Violet’s eyes widened. “Nothing,” she said much too fast. “Well, only what everybody hears.”
George stared as her younger sister blushed. It always was a problem, trying to lie with fair skin. “Violet,” she said slowly, “is there something you want to tell me?”
Violet let out a squeaking wail and flung herself into George’s arms. Oh, dear.
“There, there, sweet.” She stumbled back—Violet was an inch or two taller—and sat in the cushioned window seat. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”
Violet tried to speak, choked, and cried some more. George rocked her, murmuring the inanities one whispers to a distressed child, and brushed the hair back from her sister’s damp brow.
Violet inhaled, shuddering. “Y-you don’t understand. I’ve done something really awful.” She scrubbed her eyes with a hand. “I… I’ve sinned, George!”
George couldn’t help the twitch of her lips—Violet was always so dramatic—but she firmed her mouth at once. “Tell me.”
“I… I’ve lain with a man.” The words were indistinct because Violet had buried her head, but George couldn’t mistake them.
She immediately sobered, dread clutching at her throat. “What?” She pried Violet away from her breast. “Look at me. What do you mean?” Perhaps her sister had mistaken the matter somehow; confused an embrace for something more.
Violet raised a ravaged face. “I gave my virginity away to a man. There was blood.”
“Oh, my Lord.” No, not Violet, not her baby sister. George felt tears prick at her own eyes, but she willed them away and framed her sister’s face with her hands. “Did he force you? Did he hurt you?”
“N-no.” Violet choked on a sob. “It’s almost worse. I did it of my own free will. I’m a wanton. A… a harlot.” She broke down again and hid her face in George’s skirts.
George stroked her sister’s back and waited and thought. She had to handle this well the first time. When Violet had calmed again, George said, “I don’t think we can go as far as saying that you’re a harlot. I mean, you didn’t take any money, did you?”
Violet shook her head. “Of course—”
George held up her hand. “And as for being a wanton, well… it was only the one man. Am I correct?”
“Y-yes.” Violet’s lower lip trembled.
“Then, I think you will have to forgive my bias in saying that it is at least as much the gentleman’s fault as yours. How old is he?”
Violet looked a bit mutinous at having been demoted from wanton. “Five and twenty.”
Five and twenty! The seducing, lecherous… George inhaled. “And do I know him?” she asked calmly.
Violet pushed away from her sister. “I won’t tell you! I’ll not be made to marry him.”
George stared, her heart stopping in her chest. “Are you increasing?”
“No!” Violet’s horror was unfeigned, thank goodness.
George blew out a relieved breath. “Then why do you think I would make you marry him?”
“Well, maybe not you, but Tony…” Violet got up and paced around the room. “He’s been writing me letters.”
“Tony has?”
“No!” Violet turned to glare at her. “Him.”
“Oh, him.” George frowned. “What about?”
“He wants me to marry him. He says he loves me. But, George”—Violet picked up a candlestick from the bedside table and gestured with it—“I don’t love him anymore. I did. I mean, I thought I did. That’s why I, well, you know.”
“Quite.” George felt herself blushing.
“But then afterward I started noticing how far apart his eyes were and that he says ain’t in such an affected way.” Violet shrugged and set the candlestick down on the dresser. “And then it was gone, the love or whatever. I don’t hate him; I just don’t love him.”
“I see.”
“Is that how you feel about Mr. Pye?” Violet asked. “Are you over him now?”
George had a vision of Harry Pye, his head arched back, the tendons in his neck straining as he convulsed over her. A slow heat invaded her loins. She caught herself dropping her eyelids.
She snapped them open, sitting up straight at the same time. “Uh, not exactly.”
“Oh.” Violet looked forlorn. “Maybe it’s me, then.”
“I don’t think so, sweetheart. Maybe it’s that you’re only fifteen. Or,” she added hastily when Violet stuck out her lip, “maybe it’s that he’s just not the right man for you.”
“Oh, George!” Violet flopped backward onto her bed. “I’ll never have another suitor. How would I explain that I’ve lost my maidenhead? Perhaps I should marry him. No other man will ever have me.” Violet stared at the canopy over her bed. “I’m just not sure I can bear the way he takes snuff for the rest of my life.”
“Yes, that would be torturous,” George murmured, “but I’m afraid I’ll have to put my foot down and forbid you to marry him. So you’re saved.”
“You’re a peach.” Violet smiled tremulously from the bed. “But he’s said he will have to reveal all if I don’t become his bride.”
“Ah.” If she ever got her hands on the blackmailing bastard… “Then I think you will really have to tell me his name, sweetheart. I know”—she held up her hand as Violet started to protest—“but it’s the only way.”
“What will you do?” her sister asked in a small voice.
George met her eyes. “We’ll have to tell Tony who he is so Tony can convince him that you aren’t interested in marriage.”
“But Tony, George?” Violet flung her arms wide across the bed, unconsciously taking the position of a martyr. “You know the way he inspects one so coldly down his nose. It makes me feel like a worm. A squashed worm.”
“Yes, dear, I am aware of his look,” George said. “I was the recipient of it just this morning, thanks to you.”
“I’m sorry about that.” Violet looked contrite before reverting to her own dilemma. “Tony will make me marry him!”
“No, you’re maligning Tony, now,” George said. “He may have lost all sense of humor since he assumed the title, but that doesn’t mean he’ll force a marriage on a sister, especially his fifteen-year-old sister.”