She looked up at Gerald as if he might be interested in the project. “They use shovels, brooms, and wheelbarrows toremove the dung all day and all night.” She even leaned closer to him. “Thus, no horse-shit on the street!”
He couldn’t pretend not to understand the fiery lady. Thus, turning his back, he walked away.
Alice was astounded, a gloved hand to her mouth. When she looked at Jillian, she wore a similarly impressed and horrified expression.
Too late, the shop clerk who had assisted her approached the three women. “I hope you weren’t inconvenienced, my lady. Please tell Lord Diamond that Floris Perfumers sends its utmost gratitude for his continued gracious patronage.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you.” Alice and Jillian stepped outside with Radiance. Alice couldn’t help glancing around to make sure Gerald wasn’t lying in wait, but she saw him striding down toward Pall Mall. He had ruined her day and perhaps soured her maid’s view of her.
“He’s a right arse, isn’t he?” Jillian asked, breaking the tension.
Radiance laughed immediately, and Alice took a deep breath, then released it. “He certainly is.”
Just like his dead brother!And with her own mother’s help, Alice had stepped willingly into their world. If only she could figure out how to leave it behind now that she was back in London.
“I hope you don’t mind that I stepped in and insulted him,” Radiance said. “It seemed like good sport. But I must finish my shopping and get home before anyone notices I dashed out unaccompanied. Don’t tell my brother.”
Then the young lady leaned forward and embraced Alice briefly, dropping a kiss on her cheek before disappearing back inside Floris.
“She’s a force of nature, that one,” Jillian said. “If you don’t mind my saying, m’lady.”
“She is, to be sure,” Alice agreed.
Insulting Gerald was the least of her problems. But short of hiding in her new house, she had no idea how to avoid him in the future. In any case, Adam wasn’t about to let her do that. He was the opposite to Richard, and when her husband wasn’t in his study, at the exchange, the bank, his club, or with his father discussing Parliament, he was with her.
One morning over coddled eggs, he said, “Recall when we discussed the Great Exhibition with Lady Susanne?”
“Indeed, I do.” Alice caught his intent at once and dropped her napkin so she could clap her hands with the excitement of a child going to the fair. “Are we going today?” she asked.
“I have the entire day free to spend with my wife walking through the wonders of the world.”
With the throng of people — twenty-five thousand on opening day — Alice hoped no one would notice her and doubted she would run into anyone she knew. The Crystal Palace, which housed exhibits not only from Britain but from around the world, was a place so large and novel the newspapers repeatedly stated the structure’s enormous measurements.
Built in only nine months from glass and cast iron fabricated in Birmingham, it contained 293,000 panes, including the largest sheets of glass ever made, and 3,330 columns of iron.
However, when they arrived, it was not as crowded as she’d expected. At her query as to its waning popularity, Adam chuckled.
“It’s Friday,” he pointed out as they passed through the turnstile at the main entrance.
She shook her head, not comprehending.
“The entry price most days is only a shilling,” he explained, “but they charge a pound today and on Saturdays.”
“To keep out the masses,” Alice surmised, embarrassed by the two-tier system as a few months prior, she was part of that class that would only pay twelve pence.
Once inside, she could think of nothing but the awesome ingenuity of people. Half of the nineteen-acre building contained inventions and goods from the British Isles, and the other half from fifty countries in the rest of the world, as well as another thirty-nine colonies.
Everywhere, colorful red, white, and blue banners hung with the names of the countries and the type of item they were exhibiting — be itManufactures, Machinery, Raw Materials,orFine Arts. The noise and the aromas were overwhelming, both the rattling of machinery in the distance and the nearby fragrance of produce from colonial Trinidad and spices from the India exhibit.
“Magnificent,” Alice exclaimed, her head on a swivel, trying to take it all in at once. Directly ahead was a tall elm tree growing indoors under a barrel-vaulted roof, and near it, a massive fountain made of four tons of pink glass if the sign could be believed. They lingered a long time in the section from India with the vibrant textiles and the life-size stuffed elephant carrying a—
“Is that elephant wearing a four-poster bed?” Alice asked, going closer.
Adam read the sign. “It’s ahowdah. Their version of a horse and carriage.”
And then, they stood before the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond, given to Queen Victoria upon being made Empress of India.
Adam whistled loudly at the large stone and read the translation of its Persian name, “Mountain of Light.”
