“Of course!” Rosalie gave her an astonished look. “This can’t come as a surprise to you, Vi! Our whole life, you have been a mystery. Iris and I have had many conversations about how we never know what you’re thinking.”
Violet bit her lip. It wasn’t that her sister’s words were such a complete surprise—she just didn’t like them. She didn’t want to come across as cold and unfeeling.
“I do have emotions,” she said after a moment. “And I do want to share them. It’s just… growing up in our house, everything was always so fraught with tension and conflict. The number of times I heard Iris crying herself to sleep at night… She tried to stay strong for us—you probably never noticed, as you were too young—but I saw the shell break. And father’s emotions were so volatile, one never knew when he was going to start screaming. And you, of course…”
“My emotions aren’t volatile!” Rosalie stated indignantly. “And I never yell.”
“No, of course not,” Violet said, laughing. “But you are also very upfront about your emotions. Yes, they’re usually positive, but you have never had any trouble saying how you feel. And being surrounded by all those emotions… well, they take up space. It can make one shrink in on oneself, to try and fit into the little amount of space that is left.”
There was a brief silence after that as Rosalie and Violet looked at one another. For the first time in a while, Violet saw shock and even dismay on her sister’s face.
“I never knew you felt that way,” Rosalie said after a moment. “And I never thought about it before, how all our emotions took up so much space.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining,” Violet added quickly. “Well… I suppose I’m complaining about Father’s emotions.” They both laughed. “But I don’t mind that you are expressive and romantic and emotional. I love that about you. I’m just explaining why I didn’t always show my emotions. And now, it’s a force of habit. I’m used to holding things in.”
“Well, you’re not holding things in now,” Rosalie said, smiling slightly. “And I think that’s a good thing.”
“You do?” Violet was surprised. “Even though anger can be so unpleasant? I don’t want to be like Father…”
“You’re not like Father,” Rosalie asserted at once. “Everyone feels anger. And if you’re angry at your husband, it’s best to figure out why and talk to him about it.”
Violet sighed. “I just feel that he doesn’t take me seriously. He turns everything into a joke, and I’m worried he does it because he doesn’t think I’m good enough to be a duchess.”
Of course, this wasn’tjustthe reason she was upset with her husband, but she couldn’t speak about her other frustrations with her younger sister. Rosalie wasn’t even out yet, and as much as she thought she understood relations between men and women from all the books she read, she was still very much an innocent.
“Why would he have married you if he didn’t deem you good enough to be a duchess?” Rosalie asked reasonably.
“He needed a woman who wasn’t looking for love” Violet said, squirming at the interrogation. “He refused to elaborate, but there was also another reason he needed a wife so badly. Neither engender a feeling of being worthy of my title.”
“But he could have picked any number of ladies looking for a practical marriage,” Rosalie pointed out. “And don’t say it’s just about protecting us. He could have protected us without marrying you.”
“Then why does he make fun of everything I do?”
Rosalie raised her eyebrows. “Well, in the romances I read, usually a man teases a woman when he likes her.”
That made Violet laugh out loud. “Believe me, he doesn’t like me. If anything, it’s the opposite.”
“I don’t know,” Rosalie said, a small smile playing on her lips. “That’s not what I’ve read.”
“Real life isn’t a book.” Violet shook her head. “And in real life, when a man teases a woman constantly, it’s because he thinks she’s incompetent.”
“No one could ever think you’re incompetent,” Rosalie snorted. “You’re the most competent woman I know.”
A knock sounded at the door, and the housekeeper entered. “Your Grace,” she said, worry creasing her brow. “I believe there is a problem with the paintings that you had re-hung in the gallery. The footman misunderstood your instructions, and he seems to have hung them in the wrong order.”
“They’re not hung by date?” Violet asked, her heart sinking.
It had taken her so long to figure out the correct dates of all the portraits of the Dukes of Attorton—she didn’t fancy trying to sort through them all again.
“No.” The housekeeper wrung her hands. “It appears that he hung them according to size, from smallest to largest.”
Rosalie laughed out loud. “Oh, Lord. That must look dreadful.”
Violet sighed. “What were you just saying, Rose, about how competent I am? Apparently, I cannot even get a footman to hang portraits correctly.”
“I don’t think you need to blame yourself for this,” Rosalie said ten minutes later as she, Violet, and the housekeeper stood in the gallery, looking up at the paintings. “No one in their right mind would think this is the way you’re supposed to hang paintings!”
Violet had to agree with her. The portraits had been hung, as the housekeeper had described, starting from the smallest one on the east side of the hall to the largest one on the west side. It looked preposterous, like some kind of joke.
