Gail Eastwood by An Unlikely Hero

anyone is still in the passage!”
    But Vivian did not open the door. Instead she sagged against it, all color drained from her face.
    Venetia was on her feet in an instant. “Oh, Vivi, not a seizure. You’ve been doing so well!”
    Before she reached her sister’s side, however, Vivian shook her head. “No, I am all right. But ’tis not a poem, this time.”

Chapter Four
    With a mixture of alarm and curiosity curling through her, Venetia took the paper from her sister’s trembling fingers and read.
     
    Lady Venetia,
    I will save you the great trouble of choosing a husband by casting myself in that role. If you do not agree, I will inform the entire world that your sister has the falling sickness, and the name of St. Aldwyn will become synonymous with scandal and deceit. I will reveal myself on the day of the betrothal ball. Looking forward to our future together, I remain for now your Secret Admirer.
     
    Anger boiled out of her. “This is blackmail, Vivi! We can’t give in to this. Who could have written this? Who could know? It isn’t even right. You don’t have the falling sickness. You’ve never lost consciousness during a seizure and you’ve never fallen. It’s not even a sickness. What do they know about it? How could they know?”
    Thoroughly distraught, Venetia paced in front of the door, turning each time her words reached a new crescendo. She shook the paper in her hands as if somehow the words written on it could be forced off into oblivion where they belonged.
    Placing gentle hands on her shoulders, Vivian steered her twin to the sofa and made her sit down.
    “You begin to sound like Father, Netia. Don’t. You know ’tis true I have epilepsy. Denying it as he has will never make it go away.”
    Venetia had tears in her eyes. “Oh, Vivi, I know.” She swallowed and could not go on. There was so much shared pain that she could never express, and so much grief. Until six years ago their lives had been so trouble-free, and then in one night so much had changed!
    “I hate that name for it, and I hate how ignorant people are about it. I hate the fact that we have to hide it from everyone. If we didn’t have to hide it, if people were not so afraid and so unreasonable, no one could write us a hateful note like this!”
    “Shh, Netia. We cannot change the way things are,” Vivian hugged her sister and removed the blackmail note, now badly crumpled, from her fingers.
    Venetia jumped up from the sofa. “How can you remain so calm? Does it not make you angry? It is all so unfair!” She began to pace about the room again.
    Vivian sighed. “Of course I get angry! But most of the time I consider it a gift that I am alive at all. ’Tis a gift that Mother was not granted, and mine is a conditional gift—I must accept the circumstances. I have come to terms with it better than you have, but perhaps that is just my nature. No one knows better than you how angry I was in those first months after the accident, when the seizures began.”
    Vivian smoothed out the note, her calm motion at odds with her words. “I do still feel angry when Father tries to gloss things over with some reference to my ‘delicate nerves,’ or when Aunt Alice insists I do it purposely for attention. But if I have to live with this, as I must, there is just one thing I would change, Netia, and that is Father’s insistence that I marry.”
    “That is but another thing that makes me angry, Vivi. How can he be so blind? Does he not see the possible jeopardy in which that places you? Your husband could have you shut away for life! But do not fear. No blackmailer will make me break my vow. I will not marry until we have found the right husband for you.”
    Vivian went to her and they clasped hands silently, allies against an uncertain future.
    After a moment Venetia managed to smile. “If such a paragon does not exist, then poor Nicholas will simply have two spinster sisters on his hands in the future.”
    They moved back to the