“Did you stop me in the corridor just to insult me?” Charlotte said frostily. “Because charming as this is, I have other things to do.”

“I stopped you to tell you one thing. I will not allow you to take advantage of Delia’s kind nature and desperation.”

“Desperation?” Now Charlotte was growing truly angry. “Delia’s not desperate for anything. Except, perhaps, for some distance from you.”

“She is vulnerable and much too trusting.”

“She’s a grown woman, perfectly capable of choosing her own friends. And I hope she never knows how little you think of her intelligence.”

Frances’s dark eyes narrowed. “If you hurt my sister, I promise you this. I will ruin you, and not only in London. Every good family in England will know exactly what you are.”

With that, she turned on her heel and walked away, leaving Charlotte fuming.

Nothing could say more about Frances Parkhurst than this: After just a few minutes with the woman, Charlotte found herself positively eager to visit her mother.

She knocked on the door. “You asked to see me, Mama?”

“Yes. Do come sit down beside me.”

Mama’s tone was uncharacteristically gentle. Charlotte was mystified, but she wasn’t going to complain. She could use a bit of comfort just now.

She went to sit with her mother on the bed.

“Charlotte, dear. It’s time we had a discussion about the meaning of marriage.”

“We have discussed the meaning of marriage, Mama. I can’t recall a day since I turned thirteen on which you failed to underscore the importance of the institution.”

“Then this day will be no different.” She raised a silver brow. “A good marriage is the most important goal in a woman’s life. Her choice of husband will dictate her future happiness.”

Charlotte held her tongue. She didn’t believe that making a good marriage was the most important goal of every woman’s life. Certainly some women could be perfectly fulfilled without marrying at all. And among those who did marry, happiness was a many-faceted jewel. Marriage could bring joy to one’s life, but so could friendship, adventure, intellectual pursuits.

Her mother had married at seventeen and been widowed at four-and-twenty, having never experienced anything of the world. All the security and warmth of their home died with Father, and Mama had grown anxious and scattered as a result. Now she was an object of ridicule.

Charlotte was resolved to never be the same. No matter what Mama’s exhortations on marriage, she would not settle down before she was ready, and she would only follow her heart.

“A husband and wife must be well matched,” her mother went on.

“Mama, I am convinced on that point. You may save your breath to cool your porridge, and then use the rest to complain that it is cold.”

“I’m not speaking in abstractions, girl. I’m speaking of marriage, and what it means in its essentials. A union, of not only hearts and minds but . . .” Her mother’s mouth twisted. “Bodies.”

“Oh.”

Oh, dear. So this was to be that kind of discussion. And she’d thought there couldn’t have been anything worse than Frances’s harangue.

“You might have observed,” her mother said, looking everywhere but at Charlotte, “that within the animal kingdom, the male and female sexes are distinguished by differences in their breeding organs.”

No, no, no.

This could not be happening. Charlotte looked frantically about the room for escape. “Mama, we needn’t have this talk.”

“It’s my duty as your mother.”

“Yes, but we needn’t have it now.”

“There may not be a better time.”

“I’ve read books. I have married sisters. I already know about inter—”

“Charlotte.” Her mother flashed an open palm. “Just hold your tongue and let’s be done with it.”

Defeated, Charlotte folded her hands in her lap and waited for it to be over.

“You see, a man’s . . . ahem . . . is shaped differently from a woman’s . . .” Mama fluttered her hand. “. . . whatsit. And in the marital bed, he will wish to place his . . .” More hand fluttering. “. . . inside yours.”

“His ahem goes in my whatsit.”

“In so many words. Yes. And then—”

“And then marital duty, just a pinch, lie back and think of England. I think I have it. Thank you, Mama.”

She tried to rise from the bed and flee, but her mother pushed her back. “Do be still.”

Charlotte was still. Miserable, but still.

“I thought this might be difficult to discuss. That’s why I gathered some common objects to serve as illustrations.” Mama reached for a basket covered with a linen napkin. “Now, you might have noticed on occasion, whilst taking a bath, that there is a cleft of sorts between your legs.”

Charlotte held her tongue.

Really? She might have noticed her own body, at some point in her twenty years of existing?

She supposed there could be, somewhere, a young woman who had never taken stock of her own anatomy below the navel. But whoever that poor soul might be, Charlotte would not have known how to be friends with her.

“It’s rather like this.” Her mother drew a roundish object from the basket.

Charlotte peered at it. “Is that a peach?”

“Yes. The lady’s intimate parts are represented by this peach.”

“Why a peach? Why not an orchid blossom, or a rose, or some other flower?”

Mama grew strangely defensive. “The peach has a cleft. It’s the right color. It’s . . . downy.”

“But it’s not terribly accurate, is it? I mean, I suppose it’s not as poetic, but even a halved cabbage would at least have the proper—”

“Charlotte, please. Allow me to continue.”

Allowing her mother to continue was what Charlotte least wanted. In the world. She would, without a doubt, choose a whipping in the village stocks over finishing this conversation.

She might choose death.

She braced herself as Mama reached back into the basket.

“Now, as for the gentleman. It’s important that when the time comes you should not be alarmed. In a state of repose, a man’s . . .”

“Ahem,” Charlotte supplied.