The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics Page 16

  A ray of sympathy broke through the storm clouds of Lucy’s mood. She plunked the sherry down on the side table and slid onto the couch. Her hands slipped into Catherine’s, untangling tight fingers and warming them between her own. “He could have offered to put the whole world in the palm of my hand, and I’d still have chosen you over him. Sweetheart, it’s not about the money.”

  Catherine made a sound of disbelief.

  Lucy shook her head, chuckling. “Yes, alright, but it’s not just about the money. When you offered to sponsor my translation, what did you ask for in return?”

  “I . . .” Catherine shook her head. “What are you talking about? I blurted it out in a moment of anger when the Society mistreated you.”

  “Yes—but you didn’t take it back when your anger cooled. And you let me take charge of the translation as if I were an expert.”

  Catherine’s fine brows slashed down into a piqued frown, and her hands gripped Lucy’s with some ferocity. “You are an expert. Why would I have you work on a project if I didn’t trust the work you would produce?”

  “But sweetheart,” Lucy said softly, “that’s just what Mr. Hawley did this afternoon. And what he’s done to many others, no doubt, in the course of his presidency. He demanded I undertake only the work he permits me, when and how he deems proper. But you . . .” She bent forward, brushing reverent lips against Catherine’s temple. She felt the countess’s soft gasp feather along the side of her neck, and smiled. “You simply made room for me to do the work I chose to do. You gave me a space for it and time for it and you offered support whenever I struggled. All because you believed I could do it, and do it well.”

  “Yes,” Catherine huffed, “but it wasn’t just about the work, either. Not after a while.”

  Lucy blinked and looked down.

  Catherine’s mouth was turned down but her eyes shone up at Lucy with helpless, hopeful affection.

  Lucy slid wondering fingers along the countess’s jaw, as though any movement too quick or eager would shatter the moment like glass. “Oh?” Lucy whispered. “What else was it about?”

  Catherine took a deep breath and let it out again in a rush. “I am trying to tell you I love you,” she said, adorably grumpy, “and you are making it impossible.”

  Lucy fought the urge to laugh in pure elation. “So tell me.”

  Catherine bit her lip, then lifted her chin. “You first.”

  Lucy did laugh then. Was still laughing when her mouth met Catherine’s, the kiss tasting of sherry and sunlight and words still yet to be spoken.

  “I love you,” Lucy whispered, breaking the kiss. Her smile curved against Catherine’s cheek. “Your turn.”

  The countess bit her lip, sighed, and drew herself up. “I love you, Lucy Muchelney.”

  “There,” said Lucy. “That wasn’t so impossible, was it?”

  Catherine pulled back, her frown shading into something more serious. “The first time I told someone I loved them, I thought it was the end of all my troubles. I was young, and romantic, and very naïve. I am older now—”

  “Oh, so very old,” Lucy teased, and snorted. “I doubt there’s a full ten years between us.”

  “Time weighs on you more once you’re married.” Catherine had meant it as a joke, but it fell rather flat.

  Lucy’s smile dimmed.

  Catherine cleared her throat. “What I meant to say is: I’ve learned some since then. Loving someone shouldn’t be the end of anything. It should be a beginning.”

  “What are we beginning?” Lucy began unpinning Catherine’s hair, letting the rich gold locks trail through her fingers. “Not a marriage, this time.”

  “Something better,” Catherine said. “Something that belongs only to us.” She pulled Lucy down on top of her, golden hair haloing around her, so achingly beautiful that Lucy could almost—but not quite—believe her.

  Chapter Ten

  Reviewing the proofs of one’s own book to check for typographical and mathematical errors turned out to be the most excruciating process Lucy could have imagined. Had she really written all these hundreds of thousands of words? It seemed impossible—surely some other hand had penned this striking phrase on page forty-seven. Some prankster had definitely written the hideous third paragraph on page one hundred sixty-two. And checking every variable and constant in every equation made her feel as if her poor eyes might never uncross again.

  She did the best she could to be thorough, and resisted the urge to despair.

  Eventually, however, Catherine compelled her to send the book back, even though Lucy was certain it was still rotten with clumsy substitutions and inelegant phrases. It was printed and put up for sale, half in sheets and half in plain covers, with fifty copies specially bound in a handsome octavo volume by Agatha Griffin herself. On these last the title was embossed in silver on rich blue leather: The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, with the author listed as L. Muchelney.

  Lucy had agonized over this initial, before ultimately deciding that she would use her full name when she published her own unique work, and initials when she wanted the focus to be on the work she was translating. The women (well, mostly women) of the Friendly Philosophical Salon had graciously offered to read and discuss the book for their next meeting, so on the appointed day Catherine led a very anxious, pale-cheeked Lucy to Paternoster Row and into the back room with the worn-out sofas.

  A pair of Salon members were there already, and looked up with sharp eyes at Catherine’s warm greeting. “So there you are! The author who sent us to every bookshop in London.”

  “Or very nearly,” her companion added, tucking a watch into a waistcoat pocket.

  “What?” Lucy blurted, then bit her lip and looked to Catherine with worried eyes.

  Lady Moth held her poise. “You had trouble finding a copy? Griffin’s assured us they would send them to their usual list of booksellers.”

  “My favorite shop had run out,” explained the first.

  “So had the next three shops,” her friend chimed in. “We finally found the last copy in a place on the very northern edge of town.”

  “We had to share it,” the lady said with a shudder, and scowled at her friend. “You erased my notes!”

  “You penciled notes in the margins of a brand-new book!”

  “Where better to put my thoughts and responses? I might lose them if they weren’t written right next to the passages that inspired them!”

  They continued the argument while Catherine turned to Lucy with sly wonder in her eyes. “If every shop in the Row has sold out . . .” she said.

  “I can’t imagine,” Lucy breathed.

  But a few other Salon members attested to the same trouble, and a later hasty visit to Griffin’s confirmed it: the initial run had very nearly all been sold, and orders for more were quickly being accumulated. A second print run was hastily undertaken from the plates of the first, and as the week passed the book began to earn notice in scientific circles. People were soon discussing Oléron’s algorithms—and Lucy’s expansive explanations—in letters, in lecture halls, in coffee shops, and in college courtyards. Mr. Edwards even wrote to offer his personal praise and congratulations.

  But more than that, the blue-and-silver cover caught the attention of the fashionable set who found thrills in Mr. Edwards’s demonstrations, so that a copy of the book became a much-sought-after accessory among the haut ton. Mr. Hawley, in a palpably crotchety tone, penned a review for Polite Philosophies that found some matters of theory upon which to quibble—but his attempt to silence Lucy backfired, as people caught the whiff of controversy and hurried to buy a copy for the pleasure of having an opinion on it. Because the book had been printed at Catherine’s expense, she had taken care that the percentages of the profits had been very heavily weighted in Lucy’s favor (less the blue leather-bound versions, which had been Mrs. Griffin’s risk).

  When Lucy saw the first accounting of how much profit she could expect from her work, she went faint
and had to sit on the sofa with her head between her knees until her spotty vision steadied again.

  She set some of the money aside for Stephen to deposit with the family funds, announced her intention of getting a few new dresses made, and asked Catherine if she could recommend a good modiste.

  “If I may . . .” Catherine was tapping her pencil on her sketchbook, nervously, and as Lucy blinked at her, a blush rose to her cheeks. Lucy loved how the countess could be so bold in bed and so cautious when clothed. Catherine’s hesitance was charming as she asked: “Would you let me embroider one of those new gowns? As a gift to you?”

  Lucy was rendered speechless.

  Catherine assumed this meant Lucy needed convincing, and began turning the pages of her sketchbook over to demonstrate choices. Embroidery and garment designs flew past like a flock of birds winging south for winter.

  Catherine stopped on a page with the silhouette of an evening gown. Lucy’s eyes widened. Long, precise silver arcs were layered over one another in dizzying arrays along the hem and at the shoulder; at some points they joined together, at others they curved apart. It looked like an armillary sphere—like music—like angels’ wings.

  Lucy could hardly breathe for the beauty of it.

  Catherine ducked her head. “I was remembering the passage where Oléron talked about studying Saturn, and how the shape around it had to be many rings set inside one another rather than one solid piece.”

  “You would make this for me?” Lucy whispered.

  “Of course.” Catherine’s answering smile was sun-bright. “I would make anything for you.”

  Lucy turned over the next few pages and stopped on a close-up design of a single sleeve: black fabric stark beneath the purple blooms and berries of the belladonna, entwined with a looping vine of myrtle in a sinister shade of green. It was more free-form than her other designs, without the careful symmetry and repetition: the plants almost appeared to be growing up from the wrists, stretching long, hungry tendrils toward the shoulder, either devouring or protecting the woman wearing the gown. It looked wild, and sad, and fiercely defiant—the kind of clothing a witch might wear, if she happened to be a wealthy and fashionable witch.

  Catherine’s mouth tilted in that particular sorrowful way she had. “That is for Aunt Kelmarsh,” she said. “She rather misses the elaborate floral embroideries of her younger days.”

  Lucy traced the vines with one careful finger. “Myrtle?”

  “For love,” Catherine said.

  “And belladonna?”

  “Italian for lovely lady—but it also stands for silence.”

  “Because it’s poisonous.”

  Catherine bit her lip. “Because a love silenced is something like death.”

  A chill ran through Lucy, but not a wholly unpleasant one. She looked down again at the gorgeous, terrifying design. It would never be a popular one with the fashionable set—it wasn’t delicate or dainty or gentle enough—but it struck the eye and altered the mind, as any good painting would. “Do you have more things like this?”

  “One or two. But I have never actually worked any of them. They are a bit . . . intense for everyday wear, I think. These others, however . . .”

  She paged past two other glorious, blood-chilling frocks—one sea green and one ghostly gray—and revealed a sketch of an evening gown in a perfect shade of cerulean blue. White penciled-in lace gave a cloud-like fade to hem and cuffs, and the skirt had a white net overlay spangled with golden stars.

  “Since you’ve made astronomy fashionable, I have been trying to create designs inspired by the heavens.”

  More sketches followed: a comet dress to match Lucy’s shawl, a lighter, ladylike version of the ginger pineapple pattern, shell-like swirls in coral and peach, and a striking border design made of concentric circles and straight lines that looked Grecian to Lucy’s eye, but that Catherine claimed was based on a thought she had about telescope lenses.

  The word artist buzzed like a bee over Lucy’s lips, but after the last conversation they’d had about art and artistry, she didn’t want to poke at what was surely still a tender spot. “You’re brilliant,” she said instead. It was easy to be emphatic when you believed every word you were saying. “I would be honored to wear anything you make.”

  The next day they made the trek to the notorious Madame Tabot’s shop. Under that lady’s stern and steely eye, Lucy was fitted for four new frocks: one morning gown, a walking dress, and two evening gowns in the finest silk madame had to offer. The cuts were bold, and the fabrics deep-dyed with vivid color. Lucy was ecstatic over the thought of wearing the brightest hues she could find, though for the morning gown she did select an ivory muslin, to be embroidered with a swarm of golden bees.

  For the first evening gown, thinking of Saturn’s rings and Catherine’s hands, she settled on a deep, rich blue that Madame Tabot’s shop assistant thought was far too old and dark for her maidenly years. “Non, mam’selle, the gentlemen will want you in something daintier, as light as your figure—perhaps a robin’s egg?”

  “The gentlemen can go hang,” Lucy said, as the assistant gasped and dropped her packet of pins. Lucy’s determination was set, however. “I am not a songbird. I am an astronomer.”

  Madame Tabot barked a laugh from her throne-like seat in the center of the shop. “Ah, a girl after my own heart. The point of fashion is not for the gentlemen: they call it trivial because they cannot bear the thought of women having a whole silent language between themselves. Bring out that newest bolt from Crewe, if you would, Frances.”

  Frances recovered her pins and an expression heavy with skepticism, but did as her mistress bid. From a back corner of the shop she conjured a bolt of gold silk taffeta, shiny and lustrous as if it had been woven from pure sunshine. Madame Tabot creaked out of her throne and bobbed across the room to drape it over Lucy’s shoulder, peering critically into the mirror.

  The effect of the color was astonishing; it made Lucy’s skin gleam like pearl and her hair shine like mahogany. The old seamstress’s hands moved briskly, tucking the fabric just so around Lucy’s torso and holding the shape in place until it pleased her. She nodded at Frances, who immediately began sketching the angle of the drape and the number of folds. “We keep the lines simple and strong, a bit of tulle on the bodice to soften it, a few folds along the sleeve and at the back.”

  Lucy dared to reach up a hand and stroke the metallic fabric, stiff and sturdy beneath the sparkle: it might look like a gown, but she knew already it would feel like a suit of armor. Perfect for walking into a soiree and slaying society dragons.

  Lucy’s eyes met Catherine’s in the mirror. “Will it do?” she asked, suddenly anxious.

  Catherine’s smile was small and awed, and the heat in her gaze had Lucy’s heart pounding. “‘O for a muse of fire . . .’” she said softly.

  Lucy’s memory supplied the next part of the quote: . . . that would ascend / the brightest heaven of invention. Stephen had been obsessed with that play for the space of one summer, the one before he first went away to school. He’d been reading it with the tutor their father had hired, hoping to give his son an advantage in mathematics. Albert Muchelney had also engaged a governess to teach Lucy watercolors, mostly to keep her out of trouble.

  This plan had failed utterly.

  By the end of the first week, Lucy and Stephen were showing each other what they’d been taught; by the second, they were sneaking each other into their lessons. Of course the governess had noticed, and reported the conspiracy to Mr. Muchelney. But he had only laughed, and increased both teachers’ pay, and insisted they teach both children.

  Every evening after that, Lucy and Stephen would tromp through the wood to the top of the nearest hill, Stephen reciting all the best bits from Henry V on the way. Once at the top, he would take advantage of the summer light to fill canvas after canvas with lurid battle scenes, heroic portraits of dying knights, and blazing shipwrecks. Lucy would fill her own pages with geometrical proo
fs, triangles and arcs and rhombuses carefully deciphered and measured.

  It had been the best summer of Lucy’s young life—and it ended abruptly in the fall when Stephen started school. A sister went from being a best friend to being an embarrassment, a target of scorn for her mathematical bent, best ignored in favor of friends who cared more for art, war, and the high points of English history.

  It was Lucy’s first experience with heartbreak, and she had been a long while recovering from it.

  The modiste pulled the gold taffeta away, and Lucy blinked at the ordinary hues of the world. Her reflection diminished in the mirror, mousy and timid.

  Madame Tabot clucked in sympathy. “We shall begin work at once, Miss Muchelney. You should not have to be trapped in mourning garments for one second longer than you must.” Her mouth pursed thoughtfully, and an avid glint came into her eye. “I have such a weakness for color myself, which I do not get to indulge enough in these insipid times.”

  They arranged for the dresses’ delivery as Lucy donned her long country coat and Catherine buttoned up her smart spencer. The wind was chill but the sun was out, so they decided to walk the arcade for a ways before heading home. It seemed half of fashionable London had the same idea: everywhere couples were striding in elegant twos and fours, with the occasional lone walker or rider breasting the throng. Hackney cabs and coaches rumbled past on the cobbles, adding to the racket and the inescapable odors of horses and humans. Everything was busy and bright: haberdashers and jewelers and toy stores, sweet shops next to coffeehouses, booksellers and clockmakers and perfumeries. More modest wares like ribbons, pies, and pastries were piled on carts tucked into alleyways and on corners, gathering people into little knots on the sidewalk. Lucy had to hold Catherine quite close to keep the crowd from separating them.