Page 22 of Again, Scoundrel

Catherine smiled as the modiste held up a neckline for Violet to inspect. It was low—not so low as to be scandalous, but far more risqué than Violet wore these days. She’d not worn anything that clung to her figure so directly since the evening James had died.

“It’s beautiful,” Violet said, “but it is not for me.”

“Why not?” Catherine asked. “This rose color looks gorgeous on you, and the cut is wonderfully flattering.”

Catherine looked at Madame Tremaux, who nodded her elegantly coiffed head. “Of course, it flatters,” she said in her inimitable French accent. “You do not come to my shop to be dressed in,” she eyed Violet’s modest day gown, “anything that does not suit.”

“You see? And you will need something to wear to the Waverly Ball. Your blue gown will not do.”

“The cut is too risqué for me,” Violet said.

“It’s hardly risqué, cousin. And aren’t you knickers or whatever you call yourselves supposed to be fearless? Unlike us prim English ladies.”

Violet laughed. “A knickerbocker,” she corrected. “Knickers are your drawers.”

“A knickerbocker then. Which means you can wear whatever you want to, because no one here knows what that means!”

“That is an odd logic, cousin,” Violet said. “And besides, as I told you, I want to be a nurse.”

“So?”

“So, a risqué neckline would be better suited to you and not to me. Nurses are meant to be useful, not risqué.”

“Are you planning to be a nurse the evening of the Waverly Ball? Because it seems to me that you could still plan to be a nurse and wear a lovely dress. One ought not to be exclusive of the other.”

“It’s easier to maintain my spinsterhood,” Violet said, keeping her voice low so her mother would not hear, “if there are no suitors.”

“I see,” Catherine said and smiled sweetly. “Madame Tremaux,” she asked the modiste who was taking Violet’s measurements, “what are your thoughts on the matter?”

The French woman shrugged one shoulder in a particularly Gallic manner. “I believe it is easiest to say what you feel rather than to hide away in a bushel, or however you say.”

“Hide your light under a bushel,” Catherine replied. “And I completely agree.” She turned back to Violet. “It’s your choice what you wear, cousin, but one day someone will see right through your defenses, and then where will you be?”

“Ensconced in my very own medical clinic?” Violet asked hopefully.

“Oh, Violet. Not that talk again. I wish you would put that kind of nonsense behind you,” her mother said, rising to join her daughter at the dais. She had clearly been listening more closely than Violet thought.

“I know you do, Mother,” Violet answered as Catherine and Madame Tremaux took their leave, “but I am one and twenty now and here only as a companion for Catherine. I know you may have had other hopes for my time in England, and I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

Her mother’s eyes held a look that Violet couldn’t read. “Your father and I,” she began, “we gave you freedom after James. I know how much his death hurt you. But he wouldn’t have wanted for you to be alone, and we don’t want that either. What happens when we’re gone?”

“I’ll have Catherine,” Violet said, eyeing her cousin in animated conversation with the modiste over her own beautiful ball gown.

“Perhaps,” her mother agreed. “But likely you will not. Catherine will marry. And she will almost certainly reside here in England.” Her mother cast a glance at Aunt Lydia. “I never thought when Lydia married that I wouldn’t see her for twenty years. It’s a lifetime, Violet. Distance is a harder thing to overcome than you might think.”

Violet grasped her mother’s hand. She had never considered how much her mother might have missed her sister all these years. “Why didn’t we visit?”

“It is six weeks at sea,” her mother said, “as you know. But more than that, Lydia didn’t invite us until I requested we come for your petite season. I believe her marriage was not what she hoped, and instead of reaching out, she shrank into herself.”

“That is exactly why I don’t wish to marry.”

Her mother reached up and cupped her cheek. “Is it? Or is there another reason? I recall you enjoyed your season before James’s death.”

Violet closed her eyes as the memories came rushing back to her of her brother lying in his sickbed, the heat of his fever soaking his brow. The panic she felt when she watched pain wrack him. He’d been her best friend, and she had been desperate to help him, then crushed when she could not.

“I’m not that girl any longer,” Violet said and lifted her chin in a stubborn tilt. “And I truly am sorry to disappoint you, Mother, but I won’t marry. It would be an odd husband indeed who wanted a nurse for a wife. The earl wouldn’t even let Aunt Lydia mention the company, much less work in it. You said so yourself.”

“Not all men are like your uncle, Violet.” Her mother smiled at her. “At least take the gown. Catherine is right, the blue one will not do for the Waverly Ball.”