Page 5 of Again, Scoundrel

It was a condition she’d seen often enough in the patients she treated in Lower Manhattan who could not afford enough meat in their diets. The crew on this ship had run low on meat nearly two weeks ago, rationing what was left for the passengers.

And then Violet retired to her room, exhausted and with a thin film of sweat prickling her body beneath her modest traveling dress. The ship, at least, had stopped pitching for the moment.

“Hello, Mother,” she said as she entered their cabin.

“Violet, where have you been?”

“Tying a sailor to his berth.” Violet hid her smile as she stowed her bag under her bed.

“You know better than to even joke about something like that, Violet Goodwin. We’ve given you too much latitude in New York, and you absolutely cannot carry on the same way in London. Not when Catherine is counting on you.”

“I will be the model companion, Mother. I promise.”

“Would you consider putting aside this pastime? At least while the season is on? You know as well as I do how important it is that Catherine make a good match. She must marry.”

Catherine, Violet’s cousin, was a year younger than she and born to her mother’s sister, Lydia, and her now-deceased husband the Earl of Chester. Violet was headed back to England to act as a companion for Catherine’s second season.

“It’s not a pastime, Mother,” Violet said. “It’s not embroidery. I have studied for three years to become a nurse, and I won’t change now. Just as you run the timber company with Father, I do this. You can hardly fault me when you’re exactly the same.”

“The company is our family business. My family’s business. It’s not the same at all. And you know the Earl wouldn’t let Lydia so much as speak about timber when he was alive. It’s not easy to be a woman with a profession in America, but it is much harder in England.”

Violet lowered herself to the edge of her mother’s bed. “You agreed after James died to let me pursue this line of study, and you cannot renege now. I will not embarrass you, Mother. Nor Catherine. But I am who I am, which you knew well enough when you asked me to accompany her.”

Her mother sighed. “I just want you to be happy, Violet.”

Violet leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be happy again. Not since James’s passing. But there was no reason to say that to her mother.

“I know,” she said. “I love you, too.”

Chapter

2

London, 1853

Catherine greeted Violet at the door of Chester House and wrapped her in the most tremendous of hugs. “Cousin!” she exclaimed. “Welcome back! You’re looking…” Catherine’s eyes grew wide as she struggled to finish the sentence. “You’re looking…”

“Quite green, I would imagine,” Violet finished for her. “The passage was dreadful, and I nearly cast up my accounts three times yesterday.”

Violet had run out of ginger and peppermint leaves before the last tumultuous days of the voyage and had suffered for it, as had the passengers and crew she’d been treating.

Her cheeks were hollowed out from her lack of appetite, and, having just arrived from the ship’s landing, she still felt unsteady on her feet.

“I’m sorry,” Catherine said. “The storms were quite bad, even ashore. It must have been awful.”

Catherine had changed little from the exuberant seventeen-year-old she had been when Violet was last in London three years ago. She was still fresh-faced and slim, with the kind of willowy, elegant figure that was so much in fashion. Her hair was parted down the center, as was the au courant style, and her dress, a becoming shade of cornflower blue that matched her eyes, made her look absolutely fetching.

“We survived,” Violet said. “And I’m glad to see you looking so well.”

Catherine’s father had passed away unexpectedly the year before, putting an end to her second season before it had even begun. Violet had been worried she’d find Catherine and her aunt Lydia deeply ensconced in the paralysis of grief, like she had been after James died, but Catherine seemed to be faring better than she had.

Her cousin glanced behind her through the open front door. “Violet,” she asked, “where is your mother?”

Violet turned just as her mother emerged from the carriage that had brought them to Chester House.

“Oh!” Catherine exclaimed at the sight of her aunt’s pale face and wobbly gait. “Let’s get you both inside with a cup of tea immediately.”

“Hello, Catherine dear,” Violet’s mother Nora said as she reached her niece. “That sounds lovely. But after narrowly escaping death, I’m going straight to bed. Where is my sister?”