Thomas Griffin stared for a long moment—but then, with a small laugh, said: “Lady Moth, I admit myself conquered.”
He and Catherine began hammering out the finer details: number of copies printed, size of manuscript, costs of paper and platemaking and percentages of the profits. Most of the latter were to go to Lucy, at Catherine’s insistence; Lucy herself could only listen breathlessly with the strange sense that the world was beginning to turn faster and faster around its axis.
She’d thought Catherine was afraid to discuss money.
She’d been wrong.
The woman who talked Thomas Griffin around was the same woman who’d funded three expeditions across the globe—and who’d arranged that famous pyramid dinner, in a foreign country where language and custom were significant barriers to cooperation. This woman had survived voyages with no small amount of peril involved in their very undertaking. And now she was here, in London, making Lucy’s most cherished ambition into reality.
One worry clouded Lucy’s happiness. How could Lucy possibly repay her for this?
Some detail about manuscript binding had Catherine and Mr. Griffin walking back out to the workroom. They bent over leather samples stamped with gilt and silver foil, arguing with apparent relish about cost and color.
Lucy didn’t feel qualified to weigh in on this question herself, so instead she wandered across the busy print shop toward Mrs. Griffin.
The engraver had left the colorist to his work, and was now engaged with a piece of her own. A metal plate coated in wax had been inscribed with a flowing, floral design that Mrs. Griffin was now painstakingly carving away.
“That’s quite pretty,” Lucy said.
“Is it?” Mrs. Griffin had a wry twist to her lips. “I’ve copied out so many flower patterns this season for the embroidery pages of theMenagerie, I’m afraid I’ve lost my taste for them. But my last apprentice left us to go live with her aunt in Sussex, so there’s nobody else to do them until I find another.”
Lucy leaned down, watching the metal graver carve a series of careful arcs into the wax. One, two, three—and then a connecting swirl, something that just managed to suggest a flower without being so gauche as to depict one. It almost reminded her of the geometric sketches Eliza Brinkworth had done...
That was when it happened. One of the journeymen at the press in the back dropped his composing stick—the long piece of metal full of leaden letters hit the floor and rang like a thousand bells. The sudden commotion startled the colorist; his hand jerked in alarm, and a spray of droplets in deep Prussian blue arced off his brush and splattered against the soft gray sleeve of Lucy’s dress.
“Sydney!” Mrs. Griffin exclaimed, then huffed out a sigh. “My sincerest apologies, Miss Muchelney.”
“It’s quite alright,” Lucy hurried to say. “I’m sure it will wash out.”
“Out of the fabric, perhaps—but I’m afraid it’s caught some of the border as well.”
She sent poor Sydney running for clean water and soap, but after a few daubs Lucy had to admit Mrs. Griffin had been correct: the blue had bitten deep into the light-hued silk chevrons.
At home, Catherine went to work on her never-ending correspondence. Lucy rang for Eliza and showed her the stained sleeve.
The maid’s mouth flattened as she surveyed the ruin of her work. “Oh, damn.”
There was a moment of exquisite silence.
Then Eliza clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes teary with horror. “Oh, miss, I’m sorry—please don’t tell Mrs. Shaw!”
“Of course not—”
“Or my father!”
Lucy stopped at that, her eyes narrowing. “I won’t,” she promised solemnly.
“I’ll have it fixed at once, miss—let’s get you a new gown...”
Eliza pulled a lavender frock from the wardrobe and helped Lucy change with shaking hands.
Lucy held her tongue while her mind turned over the known facts about Eliza Brinkworth. “Is Mrs. Shaw terribly hard on you?”
“Oh no, miss—that is, sheis, but I’m so new, and I’m always making mistakes—one of the other girls might have been better, but Mrs. Shaw says my lady insisted... It’s been a great trial to her, she said once, though I don’t think she meant me to hear.” She fastened the last button on the lavender frock and stepped back, hands clasped together in front of her. “There you are, miss.”
With a quick curtsy, she gathered the stained gown into her arms and hurried back to the workroom.
Lucy stood very still for a moment, her mind putting one piece of evidence next to another and coming to a swift calculation. Last week one of the under housemaids had dropped a bucket after sweeping the fireplace and sent soot billowing out over the blue parlor; the week before, Brinkworth had horrified himself by discovering he’d walked around for the better part of an hour with a streak of silver polish on the sleeve of his coat. Two days ago Cook had had sharp words with a kitchen maid who’d scorched a caramel sauce and ruined the saucepan.
