And Violetta didn’t say another word. She had been about to admit to visiting the garden herself, with the marquess just last week, and she had quite liked it. But Charlotte had never been very interested in men … unless, and Violetta’s eyes grew round with horror, Charlotte allowed this man to take liberties with her, with her person. She drew in her breath and opened her mouth again, but her mother’s eye caught hers and she relapsed into silence.

Adelaide gathered her thoughts. Unlike Violetta, she had an excellent idea what had happened. Her little Charlotte, her baby, she thought, with a pain like a knife twisting in her heart, had been violated. By a man whom she could kill with her own bare hands. She clutched Charlotte closer.

Finally she cleared her throat and eased Charlotte into a sitting position. She put both hands on Charlotte’s shoulders and looked straight into Charlotte’s tearless green eyes.

“Are you all right, darling? Do you need me to … should I summon Dr. Pargeter?” Charlotte turned even paler, and just shook her head violently.

Adelaide stared at her silently. She needed to find out exactly what happened, but not in front of Violetta.

“Violetta,” she said. She couldn’t even think of a good excuse. “Violetta,” she repeated, looking at her elder daughter over Charlotte’s bent shoulders, “I want you to go to your chamber. No arguments,” she said firmly, heading off Violetta’s protest. “I will visit you in a few minutes and we will discuss all of this. Until then, no one is to know, Violetta, particularly not Alice.” Alice was Violetta’s maid.

So Violetta walked slowly out of the room, confident that she could pry all the details out of her mama later. Mama, she thought complacently, had always been putty in the hands of a good questioner. Why, she knew all about things she really oughtn’t to, such as what happened between a man and his wife, for example. She bet that Charlotte had never asked mama anything, and so she had no idea. Or perhaps she had? Violetta trailed back to her room, bursting with questions.

When they were alone, Charlotte drew a shuddering breath and started sobbing and speaking incoherently. “Oh, Mama, I met a man … in the garden. I kissed him. I didn’t think—he kissed me.” Her voice broke on a sob and she bent her forehead against her mother’s shoulder. How could she say it, what really happened? Her mother would be …

“I went with him, Mama,” she finally said, raising her head and meeting her mother’s eyes painfully. “I went into the garden with him, behind the trees, and he … he took my clothing apart. I’m so, I’m so—I didn’t stop him.”