The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics Read online

  It was no small achievement, to make a countess curse.

  Lucy laughed and licked Catherine again—then again, on and on, pressing hands down on the other woman’s hips to hold her in place as the countess’s cries spiraled higher and breathier. She used every trick of lips and tongue that she could think of, licking and sucking and flicking at the tender flesh. Judicious fingers, cunningly applied, caused another round of gorgeous cursing. Catherine sobbed as she came, Lucy’s eager tongue catching every drop of her pleasure. With a long moan Catherine fell back, gasping for breath, while Lucy moved up to nuzzle into the dewy crook of her neck, satisfaction of more than the physical kind rippling through her. “How was that for a novelty?”

  It was a while before Catherine essayed a reply. “I have visited many strange places and had many unique experiences in my travels,” she breathed, her generous bosom heaving delightfully up and down, “but I never imagined anything quite like that.” She flung an arm up above her head and stretched, the curves of her shifting into new and fascinating topographies. “I feel positively licentious.”

  Lucy grinned. “You ought to have stayed home and learned about good old-fashioned English debauchery, as I did.”

  Catherine chuckled as Lucy pulled the sheets over them both. “If you’re offering to teach me, I expect you’ll be a proper scholar and do it rigorously.”

  Lucy snorted, and nipped at Catherine’s earlobe, enjoying the way it made the lady sigh and shiver. “I shall take careful notes, and make sure my experiments are repeatable.” Lulled by warmth and the sweet feel of Catherine beneath her, Catherine’s arms around her shoulders, Lucy drifted into sleep before she thought to stop herself.

  A squeak and a clank had Catherine cracking open an eyelid at far too early an hour the next morning.

  It was daylight, but barely. The clank had been the coal scuttle, banging gently against the hearth as Narayan’s foot struck it. The squeak had been Narayan herself, arriving earlier than usual to lay out Catherine’s morning gown for the day.

  Catherine, presently wearing not a stitch, clutched the coverlet to her breast and stared wildly at the maid, whose eyes were wide with shock.

  Lucy—equally nude, and apparently a restless sleeper—was tucked in the crook of Catherine’s arm facing outward, the curve of her spine fitting into the curve of Catherine’s waist, one long leg thrown free of the sheets. Her hands clutched the countess’s arm to her chest, as though she were afraid Catherine would try to flee sometime during the night.

  Narayan bent down and scooped up the garment she’d dropped. “Apologies, my lady,” she squeaked. “Shall I . . . Shall I come back in a few minutes?” Her eyes flicked to Lucy and then away, and she tucked a lock of hair behind ears turned ruddy with embarrassment.

  Catherine could feel her own blush singeing her cheeks. “Yes, thank you,” she managed, feeling every mile of the chasm between the stiff prudery of her tone and the lewdness of her pose and attire. Or lack thereof.

  Narayan gave a hasty curtsy and vanished, and Catherine flopped back onto the pillow with a fearful huff.

  Some people had years to enjoy illicit vices and hidden depravities before they were exposed to public censure. Apparently Catherine was doomed to be caught after just one night.

  She slipped out of bed, pulled on the first dressing gown she could reach, and nudged Lucy.

  The dark-haired woman mumbled something and rubbed at eyes gone crusty with sleep. “Morning already?” she asked.

  “The maid will be coming soon,” Catherine whispered, agonized. She stroked one hand down Lucy’s arm from shoulder to elbow. “Narayan was just here. Lord knows what she imagined we’d been doing.”

  The other woman stretched and smiled, catlike. “Something fairly close to the truth, no doubt. Loan me a dressing gown?” she asked, as Catherine’s blush deepened at the reminder of everything they’d done last night.

  When Catherine returned with a wrap—her second-best dressing gown, all quilted green silk with lace trimmings—Lucy rolled out of bed and allowed Catherine to help her into the garment. She was moving quickly but with no panic, while Catherine fluttered like a sparrow who’d flown in the window and hadn’t figured out how to fly back out.

  Lucy bent down and kissed Catherine swiftly but soundly; Catherine felt her nerves settle down from a painful jangle to a bearable buzz. “We’ve done nothing to be ashamed about,” Lucy said, her hands warm and solid against Catherine’s shoulders. “No matter what anybody else thinks.” Catherine nodded, putting on a brave face, and Lucy gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Surely this isn’t the first secret you’ve had to trust the servants with?”

  Catherine thought back to George’s tirades, brief explosions surrounded by long spells of icy silence. When Catherine had avoided him, he’d abused the servants in her place—shouting at housemaids, demanding impossible things from the footmen, berating the gardeners. One of the reasons she’d gone on that last expedition was that it kept George’s targets to a minimum: he never dared to lose his temper while onboard ship and under the captain’s iron command.

  Her relationship with Lucy might be an absolute scandal—but it wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  So Catherine kissed Lucy again and cinched the borrowed dressing gown tight. It left Lucy’s long arms bare at the wrists, even as the thick silk’s extra fabric bunched at the waist. “I’ll see you for breakfast,” she said.

  Lucy grinned and blew a kiss farewell as she slipped merrily from the room.

  Catherine couldn’t blame her too much: she felt much the same herself, as though her soul was so light, the slightest push from below would send it flying toward the heavens.

  Narayan returned a quarter of an hour later, her face carefully neutral, and began helping Catherine dress. Chemise, stays, and stockings went on with their usual precision, as Catherine struggled not to blush for thinking at how easily such things had come off under Lucy’s bold ministrations the night before.

  “I am so sorry I disturbed you this morning, my lady,” the maid said, her eyes on the floor and tension pinching at their corners.

  “Quite alright,” Catherine said, sitting down in front of her toilette.

  Narayan’s quick fingers made short work of arranging Catherine’s more than tousled hair into something restrained and respectable. She looked up, and her eyes caught Catherine’s in the mirror. “May I be permitted to ask you an impertinent question, my lady?”

  Catherine braced herself. “You may.”

  Narayan’s mouth was flat and her features contained, as if she, too, feared the worst. “Did you know Miss Muchelney would end up . . . would end up sleeping here, last night when you dismissed me?”

  Impertinent question indeed—but there was something about the set of her maid’s shoulders that plucked at Catherine enough to make her bite back any reprimand. “I had a fair idea what would happen,” Catherine admitted. Her blush was doubled, but her chin was high. “We fell asleep before we remembered to be discreet. I am sorry to have shocked and offended you.”

  “Offended!” Narayan’s tone was all surprise, and as Catherine watched, sunrise rays of cautious hope melted the ice of her expression. “You were simply trying to hide the affair, then, my lady?”

  “With little success, it seems,” Catherine muttered. Truth was so difficult, and too much honesty stung appallingly.

  “Oh no, ma’am—I mean, yes, I did—this morning—oh, my lady,” Narayan said, and with some alarm Catherine watched all the blood rush from her face, “do you think I might sit down for just a little?”

  “Oh my—of course!” Catherine caught the girl beneath the elbow and helped her to the bench at the foot of the bed.

  The maid was trembling, and for a time all she could do was bend low against her knees and take long, shuddering breaths. Eventually she lifted her head, and her eyes were shining with relief. “Forgive me, my lady,” she said, with a little laugh. “I have spent two weeks thinking you were about to give
me the sack.”

  “What?” Catherine cried. “What on earth for? You’ve been wonderful. I cannot imagine doing something like that without good reason.”

  “But you are having Mrs. Shaw train Eliza up,” Narayan replied. “And my sister—who is lady’s maid for the Honorable Miss Cuthbert—said to watch out when they start bringing in people who are younger and—and lighter complexioned.” She set her chin as she said this.

  “Oh!” Catherine pressed a hand to her mouth as the facts came clear. “Oh, no wonder you were worried. I am so sorry. Eliza was brought on to do for Lucy—I insisted on it to Mrs. Shaw . . .”

  Catherine faltered, but Narayan had regained her customary poise by now and was able to fold her hands and nod. “I understand, my lady.” A flash of humor twigged the corners of her mouth. “You might ask young Mary to delay the hour when she lays your fire in the mornings. It would make it so you had to offer fewer explanations.”

  “Thank you,” Catherine said. And paused, as a thought occurred. “May I ask a probing question of my own?”

  Narayan blinked and some of the worry crept back into her expression, but she nodded.

  “Do you earn more than your sister does with the Honorable Miss Cuthbert?”

  “I make a little more in wages, my lady, but—if you’ll pardon a little more frank speaking—Sara enjoys quite a bit more in the way of secondhand clothing. The Honorable Miss Cuthbert is very much in demand amongst the social set, and there is always something new expected for her wardrobe.”

  Which meant, Catherine knew, there would always be something older departing—something that a fashionable London debutante had enjoyed until either the novelty or the style had worn thin, but that would still be worth a considerable sum when gifted to an attentive lady’s maid who knew all the right secondhand shops. Catherine sighed and shook her head, knowing that she must have cost Narayan some pain in comparison with her sister’s position. She had never gone about much in those circles, and she never expected to. “I could speak to Mrs. Shaw about increasing your wages, to compensate for my appalling hermitish tendencies . . .”

  The maid drew herself up stiffly. “You don’t have to buy my silence, my lady. Discretion is a virtue in any good servant—Mr. Brinkworth often says so.” Catherine could only stare into the mirror, but Narayan squared her shoulders. “The sky-blue dress today, do you think?”

  Catherine thought of how Lucy had looked at her the last time she wore the sky-blue, when she thought Catherine wasn’t watching, and nodded. “Perfect.”

  Chapter Seven

  Lucy slipped into her bedchamber with barely a minute to spare before Eliza arrived to help her dress for breakfast. The girl looked startled to find Lucy already out of bed, and garbed in a dressing gown that had so clearly come from another woman’s wardrobe.

  “The countess loaned me this, as we were up rather late last evening,” Lucy explained, and was proud at how her cheeks maintained only a hint of a blush.

  “Of course, miss,” Eliza said. “The color suits you, though—very springlike.” She threw open the wardrobe doors, and both women went grim as they contemplated the very un-springlike spectrum of blacks, grays, lugubrious purples, and muted lavenders hung therein.

  Lucy sighed. “I do miss proper colors. I share just enough of my brother’s artistic temperament to be drawn to brighter shades than these. My mourning period has been over for months.” She’d written to Stephen and he’d dutifully sent on her allowance since coming to London, but her funds weren’t nearly enough for even one new frock at town prices. At least, not the kind of frock she could wear around a countess. Or above a countess. Or underneath a countess . . .

  “It’s not so bad as that, miss.” Eliza fingered the sleeve of one lavender muslin. “Something might be done with some of these, to brighten them up,” she offered. “Gold and green would pretty this one up in a trice. A little something around the hem, or a border at the bodice.” She caught Lucy’s surprised eye, and schooled her features back into a proper maidly serenity. “That is, if you like, miss.”

  Lucy glanced at the dress with Pris’s embroidery, trailing vines over it like clinging tentacles. “I’m rather out of humor for florals, I’m afraid.”

  “Doesn’t have to be florals, miss. Something like this, maybe?” Eliza’s face brightened as she pulled a small book out of her pocket. It turned out to be a primer, well-thumbed and nearly falling to pieces—but every space that wasn’t taken up by the printed text had been filled in with chalk and charcoal and pencil sketches. Portraits, cartoons, animals and ships and buildings . . . but also patterns: lines and circles and dots, odd wiggly organics and precise geometric areas sharp as broken glass. Eliza turned to one page near the back, where a blank space between nursery songs had been filled in with a profusion of dots, scattered at first but then more and more crowded.

  It made Lucy’s eyes water to look at it.

  “But with colors, of course,” Eliza said. As though this were the most obvious thing in the world.

  Lucy cocked her head, in awe of the sheer amount of work in that little book. “How often do you find time to draw, Eliza?”

  “Depends on how often Mrs. Shaw catches me at it.”

  Lucy chortled.

  Eliza went full scarlet. “I shouldn’t have said that, miss.”

  “I won’t tell.” Lucy looked again at her wardrobe, and heaved a sigh. “And anything you can do for my gowns will be welcome. Time and Mrs. Shaw permitting, of course.”

  The maid ducked her head. “Of course, miss.”

  She must have persuaded the housekeeper, for by the next morning, Eliza had utterly transformed one of the purples with a slender border of white knots on bodice and hem, with extending columns of more knots that shaded into gray and then black toward the waist of the gown. Lucy admired the effect in the mirror and traipsed down to breakfast, happier than she had any right to feel.

  Catherine looked up with joy—and a self-conscious blush, since Lucy had shared her bed again last night—but when her gaze drifted down to the embroidery her expression went shuttered.

  “What’s wrong?” Lucy asked at once.

  “Nothing.” The countess shook her head, attempting a smile. “It’s a silly thought I had, unworthy of being spoken.” Her eyes dropped to Lucy’s bodice, then away. “Pris really was a very talented needlewoman.”

  “Yes, she was,” Lucy confirmed, puzzled—then her wits caught up with her and the significance all but bowled her over. “Oh! This wasn’t Pris’s work. This was something Eliza did, after I lamented the state of my wardrobe.”

  Catherine set her coffee aside and peered more closely, while Lucy piled a plate full of food and brought it to table. “She is very good. Did you direct her to place those colors that way?”

  “Not at all,” Lucy said. “It was entirely her own notion. I couldn’t have thought of such a thing if you gave me a thousand years and silk in every color of the rainbow.” She held out one hand and turned it back and forth, admiring the way the dots danced along the length of her arm. “It’s incredible how such a simple technique—just a smattering of stitches—can have such a powerful effect. It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

  “Very.” Lucy blushed to the roots at the warmth in her lover’s voice. Catherine’s smile hid behind her cup as she took another sip of coffee.

  So Lucy felt well-armored for that afternoon’s scientific lecture. And she was in need of it: this was the first Polite Science Society event she would be attending since that disastrous dinner at Mr. Hawley’s home. She wasn’t certain whether they would even permit her to attend—but Catherine snorted at the suggestion and was immovable. “It is a public lecture. You wanted to hear Mr. Edwards’s thoughts on his chemical experiments, did you not?”

  “Yes,” Lucy admitted.

  “Then we’re going.” Catherine tugged her gloves into place, looking every inch the respectable town society matron, ready to brook no nonsense and stand for no insult.
Her blond curls were pin-neat, her gown was cerulean cotton and tailored to perfection, and a strand of pearls hung gleaming around her throat.

  Lucy wondered if the pearls were still cool, or if they had already borrowed some of the warmth of Catherine’s skin. She wanted to slide her lips over them, feeling the contrast between smooth gems and soft flesh.

  She wished her own attire were even half as tempting, and again was glad Eliza Brinkworth had had time to do something with this gown. She wrapped the stellarium shawl around her shoulders and saw heat flare briefly in Catherine’s eyes.

  That was no small thing—but still Lucy wanted more.

  She was still feeling somewhat sparrowish when they arrived at the lecture hall. They had cut it rather fine, and the room was full in anticipation of the event. There was a roughly equal mix of earnest amateur philosophers, poets in search of good metaphors, and haut ton in search of some way to fill the afternoon until they could besport themselves in a ballroom or a bordello. Lucy spotted Mr. Hawley, Sir Eldon, and Mr. and Mrs. Chattenden seated at the front of the room, talking and peering around with great interest.

  Mr. Hawley caught Lucy’s eye and sent them a chilly smile that could not have said Stay away more clearly if he’d shouted it. Mrs. Chattenden contented herself with a perfectly polite nod. Mr. Chattenden took no notice: he was tense about the jaw, glaring around him as if every single member of the audience had offended him personally.

  Catherine leaned close to Lucy’s ear. “Mr. Edwards brings in a great deal of money for the Society with these events, but he’s almost always destroying some new or favorite theory of Mr. Chattenden’s. The gentleman cannot escape, but he’s always perfectly enraged to have to turn up.”

  Lucy grinned. “I oughtn’t be so amused by that—but he looks just like a teapot on the verge of boiling over.”

  Catherine chuckled. “Once last year Mr. Edwards built a miniature volcano as a chemical demonstration. I overheard some young rogues from White’s making bets on whether the volcano or the ‘bloody furious git in the third row’ would erupt first.”