So. Not so polite as Catherine had thought. Mrs. Winlock was making her intentions rather plain, in fact.
“What will you do?” the countess asked, setting the letter back down. She was tempted to toss it in the fireplace, where incendiaries belonged—but it was not addressed to her, after all. She had no right.
Lucy turned again, gray eyes flashing like Athena in a rage. She stared at Catherine, who said nothing, only twisted her hands together and waited in agony for a reply.
Time stretched.
At length, Lucy spoke. “I suppose I should see her,” she said. “She’s come all this way. But these riddles are too childish. There is no need for them anymore.”
“I don’t want her in my house,” Catherine said.
Lucy’s head whipped up, her gaze rapier-sharp.
Catherine flinched beneath that steel.
“The kind of conversation I intend to have with Pris is best conducted in private,” Lucy said coolly.
Of course she was right. Of course there would be nothing straightforward they could say unless they were somewhere safe. Catherine nodded, trying to keep from her face the feeling of a thousand needles pricking her heart.
She shouldn’t have expected otherwise, really. Priscilla would make her case in person, all winning entreaty and teary eyes. They’d been together five years; Lucy and Catherine had only had a scant few months. The conclusion was inevitable.
“Of course,” Catherine replied. They should have been easy syllables, mostly made of air, but they flayed her tongue like knives. She kept talking regardless. “I have a few patterns drafted to show to Mrs. Griffin—I could take them in person, and give you two the privacy you require.”
Lucy’s mouth was flat, and she nodded. “Perhaps that is best.” A note of real relief sounded in her voice.
Catherine didn’t let herself flinch again, but only rose gracefully from the sofa. It cost her some twinges in muscles gone stiff with the effort of holding herself together, but she thought the movement played tolerably well for her intended audience. “I feel rather as though I have caught a chill from all this wet weather. I think I am going to retire early tonight.” And alone—she didn’t say it, but from the bleak look on Lucy’s face, she didn’t need to.
Catherine turned away before she could see anything worse, and made her way upstairs to a bed that seemed far bigger and emptier than it ever had before.
She spun around restlessly from side to side until the blankets were hopelessly tangled about her legs, and she had to kick violently to free herself. But her thoughts wouldn’t let her rest. Curse it, the lack of permanence had been so reassuring to her, at the start of this affair! Now here she was, writhing with jealousy and envy because she didn’t have any right to ask Lucy to choose her over Priscilla Winlock. She realized, with a shock, that she had never felt uncertain of George, not once, even in the years when they were barely speaking except to say something bitter to one another. She’d known hecouldn’tleave her, and some part of her had taken a secret, shameful comfort in that.
She had depended far too much on the insolubility of her marriage license, it seemed. Not on her own merits at all.
Loving another woman—loving Lucy—didn’t bring any such luxuries, and all at once she felt the lack keenly. You could never sit back and let the official pieces of paper do the work for you, oh no: you had to choose the other person over and over again, every time. What’s worse, you had to trust them to choose you. It was horribly frightening—as though you started every day by reminding your heart to keep beating.
Narayan came in at dawn, her dark eyes anxious, but Catherine was already awake, a dressing gown wrapped around her as she sat by the window and stared anxiously out at the back gardens. Another rainy summer day, it seemed. As if the sun itself were weeping. Narayan’s eyebrows flicked up as she took in the fact that there was only one body in the room, but she helped her mistress dress and pinned her hair up without a needless word. Catherine went down to breakfast and stopped when she saw Lucy there, in the act of filling her plate.
Lucy Muchelney looked about as well rested as Catherine felt: there were dark rings beneath her eyes and a dull cast to her skin. She paused halfway to the table, a worry line appearing on her brow as she looked Catherine over from head to toe. “Still feeling ill?” she asked, setting her plate down on the table. She didn’t take a seat but hovered there, hands fixed on the back of the chair, fingers opening and closing.
“I’m afraid so,” Catherine replied, “but it will pass, I’m sure.”
She moved to the sideboard and began putting food on her plate: thick slices of toast with as much butter and jam as they could hold, pound cake, and more eggs than a single hen could produce in a week. After a time she realized she was only stalling, gripped the plate’s edge as though it were a shield, and turned back to the breakfast table.
Lucy’s mouth was full, so she said nothing as Catherine took the seat across from her. Just as they had every day—but everything felt changed now. Barren and final.
The butter dish and pitcher of cream seemed to loom over the place settings like cemetery guards. “Have you written to Mrs. Winlock?” Catherine asked.
Lucy swallowed. “She is coming by this afternoon for tea.”
Toast crunched and crumbled in Catherine’s mouth. She could barely focus enough to force her throat to swallow. It scraped her raw. “So soon?”
“The more I thought about it, the more delay felt intolerable.” Lucy dropped her eyes back to her plate.
“Ah.” Catherine had to choke down half her pound cake to fill her throat with something other than acid. So she was going to lose Lucy already. She’d known it would happen, had seen the inevitability in Lucy’s reaction to the letter, but it still ripped her open like a jagged seam.
Lucy seemed no happier about the news, which Catherine found puzzling. But then, it must be awkward to be reuniting with your beloved in your new lover’s house. Especially when that new lover was also your patroness.
But Catherine had forgotten: Lucy had her own funds now, didn’t she? She was an independent astronomer now, established and in full flourish. What more use did she have for Catherine, if not for loving?
