“—our town is more renowned, too,” Gloria continued, brown eyes shining.“I shouldn’t be surprised if we have twice as many visitors this year, from those wishing to see the birthplace ofDuke.”
“My laboratory?”Penelope reared back in horror.“I allow no one inside.In order to keep the pristine environment unadulterated with—”
“Not your laboratory,” Gloria assured her.“They want to see the beautiful Christmas village that inspires you.Who wouldn’t want to visit a snow-topped mountain and return home inspired, too?”
Penelope tightened her lips, lest the truth spill out.She wasn’t inspired by a snow-dusted mountaintop village, no matter how picturesque.She was driven by molecules and vials and complex chemical compositions.The irony was remarkable.
She hadn’t intended to turn London’s fashionable set on their ears.She had been competing in a nationwide quest to determine causal factors in the mating habits of certain nocturnal mammals.Her intent had been to prove that lady natural philosophers were just as competent at investigation as their male counterparts.
That her research should result in the discovery of a chemical compound just as potent when applied to humans had been incidental to her cause.When she’d packaged it asDukeand sold it on a lark, she hadn’t anticipated how quickly the new scent would take over local shops, then regional distributors, then national magazines, then end up as part of the morning toilette of the most influential man in England.
Or that Brummel would convince Prinney, too.
She grinned at Gloria.Progress had been made.The Natural Philosophers Guild had refused to allow a lady chemist’s research into their precious contest, but England had taken notice nonetheless.What did it matter that their fellow villagers had come to celebrate scents rather than science?Her smile dipped.
“Where’s Penelope?”boomed a voice from across the tumultuous chamber.
“Speech!”shouted another.
Penelope ducked her head to hide her face before she could be spotted.She was used to spending weeks at a time in the privacy of her laboratory.Not pontificating on stage in front of her neighbors.If she stayed near the back, they wouldn’t find her.
“Speech, speech!”the crowd echoed in raptures.
“Go on, you brilliant woman.”Gloria tried to nudge her in the direction of the grand dais on the other side of the ballroom.“Your people await.”
Penelope sent a dubious glance in the direction of the dais.She couldn’t even see it behind all the people.“What do they expect me to say?”
“You gave them what we all want,” Gloria explained with a smile.“A tool to help them find love.What could be purer?”
“That’s not what I did at all,” Penelope said in surprise.
“Speech, speech!”cried the crowd.
“I didn’t say you personally acted as matchmaker,” Gloria chided her gently.“But you created a perfume that enables two previously unknown people to come together and perhaps discover love.”
“I created a chemical solution that enabled two previously unconnectedcompoundsto come together,” Penelope stammered.“It has nothing to do with love.”
“Everything has to do with love,” Gloria said.
Penelope shook her head.“There is no love.It’s an illusion.A romantic fantasy invented to explain chemical reactions as old as nature itself.”
Gloria’s mouth fell open.“How can you say that?You camped in tents for months and witnessed the effects of your compounds firsthand.If your perfumes can make rodents fall in love, you cannot deny that—”
“Civets are Viverridae, more similar to primitive felines than rodents,” Penelope interrupted.“And they don’tfall in love.Their females goin heat.In fact, as Samuel Williams wrote in hisNatural and Civil History of Vermont—”
“What do American natural philosophers know about love?”Gloria spluttered.
“That it doesn’t exist,” Penelope blurted out.
“Speech, speech!”screamed the crowd.
“Love is a fictional construct invented to make natural biological urges sound more palatable in Polite Society,” Penelope explained earnestly.“Animals excrete scents.Humans are animals.If we’re in love with anything, it’s our own excretions.”
“Good God.”Gloria stared at her in disbelief.“That is the least romantic—”
“‘Romance’ is an arbitrarily prescribed set of unnatural behaviors and absurd superstitions created to explain and engender a mythical emotion we invented whole cloth.All because we believe ourselves to be superior to other animals.”
Gloria spluttered in disbelief.“Surely you agree modern society is superior to the lives of rodents and primitive cats!”
