“He won’t print a retraction,” Lucy warned. “I’ve wounded his pride too often.”
“I wasn’t asking him for a retraction,” the mathematician replied. “I went to learn his answer about a request I made last week.”
Lucy shook her head, too worn out for puzzles. “What was it?”
“I asked him to invite Oléron to the Symposium.”
“What?” Lucy’s involuntary outburst caused a momentary dip in the volume of chatter around her; she schooled her face and tried to mask her distress.
Mr. Frampton kept his face equally stoic. “I suggested Mr. Hawley might want to put Oléron’s name forward as an official Foreign Member—and then invite Oléron to lecture at this year’s Symposium.”
“But... how does this concern me?” The Symposium was the dinner held for Society Fellows every winter, just after Christmas. Often a particular topic was selected for lecture or discussion, but it usually just devolved into a passionate, overstuffed, and very wine-soaked argument. Lucy’s father’s health had prevented him from attending, and Lucy herself of course had never been invited.
“You will surely receive an invitation,” Mr. Frampton clarified, “if Mr. Hawley thinks he can get Oléron to debate you on the finer points of celestial mathematics.”
“To debate...” Lucy yanked away, her jaw gaping open with horror. “How could you, Mr. Frampton? That’s not a debate: it’s a trap.”
She could see it so clearly: the hall, the rowdy audience of doubting men, the laughing scorn, the smug look on Mr. Hawley’s face. She swayed, and yanked her arm away again as Mr. Frampton reached out to steady her.
Fury was an anchor in the swirling storm: she turned it on him in spite of her better instincts. “I shouldn’t have to perform like a dancing bear. My work should be proof enough on its own.”
“Your work,” he said, “is not entirely yours.”
Lucy stopped short.
Mr. Frampton continued, inexorable. “It would be one thing if you’d translated theMéchanique célestefor the benefit of your fellow scholars. The more we share, the faster we all advance. But it was a commercial success, far beyond any expectation.” His mouth was a flat line by now, his displeasure plain. “The more popular it got, the more uneasy I became with the notion that the original author had no idea your translation existed.”
“So you sent it to him,” Lucy whispered.
“I did.” His eyes gleamed, and he leaned in again.
This time Lucy waited, though her brow furrowed in hurt.
He spoke low so there was no chance he’d be overhead. “And M. Oléron wrote back. We’ve been corresponding for months, now—and on account of this, I know something Mr. Hawley does not. Something about M. Oléron.” Mr. Frampton tilted his head, considering his facts like any careful scientist. “Or more accurately, I have a hypothesis. But a dazzling one—and if I am right, it will make Mr. Hawley and Mr. Wilby look more foolish than either of us could ever have dreamed.”
“And what about me?” Lucy all but whispered. “How foolish will I look?”
“That depends.” Mr. Frampton raised an eyebrow. “How hard is it for you to admit when you’ve been wrong?”
Lucy’s heart was treacherous, and supplied someone else’s words as an answer: “Astronomers spend most of their lives being wrong.” She bit her lip and took a breath. “You were right: I ought to have written to M. Oléron myself.”
“Thank you. Though if you had, I would have missed out on a marvelous correspondence.” Mr. Frampton squeezed her hand one final time, and bowed. “Can I convince you to let me escort you back home, or at least to your coach? I can’t imagine you feel up to electrochemistry after such a shock as this.”
Lucy took another breath. “No. I don’t—thank you.” She took his arm, grateful for the way he never wavered, no matter how many sly and stormy looks were sent their way as they wound through the curious crowds of naturalists and amateurs.
Every step, every glance seemed to add another worry to the heap.
Lucy grimaced. “I should begin going over the rest of Oléron’s work—not to mention the rest of the literature. Three months is not a great deal of time in which to master a subject.”
She nodded at one brave soul who’d gone out of his way to bow to her as she passed, even though his companions looked daggers at him for doing it.
They turned another corner, and Lucy’s musings offered up a question. “What precisely did you mean when you say you have a theory about Oléron?”
“It was something that came up in the third letter. I feel... reasonably confident my suspicions are correct.”
Lucy narrowed her eyes. “But not quite confident enough to tell me what they are?”
He sighed. “If I am right, it puts Oléron in a position that is at best awkward, at worst horribly vulnerable, with respect to the Society. They’ve already done most of the harm they can to you—I am trying to help correct that, without opening anyone else up to similar abuse. It is a very fine line to have to walk, I admit.”
