5. In Which Grace Attempts to Remain an Optimist

May 12, 1822

5 days to the opening

Grace dreamed of the orange tree in the entrance hall. Birds on every branch chirped in a code she could not decipher. The more frantically she tried, the taller the tree grew, till it burst through the ceiling, destroying the building.

She awoke sore and ill-rested . And, truth be told, worried.

No. Too soon to fret.

Out of respect for Charlie, Grace had endeavored to pack her least exuberant frocks—though even those were eye-catching . This morning she was glad she’d brought her grass-green day dress. It felt optimistic. And she needed a bit of optimism as she headed down to breakfast.

The professors were already at the table, discussing the day’s work. Grace was beginning to understand that this was how grief worked, especially under pressured circumstances such as the impending opening: everyone went about their business, eating, chatting, fretting over details, even joking. The rhythms of normalcy gave surprising solace. Occasionally, a shadow would pass over someone’s eyes, as they remembered the reason they were in this situation at all. But those moments passed quickly and without comment. As soon as possible, that person rejoined the conversation, the bustle of the group. There was a job to be done. And to do it, they needed to carry on.

Philip and Lord Spencer-Beckett both looked a bit green this morning as they attempted to counteract last night’s drink with a measure of solid nutrition. Spencer-Beckett winced at the sharp sound of Aunt Amelia’s voice as she debated with Professor Wallace about which play was Shakespeare’s worst.

Luke Ashburton was at the buffet table, selecting his breakfast.

Grace wished she’d realized that the monster would be here. But what would knowing in advance have done for her? She had no suit of armor to pack, nor a vial of poison to sprinkle over his kippers. There was no rehearsing for this sort of unpleasantness, and no trick to get around it. One simply had to continue with one’s day, whilst hating one’s nemesis so intensely it was a wonder one’s thoughts hadn’t set his curly hair afire.

Grace picked up a plate and approached with a serene gait. She felt him stiffen as she moved to stand beside him, and that, at least, gave her a scintilla of satisfaction.

“Good morning, Mr. Ashburton,” she said, keeping her tone bright.

He assessed her. His eyes moved from her hair to her dress, and though it all took no longer than a breath, he somehow managed to make her feel foolish.

“Good morning, Miss Chetwood,” he said, sounding bored. “One can always rely on you to wear something festive.”

Snob . “You may not be aware: one is allowed to dress in colors beyond gray. Or is this,” she let her eyes skate down, with a faux-sympathetic look, “your way of retaining a constant position of penance for all those little crawling things you murder?”

“Little crawling things,” he repeated, in a tone that could be the centerpiece of a symposium on condescension. “Yes, I suppose that is how you’d think of them.”

“ I will admit I prefer the company of higher species, but then, I am humble enough to imagine I might learn something i n conversing with others. Whereas you know everything .”

“Far from it, but I’ll allow I did know you enjoy a variety of company.”

His tone had a lightness, but she knew exactly what he was implying. Her face went scarlet. He walked away without so much as a final glance her way.

Face still glowing with ire, Grace approached the table ... and saw that the only available chair forced her to sit opposite Ashburton.

So far, Grace’s day seemed resistant to the idea of being tolerable.

Mercifully, the unendingly polite Professor Fitz turned to her, and she focused on him instead as he said, “Your aunt let us know felicitations are in order.”

For a moment, Grace had no idea what he was talking about. Then, realized he must be referring to her betrothal. “Ah, how kind.”

“Miss Chetwood has been beating back suitors for years,” Philip said. “I hope Lord St. George appreciates his profound good luck.”

Something was happening to Luke Ashburton’s face. Grace resisted the urge to stare. But she could feel some suppressed expression ben eath the surface as he stirred his coffee. “All the talk, I hear,” he said, drolly. “St. George’s luck.”

That the others at the table failed to hear the taunt in his voice boggled Grace’s mind. “Oh, we’re both up in the boughs,” Grace said, with all the gaiety she could muster.

“Mmm. And here I was certain he would not wed for some time.”

“Nothing will change a man’s plans more quickly than true love.” She did her utmost to beam.

Ashburton nodded, while his eyes said he did not believe it.

“I hear tell that our good wishes must soon extend also to Ash,” Professor Mangrove said, adding a ridiculous amount of sugar to his tea. Professor Wallace made a vaguely positive harumph.

Grace saw Ashburton startle. “Oh dear,” he said dryly. “The scandal sheets strike again.”

Philip gave a laugh. “Do I have the right of it, or shall I flog my spies for bad information? I’ve heard that to the disappointment of all others, you’ve been courting one Miss Cora Kendall Worthing?” He pronounced each syllable with relish. “Furthermore, that you are perilously close to clinching the deal?”

“Who is Cora Kendall Worthing and how did she seduce Ash into the foul bogs of matrimony?” Spencer-Beckett asked, brushing lank hair from his eyes.

“A diamond,” Philip said, and winked at Ashburton.

“Is that a reference to her beauty, or family coffers?” Spencer-Beckett asked.

Aunt Amelia clucked her tongue. “Manners do mist away in the morning air.”

“Men and their japes, Mrs. Wilmington,” Ashburton said, calm as ever. “No harm in it.”

“Ah,” Philip said, elbowing Spencer-Beckett . “So she’s very rich.”

The men at the table laughed, and Amelia pointedly directed her attention to the window.

Across the table, Ashburton met Grace’s eyes. His were stone blue, and told her nothing.

But ... did that not tell her something ? That he’d made a match—a good one, evidently—and was perilously close to proposing, yet reluctant to speak of it? There must be an Achilles heel in it somewhere.

“If Mr. Ashburton is pursuing marriage, he is hopeless deep in love.” All eyes turned to Grace. Ashburton, to her satisfaction, looked wary. “Mr. Ashburton holds in low regard those who seek to climb socially via marriage.”

“Isn’t that everyone?” Spencer-Beckett asked, fighting a yawn. “We are each of us above or below, are we not?”

“Unless you marry your own sister,” Philip said blandly, and Amelia cleared her throat.

“Nevertheless, Mr. Ashburton has strong feelings in this,” Grace said sweetly. “So one must conclude that Miss Worthing has stolen his heart.”

“Well, so long as she’s an intelligent thief, I am thrilled for him,” Philip said. “For the mediocre man, a stupid wife is necessary, to maintain his illusion of intellectual prowess. But a genuine thinker does best with a partner of the mind. To keep him sharp, keep him striving.”

Amelia made a short, positive noise, and the others murmured agreement—save Spencer-Beckett , who snorted that smart women weren’t worth the effort.

Suddenly, Grace was no longer hungry.

The sky threatened rain as Grace walked alone toward the library. Wishing she could put the phrase out of her head. A partner of the mind.

St. George and she would not, she suspected, have precisely that sort of partnership.

The d ay St. George proposed—could it really have been only days ago?—they sat together on a stone bench in the garden, and he fixed her with that outrageously winning smile.

“First, I ought to apologize for ... for my impropriety.” Grace managed to suppress a laugh at calling it mere “impropriety” to send a carriage to the back of her father’s property in the middle of the night so that she might slip away to be, as he’d whispered on the dance floor, kissed senseless. His eyes at that moment had very intriguingly added, and et cetera.

St. George’s tone now was awkward, halting. “And, of course, apologies for my brother. I had no idea he was in the house. One would think he could be trusted to keep a confidence, but he—” He’d begun to sound angry, realized it, and stopped speaking.

That had not been a lovely moment for Grace, lying on the floor of the parlor, feeling exposed and a bit sticky between the thighs, listening to her interrupted lover begging his brother not to reveal the indiscretion.

But it was all for the best. Or ... they could make it so. She could make it so.

“Perhaps it would be best if we spoke frankly,” Grace said.

He nodded, cautiously.

“In considering a future as your wife,” Grace continued, brightly, “I shall be pleased to devote myself to making a charming home, raising well-mannered children, and ensuring that we are the envy of all my husband’s friends.”

He seemed to like it—positioning them as co-conspirators . She risked a more probing look at him. “And I look forward to knowing better how to ...”

She didn’t know how to say it, but it seemed important to acknowledge that their brief lovemaking hadn’t blossomed from the bud. That he’d handled her so hurriedly that she’d rather lost the narrative thread. He’d behaved like a man with a pressing mental checklist. See breasts. Touch nipples. Call her “plump little angel.” Lave spittle over quim before shoving thin, pointy cock inside, then moan puzzlingly non sequitur endearments for the seven thrusts required to spill seed ... instants before being discovered by jealous and vindictive brother.

It had not, in other words, matched Grace’s expectation, much less her imagination.

She’d agreed to the rendezvous largely because after seasons of finding suitor after suitor inadequate and unexciting—perhaps because in playing the marriage market, the game itself had often held more fascination than its theoretical result—she and St. George seemed to be barreling toward betrothal. So she felt it only reasonable to test their compatibility. The thing itself had been bafflingly unexciting, and they’d scrambled apart before Grace had the chance to ascertain whether he could be improved with gentle direction. This was deeply concerning to her.

Well, she could do a bit of it now—make sure he was amenable to doing things more slowly the next time, with at least the amount of erotic build-up she offered herself in the bathtub.

“We were interrupted,” Grace said. “But please know that, in ... sensual matters, my intention is to learn how to ... ”

“Oh, no,” he said, cutting her off with a surprised, uncomfortable smile.

“But surely, with one’s wife—”

“How you were was perfect for a wife,” he said in an oddly cheerful tone.

“You need not spare my feelings, as I know I did not have quite the experience to—”

“You have no need of experience. You have beauty.”

“Yes, but ... that does fade. And—”

“You are perfect,” he said, to end the discussion. “These matters are beneath you. The point is the offspring, anyway.”

Oh God. He truly did not care if it ever got better than that .

Lovemaking isn’t everything, she reminded herself. We are to share our full lives.

“Tell me, what brings you joy?” He looked puzzled by the question. “My father reads widely within the sciences, for example. And my mother is a student of ancient languages. And you, are you interested in—in languages, or ... ”

She realized he was trying to summon a subject for which he felt a level of passion. “I enjoy horses,” he finally said.

“A h! Lovely!” She sounded shrill to her own ears.

“I do well at wagering. I’ve an eye,” he said, warming up to the subject. “And I enjoy making money. Never boring, that.”

“No, I imagine one must be very creative in business.”

He seemed bewildered by her choice of words. “One hires the right people.”

She hoped he might elaborate, but he only smiled, tightly.

“I myself have a great love of mathematics,” she said.

He blinked. “Well. That is handy. Though obviously I have a man for bookkeeping.”

“Oh, that is well, as I prefer the differential calculus.”

He seemed to be trying to formulate a question, but couldn’t come up with one.

“I find it soothing to work at problems,” Grace continued, when the awful silence began to stretch. “Some women draw, embroider ... I fuss about with numbers.”

“Well. We shall make sure you are provided with all the best ones.”

They both laughed at that. “Oh, I receive those from friends with whom I correspond.”

His brow cocked. “I had no idea so many females were enamored of maths.”

“I’m not certain many are. My correspondents are, in par t, male.” They were in whole male, but that suddenly felt unwise to admit. “A professor in Italy whose work centers on—”

“My wife correspondi ng with an Italian professor?” He coughed. “Any professor—any man. That will come to an imm ediate close. I’m surprised your father saw fit to allow it.”

My father treats the women in the family as though we each have a brain.

St. George, eager to change the subject, launched into a detailed description of his family’s homes, and the balls and dinners they might host at each.

Grace liked balls, and dinners. But she suddenly understood that frivolous evenings could not satisfy her in the absence of other interactions—deeper ones. She loved her life because it was a balanced whole. The modiste and mathematics. Scandal sheets and Shakespeare. Turning heads at a ball, and writing letters to professors who had no idea what she looked like.

What would her life be without that crucial other half? Would her brain rot like an apple on the ground, or like cheese, softening and oozing from her nostrils?

“Miss Chetwood,” St. George said, clearing his throat. “It wasn’t ideal, how this came to be. But no one need know. We can make a fine marriage. So. Shall we?”

Grace had always wondered if there would be a moment when she felt herself a mature woman like her mother and aunt. As it turned out, there was. This moment. Maturity was nothing more nor less than resignation.

“We must,” she said. “So ... we shall.”

Philip had brought a plush settee into the solarium so Aunt Amelia could read in the sunlight. Though the woman wasn’t terribly far away, Grace preferred having the library to herself. She worked steadily. She tried an Atbash Cipher, various Caesar Cipher iterations. She used the scrawled list of cities on the inside cover of the first journal to generate Vigenère and Porta keys.

When Philip approached her, she realized she hadn’t moved in two hours.

Philip scanned her pile of work, took in the expression on her face, and understood that it would be best not to ask her how the work was progressing.

“I had a thought,” Philip said, sitting. “Forgive me, as it may sound a touch crude to your ears. But it occurs to me that in solving this, you should not overlook the sensuous.”

For one cheek-scalding moment, Grace believed that he was telling her to go experience the sensuous, and before her mind had quite processed what that could mean, her imagination had traveled to the exhibition hall, to the curly-haired , arrogant-browed man bowed over some tiny specimen.

“Bexley was bawdy, if we’re truthful,” Philip continued. “He did enjoy a joke. You should have heard the way he talked about his orchids. They’re extremely anatomical, in a certain light. I mention it in case that could in some way be a clue.”

It could be—Charlie had once sent her a book of Mozart’s collected letters, and when she wrote to express surprise that the musical genius had a gleefully raunchy sense of humor, Charlie was delighted. Yes, that’s the whole point. All the best people are wicked.

“Thank you, I will think upon it,” she told Philip. He left her to her work.

Unfortunately, what her mind wanted to think upon first was that instantaneous leap it had made, in the direction of Luke bloody Ashburton.

Yes, she found his appearance—the height, the disobedient curls, the eyes—appealing. Or would , if he were not the spawn of a goat. As it was, she’d obviously prefer to lie on a bed of sharpened spikes than be in a room with the man.

As though specifically to argue with her, Luke walked through the library at that moment, stride long, one curl falling to his brow, carrying an armload of reference books.

And, of course, her heart tripped over its own feet and then stumbled into a trot.

Curse him.

“Good day, Miss Chetwood,” he said. Rather as though she was impertinent to cost him even this much precious energy.

“Good da y,” she said, with a sweetness calibrated to ring false.

His pace sped up as he exited.

You see? Nothing sensuous in it whatsoever, unless you consider my reasonable desire to see him drawn and quartered sensuous.

Whoever she was arguing with—Charlie, Philip, Ashburton himself—she knew how she sounded.

She sounded like she was trying to convince herself.