Mr. Hawley shook his head, his face all apology. “My dear lady, it is out of the question.” He pulled his hand away and leaned back, eyes distant, the topic clearly finished in his mind.
“You might at least take a look at her work before you dismiss it,” Catherine insisted stubbornly. “She’s already made a good start on the first volume.”
Lucy said not a word as she pulled her handwritten pages out of her pocket and set them on the table in front of the Society president.
Mr. Hawley kept his eyes on Catherine, swept out his hand, and brushed the pages, unread, to the floor.
Aunt Kelmarsh gasped, hand over her mouth, and Mr. Frampton’s eyebrows shot up.
Mr. Hawley sighed. His tone was all sweet disappointment. “My dear countess: you must know you are being unreasonable.” While Catherine choked on shock and outrage, he turned to Miss Muchelney, putting a hand on her wrist and gripping it with earnest entreaty. “Please do not think I disparage your eagerness to help, my dear girl—it is only that as men of science, we must uphold certain standards if our work is to be accorded its proper value in the community. You understand, of course.”
“Oh yes, Mr. Hawley,” Miss Muchelney replied tightly. “I understand you perfectly.”
Catherine rested both her palms onto the dinner table and stood. Chairs scraped as the others hastened to follow her to their feet. Old oak creaked as Catherine leaned forward. “Mr. Hawley, you have your standards, and I have mine. This behavior fails to meet them on every level. I officially retract my half of the funds for this publication.”
Mr. Hawley’s mouth went tight with fury. “You think to bully me, Lady Moth—but the Society will go ahead with a proper scientific translation, with or without your support.”
Catherine ignored him and gave the rest of the company a tight nod of farewell. “Mr. Frampton, Mr. Wilby, I wish you every good fortune with your work. Miss Muchelney.” She swallowed hard. “If you prefer to stay awhile longer, I can have the carriage return for you.”
Miss Muchelney stood easily. Her voice was all sunshine when she replied: “No need, my lady. I shall intrude no longer on Mr. Hawley’s kindness.” Catherine saw, with vicious glee, one corner of the president’s mouth tighten as he caught the bright, bitter undertone. Aunt Kelmarsh’s lips quirked as she caught it, too, and she sent Catherine an eloquent look. Miss Muchelney made a very pretty curtsy, set her chin at a most stubborn angle, and marched out of the room.
Her discarded manuscript pages fluttered farewell as she passed.
As soon as the carriage began to move, Miss Muchelney’s invulnerability cracked. Her shoulders shook and her eyes went wild and she clutched Catherine’s green wrap around her as though she were caught in the sudden blast of an arctic howler. Catherine twisted her hands together, feeling helpless. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I should have gathered up your manuscript pages...”
“Oh, that.” Miss Muchelney half laughed, a sound like a wild thing. “That was only a clean copy. I still have the rough version and all my notes, safe and sound where they belong.” She pursed her lips. “Mr. Hawley onlythoughthe was trampling all my hopes and ambitions.”
Relief was a river, deep and quiet. Catherine’s fingers relaxed. “I’m glad,” she breathed.
“You tried to warn me how it would be,” Miss Muchelney replied. Her voice was watery, forewarning Catherine about the tears that soon began to spill from her eyes. The girl scrubbed at her cheeks with the heel of her palm. “I should have listened.”
“I had no idea they would be likethat,” Catherine said. The upswelling anger that had sent her storming away from Mr. Hawley’s dinner table still sizzled just beneath her skin. “I had expected them to grapple with you about mathematical formulas or how you interpreted your French verb tenses. They have those sorts of arguments constantly. I thought they might question your expertise, yes. I never thought they might question your existence!”
For that is what Mr. Wilby’s argument had amounted to. He had wanted to debate the very fact of women’s intelligence, when the intelligent woman seated across the table from him ought to have been proof in and of herself.
Miss Muchelney turned her head to stare out the window at the passing city. Light from a streetlamp passed briefly over her face, and then was gone. “They think of me as my father’s satellite. And so they cannot see me as I am. Anyone who’s ever looked through a telescope should know: perspectives can be distorting.”
“Trust an astronomer to consider it a problem of angles.” Miss Muchelney chuckled weakly, and Catherine’s anxious tension eased, though her heart wouldn’t stop aching. “Not everything can be explained by geometry.”
“I shouldn’t have surprised them,” Miss Muchelney went on. Her hands fell to her lap and fidgeted with the edging of the wrap. “It is sometimes difficult for men to change course once they have set their minds to something. I should have talked them round more, led up to the idea. I thought they would be like my father—but of course they were more like my brother.”
Catherine hadn’t known that Albert Muchelney had a second child. “Does your brother not encourage your pursuit of astronomy?”
Miss Muchelney let out a wordless choked laugh. “He has talked about selling my telescope.” Catherine gasped. Miss Muchelney’s lips curved briefly at the sound. “The day I left for London, Stephen told me nobody would employ a female astronomer.” She stopped herself, then burst out: “Ihatethat he’s right.”
“He isn’t right.” Catherine leaned forward and clasped her hands around Miss Muchelney’s. “He’s only an astronomer—and astronomers spend a great deal of time being wrong before they come to realize it.”
“He’s not an astronomer. He’s an artist.”
“Then he’s doomed to be wrong his whole life.”
Lucy laughed, but even in the dimness the tears sparkled as they fell from her eyes. “I’m always crying in front of you, aren’t I?”
Catherine lifted one hand and brushed the tears away. “I wish you had fewer reasons for it.” Lucy’s eyes were star-bright. Her lips parted on a breath that was far too soft for a sigh. Catherine’s whole body went tight and liquid—how easy would it be to just lean forward, and press her mouth to Lucy’s, and taste that sound on her own tongue?
She wanted it so much that it frightened her. She yanked herself away and tucked her hands tightly beneath her knees.
Lucy’s breath hitched, but after a moment she turned away and stared out the window again. “I suppose I must pack my things in the morning, then. Head back to Lyme.”
