“Must you?” Catherine swayed in her seat—surely it was only a tight turn of the carriage that staggered her, and not the thought of parting from Lucy. Catherine cleared her throat and tried again. “Couldn’t you continue the work on your own?”
Lucy’s shoulders rose and fell, a shadowed shrug. “I could—but without the imprimatur of the Polite Science Society, who would publish it?”
“I would,” Catherine said at once. Imagination raced ahead, mapping out the path ahead of her, obstacles and their solutions and all. Nothing struck her as insurmountable. “Yes,” she said, more confidently, “I absolutely would. How soon do you think you can have the first volume translated?”
Lucy frowned, as Catherine fidgeted, impatient for an answer. “Less than six months, for certain,” she said. “Perhaps as little as four.”
“Excellent,” Catherine said. “You continue working, and I will ask about for a good publisher for this kind of thing. I’m sure someone can recommend a few names for us.” Lucy was staring, and Catherine dropped her eyes back to her hands. “You are, of course, welcome to stay with me for the duration. If—if for any reason you don’t fancy going home just yet.”
Lucy tilted her head, birdlike. “I confess, Lyme does not hold much appeal at present.” Another streetlamp flashed over the younger woman’s hesitant smile, and Catherine let out a long, silent breath in the darkness. “And I can write to Stephen—to tell him I’ve found work. For a while, at least.”
Catherine was relieved; she was fearful; she didn’t know what she felt, as they disembarked at the townhouse and made their way separately to bed. Her nerves flickered like the candles as Narayan helped her undress. Only one thought felt solid, and she clung to it like a compass heading in the fog: Lucy Muchelney was going to have a chance to do the work she had so much talent and passion for.
That was something.
“One of these buttons is loose,” the maid murmured, fingering the cuff of the brown silk. “I’ll resew it for you tomorrow, my lady.”
“Thank you,” Catherine answered, and sat a little longer after her maid departed, drumming her fingers on the polished wood and staring into the depths of the mirror.
Chapter Four
The moon took twenty-nine days to show off all her phases in the heavens. The sun allowed himself the whole of the calendar year to creep back and forth along the horizon. Rarer events, such as Halley’s celebrated comet, only graced the Earth once every several decades. In such astronomical terms, two weeks was nothing. A minute. A moment. A blink, here and gone.
Catherine and Lucy passed the next two weeks orbiting one another like a double star: ever moving, never touching, never truly separating. Between breakfast and luncheon they worked companionably in the library. After luncheon Lucy returned there, while Catherine took to her writing desk in the parlor to attend to her never-ending correspondence: letters to friends (many asking about printing houses), to colleagues, to Polite Science Society connections. She and Lucy met briefly for tea, then parted again until dinner, which Catherine took care was serveden familleafter that first disastrous night. To an outside observer it looked regular as clockwork.
Catherine was not an outside observer, no more than a sailor clinging to a spar in a wreck was an outside observer of storms. She felt lightning-struck. Every conversation, every joke, every blush and averted glance sent another bolt through her. Whole territories were beginning to burn in parts of her soul that she’d always kept carefully darkened.
She threw herself into busyness, hoping that forward momentum would leave any uncomfortable revelations trailing far behind. She found the housekeeper Mrs. Shaw in the stillroom, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and her hair a cloud of white curls above a face the color of antique parchment.
“What would you think about training young Eliza Brinkworth as a lady’s maid?” Catherine asked.
Mrs. Shaw set aside the twine she was using to cut a large cake of soap into smaller bars. She had already heaped up some dozen of them in a pyramid, laid crosswise on top of one another to leave room for air between them. Her lips pursed, her displeasure plain. “I wouldn’t advise it, my lady.”
“Why not?”
“Both Joan and Charlotte have been with us longer, and would be better fit for the promotion.” Her tone was sure, but her hands were shaking a little, causing flakes of rosewater soap to flutter down from the twine like a snowstorm in miniature.
Catherine’s irritation jabbed her like an errant pin. “Are either Joan or Charlotte as talented with a needle as Eliza seems to be?”
“Has she shown you that sketchbook of hers?” Mrs. Shaw blew out a long breath. “She promised me she would only waste her own time on that, my lady. I grant you it’s all very pretty—the girl has a knack, and no mistake—but she needs to develop some discipline to go along with it, or she’ll be no good to anyone.”
“She hasn’t spoken to me,” Catherine said. “I happened to see some of her work, and now that Miss Muchelney will be staying with us for a while, I thought Eliza might do for her.”
Mrs. Shaw chewed on her lip a little, the pink coming and going from her cheeks. “May I speak plainly, my lady?”
Catherine blinked. “Of course.”
“Moving Eliza up wouldn’t look right. Because she’s Mr. Brinkworth’s daughter, you see—the other girls might take that for the reason for the preferment, and think it’s no use being diligent in their own work, since they won’t see the rewards for it. In the worst case, they might come to resent Mr. Brinkworth’s authority. And mine.”
Now Catherine did frown. “You would have Eliza overlooked for the sake of her father’s standing?”
“Not overlooked, my lady. Just... seasoned a little more, if you like. It’d be more proper.”
All of a sudden Catherine was sick to death of propriety. “I have made my wishes clear, Mrs. Shaw.”
The housekeeper nodded, but her mouth was an unhappy line. “Yes, ma’am.”
Not even finishing a piece in the library later that afternoon could improve Catherine’s mood after such an unsatisfying interview. She put the last stitch in the pineapple ginger tablecloth edging and just sat there, stroking a restless finger over the scarlet silk.
