It made her feel briefly bold, so she squared her shoulders and asked Mrs. Griffin: “Would you like to come for dinner at the Four Swallows with me?”
To her small surprise and vast delight, Mrs. Griffin blushed and said yes.
Chapter Six
Agatha had never seen Mrs. Flood in skirts before. Granted, they’d only met twice now, but Agatha was mortified to realize that after the first shock she’d assumed Mrs. Flood wore men’s clothing perpetually, and not only when she was minding bees.
Instead, Mrs. Flood stepped out of her house in a cinnamon frock, the color bringing out the gold lights in her short curls and turning the hue of her eyes into something like sapphire.
She looked, in a word, delicious, bobbing forward to lead the way through the deepening twilight.
Agatha could only follow helplessly, in the plain gray dress and a faded paisley shawl she’d changed into at Mrs. Stowe’s. If Mrs. Flood was a rare spice, savory and sought after, Agatha was a lichen scraped off some dismal northern crag. She had never felt so ancient.
Respectable widow, indeed. She almost wished for the blue coat back again: at least it had some color to it.
Dear god, when was the last time she’d cared at all about her appearance beside the usual category ofAre there stains on this skirt?orIs this sleeve going a bit threadbare at the elbow?Not since...
She almost stopped walking as realization staggered her: not since Thomas. And, before Thomas, with Kate. The two times in her life she’d spent ages before her mirror, turning this way and that to check the fall of a gown, the line of a seam, the placement of a necklace or ribbon. She clenched her hands together and for a moment felt the ghostly pressure of the wedding band she hadn’t worn in two years.
She was so distracted by the revelation that before she realized it, she walked into the Four Swallows and into a raging battle.
Halfpennies were flying through the air like musket fire. They pinged against the floor and off the wall behind a chestnut-haired woman standing in the front corner. One tan hand held a drooping sheaf of ballad sheets. The other was raised to snatch flying coins out of the air. Any she caught she tucked into the deep front pockets of her overskirt, which bulged with rolled-up broadsides, lyrics, and songs. Behind her a boy of ten or so scurried about, gathering up fallen coins. He had the same chestnut hair, but skin a shade paler than his mother.
Agatha batted one poorly aimed halfpenny away from her face, and started as a hand tugged on her elbow.
She turned to see Mrs. Flood laughing and shaking her head. “Looks like Nell’s performing tonight—come on, we’ll be out of range in the back.”
Once past the front cluster of the audience the crowd calmed somewhat. Agatha nodded at Mr. Downes and a few other pressmen at the long central tables, sharing drinks and food and conversation. Another group in one corner was playing cards; a solitary figure at the bar was hunched over her ale with a book in her hand. Agatha recognized the other three beekeepers from her first meeting with Mrs. Flood, sitting variously around the room.
Agatha and Mrs. Flood found an empty pair of chairs against the wall. The barmaid brought two foaming tankards and promised them pasties, as the ballad singer’s voice rang out to start her next song.
Agatha took a swallow of beer and paused, blinking. “This is quite good.”
Mrs. Flood leaned back, radiating smug local pride. “Has the poor beer you find in London taught you that every tavern waters down its ale?”
Agatha snorted, then lapsed into silence. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t hurried over a meal, trying to get back to work as quickly as possible. But there was no project waiting for her at the end of tonight. Nothing left undone, nothing hovering anxiously over her shoulder. It made her feel restless, and she shifted in her seat.
The girl came by again with the pasties, and Agatha was relieved to have an excuse for being tongue-tied. It helped that the pasty was at least as good as the ale, if not better: curried mutton with onion and peas.
They did not have the corner to themselves for long: Mrs. Flood seemed to know everyone, or everyone seemed to know her, and soon Agatha had been introduced to brown-skinned Mr. Biswas, Mr. Koskinen all pale and red-haired, his curly-haired wife with intelligent eyes, and two young men, tall Mr. Thomas and broad-shouldered Mr. Kitt. Mr. Thomas lived on half pay from the army, and Mr. Kitt half pay from the navy, and between them both they cobbled together a household and argued affably over whose turn it was to buy the beer. Mr. Biswas owned the Four Swallows—“named for my tattoos: one swallow for each crossing of the Equator,” he’d explained, one hand tapping proudly on his barrel chest—and like any good host he rose every so often to make the rounds, checking in on the clusters of sailors and farmers and the few solitary drinkers, putting an oar into a well-worn argument, ducking into the kitchen to confer with Mrs. Biswas.
It was not that Agatha was bothered by all the noise: London had a way of making noise comfortable that Agatha had long embraced. But Agatha had spent the whole day out of her element, and now she faced a group of friends whose shared jokes had long since carved grooves and furrows into one another’s metal. She watched Mrs. Flood lean over her tankard, laughing at Mr. Thomas teasing Mr. Kitt, and wondered how to fit into the picture.
A peal of notes rang out, and the whole group turned back toward the ballad singer at the front of the long room. Nell had pulled out a small guitar and was tuning it carefully. A sense of excitement visibly washed over the crowd, expressions rippling like waves beneath the gust of a new wind.
Agatha cast a sidelong glance at Mrs. Flood, whose cheeks were flushed with anticipation and whose eyes were bright as stars.
When she caught Agatha staring, she winked.
Agatha’s face flamed.
She was saved from having to say anything by the start of Nell’s song:
“Come listen, friends, and hear the tale
Of a gay young pair of lovers
They had no care for any fair
