Beside her, the doctor washed his hands, the sound of water hitting the basin strangely jarring. Louder than it should be in her ears. The priest turned away, and her ladies placed themselves on either side of her, each taking a leg and positioning it bent and … open. Vulnerable. They lifted her skirt and cold swept over her entire lower half.

Was Elisabeth shaking from the cold or from the realization of what was about to happen? She couldn’t tell. The doctor was going to look up her skirt—and what else? Her heart pounded hard and heavy in her ears as the doctor’s face appeared above her, a large white funnel just visible in his hand. Was he going to …

And then—the violation of it, the abrupt pressure and pain. Elisabeth gasped, choking on the sudden, shocking tightness in her throat. Was this the kind of thing Maxi had been warning her against? That they would hurt her, humiliate her, quite literally reach inside her for their own purposes and without her consent? That the court was a danger in ways Elisabeth had never even imagined?

“The doctor will be done soon.” Esterházy still managed to have no emotion over the violation she was presiding over.

Elisabeth pressed her hands to her cheeks, willing herself to focus on the pressure there instead of the pressure now inside her. She cast her eyes around the room, looking for something—anything—else to focus on. The dark wood headboard. The curled loops of the maid’s hat. The fine lines of gray through the white marble of the fireplace.

Then, finally, “Everything looks healthy,” the doctor said.

“Health is important, of course. But proof of innocence is what matters most.” The priest spoke to the wall, still turned away.

“Yes, Your Excellency, I’m checking that now.”

Innocence. The irony wasn’t lost on Elisabeth. She’d never been with a man in the way they meant, but she knew there were ways around those unyielding rules, that so-called innocence. Ladies who wanted to maintain such proof simply opted for fingers and tongues. Elisabeth had stumbled into enough of her father’s wild parties to know that much. There were a hundred things a woman could do without spoiling her chances of passing this test.

The fury of that irony broke through her numbness. The horror flamed into sudden rage. As the doctor returned to his work, another pinch sent Elisabeth’s leg kicking into him, sending him sprawling to the floor as she sat up.

“Stop! Please, stop.” Tears burned in time with the shame and the rage. “I am a virgin. I am chaste, I swear it.”

What was wrong with this place?

The priest turned around then, staring her down as if she were a naughty child, and she hated him most of all.