The Countess Conspiracy

by Courtney Milan

  “True.” But Lily still looked stricken. “Still, there’s no need for me to rub your nose in it. I’m so sorry. I feel awful. I should never have said a word.”

  If Lily felt so awful, then why was Violet the one comforting her? Because that’s the way Lily is.

  “Stop worrying,” Violet told her. “If you imagine I’m harboring jealousy about your ability to conceive, I am not. I promise you.”

  “But—”

  “I promise you,” Violet said, “on our father’s grave. Have I ever lied to you?”

  Her sister’s face cleared. “No.”

  Violet kept her own face impassive. Quite technically, she had never told Lily an outright lie. She’d only misdirected and falsely implied. Lily—forthright, trusting Lily—had never considered that Violet might be withholding…everything. And now that Violet had held back years of dark secrets, there was no way to make it right.

  “I don’t weep over my lack,” Violet said, trying for something closer to familial friendliness. “I love your children. They’re enough for me.”

  Lily smiled a little sadly. “You don’t weep at all, Violet.”

  “Why should I? Nothing makes me sad.”

  Lily was sunshine and openness. She was warmth and smiles. She was everything Violet could have been, if only… There were too many if onlys in the way for Violet to find herself in her sister. Lily was the warmer version of herself. It would be foolish to say that Violet was jealous of her. Jealousy was so plain, so unforgiving. One couldn’t love jealously, and if Violet knew one thing, it was that she loved her sister. Watching Lily’s life was as close as Violet would ever come to experiencing normalcy: children, affection, trust, family, love.

  No, Violet wasn’t jealous of her sister.

  But sometimes, when she was around her, she hated the world.

  “So,” Violet said. “About Amanda. I know you want me to talk to her, but… You realize that you might not like what I tell her?”

  Lily laughed, as if everything were right with the world again. “Goodness, Violet. Of course I won’t like it. You’ll talk to her sternly and logically. You’ll present all her options. You’ll be rational, as only Violet can be. If I liked the conversation I had to have with my daughter, I would have had it myself. Why do you think I asked you?”

  VIOLET FOUND HER NIECE a little bit later, when Lily had finished the conversation. She pulled Amanda into a side room, ushered three of her younger brothers into the hall outside with promises of peppermints, and shut the door.

  “I have a present for you,” Violet told her.

  “Oh?”

  Violet reached into her bag and pulled out a light blue scarf rolled into the semblance of a ball.

  “Oh, how lovely,” Amanda said politely. “Did you make it…?” But she stopped as her hands closed around the gift. Feeling the square edges hidden within the confines of the yarn. Her eyes widened. “Did you make it yourself?”

  “Of course I did,” Violet told her.

  Amanda tilted the scarf and slid out the leather-bound volume.

  “Pride and Prejudice,” she said blankly. “But Aunt Violet, you know I’ve already read this.”

  Violet didn’t blink an eye. “Not this version.”

  “Mmm.” Amanda opened the front cover.

  “I did make it myself,” Violet said.

  And she had. She was a master at hiding inappropriate reading materials in acceptable packaging. She’d sliced out the pages of Pride and Prejudice herself, gluing these in their place. She’d never liked this version of the book anyway—it was a horrid first edition, one that was credited simply to the author of Sense and Sensibility. That lack of attribution grated at her so. Violet preferred the newer volumes, the ones that had Jane Austen’s name prominently displayed on the cover.

  “What is this?” Amanda whispered.

  Violet dropped her voice low. “Something you cannot let your mother know about.”

  Amanda looked up at her.

  “You know how your mother told you that you’re alone in thinking about marriage as you do? That if you speak your mind, everyone will laugh at you?”

  Amanda nodded.

  “Well, she’s wrong. You’re not alone. You’re old enough to see so for yourself.”

  Amanda breathed out. “Oh, Aunt Violet.”

  Stupid, perhaps, to give such a gift. Stupid to have spent those hours agonizing over the right book. Stupid to have spent so many hours removing the old binding, gluing this new one in its place.

  And no matter what Lily had told her, her sister wouldn’t approve. She expected Violet to discourage her niece, to make her feel that she had no choice. She’d be furious if she ever found out. And yet when Violet looked into her niece’s eyes, she saw the unburdened version of herself. She couldn’t keep quiet or dismiss Amanda’s concerns.

  Don’t marry an earl, Amanda. Don’t risk breaking. Don’t become me. It isn’t worth it, no matter what anyone says.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Violet repeated. “Lily will kill me if she ever finds out.”

  Chapter Ten

  SEBASTIAN WAS WHISTLING as he made his way out to his brother’s home. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, Violet was talking to him again, and his little idea had borne fruit.

  He grinned as he left his horse in the stables, nodded cheerfully to the butler and second maid as he passed them in the halls.

  “Hullo, Benedict!” he sang, as he was shown into his brother’s office.

  His brother looked up. “Sebastian,” he said. “It’s good to see you.” But Benedict didn’t quite smile.

  He’d come out to see his brother a handful of times in the last few weeks—once, to beg his help in making sense of the shipping records he’d obtained, another time to ask him a few questions about various manufactured goods. Those afternoons had been nice—no need to talk of the future, no reason to worry about what might come. Just a chance to talk with Benedict man-to-man.

  “Do you have some more questions for me?” Benedict asked.

  “Not today.” Sebastian tried for a bland sobriety in his tone. “Not today. I told you I wanted you to see what I could do. Well, here’s a little example.”

  Benedict blinked warily as Sebastian walked up to his desk and set down the portfolio he’d been carrying.

  “Here,” he said.

  His brother reached out, saw the seal on the front, and pulled back his hand.

  “This is from Wallisford and Wallisford.” Benedict looked up in puzzlement. “Is there a reason you’re showing me something from the family solicitors?”

  “I could have just told you about it,” Sebastian said, “but this way, it’s a little more official.”

  “Official? We’re being official?”

  “Well.” Sebastian tried not to sound too excited. “Maybe.”

  Benedict shrugged and turned over the front page. There he saw another seal. “We hereby certify that this is a true and correct copy, et cetera et cetera,” he muttered to himself. He turned another page—this one the copied page of an account book.

  Sebastian tried not to let his pride show. He bit his lip, but that smile poked out no matter how he shoved it away.

  At his desk, his brother made a choking sound.

  Soon, Benedict would ask how he’d done it. They would talk—for hours—and at the end of it all, Benedict would realize that Sebastian was more than the foolish youth he recalled.

  His brother turned one page, then another, his brow furrowing.

  “Sebastian,” his brother finally said, “this cannot be a true and correct copy.”

  “It is.”

  “But it says here that over the course of the last seventeen days, you have made twenty-two thousand pounds.”

  “Yes,” Sebastian echoed. “That is precisely what it says!”

  “That’s ridiculous. Nobody makes that much money so quickly. Not with an initial investment of”—he glanced—“three thousand and two hundred
pounds?” He sounded utterly outraged.

  “I did.” Sebastian reached out and turned the next page. “I told you I was thinking about trade. I know it’s just a little thing, nothing like what you’ve accomplished. But I thought it was an interesting puzzle. I was thinking about shipping—”

  “I know you were thinking about shipping,” Benedict interrupted. “But it takes months to make money on shipping. Years, even!”

  “Well, not my way,” Sebastian said simply. “I thought it would be interesting to try this. I thought that if I did…” He trailed off.

  His brother didn’t look pleased. He didn’t look interested. Instead, he shook his head, a frown darkening his face. “What have you done now, Sebastian?”

  “Ah. Let me explain.” Once Benedict understood, everything would be better. Sebastian settled into a chair. “I had this idea. When a ship sails, you can purchase a share of the voyage. If indigo happens to be riding high when it comes in, you’ll make a tidy profit. If it falls, you might lose your capital. And if the ship is lost at sea…” Sebastian shook his head. “Well, then you lose everything.”

  “Speculation,” his brother said, his nose wrinkling as if he’d smelled something awful. “You engaged in speculation.”

  “Only up to a point. You see, there is a point when ships are particularly late coming in where people start to panic and sell their shares. After all, nobody wants to be left holding shares worth nothing. Better to hold on to a little bit.”

  “Even worse,” Benedict rubbed his eyebrows. “You engaged in rank speculation.”

  “There are all sorts of reasons why ships are late—bad weather, incompetent captains, strange and inexplicable occurrences. Turn the page.” Sebastian gestured.

  His brother turned the page and frowned at the sea of numbers that followed.

  “You know about the numerical methods that have come into use in scientific research? I went down to Admiralty and got a little information. About three hundred pages’ worth. How often certain captains were late; what ports ships visited, and how that contributed to whether the ships were on time. Using the methods previously mentioned and a few brave souls whom I hired—those costs are accounted for on page seven—I was able to determine a few variables that contributed to the lateness of ships. I estimated how one should account for them on page four. At that point, it became easy to identify voyage shares that were undervalued—that is, ships that were late not because they should be presumed lost at sea, but because certain factors on the voyage suggested that they ought to be late as a matter of course.”

  Benedict stared blankly at him. “I don’t understand a word you just said.”

  “Yes. Well. I can go over the maths in more detail later, if you’d like.” He stopped, clearing his throat. “I still have several hundred outstanding shares—the ships might never come in—some of them, of course will not, as a statistical matter—or they might come in later. In any event, I wanted to try my hand at trade, let you have some idea of what I’m capable of, who I am.”

  “But…but…” Benedict shook his head.

  “It actually could have been seventy thousand,” Sebastian continued, “because Blotts and Snoffling—the insurers; I’m sure you’ve heard of them—figured out that I had some sort of trick, so they offered me fifty thousand pounds to disclose it. But I—”

  “Oh my God,” Benedict exclaimed. “Fifty thousand pounds? That’s ridiculous!”

  “Precisely what I said! Fifty thousand, when I’d made almost half that in a handful of weeks? Do they think me an idiot?”

  Benedict ran a hand through his hair. “That’s…not precisely what I meant.”

  “In any event,” Sebastian said, “this little method is only profitable now because I’m exploiting a gap between the information I have and that of those who are investing. Eventually, people will catch on to what I’m doing, and then there will be no profit in it. So I’ll have to be subtler in the future.”

  His brother screwed his eyes shut and very, very carefully, hit himself in the forehead with a fist. “God,” he muttered, and hit himself again. And again.

  Sebastian felt his smile fade into something cold and mechanical. He licked his lips. “Is something wrong?”

  “It’s a fluke,” his brother said. “A damned fluke, using the most dangerous investment methods possible.”

  “No, no!” Sebastian said. “Look, I brought the figures. It’s not dangerous, not the way I spread out my investments from ship to ship. It’s safe. It’s one of the safest things I could have done! I used information that nobody else had collected in a way that nobody else understood—that’s why I was able to do it. As soon as I publish my findings, every bank in town is going to be looking for a numerical specialist.”

  “Fluke or…or whatever this is,” Benedict said, shaking his head, “this is…this is so you, Sebastian. You don’t need more money. I wanted to see you take up trade because I thought it would settle you down. Teach you to be careful, to not take…awful risks on the basis of some newfangled number-mangling. For all we know, this modern numerical nonsense could be completely wrong.”

  “Mathematics are never wrong!” Sebastian said, aghast. “Only misapplied!”

  Benedict waved this off. “I wanted you to learn responsibility. I wanted you to learn about organization, about how things worked. I didn’t want you to treat business like a game, one which you could win by garnering the maximum number of points in the smallest amount of time. This is precisely the opposite of what I was looking for.”

  His brother was acting like Sebastian was a child to be scolded because he’d done something forbidden. But he was an adult, and Sebastian still couldn’t figure out what he’d done wrong. It had seemed a good idea at the time: He’d create a common interest and he’d have a little fun in the process.

  “I see.” His voice sounded cold. “So…”

  He’d been sure that he could present Benedict with the results, that his brother would pay attention, that he would begin to feel maybe just a little pride. A little kinship, something to replace the years that lay between them. So he’d thought.

  “I’m not angry at you, Sebastian,” Benedict said. “But sometimes I think we inhabit completely different countries, use entirely separate languages. It’s like having a dog. You tell it, ‘No chasing rabbits!’ and what it hears is ‘Rabbit!’ Next thing you know, there’s a big, dumb, slobbering beast tossing a hare at your feet.”

  Sebastian looked away.

  “Not that you’re a dog,” his brother put in quickly. “Or that you’re dumb or slobbering. It’s just…you’re loyal to a fault, you’re enthusiastic, and yet somehow, you always manage to do precisely the wrong thing. Speculation is gambling—a form of gambling just as pernicious as the sort with cards and dice.”

  “Right,” Sebastian said, jumping on this. “But let’s talk of gambling as a business.”

  “Gambling is never a business.”

  “Not for the gambler, no,” Sebastian pointed out. “But it’s excellent business for the house. The house wins and loses, but it wins more than it loses. So long as it has the means to keep on playing, it will always come out ahead. This works the same way. It is like gambling—but as the gaming house, not as a gamester, and with far fewer operational outlays. I had a good idea as to the expected return—”

  Benedict looked up at him and shook his head. “Only you, Sebastian. Only you would think that ‘my scheme is like running a gaming house’ counts as an exculpatory analogy. It doesn’t.”

  Sebastian flushed. He always managed to do precisely the wrong thing whenever his brother was peering over his shoulder.

  It had always been like that with them. Sebastian had tried to earn words of praise from his brother when he was younger. He’d jumped fifteen feet out of a tree into a lake to try and get Benedict’s attention once. That hadn’t worked so well; Benedict had scolded him and forbidden him from swimming. Showing his stamina by running naked through a b
lizzard had won him a lecture. And winning top honors in his classes had won him a scolding, because near the end he’d tried to stay up all night to memorize his Latin conjugations. It had been his fault he’d knocked over a candle, but he’d only burned a carpet. The scorch marks on the floor had been scarcely noticeable.

  He’d kept on trying, year after year, because he wasn’t the kind to give up. And now that his brother seemed farther away than ever… Maybe they did speak different languages, but Sebastian wasn’t going to quit simply because he’d run into a difficulty.

  “Look at me,” Benedict was saying, “and think of what I’ve done. I’m respected, yes, but I didn’t go out and gamble in hopes that the dice would turn up my numbers. I worked for this.”

  Benedict stood. For a second, the light from the window behind him caught his profile, made it seem like the kind of patrician silhouette that one found on old Roman coins.

  “I’m a County Captain for the Society for the Betterment of Respectable Trade,” Benedict told him. “It’s the most honored organization of its sort in the entire country—almost two centuries old and dedicated to the notion that tradesmen can and should be treated with respect. Our father was a member before me. Did I get my position by jumping up and down and tossing my money around like a fool?” He turned back to Sebastian. “Of course I didn’t. I was dependable. I was accountable. I was responsible. I worked for years and years, and now look at me.”

  Now, Benedict was dying. Sebastian couldn’t bear to look away from him, for fear of what he would miss.

  “I’ve earned the respect of my peers,” Benedict said. “I’m one of the foremost gentlemen in my district because of that. I’ve really accomplished something.”

  Sebastian stood up. “People respect me, too,” he said quietly. “I’ve accomplished a great deal.”

  Benedict let out a sigh and looked away, dismissing everything Sebastian had accomplished.