The girl’s gray eyes flashed, her mouth settling into a mulish line, and for a moment Catherine went cold with dread of the outburst to come. George had always let loose the most vicious edge of his tongue whenever she’d doubted him, no matter how slightly. She tensed her fingers to hide the shaking of her hands and focused on breathing, out and in. A strike sometimes hurt more if you braced against it.
But when Miss Muchelney spoke, her voice was cool and quiet. “I am an astronomer, too,” she said. “So long as they confine their arguments to points of theory and observation, I have nothing to fear from them, however fierce they may be. I assure you I can be just as ardent in defense of my own theories, and just as quick to point out the flaws in someone else’s argument.” She looked down at Oléron, and back up again. Her eyes were warm and liquid as silver. “It is kind of you to worry about me.”
Catherine could only stare. That the blow hadn’t come had left her dizzy. The library walls seemed to spin around her, and when her hands tightened around each other she felt the bones of her fingers grinding together. She parted her lips, trying to catch her breath.
Miss Muchelney’s eyes dipped down to Catherine’s mouth, and that silver gaze grew warmer still.
The countess felt heat curl tight and low in her belly.
Then Miss Muchelney looked away again, and the moment was broken. “You mentioned that there might be other candidates for the translation?” she asked. A little too diffidently.
Catherine coughed slightly, clearing unaskable questions from her throat like so many cobwebs. “Yes... I believe Mr. Hawley has someone in mind he knows here in town, and Sir Eldon’s younger son has expressed an interest as well. There may be one or two others brought up, as the wider membership writes in with opinions, but those are the likeliest men you would be collaborating with. The Society is taking more of an active interest in this publication than they have in the past. They hired out someone to edit Captain Lateshaw’s final botanical journals two years ago, and the results were infamous: meandering poetry, expurgated passages, and none of the man’s celebrated tables of species or orchid illustrations.” Miss Muchelney’s horror was evident. Catherine arched an eyebrow, relishing the coup de grace of this particular tale. “Apparently the editor we hired had traded the original drawings all to his local pub one by one, in exchange for glasses of gin.”
Miss Muchelney sputtered most gratifyingly.
Catherine’s lips tilted up again. “So you see why Mr. Hawley is keen to avoid repeating the experience.”
“I should think so!” Miss Muchelney reflected a moment.
Caroline stared at where her teeth bit into that long lower lip.
The girl tapped a fingertip against Oléron, thoughtfully. “If I were to translate just the first chapter, would you read it over for me? A sort of experiment, to make sure my work is up to the Society’s standards.”
“I am not sure how much use I could be,” Catherine demurred. “The mathematics are well beyond my reach, believe me.”
“I can promise you there will be no poetry.” Catherine laughed at that. Miss Muchelney offered her a rueful smile. “It makes me a little nervous, to be honest. I haven’t done any translating from French since my school days—and those were short passages. Short enough that I did them two or three times, in styles varying from more to significantly less formal.” Her generous mouth stretched out in an unabashed, girlish grin. “Once, we found a shocking play by Molière that some mischievous former student had slipped into the library. We had the first act written all out in limericks before they caught us at it and confiscated the book.”
For a moment she glowed, remembering, and Catherine caught her breath—but then the light flickered out and Miss Muchelney looked so bereft that Catherine nearly handed her the handkerchief again.
A suspicion glimmered in Catherine’s mind. “Was this... the same friend you mentioned last night?” she asked.
Miss Muchelney’s glance was sharp and startled.
Catherine kept her own face smooth from long practice.
“Yes,” the girl admitted. Cautiously, as was only prudent. “We met at Cramlington. She was the dearest friend I’ve ever had.”
“Until her marriage.”
Miss Muchelney nodded. Her jaw was tense. Her eyes defiant. And her spine could have taught steel how not to bend.
Catherine didn’t know why she was pushing this subject. It was not at all a proper line of inquiry. She didn’t even dare name what it was. But the questions were sprouting so thick and so fast—How had it started? Ended? Had it been a mutual discovery of attraction or a deliberate seduction?—that she couldn’t fend them all off in time the way she usually did.
So she picked the safest one, and used it as a shield against all the dangerous questions around it. “What was her name?”
“Priscilla.” There was no mistaking it. Only love could make the name drip from Miss Muchelney’s mouth in those honeyed tones. Even a love in mourning still had sparks in it.
Catherine, who would have given muchnotto hear it, couldn’t deny the truth. She wanted to make some excuse and leave the room, to find her bearings again, but she couldn’t in good conscience abandon her guest after upsetting her like this. Not for a second time. Every one of the women of the Kenwick ancestral shades would come howling out of the wallpaper in protest, a horde of hospitable poltergeists.
Instead Catherine stood and walked toward the windows, where the sunlight was slinking in beneath the long velvet curtains. It took her a couple good pulls to open them—the moss-green panels moved reluctantly, though the staff had kept them pristine—but soon enough they had parted to let in the tender light of a spring morning.
“The light is much better on this side of the house,” Catherine said, her voice deliberately calm. “Would it disturb you if I were to bring my needlework in here for a while?”
“Not at all,” Miss Muchelney said, with a blink.
Catherine, relieved, went off to fetch her silks.
Chapter Three
