Miss Crewe swallowed the last of her bread and folded her hands demurely while she considered. She was quite a pretty girl, and her hands showed the marks of labor: visibly calloused in places, strong and sure. A silk weaver, Mrs. Koskinen had said.
At last, Miss Crewe sighed. “Your answer tells me that you’re just as my cousin has described you, Mrs. Flood—very earnest, and very kind.”
Penelope pinkened, and sought a less squirmworthy subject. “I wonder if you can explain to me something Mrs. Buckhurst said in her speech...” she began.
The silk weaver was a font of information, even more than Sydney, and Penelope listened avidly until Griffin jogged her elbow some time later.
“Flood.” Agatha Griffin’s face was luminous, bright with so much joy and awe that Penelope’s heart gave a little kick and knocked the breath from her. “I’ve just learned something wonderful. Is there a chance you’re ready to leave?”
“Quite.” It had been a lively evening, but politics was exhausting work. They made their farewells to Mrs. Koskinen and Miss Crewe. Then Griffin took Penelope by the wrist and began towing her through the crowd toward the stairway.
It’s just so we don’t get separated, Penelope reminded herself. And then a treacherous thought followed:She doesn’t want to lose me.“What about Eliza and Sydney?” she stammered, bumping from stair to stair.
“Oh, I already told them we were leaving. They’re young—they’ll be up until dawn with the rest of the political crowd. And they’re well able to find their own way home when they’re ready.” The engraver cast a sly glance back over her shoulder. “I’m getting too old to see sunrise from the wrong side without a terribly good reason.”
“I can think of one,” Penelope said automatically, then bit her lip as the heat rose in her cheeks.
Griffin snorted, but she didn’t let go, not even when they reached the relative freedom of the stairs. They walked down, past endless debates in other spaces—admittedly, less magnificent ones than the Grand Assembly Room. It was a relief to emerge into the cool evening air, as the first few stars began sparkling in the lilac curve of the sky.
In the chill, Griffin’s fingers around her wrist felt like the warmest thing in the world.
The printer towed Penelope south down Arundel Street, to the banks of the Thames, where the law courts kept their halls and libraries. The buildings here were ancient, frosted over with white stonework and narrow, imperious windows.
Griffin slipped a couple of coins to a gatekeeper, who obligingly let them into a court that led to a garden, then another garden, turn after turn until Penelope began to feel like she’d stepped into a fairy maze from a folktale and they’d never find their way out again.
“Good thing I had that barrister draw me a map,” Griffin muttered, and pulled out her sketchbook. Pages of women in white and green flashed by, then a penciled path in an amateurish hand. Griffin took a few more turnings. “Left, then right, then two more lefts, and... ah. Here we are.”
Penelope looked around. They were in a small pocket courtyard, a timeless bubble of peace in the center of the city. The branches of an old willow sifted moonlight and shadow into ripples on the ground, and the sound of water from quite close had Penelope peering around for the unseen fountain.
Griffin dropped Penelope’s wrist—her absent fingers left behind a cold, lonely little band of air around the skin there—and pulled the willow branches aside like she was raising the curtain on a Drury Lane stage.
The fountain Penelope heard was underneath the willow tree: a small tilted basin that poured water into a curve around its roots.
Also underneath the willow tree: Isabella’s nymph and dryad.
Penelope was afraid to move. Surely she must be dreaming. As long as she didn’t move, she would never have to wake up. She held so still her muscles began trembling with the effort of it, as her eyes traced every line of the familiar marble. “It wasn’t destroyed,” she whispered at last. “I can’t believe it. It wasn’t destroyed.”
“A barrister by the name of Mr. Loveney told me about it,” Griffin said softly. “He bought it from an art broker here in town, not three weeks ago.”
Penelope let out a breath, far too light and fragile to be a laugh. “And put ithere?”Heremeaningthe legal heart of the kingdom. But alsoheremeaningin this magical, sheltered space.
Penelope’s mind could not take it in.
Griffin’s smile was slow as moonlight. “Isabella Abington was a sculptor of no small renown. It will take more than a year for the world to forget her.”
Penelope let out a sob and flung her arms around Griffin’s neck.
The other woman went instantly pokerish.
Penelope assumed it was only surprise. She would not be put off: her arms tightened. “Thank you,” she whispered. Tears spilled over her eyelids and down her cheeks. She pressed her face harder against the taller woman’s shoulder, hoping the dark color of the fabric would hide the telltale dampness. She swallowed hard. “I don’t care how many years pass: I will never,everforget that you brought me here. Some kindnesses leave a mark, you know. Like a scar, but the reverse.”
Griffin’s arms came around Penelope’s shoulders—carefully, as though she feared Penelope might break. Her hand patted Penelope’s curls once. Twice. “You might bring me around to poetry yet, Flood,” she said gruffly.
Penelope let herself hold on for one more long, shuddering breath, then reluctantly pulled away.
Griffin fussed at the fabric of her gown, her blush apparent even in the moonlight’s silvery rays. “Home, then?” she asked.
“Home,” Penelope said on a sigh. As though it were the truth and not only a wish.
