14. In Which Grace Visits the Butterflies

May 17, 1822

Day of the opening

Grace woke before sunrise. She sat up in the dark and thought of how in not much longer than twenty-four hours, she would be in a carriage bound for home. Not long after that, she would be a bride.

Grace wondered when she would see Luke again. She imagined some ball or dinner, some symposium or future gala at the museum. Luke and his lovely wife. Grace and her charming husband. They’d exchange the sort of talk people did in such a circumstance. Polite. Friendly. About nothing.

Grace imagined Luke now, asleep in his bed. Then amended it; he would not be able to sleep either. And then she recalled chatter at the breakfast table. Philip asking about the butterfly vivarium, because Luke visited it each day at dawn.

It was still dark when Grace walked across the grass toward the vivarium, pulling her pelisse tight against the chill, her hem and half-boots soaking in dew.

The vivarium was a glass box filled with green, sitting beside the greenhouse like its tiny, whimsical sister. She entered the door to the antechamber designed to keep winged denizens from escaping when human visitors entered the space. She pulled it shut quietly, then moved to the second door—glass, fogged at the bottom with heat condensation. Through it, she could see into the room. A sea of plants, some overflowing the large pots on the floor, some on tables.

Luke sat on the floor, a small lamp nearby, surrounded by the green. His back straight, legs crossed, a journal balanced on his knee, writing. He radiated an introspective calm. The air around him was alive with tiny flits of color. Easily a dozen butterflies had landed on him, knees, shoulders, chest, flexing wings in the damp curls of his hair. When he paused to think, one alighted on the tip of his quill.

The vivarium was kept hot and humid, so it was not strange that he wore only trousers. His boots stood beside him in a neat pair, jacket and shirt folded atop them. He was sheened with sweat. Beads of it glistened on his upper lip. A drop rolled down his bare chest, into its scattering of dark hair.

Charlie had written to Grace that butterflies liked sweat, for its nutrition. A perfect symbiosis. They feed my spirit, I feed their flesh. He never shied away from talking about the human body. We are intelligent animals, true, and we like to embarrass ourselves with our corporeality. But we cannot make sense to ourselves without acknowledging that salt water emanates from us, that our bellies want food, that our hearts yearn in much the way a lost wolf howls for its pack.

Sitting there, writing, sweating, providing a perch for so many winged things, Luke looked like exactly what he was: man, animal, both at once.

Under clothing, his form seemed rangy and spare, even gaunt from certain angles. Now, his body was revealed to be perfectly built to purpose. Skin that glowed from sun over precisely-etched muscle over the elegant architecture of his chest. Broad shoulders radiated capability, ease. Well-honed strength, and nothing extra.

The partial nudity revealed clues of past adventures. A faded, stitched line on his forearm—battle scar from the tree at seven years old, perhaps. Scattering of pocks across one shoulder—souvenirs of stinging insects. A raised, knotty X on his ankle—slashed to bleed out venom from the yellow banded krait bite.

And she saw other secrets that had been hidden under his clothes. A thin, oxidized silver chain hung to his solar plexus, dangling a few tiny objects. A pointillist black symbol that looked to have originated far from England was tattooed into the skin half-exposed at his hip above the line of his trousers.

She gripped the door handle and, before she lost her nerve, pushed it open.

He heard, and looked up.

His gaze was calm when it met hers. But grew guarded as she walked to him. She stopped when she reached him—not too close.

He set down his journal. His voice was even. “You ought not to be here, Miss Chetwood.”

“Oh, I’m already ruined,” she said, but saw immediately that he did not care for the joke. “Don’t fret, everyone is fast asleep,” she said. “But I could not.” She gazed around the vivarium. “Hot as I remember it.” Impatiently, she pulled off her pelisse, and he registered that she was wearing only her night rail.

“Grace,” he said, a warning.

She knelt beside him, and butterflies scattered.

She reached a hand toward his chest, and he flinched.

“Luke,” she said. “I am well aware that you do not wish me to touch you, and I will not.”

Instead, she lifted the chain, to examine the objects hanging from it. A small, clear glass bead holding flecks of every color. A silver tube, filigreed, containing some scrap of paper, a blessing, perhaps, or a prayer. A curvy bit of brass that, up close, she saw was in the form of a woman. A tiny goddess.

“Talismans?” she asked. She could see his breath moving his damp belly, a little quick, troubled.

“Gifts,” he said. “Things collected along the way.”

She nodded. “That aligns better with my sense of you. I don’t imagine you superstitious.”

“Well. I wore them and survived. So perhaps I’m wrong.”

“I think I’m a bit jealous,” she admitted, tracing the brass with her thumb. “All the worlds you’ve seen. And will see.”

Gently, he pulled the chain, lifting it out of her hand, and let it drop to his chest. “Why are you here?” Again, that note of warning. And a plea in it. Don’t make this difficult.

“I happened to walk past.” He gave her a chiding look. She shrugged a half-apology . Then, she answered. “I think it unlikely we will speak again, after today.”

He looked like he wished to argue, but couldn’t. He knew what she meant— truly speak.

“I could hardly tell you when it happened,” she mused. “When, in the spaces between swinging battle-axes , you and I began to converse. As friends do.”

His expression was wry. “No one was more surprised than I.”

“I shall miss it.”

“Yes,” he said, quietly.

“I wanted to seize our last opportunity, I suppose.” She watched him snatch up his shirt. “Oh, please don’t bother, it’s boiling in here. I’ll go in less than a moment.”

Seeming to accept that, he instead used the shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, then dropped it beside his boots.

As he did, a small yellow butterfly alighted on the hem of Grace’s rail. “Papillio brigitta,” Luke murmured. “Common grass yellow.”

She felt a rush of pleasure. “Oh! The earl wrote to me about it. So this is what it looks like. Do you suppose he was sitting where you are as he penned the letter?”

Luke nodded. “I saw him here many times. Including the day I made his acquaintance. Did not expect to meet an earl in shirtsleeves on the ground, perspiring and covered in Lepidoptera. But in retrospect, quite mundane for him.”

“How old were you?”

“Eleven.”

Grace tried to imagine it. The idea of Luke small was almost unbearably charming.

“I’d read all of his books,” Luke said. “I was exhilarated to meet the man. Packed my things a full month in advance. Giddy.” He paused a moment, seeming to weigh whether to continue. When he did, he was quieter. “And, the week before I traveled, my younger brother John drowned in the lake. So I came to Bexley quite lost.”

“Oh,” she said, taken aback. “I am very sorry to hear it.”

He glanced down to see that a large butterfly, velvet black with cream spots, had landed on the joint of his thumb. Very slowly, he brought the hand up, so that they both could admire the creature. “Checkered swallowtail. Beautiful ambassador of the species, this fellow. Uncommon wing span.”

He turned his hand, so she could better see it. “Coming here, at that moment, set the course of my life,” Luke said, eyes on the swallowtail. “One is exhorted to lean on God, in grief. But it felt empty. Like being told to pray to a door that may lead to an empty room. No one could open it, show me any evidence. Believe me, I asked.”

“You were already thinking as a scientist thinks.”

“Largely, I was angry for my mother. Criminal to hand platitudes to a woman whose child has died. So I was not a particularly pleasant lad when I was handed up to Bexley. In a full-blown rage, really.” One corner of his mouth lifted, rueful. “He did not try to make me feel better. He simply put me on a boat with him, and we went into the field.”

Grace’s eyes welled. Seeing it, Luke tilted his head in gentle question. “Only imagining it,” she said. “You, so young, trying to understand, and no one helping you.”

“Oh, but Bexley did. He gave me exactly what I needed.” His expression did not change, but somehow, his eyes did. Lit from within. “In nature, the door will open, if one observes patiently.”

There he was.

Luke .

No barricades. The shift was so subtle, but everywhere she once saw reserve, she now saw only wonder.

Luke gently waved his hand, and the swallowtail lifted from him and flew away. He watched it go. “We don’t curse God when a bird eats a fish, after all. We see the circle of it. That’s what the world is. Each thing affects the next. I feel ... ” he exhaled, and his voice was reverent. “I feel I understand what we are when I allow myself to be part of the natural world. And I can see John’s death, not inexplicable, or fated, or even tragic, but an intrinsic part of the whole.”

“That is ... remarkable.” She did not know what else to say, to touch the depth of it.

But he did seem to hear in her tone that she understood. Something in his face twitched, then resolved. A certain yearning. Then he was level again. “Far too vast, of course, for creatures of our feeble stature to see all at once. Impossible even to try.”

“And yet you devote your life to defining it, bit by bit.”

“I think it’s useful,” he said, simply.

She wanted to touch him so badly, then. A rivulet of sweat was working its way from his forehead, over his cheek, and she wanted to catch it in her palm, and hold it. One drop of him.

But listening to him now, it was also very clear why she wouldn’t. Why she shouldn’t.

“In my opinion, you really must marry Cora Worthing,” Grace said.

He raised his brow, surprised.

“It will allow your work to continue?”

He nodded.

“So you must. Things are as they are. You must marry her. I must marry St. George.”

He made a disgusted sound. “St. George does not deserve you.”

“But he did ruin me. And that is the pertinent consideration.”

He fixed her with a thoughtful, sympathetic look. “Are you ... ”

“With child?” She shrugged. “There is the possibility.”

He blew out air, shook his head. “Does not deserve you,” he repeated.

“My only point was to say ... Marry her, and go on defining the world, wing by wing. Because that is meaningful to the whole.” She almost left it there. But why not say it all? “And never mind the whole, Luke, the work makes you happy. And ... I would see you happy. I will feel less ... I shall be gladder, to know that you are.”

He looked taken aback, almost bewildered. He dragged his hand through his hair. “I want you to know,” he said, “that I am certain I will still be dreaming of kissing you on my deathbed.”

The regret of it was a spike in her chest. Her lungs were doing their best to breathe around it. How was he so contemplative, so measured about it all?

Because it is different for him . He felt the pull between them and knew it was nature, knew they were animals drawn by biological impulses beyond rational control.

She felt it and only knew she was falling in love with him.

And so, when she said what she said next, there was a certain small malice in it. She wanted to make it just a bit harder for him. Because it was so hard for her.

“I do think you ought to let me kiss you once,” she said. “To supply you with something upon which to base the fever dreams.”

He stiffened. “Grace ... ”

“You can trust me. One. And I will go. Before either of us gets carried away.”

He looked conflicted. His eyes went to her mouth, and then he caught himself, looked back to her eyes. Something pleading in gaze, now. “One,” he said, as though he knew he should say no, but could not bring himself to do it.

She came up on her knees, moved toward him. He was holding himself motionless, watching her approach the way he might observe a particularly lovely, venomous snake.

She stopped in front of him. Her night rail brushing his crossed legs. She placed her hands on his bare, damp shoulders.

He did not move. His hands remained resting on his knees.

She leaned closer, and was assaulted by the scent of him—warm sweat and clean, spicy sandalwood, and the scent of his skin, of his hair. Every part of her wanted to leap toward it.

But she was determined to be deliberate.

One .

She regarded his mouth. Considering how to begin. She would take her time. Just a brush, at first. Soft, languid, then deep.

He waited. Motionless, his breathing hesitant, half-held . Anticipating.

She tilted her head, preparing to close the distance.

Suddenly, he grabbed a fistful of her hair, and, with a hiss of broken self-control , pulled her mouth hard onto his. Shattering her well-laid plan.

His mouth opened, hot, and his tongue parted her lips. He gripped her by the waist and yanked her into his lap, and now she was full against him. Straddling him.

They’d skipped over all sweetness, plunged directly into the need. His tongue twining with hers, wet and silken, spira mirabilis , sending sensation through her in glowing, swelling rivers. His hand slid to her arse and pulled her tighter against his body, so that she could feel his hard length pressing into her through the fabric of his trousers.

And she realized her hands were everywhere, his back, his chest, his neck. And she was moving against him now, grinding into him—surely, she was hurting him, but he only dug his fingers into her flesh, demanding she continue, demanding harder, more .

Dimly, she was aware that her rail was sticking to her skin, wet with his sweat and now hers, abrading her nipples, clinging to her belly. His hand found the neck of the garment and pushed it down over one shoulder, slipped inside, and when he felt her breast he made a sound in his throat, as though it was more than he could endure. He took the kiss deeper as he cupped her, held the weight. He rolled the nipple between thumb and forefinger, and she moaned.

She wanted to devour him. She wanted him to swallow her. She wanted to press into him so hard they merged. One .

He dragged his mouth from hers, gasping. “Grace ... ” And then with an urgent groan he was kissing her again, making her whimper, moving under her hips, more, this, more . “Grace,” he growled, desperate. “Christ. I can’t—” His hand was under her rail, roughly palming her cunt, and all the glowing rivers were overflowing their banks. “ Tell me to stop, ” he begged on a whisper, plunging two fingers inside her. “Right now. Tell me to stop or tell me to take you.”

It was all she wanted. Right now , on this floor, in a haze of heat and butterflies. All of him burning and rough and wet and greedy. Yes.

She’d promised— one— but stopping was out of the question. They needed this. It was their final chance. Why would they stop?

Because she’d told him trust me.

She pulled in a harsh breath and tore away from him.

Clumsily, she dragged herself from his lap, moved several lengths away, to sit on the floor.

She was panting. She smoothed down her night rail with shaking hands. Her womb was liquid. Her blood was a forest fire. Her mind was almost terrifyingly blank—nothing but him . Him. Go back to him. Go home to him.

“Jesus Christ .” He sounded stunned. He sounded like a man who’d narrowly escaped falling off a cliff.

Finally, she met his eyes. They were burning. Every muscle of his chest and arms was tensed. He forced a slow exhale. Demanding his body calm itself.

“That may have been a bad idea,” Grace said.

“Oh, it was.” He still hadn’t moved. Seated on the floor, almost exactly as he was when she first walked into the room. He was looking at her so intently that she imagined he could see through her rail, through her skin, to the heart skittering recklessly, the incandescent, needy bones.

“Grace,” he said, gentle even as his eyes locked on hers in a sharp warning. “You need to go.”

With effort, she reached for her pelisse. Got to her feet, by some miracle.

He never took his eyes from her. He never moved.

“I...” Anything she could say seemed abjectly ridiculous.

“I shall see you back at Bexley Hall,” he said. His voice remarkably level, even kind. As if he was saying it’s all right. All will be well. All is well.

But his eyes were unchanged. Ravenous.

She nodded dumbly. And left.