“Yes, sir. This was a good one. Feel proud. Be proud of your Wilcox family.”
Jahleel liked the sound of that, his Wilcox family. “Good man, do not stay up too late. You can have everyone clean in the morning.”
“You run your business. I’ll see about this house.” Mr. Steele laughed, and then returned to the drawing room.
A light was on in Jahleel’s study.
Guests?
Or a special one. Had Katherine changed her mind?
His heart skipped five beats, and he hit at his chest to make it work.
Opening the door, he didn’t find Lady Hampton. A rush of disappointment hit.
“Miss Scarlett Wilcox, shouldn’t you have retired upstairs? The party is over. The maid assigned to your care is waiting to assist you.”
One of the walrus-tooth carved rook pieces of his new chest set sent from Kholmogory dangled in her fingers. “I had to speak with you.”
“You could do so without rummaging through my desk.”
She dropped the piece, this one shaped like a ship. It fell on his blotter but didn’t break the mast. “Sorry. But you have a lot of these games.”
“I like chess, not games.” Jahleel slipped inside. “Perhaps I’ll need more if you continue to be clumsy.”
Scarlett lowered her eyes for a moment. “I’ll be leaving Anya House early. I shall be dressed in men’s clothing. I don’t want anyone to say a word about this.”
Stretching his hand, wriggling his fingers, he closed the door. “Why is your choice of attire my concern? I’d probably only object if you possessed a hideous cravat knot or something.”
“Mr. Thom helps me get away to do my research. This is Anya House. Your rules. Your servants. Mr. Steele is everywhere. He will tell if I don’t have your permission.”
“This visit, Scarlett, will it get you killed?”
She stood up fast from his chair. The beads of her aurora-red gown jiggled. “No. I’m not signing up for war.”
“Will it get you compromised? We just had a devil of a time clearing your sister’s name.”
“If I’m caught, it will probably ruin my reputation, but the Royal Society won’t let women enter.”
“But they’ll let a woman of color dressed as a man in? Is that it, Scarlett?”
“Men of color have been men of science. Benjamin Banneker studied the mating cycles of locusts in 1789, twenty-eight years ago.”
He shook his head. “Bugs, Scarlett? That’s why you wish to risk your reputation?”
“No, there are others like Onesimus, the enslaved man who remembered inoculations performed in his African tribe, which led to the prevention of smallpox in Boston in the early seventeen hundreds. Almost eighty years before a vaccination. There are probably more. There needs to be more. I’ll do my part to push open doors.”
Tapping his chin, he came to the desk and sat as he’d done with Sebastian and Livingston. It was easier listening to men’s struggles. They were always simpler. “Tell me who you fancy. Tell me why you must run off to see him.”
She circled and stopped in front of him. “No one. I’d not risk my reputation for a man. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Fine. Then why are you doing this?”
“Science. They will be discussing blood research. I’m very curious. You should be too.”
Trying to seem uninterested, he flexed his fingers. “I don’t see why. But as your impromptu guardian, I’m concerned about you sneaking out.”
Scarlett tossed him a saucy look, then went to the vials on the sideboard. She opened a drawer of more medicines. “I’m a would-be botanist. I dabble with herbs. I’ve tried to create things for my mother and Lydia. If I could, I’d be an apothecary.”
