Amelia looked at Fiona, shook her head, and poured each of them a cup of tea. “Well, I must say,” she said. “I’m awfully disappointed to have missed the season. You seem to have caused quite a stir.” She handed over the cup and saucer with an unladylike grunt as she leaned forward over her very pregnant belly.
Fiona ran a finger around the familiar chip in the saucer’s edge. Appalled that the factory had been operating without a full tea set, Amelia had bought a brand-new one last year. It had remained intact for almost a month before the teapot lid went missing and the first cup cracked.
Asterly, Barnesworth & Co. was not a place for luxuries of theton. It was hot, sweaty, and dirty with a constant symphony of blacksmiths’ hammers, thewhooshof flames, andchugof the steam locomotives.
This was where she felt comfortable—with the bang and clatter of the factory in the background, in a lab stocked full of glass bottles, at a desk piled high with notepaper. Not in a duke’s flawless manor where there were no scratches or dings, with a retinue of staff to ensure everything was polished to reflect the perfection of everything else.
“Causing a stir was nae my intention.”
“Intention or not, you did it.” Amelia rubbed her belly with both hands. “Benedict almost fell off his chair when he picked up the paper this morning.”
Of course. Treason charges. Marriage to a duke. She had probably been the subject of every conversation for days. “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
Amelia arched a brow. “That you had been arrested? That the product we’d invested in was in jeopardy? Or that you were home?”
“All three?” She took a sip of tea, trying to avoid Amelia’s stern look. It didn’t work. It was clear from her friend’s expression that she was about to receive a well-deserved walloping.
“Fi, you’re a stubborn goat. You need to start asking for assistance. Especially from the people who love you. Wewantto lend a hand. You don’t actually need to do everything on your own.”
It was the same criticism Edward had leveled at her, and she knew they were right. But she also knew they didn’t understand. It wasn’t a switch she could turn off. She couldn’t just wake up one day and be perfectly fine relying on others when she’d struggled to do it for so long.
“I ken. Believe me, I had that reckoning as I sat on the floor of that cell wondering if I was headed for the gallows because I wouldn’t let Edward help me.”
Amelia shuddered at the mention of Fiona in prison but then shook it off and refocused her attention on Fi. “And this is what you do with your newfound insight? Hide away in your office until I come to find you instead of coming to the house? Goodness, you’re makinggreatstrides.”
“I’m nae hiding.” But Fiona didn’t believe her own objection, and from the way Ameliatut-tutted, neither did she, because if Fi truly wanted help, she wouldn’t have retreated to her laboratory, which required climbing a set of very long, narrow stairs.
She hadn’t counted on Oliver, the foreman, carrying Amelia up them.
“This is you tackling the situation head-on, with support? My apologies, I must have missed the part where you said ‘Amelia, I’m in a bind and need your help.’” She took a sip of tea and waited for Fiona to respond. Because, good God, Amelia was not the sort of person to let bad behavior slide, which Fi generally loved about her. Not so much today.
“Fine. I need yer help. I married Edward but dunnae want to be a duchess.”
Amelia rolled her eyes, passing Fiona her cup to put on the table. “I’m having the most remarkable sense of déjà vu.”
“It is nae the same thing.”
Ben’s future title may have increased his responsibilities but it did not fundamentally alter who he was. It did not prevent him from living his life the way he planned.
“Truly? Benedict refused to be the earl and you refuse to be the duchess. Is there something in the water that I don’t know about? Are these steam engine vapors muddling everybody’s senses?”
“My senses are nae muddled. I’m thinking very clearly.”
Amelia cocked her head, looking at Fiona with eyes that were searching for a deeper truth than what Fi was presenting. That was the best and worst thing about her friend—she saw everything. “Of course,” Amelia said. “Turning down power, privilege, and wealth is such a rational decision.”
Fi couldn’t sit under that penetrating stare another minute. She stood and picked up the teapot, taking it to the stove. She dumped what liquid remained in the pot into the sink and poured water into the kettle.
“Nae power, privilege, nor wealth is worth locking myself into a gilded cage. I’m nae going to squeeze myself into stays and uncomfortable slippers so that I can make fake pleasantries over a twelve-course dinner.”
“Granted, stays are not much fun, but have you ever thought that instead of making fake pleasantries, you could perhaps tryrealpleasantries?”
Fiona dumped a spoonful of tea leaves into the pot. “With the lords and ladies of theton? Somehow I dunnae think they’re interested in discussing the chemical properties of binding agents.”
Amelia sighed. “Fiona, you are the most intelligent woman I know. Are you truly trying to tell me that you cannot hold a conversation about anything other than science?”
“Nae. That’s nae what I’m saying,” she said through clenched teeth. Of course she could hold a conversation about other things. Char and Will knew nothing of science, and they’d spoken at length for weeks.
“So other than stays, which with your figure you could probably forgo, and conversation, which we’ve just established you’re capable of, what is the issue?”
