“Something better,” Catherine said. “Something that belongs only to us.” She pulled Lucy down on top of her, golden hair haloing around her, so achingly beautiful that Lucy could almost—but not quite—believe her.
Chapter Ten
Reviewing the proofs of one’s own book to check for typographical and mathematical errors turned out to be the most excruciating process Lucy could have imagined. Had she really written all these hundreds of thousands of words? It seemed impossible—surely some other hand had penned this striking phrase on page forty-seven. Some prankster haddefinitelywritten the hideous third paragraph on page one hundred sixty-two. And checking every variable and constant in every equation made her feel as if her poor eyes might never uncross again.
She did the best she could to be thorough, and resisted the urge to despair.
Eventually, however, Catherine compelled her to send the book back, even though Lucy was certain it was still rotten with clumsy substitutions and inelegant phrases. It was printed and put up for sale, half in sheets and half in plain covers, with fifty copies specially bound in a handsome octavo volume by Agatha Griffin herself. On these last the title was embossed in silver on rich blue leather:The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, with the author listed as L. Muchelney.
Lucy had agonized over this initial, before ultimately deciding that she would use her full name when she published her own unique work, and initials when she wanted the focus to be on the work she was translating. The women (well, mostly women) of the Friendly Philosophical Salon had graciously offered to read and discuss the book for their next meeting, so on the appointed day Catherine led a very anxious, pale-cheeked Lucy to Paternoster Row and into the back room with the worn-out sofas.
A pair of Salon members were there already, and looked up with sharp eyes at Catherine’s warm greeting. “So there you are! The author who sent us to every bookshop in London.”
“Or very nearly,” her companion added, tucking a watch into a waistcoat pocket.
“What?” Lucy blurted, then bit her lip and looked to Catherine with worried eyes.
Lady Moth held her poise. “You had trouble finding a copy? Griffin’s assured us they would send them to their usual list of booksellers.”
“My favorite shop had run out,” explained the first.
“So had the next three shops,” her friend chimed in. “We finally found the last copy in a place on the very northern edge of town.”
“We had toshareit,” the lady said with a shudder, and scowled at her friend. “You erased my notes!”
“You penciled notes in the margins of a brand-new book!”
“Where better to put my thoughts and responses? I might lose them if they weren’t written right next to the passages that inspired them!”
They continued the argument while Catherine turned to Lucy with sly wonder in her eyes. “If every shop in the Row has sold out...” she said.
“I can’t imagine,” Lucy breathed.
But a few other Salon members attested to the same trouble, and a later hasty visit to Griffin’s confirmed it: the initial run had very nearly all been sold, and orders for more were quickly being accumulated. A second print run was hastily undertaken from the plates of the first, and as the week passed the book began to earn notice in scientific circles. People were soon discussing Oléron’s algorithms—and Lucy’s expansive explanations—in letters, in lecture halls, in coffee shops, and in college courtyards. Mr. Edwards even wrote to offer his personal praise and congratulations.
But more than that, the blue-and-silver cover caught the attention of the fashionable set who found thrills in Mr. Edwards’s demonstrations, so that a copy of the book became a much-sought-after accessory among thehaut ton. Mr. Hawley, in a palpably crotchety tone, penned a review forPolite Philosophiesthat found some matters of theory upon which to quibble—but his attempt to silence Lucy backfired, as people caught the whiff of controversy and hurried to buy a copy for the pleasure of having an opinion on it. Because the book had been printed at Catherine’s expense, she had taken care that the percentages of the profits had been very heavily weighted in Lucy’s favor (less the blue leather-bound versions, which had been Mrs. Griffin’s risk).
When Lucy saw the first accounting of how much profit she could expect from her work, she went faint and had to sit on the sofa with her head between her knees until her spotty vision steadied again.
She set some of the money aside for Stephen to deposit with the family funds, announced her intention of getting a few new dresses made, and asked Catherine if she could recommend a good modiste.
“If I may...” Catherine was tapping her pencil on her sketchbook, nervously, and as Lucy blinked at her, a blush rose to her cheeks. Lucy loved how the countess could be so bold in bed and so cautious when clothed. Catherine’s hesitance was charming as she asked: “Would you let me embroider one of those new gowns? As a gift to you?”
Lucy was rendered speechless.
Catherine assumed this meant Lucy needed convincing, and began turning the pages of her sketchbook over to demonstrate choices. Embroidery and garment designs flew past like a flock of birds winging south for winter.
Catherine stopped on a page with the silhouette of an evening gown. Lucy’s eyes widened. Long, precise silver arcs were layered over one another in dizzying arrays along the hem and at the shoulder; at some points they joined together, at others they curved apart. It looked like an armillary sphere—like music—like angels’ wings.
Lucy could hardly breathe for the beauty of it.
Catherine ducked her head. “I was remembering the passage where Oléron talked about studying Saturn, and how the shape around it had to be many rings set inside one another rather than one solid piece.”
“You would make this for me?” Lucy whispered.
“Of course.” Catherine’s answering smile was sun-bright. “I would make anything for you.”
Lucy turned over the next few pages and stopped on a close-up design of a single sleeve: black fabric stark beneath the purple blooms and berries of the belladonna, entwined with a looping vine of myrtle in a sinister shade of green. It was more free-form than her other designs, without the careful symmetry and repetition: the plants almost appeared to be growing up from the wrists, stretching long, hungry tendrils toward the shoulder, either devouring or protecting the woman wearing the gown. It looked wild, and sad, and fiercely defiant—the kind of clothing a witch might wear, if she happened to be a wealthy and fashionable witch.
