“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown?” Colin came up to Mina’s side.
“Easy enough, I suspect, compared to some men,” Stephen replied. “And it’s hardly a crown these days,” he added, in case anyone was around to overhear.
“Calm yourself. I don’t think anyone will arrest you for treason here. Looking for a resemblance?” Colin asked Mina, gesturing to the naga.
She laughed. “Speculating, maybe. It’s a lovely piece of work regardless. They all are.”
“Lovelier where they’d originally been, I suspect,” said Colin.
A passage from one of Judith’s letters came to Stephen’s mind. “Still keeping company with Carpenter and his radicals?”
“Not company: they’d have a few questions about my age if I did. But correspondence, as long as such things seem reasonable. They’re congenial sorts,” said Colin. “I don’t think I can quite manage their idealism—that sort of thing is for the young—but someone should, once in a while, and the principles behind it are sound enough for the most part.”
“Says the young aristocrat.”
“I said for the most part. Although we might not be as necessary as we’ve always thought. Or as you’ve always thought.”
“I don’t know about that. Men need a leader. Someone to organize matters and settle disputes. Although at the moment,” Stephen added, “I think I’d rather enjoy being superfluous.”
“No you wouldn’t. Trust me, I’ve done it for decades—it’s much more my kind of life than yours.”
“You’re just worried that I’ll find something for you to do,” Stephen said, smiling, and looked over to Mina. “And what about you, then?”
“Whataboutme?” she asked with a saucy little grin. “I like to think I’m not superfluous.”
“Not at all,” Stephen said. “I meant what do you think—about men and leaders and so forth? Do you want to change the world, or do you like it fine the way it is?”
“I think the world will change with or without me,” said Mina. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it be a little more—” She frowned, searching for a word. “Free? Open? I don’t know. I think, if you want to be a—a doctor or a scholar or a poet, you should be able to, or at least to try, no matter what station you’re born to.”
“Or what sex?” Stephen asked, remembering their conversation over her first letter home.
Mina’s grin widened. “Or that.”
“Do you think it’ll happen?” Colin asked, eyeing Mina with the curiosity that more than a few women had mistaken, to their sorrow, for something else.
“I think it already is.” Mina showed no reaction to Colin’s look, if she noticed it. She held up her hands and then made a face. “But I can’t show you with the gloves on, and I haven’t been typing as much lately at any rate. My fingers used to be a fair point of demonstration—the tips get callused.”
“Your grandmother would disapprove?” Colin asked.
“Yours might,” said Mina, and her eyes glinted in a dare-you-to-be-shocked way that Stephen was beginning to find familiar. “Mine took in laundry.”
“Well,” said Stephen, “one of ours kept sheep.”
Mina blinked. “Really?” she asked, turning to look up at Stephen. “Your grandmother?”
Her expression might almost have been casual curiosity. Stephen wasn’t entirely certain otherwise, but there was a stillness about her face as she waited for his answer that suggested she was listening very carefully.
“Oh, aye,” said Colin, off beyond Mina’s gaze. “Our mother’s mother. They were verygoodsheep, though. And that was quite a while back. Don’t let it get around.”
“Even the bit about how good the sheep were?” Mina smiled, but the intensity left her expression and she looked away, flushing.
In the moment of silence that followed, the clock began to strike.
“Half an hour to dusk,” Stephen said, keeping his voice mildly displeased and not swearing the way he wanted to. They were at a museum, after all. “I’d best be on my way.”
“Oh,” said Mina, and stepped away from the exhibit. “All right.”
She sounded completely normal, even matter-of-fact, but she’d clearly been enjoying herself, and such outings were rare for her these days. That was at least partly Stephen’s fault.
