Free A Little Knowledge by Emma Newman

another breath to protest. Something about the way she was talking to him seemed disrespectful in the extreme, but when he thought about it, she hadn’t asked for anything too unreasonable. With another nod, he acquiesced.
    “Every woman in Albion should know this stuff, and they should learn it from their parents and governesses.”
    When Tom opened his mouth to protest she held up a hand and gave him a stern look. Who was this woman? Had that booklet done this?
    “Now, it might be a shock for you to learn that I already know everything in this booklet. I was taught all I needed to know about my body, about sex, and about how it all works before I left California.”
    All Tom could do was blink at her. Not even he knew all of the intricacies of female anatomy and he considered himself well educated.
    “And that’s the way it should be,” Lucy continued. “Now, I’ve been in Albion for nearly a year, long enough to see that something here is really screwed up, and I figure that you’re just as oblivious as the rest of them.”
    “Now look here—”
    “I haven’t finished,” Lucy said, raising her voice enough to shock him into silence again. Was he cursed with having to care for difficult women? “Something is rotten in Albion. You guys send young men into Mundanus for the Grand Tour and yet even though they spend four years living in the modern world, nothing changes here. In America both the young women and the men travel in Mundanus, and both bring back knowledge of progress. My mother has just as much influence over the way our family is run as my father, and I’m talking about financial decisions, not just who wears what and how their damn houses look! Why do only the men have any real power in Albion?”
    “Because it’s the natural—”
    “Goddamn it, Tom, I haven’t finished! Albion is stuck, and it needs people like your sister to change it. I suggest you stop being angry about something as stupid as women here being given the education they should have and start being angry about the way they’re having to find it out from a secret pamphlet.”
    Tom pulled off his cravat and tossed it onto the arm of the sofa, loosening his collar further. After what had been said, it didn’t seem so important to be perfectly attired. A painful throb was building behind his eyes and he just wanted everything to be simple again. Even hunting Cat in Mundanus had been easier to bear than this life of politics and the ground shifting beneath his feet every five minutes.
    Lucy moved from her chair to sit next to him. “I’m sorry that was hard to hear. But it isn’t just me that feels this way, and not just your sister either.”
    “It’s my fault she’s the way she is,” Tom said, letting himself sink back into the cushions. He didn’t have the energy to hold himself rigidly straight anymore. “Father used to beat her. Terribly. I should have…” A tightness in his throat threatened the steadiness of his voice, so he took a breath and waited until it passed. “I should have intervened, when I was old enough. But I never did. If she’d felt safe at home, she never would have run away and been corrupted by Mundanus.”
    “Oh, Tom,” Lucy took his hand and kissed it. “Cathy wanted to find her own way, more than she wanted to get away from home, I’m sure of it. Don’t blame yourself. Your father can be pretty scary—sorry—quite scary.” She stared at him so intently that he was drawn to look back at her. He saw nothing but compassion in her pale brown eyes. “It must have been so hard for you, trying to be a good son and a good brother when your father was like that. And then having to find her and bring her back….I know you wanted to see so much on your Grand Tour. You’ve never talked to me about it. It might—”
    Tom stood and grabbed his cravat. “It’s all in the past,” he said. “No point dredging it all back up again.” He looked at the booklet in his other hand, uncertain of