The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics Read online

  Catherine could not pretend they were still talking about the ammonites, which were growing warm against her palms. Borrowing heat from their joined hands. “You loved her so much, for so long,” Catherine said, as helpless tears sprang to her eyes and roughened her voice.

  Lucy’s lips twitched. “So long, but not so well. We fell in love as schoolgirls and hoped nothing would ever change—not me, not her, not the world. We tried to fix everything just as it was, thinking that we could preserve our happiness the way this fossil preserved the shape of ancient life. She came for long visits, but we never thought about sharing a home, either here or anywhere else. Her parents were insisting that she marry, and she couldn’t put them off forever, and I was so wrapped up in helping my father with his scientific work, but not daring to claim any of it as my own . . . It seemed like the only place we could really love each other was in this frozen space between the past and the present. There was nothing truly vital in it, nothing nourishing to the heart or the mind or the soul. When I look back, the wonder is not that we parted—it’s that we managed to hold on as long as we did.”

  She untangled her fingers, pulled the ammonites from Catherine’s hands, and set them aside on the table.

  Her arms went around Catherine’s shoulders, and the countess returned the embrace with a quiet sob, burying her face in Lucy’s neck. Somehow, at that moment, Lucy’s slight figure seemed to be the one steady axis around which the entire cosmos was spinning; Catherine held on tight, fearing to be torn away by the relentless forces of nature.

  Lucy’s words, spoken against Catherine’s temple, chimed softly against her very bones. “Loving you is entirely different. You make me feel expansive, as though my heart is big enough and strong enough to contain the whole world. As though I can become anyone I need to, or want to, without fear—I can reach higher and farther and not lose you for the striving. And oh, my love, do you know how great a gift that is?”

  “We still have to be a secret,” Catherine whispered.

  “I know,” Lucy said with a sigh. “The world is cruel that way. But just because one part of us is secret, doesn’t mean our whole lives have to be lived in the shadows.” Catherine could feel Lucy’s lips curve in a smile, against the delicate skin beside her eye. “Aunt Kelmarsh said it used to be different, in her youth—maybe it will be different again, someday.”

  Her hands lazily traced the neckline of Catherine’s gown, teasing and testing the swell of her breasts. Sensitive, scientific fingers followed the line of the white work embroidery Catherine had put there long ago, a series of ocean waves lapping and receding like a tide frozen in time. Lucy’s eyes narrowed and pulled away slightly. “Is this design your own?”

  Catherine had to bend her neck rather awkwardly to look at her own chest. “Yes,” she said. “On the journey back from Egypt. I’d grown quite fascinated with the Mediterranean Sea—its lack of tides, its clear and shallow shorelines. So different from its deeper, crueller cousins: the Atlantic, Pacific, the Southern.”

  Lucy gripped Catherine’s elbow, excitement making her gray eyes gleam like pearls. “Catherine—what if you did a pattern book?”

  The countess blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  Lucy stroked the bodice edge again, making Catherine arch into the muffled touch and regret the existence of all fabric.

  Lucy was undistracted. “Mrs. Griffin said they’re always looking for new embroidery designs. Why shouldn’t you put a collection together? Maybe something scientific, to match the Lady’s Guide?” Her grin was somehow both shy and sly together. “She said florals were looking tired, didn’t she? If the art world doesn’t want you, then go where you are wanted.”

  But what kind of designs would I offer? Catherine thought in despair—but as soon as the question was posed her mind leaped to supply her with answer after answer. Comets, conch shells, pineapple ginger, tides and scrolls, all sorts of botanical shapes both homely and far-flung . . .

  They crowded close together and made her briefly blind and deaf to anything else.

  When the vision cleared, she blinked up into Lucy’s expectant face and then kissed her soundly. “You are brilliant,” Catherine breathed, elation surging through her like the swell of a morning tide.

  Lucy grinned, catching some of Catherine’s joy. “So you’ll do it?”

  “I’ll begin putting sample sketches together tomorrow morning,” Catherine promised.

  “And all it took to convince you was a kiss or two.” Lucy’s gaze was rich with satisfaction, almost smug, and an edge of hunger still waiting to be sated. “Imagine what I could do with a whole night. I’ll bet I can have you calling yourself an artist by dawn.” She flicked a hot tongue against Catherine’s earlobe.

  “Never.” But Catherine made a throaty, wordless sound of pleasure and arched her neck for more.

  They went to dinner with the Winlocks two days later. Mr. Winlock was all boyish smiles and affability, and Mrs. Winlock had apparently recovered from her surprise enough to prove a warm and gracious hostess. Dinner was simple but hearty, and afterward the foursome adjourned to the parlor for glasses of light sherry and conversation.

  Catherine took care to compliment Mrs. Winlock on her needlework, which was on full display everywhere one looked: roses on the sofa cushions, ivy on the curtains, lilies-of-the-valley on the chairs, and everywhere doilies, doilies, doilies.

  “One thing she never told us in her letters,” Lucy chimed in, “was that she was embroidering the whole time she was traveling—she showed me a map she’d made in thread and linen, of her first expedition.”

  So it’s my expedition now, Catherine thought with a rueful smile. Poor George must be having a fit, wherever he is.

  “We have a map,” Mr. Winlock exclaimed, eager to contribute. “Would you mind showing me the route you took, Lady Moth?”

  Catherine rose from the sofa and followed him over to the writing desk in the corner—he had to remove one of the larger doilies to open the lid—and waited while he flipped to the familiar outlines of the world, sliced up and flattened out for mortal comprehension. He asked all the right questions, and Catherine lost much of her reserve in the course of satisfying his earnest curiosity. For once it did not make her feel small to see two whole years of her life laid out in so many inches of latitude and longitude.

  She even felt comfortable telling him a little about the last, lonely voyage home after George’s death, and he nodded with the light of understanding in his eyes. “It’s much easier to leave the past behind when you can leave the place it happened in.”

  Laughter from across the room drew both their gazes for a moment; Lucy and Pris sharing some story about a mutual school friend. Their heads inclined toward one another, their faces alight with humor, one fair and one dark-haired.

  Catherine looked quickly back at her host, but Mr. Winlock’s eyes stayed fixed upon the two women. “I think that must have been one reason why Miss Muchelney left so suddenly after the wedding,” he said, to Catherine’s shock. “Pris felt terribly abandoned, and I did my best to comfort her, but if I’m being perfectly frank with you—and life would be so much easier if more people could be perfectly frank—it seemed like a very sensible decision on Miss Muchelney’s part. And now that she has met you in person at last, well, it seems very fateful indeed.” He turned to catch her glance, with a shy smile.

  Catherine stared and stared, but the steadiness of his regard never faltered. “You love your wife very much, Mr. Winlock,” she murmured.

  “More than my very life, Lady Moth.” For one moment something sad flashed in his eyes, stony and lost, but then his ebullience welled up again and his gaze grew more cheerful. “Miss Muchelney once told us you held a banquet at the Great Pyramid—is that true?”

  The event was not one of Catherine’s favorite memories—George had been querulous about wasting the eclipse, the weather had been mercilessly hot, and the guests unruly and demanding—but for Mr. Winlock’s sake she dressed up
the tale as best she could. He deserved better comfort than this, poor man, but it was all she could offer.

  How strange, Lucy thought, to watch history and the future overlap. Lyme was her past: her childhood, her schoolgirl loves, her early work under her father’s aegis. Catherine was her present and, Lucy devoutly hoped, her future—and yet here she was now, laughing on rocky beaches and looking anxiously at Lucy across the Winlocks’ parlor. Sleeping—among other activities—in Lucy’s old bed. Lucy had always been a rather lonely child, but all the old quiet places were filled now with Catherine’s warmth and affectionate presence.

  If she tried to count how many moments past and present were overlaid on one another in this much-compressed slice of geography, she feared she would grow dizzy and forget which moment was the real right now.

  As always, when Lucy felt at sea, she sought comfort and continuity in the stars. The penultimate night of their visit was finally clear enough for Lucy to invite Catherine up to the roof for a comet-sweeping demonstration. An hour past sunset, Lucy set paper and pencil on a desk she and Narayan had hauled up from Albert Muchelney’s study, and lit the lantern whose sides were thick red glass. “A threat to nobody’s night vision,” she said with some asperity.

  “How could Stephen get such a detail wrong?” Catherine complained, the mention of Stephen’s name putting her at her most haughty and countess-like. “Did he never assist you? Did he spend these nights cozy and warm and sleeping instead?” She scowled faintly and pulled her cap tighter down over her ears. The clear night had brought a chill with it, a cold steady wind blowing in off the sea and finding every place where a shawl was not wrapped tightly enough.

  Lucy took a deep breath of salt- and pine-scented air before she answered. “The second time Father asked him to help, he got distracted by the shape of the moon over the trees and lit a small candle so he could sketch it. Father lifted his head to call out a doubled star and looked straight into the flame—meaning the hours he’d spent letting his eyes adjust to the darkness were wasted. He was furious.”

  Catherine shook her head, starlight gleaming lightly on the curls peeking out around her ears. “But we haven’t been waiting for hours—our eyes won’t be sensitive enough, will they?”

  “Not perfectly acclimated, no. I just wanted to show you what it feels like to do this kind of work.” Lucy fussed a bit with the lantern, suddenly shy. “Unless you think it’s patronizing of me not to treat you as a serious astronomer . . .”

  Catherine snorted. “Hardly. I’m a rank amateur. You’re the famed genius now, remember?” Lucy’s fears dissolved like mist in moonlight, and she was glad the dim light would hide the blush on her cheeks. She turned instead to the telescope.

  Oh, how her heart had leaped when she’d climbed the spiral stairs to the roof and found that Stephen hadn’t gotten around to selling it! The brass case had needed cleaning, and the mirrors would need a more thorough polish to do precise scientific observations again, but right now the seven-foot mechanism was oiled and gleaming and ready for use. The eyepiece was mounted on the higher end, a tiny parallel tube slanting back toward the observer, and the great main tube was suspended in a wooden frame by ropes that let the end be raised and lowered by very precise degrees.

  The countess’s shorter height meant Lucy had had to drag a stepladder up from the kitchen, and now she held Catherine’s hand for balance as the smaller woman ascended the steps and fitted herself against the eyepiece. “Oh!” she exclaimed, a soft and wondrous sound. “Oh, I had no idea there would be so many . . .”

  Above them, the sky shimmered with stars, some scattered widely in the black and others clustering more thickly in a great glowing streak arcing from horizon to horizon.

  Lucy’s throat closed briefly. She’d never shared this with anyone, not since her father had died. “I’m going to let go now.” She gently dropped Catherine’s hand and stepped back toward the notebook and chair near the lantern. “We’re going to start at the tree line there, toward the south where it’s clearest. I’ve set you up in the right spot to begin. You’re going to call out what you see, and I’ll take notes. When you’ve called out everything you can clearly see, we adjust the telescope upward using the ropes, and start over again. At the end we compare it with the chart to see if we’ve seen anything new.”

  “As simple as that?”

  Lucy smiled evilly. “Precisely as simple as that.”

  Catherine returned to the telescope and began calling out the coordinates of stars and double stars and the fuzzy, cloudy nebulae. Lucy carefully noted their positions on the page. After ten minutes, Catherine had exhausted her spot of sky, and pulled away, blinking as her eyes adjusted to human distances again. Lucy showed her how to adjust the telescope’s angle—carefully, minutely—and the process began again. And again. And again, for a full half hour, as the telescope slowly swept from horizon to zenith.

  Lucy could have done the job in a third of the time, but that kind of speed came with practice and an intimate knowledge of the skies. At the end she called Catherine over and they opened up the star chart Lucy had brought up for the purpose—everything was already marked down there, aside from one single star that Catherine had seen, which was actually two small stars hovering close. “That’s new!” she exclaimed.

  “It would be,” Lucy said, “if Mr. Clark hadn’t discovered it last autumn. The paper appeared in Polite Philosophies, but the charts haven’t been reprinted yet.”

  Catherine made a sound of muted fury. “Then we did all that work for nothing?”

  “Not at all—you’re now one of a very few people who can confirm Mr. Clark’s observation as fact. A discovery isn’t something you make alone, not really—it always has to be confirmed by someone else, whether you’re doing an experiment or making an observation or building a new theory about how the universe works. Truth doesn’t belong to any one scholar: it requires all of us.”

  Catherine cocked her head, considering this. “So: We move the telescope back down, and start again a few degrees to one side?”

  “We could,” Lucy said, “or I could show you one of my favorite sights in the night sky.”

  It was quick work to turn the seven-foot telescope in its stand, and only slightly longer to point it toward the glittering object she knew so well. She adjusted the telescope so the brightest orb was in the center, stepped back, and watched as Catherine mounted the stepladder and put a curious eye to the eyepiece once again.

  The countess gasped and went taut as a bowstring. Lucy held her breath, but her heart was dancing in her breast. She knew what awaited Catherine’s eye: a round white disc, with distinct rings arcing around it. Tiny, and perfect, and impossible to comprehend: the planet Saturn.

  Catherine looked and looked, and when she raised her head and turned back to Lucy, her tears were obvious even in the soft red light of the night lantern. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she whispered, as though they stood in a great cathedral sanctuary and not on a cottage rooftop exposed to the wind. “It’s so real.”

  “And so very far away,” Lucy agreed. “The only things farther are the stars themselves.” She swallowed hard against her own surging sense of distance. “I grew up in this house, surrounded by woods. The ocean horizon used to be the farthest thing I could imagine. Then I looked into a telescope for the first time and there was this whole other world. Everything afterward has felt small by comparison.” She slanted a look at Catherine, as tenderness rushed through her. “Well, almost everything.”

  Catherine cast one glance upward, to where Saturn shone like any other speck of light, its rings hidden from the unassisted eye. Then she slid bold hands into Lucy’s hair, and kissed her. “Thank you,” she whispered. Her lips curved, deep and lushly crimson in the lantern light. “How should we spend the rest of the night?”

  Catherine felt Lucy tremble at the question. Brilliant, stubborn, delightfully lecherous Lucy, who’d taken such care with Catherine at every tu
rn.

  Well, now it was Catherine’s turn, and she was done with being careful.

  Maybe it was the darkness, that black expanse of sky broken only by the cold points of the stars. Or the yearning way the wind moaned in the forest that whispered around them. Maybe it was the vision of that distant planet, shining and pearl-like and perfect. So very different from the earth.

  Tonight, far away from the rest of the world, where only the stars could see them, anything felt possible.

  Catherine could be brave tonight. She could be bold. Not only for herself—but for Lucy, too.

  She pulled the cap from her head and ran smoothing hands over her hair. Lucy watched their motion with something like envy shining in her face.

  Perfect.

  Catherine set the cap aside and leaned close.

  “You’ve been giving me instructions all evening,” she purred against Lucy’s ear. “You’re going to continue instructing me. You’ll tell me where to touch, how fast, how slow, how long. When you want more.” She grazed her teeth oh-so-lightly against Lucy’s earlobe, wringing a breathy gasp from the astronomer’s throat. “And if I like the manner of your asking, I’ll do every—single—thing. Until you’re too well fucked to ask for anything else.”

  Lucy whimpered.

  Catherine’s smile widened. “Is that something you’d like?”

  Lucy nodded convulsively.

  Catherine tapped a finger against the side of Lucy’s throat. Just one finger, the tiniest rebuke, but the other woman’s pulse leaped beneath her touch.

  “Tell me what you want,” Catherine commanded.

  Lucy replied in a whisper: “You.”

  Catherine’s lips parted in a silent, joyous laugh.

  Lucy shook her head, her breath huffing out. She swallowed hard, and her chin lifted. “Kiss me.”