“Apologize?” Miss Muchelney stopped fussing with her skirts and looked up, cocking her head. “What for?”
Catherine pressed her lips together and tried not to squirm with embarrassment. “Surely it’s not a good thing to send a guest running from the dinner table in tears.”
Miss Muchelney’s head cocked a little farther. “But all you did was compliment my gown.”
“I...” Catherine stopped, and took a breath, and groped for words. And let the breath out again in a frustrated huff.
Miss Muchelney’s lips quirked in amusement. “Did you mean it as an insult?”
Now it was Catherine’s turn to blush. “Of course not.”
“So what is it you’re saying you’re sorry for?”
The words were gentle, almost laughing, but Catherine winced as though they were shards of glass. Because the truth was that she did not know—and it was mortifying to have it pointed out. She swallowed hard and tried again. “I am glad to see you are feeling better this morning.”
“Oh yes.” Miss Muchelney reached into her sleeve and pulled out a folded linen square. “Your butler was kind enough to loan me this last night—could I ask you to see it is returned to him?”
“Of course.” Catherine took the handkerchief back, flattening the folds against her knee. Someone had embroidered it in white work: it looked plain and simple from far away, but close up her fingers could trace the hidden texture of a chevron pattern, all fierce points and lines of impeccably straight stitches.
Just seeing it made Catherine itch to escape this room and go back to her own sewing, to the vines and buds and blossoms that soothed her when she felt awkward or out of place.
But she couldn’t abandon her guest so easily as that. Catherine’s blush deepened, and she cast about for a change of subject. Science was a safe choice. “Do you think Oléron is going to be very difficult to translate?”
Miss Muchelney shook her head. “Oh no—the French took a little getting used to, I’ll admit, but the mathematics are beautifully clear. It’s a great achievement: tying together nearly fifty years’ worth of work on gravitation. I can see why the Society is so interested in making it available in English.” Her long fingers stroked the cover tenderly.
Catherine wondered what that touch would feel like if—but no, such thoughts were not to be entertained. She put that vision away in the same place she hid all the others, and folded her hands deliberately around Brinkworth’s handkerchief. “Have you started writing out your translation yet?”
The girl shook her head. “Oh no, I’m still in the preliminaries. I worked through the table of contents, and now I’m just skimming to get a sense of the author’s style. To just dive in headlong would be like trying to map a place you’ve never been before.” She smiled, a dimple appearing at the corner of her wide mouth. “Probably not sound cartographic practice.”
Catherine’s smile felt a little more natural this time. “Certainly not to any mapmaker I know.”
Miss Muchelney looked up again, her amusement dissolving. Her fingers twisted round and round one another. “May I ask a favor of you, my lady?”
In Catherine’s experience,favormeanttrouble. She braced herself. “Of course.”
“Will you introduce me to the Society properly? The whole Society, I mean—not just Mr. Hawley.”
Catherine frowned. “But your father was a Fellow—surely you must already be known to them as his daughter.”
Miss Muchelney shifted in her seat, eyes evasive.
Catherine’s puzzlement deepened and darkened. “Or did you not manage all his correspondence?”
“No.” An embarrassed pink was creeping up Miss Muchelney’s neck. “He had me respond to your letters specifically, since you were the one who most often sent us figures. He wrote monthly to Mr. Hawley, Mr. Chattenden, and Sir Eldon. Less frequently to a few others.” Her hands were white-knuckled, wrapped so tight the grip had to be painful. “His genius was of a quicksilver, meandering variety. He could see how the calculations were to be done, but he would leave the actual working of them to me. It was mere labor at that point. He would rather spend time allowing his mind to stray into the higher regions of natural philosophy, stretching the bounds of what we presently imagine, trying to pierce the veil between our sight and the grand truths of the universe.” The girl bit her lip. “Or so he liked to say.”
“Yes,” Catherine said slowly. “I remember Sir Eldon reading us a letter about cities on the moon. It caused a great sensation at the time; they argued about it for months afterward.”
Miss Muchelney’s head tilted, the briefest of flinches before she forced herself upright again. “My father loathed being joked about. But science always wounds the ones who love her.”
Catherine bristled instantly. “Science does nothing of the kind,” she retorted. “Science merely exists. She can’t raise a hand to anyone. It’s people who do all the wounding.”
Miss Muchelney was staring openly now, startled by Catherine’s vehemence.
Catherine was a little startled herself, and forced her tone into a gentler register. “Let me tell you about my first scientific voyage. George and I had been married two months before we departed. It seemed like such an adventure: traveling to the far side of the globe, visiting new islands in southern seas, sleeping beneath new stars. And the islanders were so very friendly, so happy to see us. At first.” She found she had balled up the handkerchief, and made herself smooth it back out and fold her hands as primly as she could. “There was a terrace we found near where the ships landed—a beautiful, wide thing made of black coral, with a large central altar. The islanders would bring food there, and flowers, to honor their ancestors. They told us about this, as soon as we had picked up a little of one another’s languages.” Catherine took a long breath. “And then our geologist took his pickax to one corner, breaking it apart for a sample. Our botanist plucked the flowers and named them after himself. And my new husband swept aside all the offerings to the dead and set up his telescope on the altar, because the clearing was free of trees and he wanted the best vantage into the skies. When one of the islanders protested, and tried to push George away, Captain Lateshaw had the man flogged. Because order had to be maintained.” She pressed her lips together, the anger and disappointment still sharp even all these years later. “The islanders weren’t so friendly after that.”
“I see,” Miss Muchelney murmured.
“I know the men of the Society,” Catherine went on. “They are devoted to knowledge, and they do not shy away from arguing with one another. They will run roughshod over maidenly feelings and reticence. They will question your assumptions, your theories, and your facts. Are youverysure you want to open yourself up to their attacks?”
