Minutes before her brother had arrived in the parlor, Iolanthe had indeed been thinking over the past.  It was not the same tragedy that Terrence had been reliving though.  She knew that Terrence carried a scar from the murder of their mother, though she didn’t quite understand exactly what it was or how deep it cut.  She had her own, more recent scars—scars scarcely ten years old.

Iolanthe had continued to live in her father’s house near Shopton, long after her brothers had gone away to military school.  By her seventeenth year she had grown into a strikingly beautiful young lady.  Not one to stay in the brooding mansion, she spent her days happily riding across the countryside.  It was here that she met a young man named Jolon Bendrin.  At first, she found him attractive.  He certainly found her so.  They met several times and talked and she enjoyed his company.

Then one day, he changed.  They both attended a party at the Banner residence.  Afterwards they had walked in the garden.  Nothing seemed strange.  When he kissed her, she had let him.  But then he forced her down onto a stone bench and reached under her dress.  She only realized the danger of her situation when he put his hand over her mouth.  He raped her.  Then week after week, he did it again.  She tried to avoid him but she couldn’t.  He seemed to be everywhere.  What could she do?  She wasn’t strong enough to fight him off, and there was no male protector for her—her father was in a drunken stupor and her brothers were both away.  And who else could she tell, without disgracing herself?  When she turned eighteen, she left Mont Dechantagne, moving to Brech, and leaving her father to waste away by himself.

* * * * *

Iolanthe took another sip of iced tea and looked at her brother sitting across from her.  No, there was no point in living in the past.  One must look toward the future.  There was a great deal to do.  But there was always the possibility that Jolon Bendrin might come to Brech.  What would she do then?