Catherine shifted uneasily. “I try my best to keep it in check.”
The engraver’s eyes softened. “Maybe you shouldn’t try quite so hard. I look at a great deal of clothing in my work, my lady—and many great works of art, too. I recognize genius when it shows up face-to-face.”
Catherine’s cheeks flamed and a thrill ran through her. She was afraid to move, afraid that she’d misheard somehow.
Mrs. Griffin flickered a look back down at the siren’s gown, squared her shoulders, and resumed her usual businesslike manner. “We’ll start with the scientific designs—and a few of the botanicals as well, I think.” They quickly reached an agreement about payment and a date for Catherine’s return with the completed set of sketches, and a handshake sealed the transaction.
Catherine gripped the other woman’s hand a little harder than was strictly necessary. She could feel the tears pricking the corners of her eyes. “Thank you,” she said. “For the chance.”
“Oh, my lady.” Mrs. Griffin’s other hand came up to cover both of hers. “When you get about a half dozen of those fantastical designs, will you bring those in, too?”
Catherine blinked. “Do you really think women would want to wear them?”
“I think some women will set the world on fire for the privilege,” Mrs. Griffin said, her voice low and intense. “One or two dressmakers, to start, who can well afford to pay for something this compelling... Perhaps not enough to justify a full print run like the others, but certainly well worth the expense of printing a few loose pages.”
Catherine promised. The bargaining thus concluded, Mrs. Griffin bid Eliza show the countess out the front, while she returned to her print shop with its rattle of metal and manpower. Eliza had more of a bounce in her step than she’d had as a maid. “Are you satisfied with your apprenticeship, Miss Brinkworth?” Catherine asked.
“Oh yes, my lady,” the young woman breathed. “She says I have a neat hand, and has been teaching me to make music plates for popular songs and ballads.” She flushed, ducking her head. “I’m excited to get back to pattern drafting, though—I think I can persuade her to let me do a few of my own, now that I’m getting better at the engraving part.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
Catherine took her leave and climbed up into her carriage with a mixture of hope and regret such as she had never experienced. Hope for the future, for her own designs and the work she was already eager to return to. Regret because she had already wasted so much time. Eliza’s youth was as good as a fortune: the bulk of her years spread out before her, so much space, so many hours to spend. Catherine’s youth was long past, and she wasn’t sure she had anything to show for it but a handful of heartbreak.
She ought to have paid more attention to her own self before now. She ought to have allowed herself to want things.
She hadn’t quite known how, until Lucy. But she’d wanted Lucy, and wanting Lucy had led to wanting everything else. Now it was all changed, and even if Lucy left—orwhenLucy left—Catherine could no more go back to her old life than she could pull out a day’s worth of embroidery stitches and leave the fabric as pristine as it was at first. The needle marks would always show.
She must get used to being a person who wanted things. No, Catherine corrected herself, taking a breath and letting the cool air fill her with the first taste of the coming harvest season, she must get used to being a person who got what they wanted. Even if it didn’t always last.
Lucy would go back to Priscilla, and continue being one of the great scientific minds of her age. Catherine would watch her progress with interest, at a distance, and think fondly of the time they’d shared.
It would be acceptable, if not ideal. It would hurt, but less so as time went on.
It would not destroy her, Catherine vowed. It would not. She chanted it to herself in time with the beat of the horses’ hooves the whole way home.
Chapter Thirteen
Perhaps the holiday in the small house at Lyme had compressed Lucy back into a small girl again, because that afternoon the London house felt like the largest, emptiest building in the world. Especially once Catherine had departed. Three full stories, high ceilings, wooden floors, hallways that rang sepulchral with footsteps whenever the servants went ghostly about their duties. Lucy took refuge in the library, but every time she turned a page in her book, instead of printed letters and numbers she saw only Catherine’s face, pale and pinched with hurt.
Lucy should have been angry. And she was. But she ought to have beenonlyangry: Catherine had read her letter, then tried to keep Lucy from seeing Pris out of jealousy. Those actions merited Lucy’s anger.
But the worst part was the persistent, irrefutable fear that Lucy had done something wrong, as well, unconsciously. Why else would Catherine have been jealous now, when she hadn’t seemed to be at Lyme? Had Lucy done something, said something to cause Catherine to doubt?
And did the fact that Lucy was asking this question at all mean she was already tangled in the trap Stephen had described?
Three days ago, Stephen’s concerns had seemed—not wrong, precisely, but misapplied. General, rather than specific.
Now, though, it seemed a far more plausible explanation. Catherine had been a guest in Lyme, a visitor to the town and to Lucy’s house there. Maybe she’d thought of meeting Pris as something separate from ordinary life—the kind of strange, solemn adventure one had when one was away from home. Like visiting the ruins of Pompeii and marveling over the remnants of that ancient tragedy.
Not the sort of thing one made a habit of.
But now that Pris was coming here, Catherine protested. To protect her territory. Her home—but also Lucy. Was it so outrageous to imagine a countess being a possessive lover? Was it unreasonable to imagine she might try to use whatever power she had to keep Lucy close to her side?
Some part of Lucy refused to believe this; another part insisted it was the only logical conclusion.
She tortured herself with increasingly elaborate theories to fit contradictory evidence, until Brinkworth came in and interrupted her. “Mrs. Priscilla Winlock to see you, Miss Muchelney.”
Was it her guilty imagination, or was the butler being extra-stern today? Lucy didn’t know how much Narayan had let on to the other servants what Lucy and Catherine got up to together, but she couldn’t suppress a flash of anxiety that Brinkworth might think she was betraying Catherine in her own home. The thought left an oily, sick feeling in its wake, and Lucy took several gulps of air to try and temper her stomach.
