obscured by a dancing porcelain fish. In fact, the entire room seemed to be filled with little china fishes, large metal fishes, marble sculptures of trout, leaping out of stone water. Someone in the household liked fish over much.

  It was the hour when genteel people sat down to their evening meal. Violet smelled roast chicken, heard the clink of china being laid, but she couldn’t think of dinner. She couldn’t even think of anything genteel to say. Her mind was utterly full, pushing away all hope of polite conversation.

  “How may I be of service?” Mrs. Bollingall asked.

  One might pass Alice Bollingall on the street without sparing a second glance. She was an unexceptional, dumpy, pleasant-faced sort. Her hair had gone to salt-and-pepper, and it was worked into a bun atop her head. She was utterly ordinary in appearance.