Lucy’s hands tightened around the crystal. Brinkworth knew. Heknew. But his eyes were worried, not hateful or disgusted. He’d brought her a drink to soothe her nerves. And he thought Catherine deserved kindness.
Her shoulders relaxed and she met Brinkworth’s gaze as directly as she could. “I completely agree.”
For one moment, the corners of his mouth twitched upward—but just as Lucy, fascinated, thought it was about to tip over into a smile, he controlled himself and bowed again. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need, miss.” The door shut softly behind him, and Lucy leaned back on the worn, creaky sofa to sip her drink, cough in surprise at the strength of it, and watch the dust motes float in the weak afternoon sun.
By the time she’d finished the glass, warmth and lassitude had wrapped soft threads around her limbs, and a gentle rain had begun falling outside. Droplets fluttered against the windowpanes and raced one another down the glass. Lucy slumped a little lower and let the shadows gather in the high corners of the library.
It should have felt like her library now, from spending so long working here—but it wasn’t, was it? It was George’s library still, almost three years after his death. Which should have made it Catherine’s library, really, but it didn’t feel like hers, either. It felt like a place the countess tended but didn’t inhabit. Like a grave. A very large and echoey grave, with book covers arrayed on the shelves like tiny tombstones.
Lucy could probably blame that image on the brandy. She put the empty glass aside, slipped off her shoes, pulled the stellarium shawl around her shoulders, and curled up tight against the arm of the sofa.
All around her were the spines of books, bound to match in sets of black and brown and poison green. Authors’ names. Men’s names, all of them. Except for the one small blue octavo volume, there on the shelf with the other astronomers’. Lucy had put it there herself, under Catherine’s proud eye—but oh, it looked so alone amid all the other hundreds and hundreds of books. And after all, Lucy was only a translator, stringing pretty words around someone else’s thoughts.
Borrowing someone else’s genius.
What were the chances the next thing she wrote would be even half as successful? Especially if she were writing it herself, not translating another volume of Oléron’s masterwork. Thanks to the first, Lucy had money enough now to live for some time if she were frugal, but those funds wouldn’t last forever. Eventually she would find herself dependent on someone else’s charity again: Stephen’s pinch-minded prudery, or Catherine’s more gracious support.
What if the bloom was off the rose by then? Lucy knew she was the first woman Catherine had dallied with, the first woman she’d fallen in love with. Maybe she would decide it wasn’t to her taste. She’d been married before: she knew something of permanence. Maybe she would ultimately feel held back by passing affection for a self-conscious scholar who brought nothing else to the union.
Lady Moth deserved a brighter future than that. Brinkworth was right to feel protective of his mistress. Lucy should be just as selfless, if not more so.
By the time Catherine’s steady footstep was heard in the hallway outside, Lucy had sunk herself deep into a truly hopeless mood. The countess knocked softly and peered warily around the door, squinting in the dim light.
Lucy scowled harder at the thought that she ought to have lit a lamp or asked for a fire. It was growing chill as the daylight slipped away.
Catherine came into the room and stopped. She must have come straight up from the carriage: she still held her gloves in her hand, and there were raindrops glimmering in her hair. “You’re still here,” the countess said.
“Where else would I be?”
Catherine didn’t answer, only looked at her with eyes as wide and wary as if she were looking at a ghost.
Lucy forced herself to sit up and tried to hide her melancholy; nobody liked a lover in a low mood. “How was Griffin’s?”
“It was rather marvelous, actually.” Catherine perched gingerly in her usual seat. “We made an arrangement for an entire book of scientific embroidery designs.”
Soon half of London could be wearing Catherine’s handiwork. Lucy wouldn’t have that to feel special about anymore. “That’s wonderful.”
“But she also saw one of the more—well, she called themfantasticalgowns,” Catherine went on. “She actually wants to print a handful of those designs separately, for individual sale.” Catherine shifted, hands twisting her gloves. Her expression was equal parts delight and fear. “She said she recognized genius when she meets it face-to-face.”
Lucy remembered the engraver: sharp as her tools, and clear-eyed as any artist. Attractive, too, in a stern kind of way. “She would know better than anyone. I’m sure you and she will get on famously together.”
Catherine froze. “I beg your pardon?”
The more she pictured it, the more Lucy’s bad mood curdled further. “It’s perfect, isn’t it? You have the inspiration, and she has the skill and the means to make it known far and wide. She’d be a much better match for a budding artist. Much better than some star-mad astronomer who’s already outraged half the scientific community in London. It’s really a move for the best: you’ve already gotten plenty of use out of me.”
It was the worst thing Lucy had ever said, and she knew it, but she knew it too late. She watched, helpless and heartsore, as Catherine’s face flamed at the implication. “It is strictly a business arrangement. If you imagine otherwise, well—I am not the one who spent the afternoon in a tête-à-tête with my former lover. My conscience has nothing to feel guilty about.”
“What would you have had me do?” Lucy asked. “She wasn’t going to stop until she had an answer. Pris is a downright barnacle when she’s fixed her mind on something.”
“You might have written her a letter.”
Lucy looked away, the burn of brandy and the bite of lemon making her throat ache. “You might have demanded to read anything I sent to her.”
Catherine made a small noise in the back of her throat, looking stricken. “I am so sorry about that. It will never happen again,” she said calmly. Too calmly. As if she expected to be forgiven. “I was just trying to protect you.”
Lucy was sick of apologies; this one stung her into movement. She flung the stellarium shawl aside and stalked the library, her angry steps taking her from the sofa to the fireplace, to the window, and back to complete the triangle. It gave some vent to her feelings, but not enough. “Pris always thought I was her satellite,” she said. “I could only ever orbit around her. She never believed I would choose a path for myself.”
“Ah.” Catherine sighed, a long, low sound that tolled like a funeral bell. “You value your independence. It’s only natural.”
