Lucy gasped and urged her on with breathless murmurs.
Too impatient to wait for further disrobing, Catherine pulled Lucy down atop her on the chaise.
Lucy hummed happily, her greater height blocking the wan summer sun and casting Catherine in shadow. Her arms bracketed the countess like columns as she hovered above her, and Catherine felt her panic ease a little to be so confined and protected. She slid a hand beneath Lucy’s petticoats and up the long length of her thigh. Her other hand curved over the back of Lucy’s neck, pulling her down for deep and ravenous kisses.
Lucy held nothing back, makinghurry upnoises in her throat and gasping into her lover’s mouth when Catherine’s fingers slid into the heat of her. She shook and trembled and Catherine gave her more and more until she shuddered and cried out, back bowing and fingers clutching at the upholstery. At last she collapsed on top of Catherine, who gloried in the slight, trembling, dewy weight of her.
Lucy blinked to clear her eyes of passion’s mist. “But you...?”
“Later,” Catherine whispered, and pressed her lips to Lucy’s temple.
Chapter Nine
Griffin’s print shop was hard by Queen Square, not terribly far from Somerset House. Lucy followed Catherine through the doorway and found herself in a light- and color-filled space. It was like stepping into summer proper, with its hue and haze, and some part of her country heart sighed to see it. All around her hung framed views of London: the river Thames sparkling blue in sunlight, the great conservatory of Carleton House, the tall pagoda in St. James’s Park, delicately tinted. Copies of famous landscapes and paintings she recognized from the Exhibition added more color, bright in the light that slanted down from windows set high in the walls above. A pair of young women flipped through loose prints in folios resting on their spines in V-shaped cradles, and glass-fronted cabinets behind the counter held copies of books in sheets, each manuscript stack tied neatly with twine to prevent individual pages from being lost before they could be carried to the buyer’s favorite bindery.
Catherine strode through this treasury, direct as an arrow. Lucy hurried after, head craning to take in as many sights as possible.
The young man behind the counter couldn’t have been more than fifteen. He blinked anxiously at Catherine and hurried forward. “How may I help you, madam?”
“I am here to see Mr. Thomas Griffin, please,” Catherine replied, and held out her card.
Lucy had to hide a smile as the young man’s eyebrows fairly flew off his head at the letters announcing Catherine St. Day, Countess of Moth. “He’s in the back, my lady,” he said, with a quick, bobbing bow. “If you’ll wait here for just a moment.”
He was back again almost immediately—no wonder, with a countess waiting. Catherine sailed through the doorway after him. Lucy scurried to follow—and stopped, blinking at the sudden assault of noise.
In the far corner, an apprentice was pulling letters from a box of type and dropping them into place in a frame, his master’s keen eye spotting misspellings almost before they could happen. Beside them, another man was printing on a single large handpress, pulling the iron handle to bring the press down with a deep thump Lucy could feel from her breastbone down into her toes. Every thump produced another identical sheet filled with blocks of text, which were then hung to dry before being collected and folded into signatures. In the other half of the room was a boy of thirteen or fourteen, bent over a reproduction of a famous painting, carefully shading forms in bright hues to add depth and vividness to the detail of the scene.
Supervising that boy was Mrs. Griffin, standing hawk-like above the young colorist. She glanced up with a piercing gaze; Lucy dared a small wave, and saw the engraver’s mouth quirk in brief amusement.
Lucy and Catherine were let into a small office with windows looking out on the back street. With the door shut it was indeed much quieter than in the print shop itself. No doubt some of the sound was muffled by the stacks of manuscripts, prints, and pages piled every which way: the main desk was mostly clear, as were the two guest chairs in front of it, but the walls were lined with shelves and crates and cabinets from which paper burst chaotically like doves caught in the act of fleeing the coop.
Thomas Griffin was a man with a creamy complexion, white-blond curls, and a cherub’s smile. He rose politely and bowed. “It’s an honor to meet you in person, Lady Moth. What can I do for you today?”
Lucy sat. Catherine took possession of the left-hand guest chair as though it were a throne. “I will be direct, Mr. Griffin. My friend, Miss Lucy Muchelney—” Lucy nodded at being named, while Mr. Griffin’s eyes cut to her “—has recently translated an important French astronomy text. We would like to make arrangements to have it printed and sold.”
“Ah.” The printer leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping lightly on the desk. “Griffin’s has the luxury of being very choosy about what we print, my lady. We pride ourselves on producing a spectrum of work in which any lady of good character might take an interest. You know this quite well, of course—your name has graced our subscriber rolls for some time now.” His angelic smile dimmed somewhat. “But it sounds like Miss Muchelney’s work is quite scholarly and erudite—nothing wrong with that, of course ... but perhaps you would be better served by one of the scientific presses here in town?”
Catherine’s polite smile didn’t budge, not a whit. “I will of course take all the financial risk of publication.”
Mr. Griffin’s eyes glinted at this. “In return for a larger cut of the profits, I assume.”
“Naturally.”
Mr. Griffin chuckled. “And what would I get out of this arrangement, for my smaller stake?”
“The chance to publish the first English translation of a significant scientific achievement from the Continent,” Catherine replied easily. “You publish work that appeals to ladies of taste and intelligence—and this is a scientific text aimed at precisely such women.” She tilted her head. “Have you been to any of Mr. Edwards’s chemical demonstrations?”
“Yes, my son insisted on seeing the volcano eruption in person—quite dramatic.”
“How many women would you say were in the audience?”
The printer bit his lip and looked thoughtful.
Catherine pressed on. “The motto of yourMenagerieis ‘A Lady’s Treasury of the Arts and Sciences,’ is it not?”
“It is—but we have never published anything scientific, outside of the short articles in theMenagerieitself.” He pursed his lips. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in serializing...?”
Catherine shook her head, even as she smiled to soften the refusal. “You would prefer to test these unknown waters. It’s a cautious impulse, and quite understandable. But if the serialization is a success, you’ll want to publish the full volume next anyway—and if it isn’t, you’ll have used up some of the limited territory of your most valuable publication.” She leaned ever so slightly forward, her voice dropping into an intense register, as though she were imparting secrets. “You don’t have to choose one thing only. You can do both. YourMenagerie—that curated, ladylike collection of shorter pieces on history and science and the domestic arts which is already popular—and a substantive work of scholarly brilliance that just so happens to have a lady as an author.”
