16. In Which Luke Has Need of the Iron Box

Luke did not understand how beautiful the Bexley Museum and Library was until the evening of the opening. It was the first time he’d seen it fully illuminated. The long walk from Bexley Hall was lit by torches all along the path. Flickering lanterns hung from the orange tree in the entrance hall. Inside, massive chandeliers were ablaze with candles for the first time.

The night was a blur once people started arriving. Thank goodness for Denton, buzzing from guest to guest, splitting host duties with the earl and his wife, who’d returned for the event. Lu ke felt as though he met the entirety of Europe’s aristocracy. Several dukes. At least two princes. Every entitled, titled Brit he’d ever sat beside in a lecture hall.

He knew they’d made the exhibition gasp-worthy . He’d followed Bexley’s plans as closely as possible. Lepidoptera and Coleoptera displayed all along the walls, Arachnida and Hymenoptera under glass on display tables, where one could lean over and peer closely at their mandibles and stingers. And in the center of the hall, a sort of obelisk reaching to the ceiling, entirely comprised of jars containing preserved snakes of every size and color.

Accompanying each specimen, in Mrs. Wilmington’s precise, flowing hand, a display card in the late earl’s own words, describing his encounter with the creature and details he observed. His prose was lush, poetic, wry. The effect was stunning in its scope and surprisingly personal. It truly did feel like the launch of an institution that could grow and flourish. And a memorial to a great man whose work had ended.

Luke stood in the corner, watching guests make their rounds, murmuring to each other, their eyes sparkling. He knew it was all a grand success. Though he felt as though he were watching from a thousand miles away.

Mr. Worthing, dapper, fastidious, arrived with his daughter Cora. She wore sky blue. It offset her pale skin and dark hair beautifully. Her cheeks were pink—she looked pleased to see Luke, and a bit nervous.

It always helped Luke to know his job. And his job in this moment was to set the lady at ease. He showed her and her father around, stopping to tell stories—the yellow banded krait won a simultaneous hiss of alarm from father and daughter—and to explain the quirks of various species. When their eyes met, he gave Cora a small, knowing smile, as if to say she had nothing to fret over.

As Luke walked with them to the library, Cora confirmed that she and her father had taken the opportunity to visit friends who lived an hour down the road from the Bexley estate, and would be staying with them for several days.

“Would you be amenable to my paying you a call while you are there, Miss Worthing?”

She looked away to hide her smile. “I would like that,” she said, with a glance to her father, who nodded, pleased.

The museum obviously impressed the man, who had been peppering Luke with questions about future travel. Bexley had been planning a voyage to the Americas, and Luke was hoping to see the trip through. Mr. Worthing asked the sort of questions a prospective sponsor would.

Luke thought he would feel excitement to know that the work could continue apace. But he did not feel much, beyond relief of the sort one felt when one feared failing a test, and saw signs that one might have just scraped through.

Luke noticed that when Cora’s father discussed science, a certain pleasant smile fixed to her face. If he had to guess, she was not particularly interested in the natural sciences. That was fine. They’d discussed, the day he visited her, that the idea of long travel did not appeal to her.

Reasonable, he’d thought at the time. One did not bring one’s wife to catch snakes in foreign lands. What wife would wish it?

I think I’m a bit jealous of the things you’ve seen, Grace had said, her eyes wistful. And will see.

Somehow, he could very clearly imagine Grace on a ship, excited for all of it.

Then he was irritated with himself. If you want to imagine her, be realistic. Imagine a ball. Imagine jewels and beaded silk slippers. Imagine her on the arm of that moron. Imagine bowing and calling her Viscountess.

Best not to think of her at all.

When he finally caught sight of Grace, she was in the solarium with her aunt and a duke and duchess, chatting animatedly. She wore a dress the color of malachite, comprised of translucent layers of silk. Lemon-yellow gloves. Tiny jewels sparkling in her upswept hair. She was giggling.

Luke pictured the iron box. He imagined shoveling into it all the ambivalence and desire and regret he felt when he looked at Grace Chetwood.

Tricky, because those emotions were not quite separate from others he’d have liked to hold onto. Pride, for accomplishing what they had with this opening. All the small joys of the work this past week.

And the wonder. The wonder of placing a hand on her skin. Of feeling a tremor run through her. The wonder of her face when she found the answer. It’s an equation, very simple, elegant ... The wonder of seeing her see him. And you learned precisely nothing, she’d said when he told her about falling out of the tree, and every part of him could feel that she understood what his work meant to him. That she understood him.

All of these feelings were hitched to everything that troubled him, a chain, a web. If he didn’t want to feel the worst, he couldn’t feel any of it.

So be it.

He was glad he was watching it all from behind impenetrable glass when, at that moment, Grace spotted them and made her way over.

Luke turned to Cora. “Here is the heroine of our story—the mathematician who broke Bexley’s cipher.”

Cora was intrigued by Grace—Luke had forgotten that the woman hardly looked like one’s mental image of a mathematician, her red hair full of stars, her low-cut gown, her eyes wide and enthusiastic as a girl’s.

Grace and Cora made conversation. Luke found it impossible to focus on the words. They seemed to like each other. And then, graciously, with eyes that said she approved of Cora, Grace took her leave and moved on.

As the event began to wind down, Luke saw Cora and Mr. Worthing to their carriage. Cora’s father seemed more impressed with him that ever. And Cora shyly said she very much looked forward to seeing him when he came to call. Tomorrow, perhaps?

Tomorrow.

He should think of the right words. Rehearse them ahead. He wanted to propose artfully, in a way that pleased Cora. Conveyed his respect for her.

Well. Insomuch as it was possible to respect a lady while simultaneously trying not to recall lifting another’s soft hips in both hands to bring her sweet cunt to his mouth.

It would have to do, he decided ruefully. Blessedly, wives could not see inside their husband’s heads.

The hour was late. The guests who remained—Bexley’s friends and close associates—made their way down the path from the museum and gathered in the blue parlor of Bexley Hall. A wake of sorts had begun. Drink flowed, memories were shared, everyone fond and sentimental and on their way to foxed. Even Mrs. Wilmington was misty and friendly, standing with the earl and his wife.

When Luke entered, they cheered, and a round of toasts was made to him. Unflagging. Relentlessly composed. Preternatural focus. Not a bad bloke, if one overlooks the snooty face.

Then, Denton was making a speech about Bexley, and everyone was drinking and laughing and wiping their eyes.

Grace stood behind the others, watching Denton with a faraway, conflicted look.

God, but Luke wanted to go to her.

Throwing that urge in the iron box left him so numb, he felt rather like a ghost.

He stood for a few minutes, watching the group. The sense of distance was so strong that it took him a moment to realize Grace was now standing beside him.

“Ashburton,” she smiled, stepping back as two guests walked past. Then she leaned toward him and murmured, “I’ve made a discovery. It’s to do with the late earl, and I cannot help but think he would want me to show you.” She gazed at the crowd as she spoke. “I shall bid all a good evening. You could join me at the museum, although I understand if you’d prefer to leave me to it, of course. I don’t believe it will require much time, nor for us to stand all that near one another. Goodnight.”

And with that, she went to Denton and her aunt, to let them know she was heading to bed.

The museum stood empty as Luke approached. Candles in the sconces burned low. Grace was waiting under the orange tree, holding a lamp. She stepped forward immediately when she saw him.

“Good,” she said, and was in the act of turning to lead him inside when something caused her to pause and look at him again.

He met her gaze. One positive effect of having one’s entire heart locked away was that this was possible. Meeting the gaze of the woman who would otherwise be holding the thing in her hand.

Her eyes probed him, growing uncertain. “Are you ... are you well?”

“Quite,” he said, easily enough.

She hesitated, but seemed not to know what to say. So she turned and walked into the building. He followed.

She was walking fast through the empty library, almost running. She paused in the center of the room, squinting up at the domed ceiling, seeming to look for something.

She found whatever mark she was looking for—her eyes on a figure of Apollo, his index finger pointing down. Now her eyes moved in the direction he indicated—to a certain book case. She hurried to it, then bent to scan the titles on the spines.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing, Chetwood, or—”

“Sssh,” she said.

And then she found the one she was searching for. She tipped the spine, to pull it out— and with a click, the edge of the bookcase pulled away. Revealing itself to be a door.

She gave a squeal of delight, and turned to him. “Can you even imagine that the earl would build a library and not make a secret passage? Come.”

She pulled the door open, revealing a hallway—just wide enough to accommodate the span of Luke’s shoulders. “Close it behind you,” she told him, and started down the hall.