Page 146

He reached into his pocket and closed his fingers around a cool metal disc. He pulled it out.

Lucy’s smile reversed into an appalled frown. “If you have to flip a coin, don’t. Forget I encouraged you, and God save women from indecisive rogues. Muriel deserves better.”

He looked at the copper penny in his palm. He’d been carrying it since Bernhard pressed it upon him that anxious morning at Titcombe Hall.

He hadn’t intended to flip it.

Perhaps he’d thought to kiss it, for a little extra luck.

“I’ll go tomorrow,” he said, and closed his hand.

34

Muriel thought she heard the faint chime of the doorbell, so she poked her head into the hall. Nothing. She drifted forward and paused at the top of the stairs. The house was silent. James had the day free, but he and Thomas had gone out immediately after breakfast, their secretive smiles and overall air of mystery stopping the questions in her throat. She’d watched them stroll past the drawing room window, feeling a little pinch of hurt, until James gave a skip of spontaneous delight and swung around the lamppost, head thrown back and arm outflung, shouting to the rooftops. Some line of poetry.

Eros shook my mind.

The little pinch of hurt eased, and her eyes misted, and she’d hoped the happy lovers were embarked on a marvelously romantic spree. Pistachio ices, flower gardens, a French restaurant, the theater, a private ball. Thomas was due a bit of fêting. Over the past several days, while James worked long shifts at the hospital, and she retrieved the portfolios of specimens she’d lent to the Royal Botanic Society, Thomas had lain in wait, lurking in the entrance of a terrace across the street, never taking his eyes from James’s doorstep.

I don’t have anywhere to be, or anything to do, he’d explained. And finally I can put that to use.

When the blackmailer’s boy had appeared, on the third day of his vigil, he’d followed him to Piccadilly, to the Burlington Arcade and the Albemarle Hotel, and finally to a flat on Tachbrook Street. He’d pushed inside, surprising the boy, and the flat’s occupants as well, three men gathered around a table sorting pawn tickets and polishing watches. Caught red-handed in a thieves’ den, they’d turned over James’s correspondence and wasted no time pinning the blame on an absent accomplice, an unemployed valet, fled now to Canada.

Muriel listened for another sound, struck by a chilling thought. They’d celebrated too soon. The blackmailers were at the door, prepared to make more mischief. She heard a muffled thud and gripped the banister, blood running cold. A moment later, Fezziwig scampered up the steps.

The house was quiet again. She exhaled. She’d imagined the chime.

There was no one at the door.

She returned to the desk in the blue bedroom, picked up her pen, and reread the final paragraph of her lecture. In a month, she’d be delivering it, to a crowded hall, in a new city. No matter what happened after that, she would adapt, and on balance, she felt far more hope than fear. She could envision a sufficient existence for herself; more than sufficient—very pleasant. She’d develop a closer friendship with the Satterlees, and together they’d expand their botanical academy, opening its doors to women from all walks of life. Some would go on to study at universities, changing who did science and how. She’d take pride in her students’ experiments in the laboratory, in their research, in their sense of possibility. On the days she didn’t demonstrate or lecture, she’d travel to mountains, marshes, and meadows, to the forests and the seashore, familiarizing herself with the plants of New York.

Red columbine grew wild there. You could find it on wooded hills with clayey soil, and in the crevices of slate ledges, and at the rocky borders of streams. She would find it. She’d find many things.

She rolled the pen between her fingers.

A bell rang.

Not her imagination. Not the doorbell either.

Her eyes moved to the open window. The lightweight curtains billowed with a warm, rose-scented breeze. She walked over, batting away the sheer fabric, and she leaned out.

Her heart gave a queer knock.

Kit stood below in the courtyard garden, his top hat under his arm.

“I tried the door first,” he said. “I was about to climb the trellis.”

The world tunneled. No more buildings. No more lime trees. He stood very straight, the well-tailored lines of his plum-colored morning suit marking the limits of her vision. His handsome face was so clear it seemed to shift with his emotions, his eyes a mix of darkness and light.

“You can’t climb the trellis.” She fought for breath. “There’s no trellis.”

“I was about to scale the brick, in truth.” A smile tugged his lips. “But that makes it sound like I’m here to commit a burglary.”

She choked on a laugh. “You’re not?”

“No.”

“Why are you here?” She steadied herself with a fist on the window frame. His gaze slid to her fist, then back to her face. He stepped closer.