“You’d like to ride Sir Nicholas, then.”
“Mrs. Tottle!”
“Fine, fine. I suppose you wish to return to discussing the marriage of convenience?”
“Please.”
“It’s a sound idea. He’s a sound sort of fellow. He seems to like you. He’s unmarried. Does he show signs of an imminent proposal?”
She suspected his seeming openness was a mask. Alchemists were a secretive lot, and he would be no different. “He might desire it. There’s no telling with men like him. Not likely to give away his hand.” But sometimes she thought… in the flirtatious sparkle of his eye… “Perhaps he’s waiting for the right moment.” More likely the right woman, an alchemist’s daughter who knew his world, shared it. She didn’t have time to wait for some hint, though. “I was thinking I might put the idea into his head.”
“Not a bad idea. What is stopping you?”
Too many obstacles to enumerate. She was a nobody. Without the prestige of a proper birth, without family to love her, without magical ability to smooth her way in society. She was powerless, and even though Sir Nicholas was no transcendent, he had power. More than her. He was a man like none she’d ever met. Strong and flirtatious, handsome and happy but with a vein of seriousness like steel running through him.
She scooted closer to the widow and lowered her voice. “Women like me possess little power to control the directions of our lives.” And one way to survive that lack of control, as her stepmother had taught her, was to know who had power over your future and do as they asked you to. When her father had told her to forget her mother’s name, she’d never spoken it again. When her brother told her she must marry one of his cronies, she’d nodded and glued her mouth shut. She’d at least known the fellows he’d offered her hand to. Not that they’d wanted her. There was a certain strength in being biddable. “I cannot simply propose to him.”
Mrs. Tottle shrugged. “A rare thing for a woman to propose to a man. Smacks of desperation.”
Which was exactly what Jane was.
“Are you enamored of him?”
She found him compelling. She trusted him. Admired his mind and his body. “Convenience is not built on love. It’s built on stability to forge a clear future.”
“Hmm. Stability. A future.” Mrs. Tottle ran her knuckles back and forth across her neck, looking up into the tree branches. “Two things women like us cannot easily grasp on our own.”
Oh God, she understood, and a damn of emotion broke inside Jane. Words rushed forth like flood waters. “My brother determines where I live, how I live. If I do not take control of my own life, I may lose everything on a whim. I have no power over even my own life.” All women were powerless. Transcendent magic would not flow through their veins, and none became alchemists. Some tried their hands at potions, found success there, but any power that gave them was quickly banned by parliament, its uses curtailed, and its efficacy limited. London contained but a single potions shop, owned by a woman who’d appeared with the sunrise one morning. Jane’s father had been wary of her, and Jane’s brother outright loathed her, theirsthe two dominant male reactions. But the mysterious woman managed to expand her business without breaking the law, so she remained, a steadfast and explosive presence in the capital.
Jane admired her, longed to be like her—a woman who took power for herself, making her way by her own wits.
“I am no Lady Guinevere,” Jane whispered.
Mrs. Tottle blinked. “Would you like to be? I know a potion or two. I could teach you. Many a woman makes her own way with a quality love-potion or skin-clearing elixir.”
“No.” Too dangerous. Too risky. She was no potion mistress. She was no one. “Marriage seems the best route to safety for me.”
“But marriage guarantees nothing. My Berty died, and I had to scramble to find a way of living without him. But your Sir Nicholas is young and hardy. I say propose to the man. Don’t suggest—do!”
She shook her head, feeling hollow. “I will simply let him know that should he find himself in want of a wife, I would not be averse to filling the position.”
“Terribly romantic.”
“I cannot afford romance.”
“Neither can I.” Said with a sigh. “And yet I’d seize it if it came my way. Steal it without regret.” Mrs. Tottle reached up and flicked a crisp brown leaf, her gaze slipping between the skeletal branches to the white sky beyond.
“Not me.” Otherwise, she’d search for the intruder. Again. Even though an entire year of searching had proven fruitless.
The other alchemist, Mr. Grant, had returned, and he stood next to Sir Nicholas, watching Timothy play with the friends he would soon leave. A young girl—Susan—ran up to Sir Nicholas, her arms wrapped tightly about her thinly-clothed body. Sir Nicholas slipped his greatcoat off and squatted before the girl, wrapped her up warmly in the thick wool lined with a bright-red silk. Susan laughed. The coat pooled around her feet, but Sir Nicholas ruffled her hair and sent her off, flexing to rise once more.
And… Jane truly tried not to ogle his arse. Shedid. But without the greatcoat, it was an object of easier study and… familiar? Similar to one she’d seen backing brazenly through a window? Or familiar because she’d been sneaking glances at it for a year?
No. She was likely transposing the two backsides because she wanted the man whose kiss she craved to be the same man she married.
“If you continue lookingat the governess,” Temple said, “she’s going to notice.”
“She already has, no doubt. But I cannot seem to help it.” Nico winced as the young Susan dragged his coat through a pile of dead leaves. Beneath it, the girl wore a new gown of thick blue wool, the same fabric he’d seen Jane wear when she’d first arrived last year but that she’d not worn in quite some time, not since Susan had received her new dress. “I’m like a burr attached to Miss Dean’s skirts. Where she goes, so do I.”
