Catherine had to bend her neck rather awkwardly to look at her own chest. “Yes,” she said. “On the journey back from Egypt. I’d grown quite fascinated with the Mediterranean Sea—its lack of tides, its clear and shallow shorelines. So different from its deeper, crueller cousins: the Atlantic, Pacific, the Southern.”
Lucy gripped Catherine’s elbow, excitement making her gray eyes gleam like pearls. “Catherine—what if you did a pattern book?”
The countess blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
Lucy stroked the bodice edge again, making Catherine arch into the muffled touch and regret the existence of all fabric.
Lucy was undistracted. “Mrs. Griffin said they’re always looking for new embroidery designs. Why shouldn’t you put a collection together? Maybe something scientific, to match theLady’s Guide?” Her grin was somehow both shy and sly together. “She said florals were looking tired, didn’t she? If the art world doesn’t want you, then go where you are wanted.”
But what kind of designs would I offer?Catherine thought in despair—but as soon as the question was posed her mind leaped to supply her with answer after answer. Comets, conch shells, pineapple ginger, tides and scrolls, all sorts of botanical shapes both homely and far-flung...
They crowded close together and made her briefly blind and deaf to anything else.
When the vision cleared, she blinked up into Lucy’s expectant face and then kissed her soundly. “You are brilliant,” Catherine breathed, elation surging through her like the swell of a morning tide.
Lucy grinned, catching some of Catherine’s joy. “So you’ll do it?”
“I’ll begin putting sample sketches together tomorrow morning,” Catherine promised.
“And all it took to convince you was a kiss or two.” Lucy’s gaze was rich with satisfaction, almost smug, and an edge of hunger still waiting to be sated. “Imagine what I could do with a whole night. I’ll bet I can have you calling yourself an artist by dawn.” She flicked a hot tongue against Catherine’s earlobe.
“Never.” But Catherine made a throaty, wordless sound of pleasure and arched her neck for more.
They went to dinner with the Winlocks two days later. Mr. Winlock was all boyish smiles and affability, and Mrs. Winlock had apparently recovered from her surprise enough to prove a warm and gracious hostess. Dinner was simple but hearty, and afterward the foursome adjourned to the parlor for glasses of light sherry and conversation.
Catherine took care to compliment Mrs. Winlock on her needlework, which was on full display everywhere one looked: roses on the sofa cushions, ivy on the curtains, lilies-of-the-valley on the chairs, and everywhere doilies, doilies, doilies.
“One thing she never told us in her letters,” Lucy chimed in, “was that she was embroidering the whole time she was traveling—she showed me a map she’d made in thread and linen, of her first expedition.”
So it’s my expedition now,Catherine thought with a rueful smile.Poor George must be having a fit, wherever he is.
“We have a map,” Mr. Winlock exclaimed, eager to contribute. “Would you mind showing me the route you took, Lady Moth?”
Catherine rose from the sofa and followed him over to the writing desk in the corner—he had to remove one of the larger doilies to open the lid—and waited while he flipped to the familiar outlines of the world, sliced up and flattened out for mortal comprehension. He asked all the right questions, and Catherine lost much of her reserve in the course of satisfying his earnest curiosity. For once it did not make her feel small to see two whole years of her life laid out in so many inches of latitude and longitude.
She even felt comfortable telling him a little about the last, lonely voyage home after George’s death, and he nodded with the light of understanding in his eyes. “It’s much easier to leave the past behind when you can leave the place it happened in.”
Laughter from across the room drew both their gazes for a moment; Lucy and Pris sharing some story about a mutual school friend. Their heads inclined toward one another, their faces alight with humor, one fair and one dark-haired.
Catherine looked quickly back at her host, but Mr. Winlock’s eyes stayed fixed upon the two women. “I think that must have been one reason why Miss Muchelney left so suddenly after the wedding,” he said, to Catherine’s shock. “Pris felt terribly abandoned, and I did my best to comfort her, but if I’m being perfectly frank with you—and life would be so much easier if more people could be perfectly frank—it seemed like a very sensible decision on Miss Muchelney’s part. And now that she has met you in person at last, well, it seems very fateful indeed.” He turned to catch her glance, with a shy smile.
Catherine stared and stared, but the steadiness of his regard never faltered. “You love your wife very much, Mr. Winlock,” she murmured.
“More than my very life, Lady Moth.” For one moment something sad flashed in his eyes, stony and lost, but then his ebullience welled up again and his gaze grew more cheerful. “Miss Muchelney once told us you held a banquet at the Great Pyramid—is that true?”
The event was not one of Catherine’s favorite memories—George had been querulous about wasting the eclipse, the weather had been mercilessly hot, and the guests unruly and demanding—but for Mr. Winlock’s sake she dressed up the tale as best she could. He deserved better comfort than this, poor man, but it was all she could offer.
How strange, Lucy thought, to watch history and the future overlap. Lyme was her past: her childhood, her schoolgirl loves, her early work under her father’s aegis. Catherine was her present and, Lucy devoutly hoped, her future—and yet here she was now, laughing on rocky beaches and looking anxiously at Lucy across the Winlocks’ parlor. Sleeping—among other activities—in Lucy’s old bed. Lucy had always been a rather lonely child, but all the old quiet places were filled now with Catherine’s warmth and affectionate presence.
If she tried to count how many moments past and present were overlaid on one another in this much-compressed slice of geography, she feared she would grow dizzy and forget which moment was the real right now.
As always, when Lucy felt at sea, she sought comfort and continuity in the stars. The penultimate night of their visit was finally clear enough for Lucy to invite Catherine up to the roof for a comet-sweeping demonstration. An hour past sunset, Lucy set paper and pencil on a desk she and Narayan had hauled up from Albert Muchelney’s study, and lit the lantern whose sides were thick red glass. “A threat to nobody’s night vision,” she said with some asperity.
“How could Stephen get such a detail wrong?” Catherine complained, the mention of Stephen’s name putting her at her most haughty and countess-like. “Did he never assist you? Did he spend these nights cozy and warm and sleeping instead?” She scowled faintly and pulled her cap tighter down over her ears. The clear night had brought a chill with it, a cold steady wind blowing in off the sea and finding every place where a shawl was not wrapped tightly enough.
Lucy took a deep breath of salt- and pine-scented air before she answered. “The second time Father asked him to help, he got distracted by the shape of the moon over the trees and lit a small candle so he could sketch it. Father lifted his head to call out a doubled star and looked straight into the flame—meaning the hours he’d spent letting his eyes adjust to the darkness were wasted. He was furious.”
Catherine shook her head, starlight gleaming lightly on the curls peeking out around her ears. “But we haven’t been waiting for hours—our eyes won’t be sensitive enough, will they?”
