Chapter 4

4

Lily's heart pounded as she surveyed the village of Wedgeford. From this high up the downs, she could see the road into Wedgeford—a white strip cut through grass and trees—descending the other side of the valley. Wedgeford lay below at the confluence of a river and a creek, both swollen with late winter rain.

She'd lived here her entire life, up until the moment when?—

The door in front of her creaked open to reveal an older man. He was strong and wiry; he had a limp when he walked. His skin was a golden brown, almost the color of hers, but more leathery.

He had more lines in his eyes and more white in his hair than she remembered, and he looked at her for a moment with wide eyes.

At one point, he had been the mainstay of her life: the pillar upon which her every expectation was formed. He'd helped her become the person she was. He had been her closest friend, her confidant.

Then he'd rejected her.

What was he going to say now? Would he welcome her or tell her to leave? Was he going to pretend everything was well between them, or make a fuss?

His nostrils flared and his brows drew down. Oh, dear. He was going to be unreasonable.

He bowed to her. "Good day, young lady," he said with excessive formality. "Are you new to Wedgeford? I'm Bei Wing. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Of course he would make a joke of this moment. Lily felt her lips compress. "Very amusing, grandfather. You're hilarious."

"How strange," he mused. "If my granddaughter were returning to me, I would assume she would write to me herself. Instead, just yesterday I had notification from my wives that someone was coming to Wedgeford. A granddaughter. I assumed it must be one of the ones I have not met."

Lily had come to him sobbing after her meeting with the suffragists, and he'd muttered to himself about how this was no longer his purview; he knew nothing about teaching women proper behavior. Obviously someone else was needed.

Within twenty-four hours, he'd found a woman returning to the part of the world that Lily had never known. Before she could understand what was happening, her grandfather had packed her up like so much refuse and shipped her to her grandmothers in Hong Kong. It had been such a pointless expulsion, too; it was not as if the suffragists had wanted Lily.

"You're right," she told him. "I'm not the same girl who was sent to be married off."

"Married off." He huffed. "That wasn't the half of my intent!"

"Oh, I know." He'd realized, too late, that Lily was irretrievably broken, and he'd thrown up his hands and hoped someone else could fix her. "Unfortunately, any other lessons I was supposed to have learned didn't take." It was something of an irony. She'd been sent to her grandmothers, presumably so they could civilize her for matrimony. Instead, her grandmothers had helped her find employment in the print shop where her cousins worked, and Lily had her eyes opened to the naivety of the British suffragists she'd once idealized.

Not that Lily's beliefs had changed. But demanding female suffrage in England was very different from doing so in Hong Kong. Understanding more of the political dominion which shaped her world hadn't made Lily less radical. Her grandfather's mission had failed.

Her grandfather looked defeated. "I did not realize you would be arriving so soon. I didn't even have time to set up your curtain." He gestured to the home behind her.

That was how they'd lived, after Lily's parents died of cholera. Lily had come to Wedgeford with her parents. She was too young to remember China; her first memories were here, running on the village green, playing in the River Wedge.

After the epidemic ran through the population, Lily and her grandfather had left the larger house in the main village with all its memories and had come up to this cottage on the edge of Wedgeford. He'd set up a curtain to divide some space off the main room for her. It had been cozy.

How he could imagine they could go back to that—to the two of them living next to each other, when he wanted nothing to do with her—Lily could not imagine.

"Ah Gung, about that…"

"And since we are speaking of marriages." He nodded as if to himself. "You know that Andy isn't married yet, right? I'll talk to him about you."

"Absolutely not!" No wonder he was offering the curtain. He was already planning on ridding himself of her.

"But you like him. I should have arranged it earlier."

"What are you talking about?" Lily felt appalled. "If he wanted to be married to me, he would have said something. Literally anything. At any point in our relationship." For instance, that time they had slept with one another. "He never has."

Her ah gung just patted her hand. "You'll see. I'll talk to his mother, and?—"

"Please don't."

"And we'll work something out. He's a good man, and his mother and aunt would never let him beat you."

What a horrific standard. Lily stared at him in dismay, trying to put words to everything she couldn't say. She hadn't come to Wedgeford to get married. She'd come here with a plan: to take the collection of poetry translations that the Brothers Tallant had refused to print in Hong Kong and to publish them as they deserved. (And oh, how that had rankled, given what they normally printed.) Lily yearned to make her mark on the world, and if she'd learned anything over the years, it was that there was a big, empty spot where her mark was direly needed.

Years ago, Lily had attended a meeting of suffragists in Dover as a fresh-faced, bright-eyed fifteen-year-old child. She'd been reading pamphlets and journals of theory. She'd been excited about joining a movement of women all dedicated to the same cause: equal rights.

Lily knew that she was worth at least as much as a man, and she couldn't wait for men to figure it out.

But nobody had spoken to her at the meeting, and she'd tried to start conversations.

These were suffragists. They weren't supposed to look at Lily as if she were a mouse found drowned in their soup when she blurted out her deep admiration for the philosophy of Wollstonecraft. And yet that was how she felt: as if they were high-minded women seeking rights, and she mere vermin, skulking about their feet in search of crumbs.

She had initially attributed it to the fact that Lily was awful at conversation. The noise of a large crowd, some thirty-something women gathered together, all speaking at once, had been overwhelming. Lily had never been good at meeting people. All that little conversation—exchanging names and the like—left her confused and tapping her foot. Why did they have to engage in any of that, when they were all here for a cause? In desperation, she'd gone up to a pair of women, sat next to them, and started with what she assumed would be a topic they could all agree on: their mutual love of the Women's Suffrage Journal . Her outburst was met with raised eyebrows, turned heads, and polite coughs.

Lily was used to being too much, too often. She'd hoped, though—from the sound of the papers, she'd believed—that among suffragists, the rough edges of her personality would be seen as something of an advantage. Were they not here to challenge the very structure of society? Would they not welcome her enthusiasm?

The ladies had looked past her as if she were not present and then stood up, moving three rows over without once making eye contact. At the close of the meeting, a woman with red ringlets and a sharp nose, a few years older than Lily, had come up to her and explained in the kindest manner that she wasn't welcome.

"It's all well and good for us to ask for the right to vote," she'd explained, giving Lily's hand a friendly squeeze, "but if you are with us, it will befoul our cause. Your presence implies that if we are granted rights, yours will follow. Where would it end?" She'd given Lily a kind, apologetic smile. "Home rule? Rebellion? It could be the end of everything we hold dear. I hope you see that under those circumstances, they'd never let us have suffrage."

Lily had sat in place, her love for equal rights freezing in her throat.

Those words had stuck with her ever since. The likes of you will befoul our cause. The image of that sharp-nosed woman had been seared into her consciousness—the look in her eyes, the kindness of her touch, the gentle tone she'd used to explain to Lily that actually, Lily was deeply unworthy.

Lily had pondered that exchange for years. She'd thought about it when she joined the Hong Kong Aid Society. Their work had been, in some ways simpler: with the question of voting entirely off the table, they could simply provide the things that people needed.

What was Lily to do, in a world where two groups both yearned for the same thing—the right to determine their own destinies, the right to be treated as equal—and yet they refused to work together to demand their rights?

Poetry had been her solution, such as it was.

"If not Andrew," her grandfather was saying, "perhaps we can find you a young man from London. It's far past time for you to marry. I hear there are a few?—"

"Please, grandfather." Lily had to interrupt this before it went too far. "There is nothing I want less than for you to assign me to a husband."

His forehead wrinkled. "Then what should I do for my granddaughter?"

"Nothing," Lily replied. "I will see to myself." She straightened to her full height. Gaining a quarter of an inch really didn't make her any more impressive, she knew, but it did help with her determination. "I have purchased a printing press, and I intend to make my own living."

He stared at her.

"In fact," Lily said, "you've already done enough for me. Raising me and, ah, sending funds to provide for my future."

"When did I do that?" he demanded.

"The letter?" Her voice felt small. "The money you sent? I received it shortly before I left." She'd been so sure that it was a message of some kind; his way of saying, I miss you, Lily, or maybe, come back to Wedgeford, Lily. For what other reason would he send her an enormous sum equal to passage halfway round the world?

"No, no." He rolled his eyes. "That wasn't from me! You don't remember this, maybe, because you were so young. But there was a man here when you were three or so? He had a scheme to make pottery."

She shook her head. She truly did not remember.

"We all invested," he told her. "You, too. You gave him your penny."

"I did?"

"Many years later, the investment came to fruition. I was returning your portion of the investment. Nothing else."

Lily swallowed. "Oh." There she went again, jumping to conclusions about what people thought, and getting it wrong once again. So much for his message. "Well." She looked up at him hopefully. "But still, I'm here. I can assist you."

"Assist me?" He cackled. "Like I'm an old man? Nonsense. I'm your grandfather. When I'm old and ready to rest, of course you can help. But until then, I still have my duty to you. Now, come in. I'll help you set up the curtain." He turned and went back into the house.

Lily caught the door. "Ah Gung, wait."

"Wait for what?" he demanded. "Come on in. I've been letting all the warm air out for long enough."

"Ah Gung, I'm not staying with you."

He stared at her, all expression sliding from his face.

"I've already spoken with Letta Grimsley. She's agreed to split our old house. I'll need a space in the village center if I'm to manage a printing press, and a shed large enough to work in."

"Work? A printing press?"

"Beside all that, I wouldn't want to be…"

The lines around his frown deepened into wide troughs.

Lily faltered. The truth was, she didn't want to befoul him, either, when he'd made his opinion of suffragists known. There were some conversations they were better off not having and living in close quarters led to arguments. "I wouldn't want to be a burden," she finished.

Her grandfather made no response to that, but his face took on the look of storm clouds—dark and foreboding. As if he had not helped shape the person she was, encouraging her to learn to manage his oxen and cart, teaching her to hunt and fish and work the soil. It was pride, she knew; like any man, he'd wanted a son to carry on his name, and he'd had Lily instead. It was only once she'd begun to grow older that he'd suddenly realized that he needed to get her married.

"Good," he finally said in a gruff tone, looking off over the village. "Who wants to be bothered by his own grandchild? Not Bei Wing, that's for sure. More leisure time." He nodded to himself. "I have a new partner for Go anyway. What do I need you for?"

They'd been so close, and once upon a time, his words might have stung. But Lily had taken years to adjust to the fact that she'd discovered who she was and what she wanted to do in the world, and her grandfather had hated the person she became. Now, it scarcely ached to hear his words.

"We'll see each other," she promised. "I did promise my grandmothers that I would take care of you." It would be something, after all.

He huffed. "Who needs that? Why would they even care?"

But he didn't say no.

Lily's next few hours were filled with toil and sweat. Andrew came over to tell her it was time to move the furniture, and he brought friends: his cousin Naomi's husband, Liu Ji Kai, and Jeremy, the Duke of Wentworth himself.

"Your Grace," Lily stammered when she saw him. "You can't?—"

"We've known each other for an age," the Duke of Lansing interrupted. "Jeremy will do."

"You don't stand on ceremony?"

"No," Andrew put in with a grin. "He prefers to stomp it into the earth and leave it for dead."

"That." Jeremy nodded. "That's what I do."

They worked quickly between the four of them, traipsing over to the home where Chloe had lived before she married and moving furniture with a cheery efficiency, with jokes exchanged between them that indicated a camaraderie that Lily had never been a part of. Lily was left to trail behind them, carrying empty drawers, unsure how to join in the merriment.

That was how it had always felt to her: when other people conversed, there was a secret to what they were saying, a hidden pattern to the rapidity of the back and forth that she'd never mastered. Any time she tried, she would somehow, stupidly, awkwardly say the wrong thing and everyone would stare at her. Conversation was a game where everyone else knew the rules, and Lily always lost.

It was better to keep her mouth shut.

Almost always. The only time she didn't feel like she was losing was with Andrew. He never laughed at her in an unkind way. He did look as if he didn't understand what she meant, but he usually asked "what do you mean?" and listened to her response. It had never felt as if he was cat-and-mousing her into oblivion.

The afternoon helped connect her memories of lanky, too-skinny Andrew with the man in front of her. He lifted the wardrobe with the shelves still in it, and the only reason he didn't carry it entirely by himself was that it was too awkwardly large to maneuver on his own.

When Jeremy could barely lift the other end, Andrew simply moved the wooden shelves inside the wardrobe to his side, and made jokes the entire way back to Lily's while the other man had been puffing and blowing.

Perhaps that was why today she did well at conversation. Andrew asked her basic questions—where she wanted the furniture placed—and made sure to explain to her in asides what they were referring to when they referenced things that had happened in her absence.

After an hour of labor, the dresser and wardrobe were firmly ensconced in the back room of her childhood home. She thanked everyone and saw them out. She didn't say anything ridiculous. And then, when Andrew was about to leave with everyone else, she caught him by the elbow.

"We should speak," she told him, pulling him back into the house. "About the log and what to do with it?"

"Mrs. Grimsley isn't here," Andrew said slowly.

"So? Isn't that better?"

They stared at one another. She could feel the moment stretching. There was something about the way he looked at her that made her feel strange, as if she were standing on shifting sands. As if something might rise up from them and swallow her whole.

Andrew looked away first. "People will talk if we're alone in a home together."

"Oh." She felt herself blush. "Why? We've known each other for ages. We wouldn't do anything."

His eyebrow raised in disbelief. Oh. Right. Technically, they had. Years ago, they had been alone together in this very cottage. It had been empty at the time; they had snuck in furtively. And they had done things.

The exertion of moving drawers had heated her. Probably he would not notice the incredible flush that felt like it swept over her from head to toe.

"Let's sit out back," she said. "I have some barley tea cooled down."

So it was that they sat on the rock out back between the cottage and the shed.

"So," Andrew said, once they were seated and looking at the early dandelion greens poking around the edge of the rock. "I've been curious about your plans for the printing press. What will you be printing?"

This was why she liked Andrew: he never made her feel uncomfortable or left her hunting for things that might be an appropriate topic of conversation.

"My cousins worked in a printer's shop in Hong Kong." Lily looked upward. "My grandmothers helped me find employment there as well."

"Really!" He leaned forward. "None of your letters mentioned that. So, you learned to bind books and work a press? How did that come about? Did you have to wheedle? What kind of books?"

"I did not have to wheedle," Lily raised her nose. "It turns out that if you want work, you simply have to be competent and willing, and you'll get it. I was brought in as a shop girl because I could speak English and Cantonese and Hakka and a little Japanese I learned from your parents. I was a very valuable worker, I'll have you know."

"Of course." Andrew beamed at her. "I have no doubt they were sad to lose you."

"I did some translations," Lily said, before she remembered what she had translated and felt her cheeks color.

"Really! What sort?"

"Oh…" Lily looked at her knees. "You know the sort. They printed, um." In desperation, she grabbed for words that sounded vaguely like the truth. "Account books, logs, journals, that sort of thing? Near the end, I suggested a volume of poetry, but they never had an interest."

"Books of poetry." Andrew smiled at her. "Look at how you glow talking about it. You like it, don't you?"

It was a blush of embarrassment, not a glow. "I find the process very soothing," she admitted instead of clarifying. "Everything from laying out the type to make a form down through the bookbinding at the end. It's like making bread—lots of wrestling and beating—but the end product lasts longer."

"I love the idea of you spending your time in Hong Kong making books. You always were bookish."

Lily nodded. "If it were possible to turn into a book, I would."

"And perhaps you have." Andrew smiled at her.

"What do you mean by that?" She thought of the actual books she'd brought back in her trunk—copies of her first, tentative translations—and then remembered what they looked like. "Oh! That reminds me! We were supposed to talk about the log?—"

"Just a minute longer." Andrew was watching her steadily, his eyes not moving from her face. "We haven't finished talking about you. You have a plan. I want to hear it."

Lily felt a tug in her breast—a wistful desire of old dreams, never fully asleep, stirring once more. She had always imagined that if she returned to Wedgeford, Andrew would have lost that quality of his—the steadfast way he looked at her when she spoke, as if all the world had disappeared and only she remained. Most assuredly, he did it to everybody; he was so good with people, making them all feel comfortable.

Lily, who was never comfortable, always felt at home with him. He made her feel like her dreams were reasonable, like she could do things. He made her feel as if she mattered. Her entire being fluttered under his attention.

She fiddled with the edges of her sash, folding it over and over in her fingers until the edges resembled what might have been a street musician's accordion.

"It's not much of a plan. Print what needs to be printed. Offer book repair services. And…"

She glanced up at him. Her heart was pounding. If Andrew thought this was stupid, she would know it was foolish beyond imagining.

"And?"

"Perhaps publish a few volumes of some translated poetry."

He didn't roll his eyes. "That sounds lovely."

"Doesn't it, though?" She looked over the back garden. The tiniest feathers of carrot leaves were sprouting. Beyond that sat the weathered wooden shed where her press would sit. Lily had taken years to think about what she wanted. That years-ago suffragists meeting had left a hard, jagged scar of wanting on her.

She'd imagined herself arguing back at that meeting. Imagined herself saying, "well, why shouldn't my rights come alongside yours? What is it about me that is unworthy?"

Years in Hong Kong—years of watching strikes and protests fall to military reprisal, with no sign of votes for anyone, let alone women—had hardened her sharp, jagged wanting into a certainty. The suffragist who had spoken to her in Dover hadn't believed in equal rights for all. She'd wanted an equal opportunity to share in the dominion over others.

So, Lily had come back to England with the explicit intent of befouling the suffragists' cause. She intended to let loose a zeal for a suffrage that was truly universal, applicable to all who wanted a say in their own future, and not just the ones who claimed to be the female counterparts of those in charge. The poetry she'd collected from women she'd met…

With any luck, those would do the trick.

"You seem lost in thought," Andrew said.

Lily sighed. "Just daydreaming."

And she was. It was foolish, she knew; a few poems weren't going to change the world. But maybe they could change a few people.

Lily had another fantasy, one in which she encountered that sharp-faced woman with red ringlets, one where the woman took one look at her and burst into tears, apologizing for what she had said.

That, truly, was a fool's fantasy.

"Enough about me and my plans. We need to talk about you and the captain's log."

His face underwent a change, nose wrinkling for a moment before smoothing out into something approaching his normal expression. "Right." He looked up at the sky. "That. Tell me, what is your plan there? It seems as if you're becoming something of a detective. It seems very Sherlock of you."

"Very what of me?"

"Ah, right. That's a story in Beeton's Christmas Annual. You likely haven't read it yet. I set a copy aside for you."

Lily wrinkled her nose. "Why? Did you know I was coming back? It would have cost a fortune to send it to me in Hong Kong."

He seemed taken aback. "I—ah. Well."

"You did, didn't you?"

"It's just a thing I did." He looked down, scuffing his feet a little. "When I read something and thought of you over the years. I set it aside, just in case." He ducked his head. "But never mind that. I set it aside because I think you'll hate it so much that you'll love abusing it with me. It involves a woman coerced into marriage."

"Oh, how lovely. My favorite subject matter."

"As I thought. The author has published two of these ‘detective' stories—shall I bring them by for you, or would you like to pick them up at the inn tomorrow during dinner?"

Lily turned. "Andrew, we are talking about you and your future. Not some so-called ‘detective' story of coerced marriage."

He blinked innocently at her. "Are we not talking about a story of marriage and detection?"

"No! This isn't fiction. It's justice. Justice for you. Doesn't everyone want justice?"

He looked at his knees. "How absolutely lovely of you," he finally said. "No, I don't think everyone wants justice. If they did, we might have more of it."

"Fair." She nodded. "I did know that. But we should talk about the process to get you your earldom. I hear that the Earl of Arsell is ill. Should we take the captain's logbook to his family? Or perhaps the press, or Parliament?"

As she spoke, Andrew turned pale. "My God."

"I know it's a lot to ponder." Lily patted his hand. "But it must be done. Should we start with an announcement sent to the family? Or a newspaper? What do you think the right strategy is?"

"You seem to have thought this through." He tapped his fingers against his trousers. "Extensively."

"Aboard ship, I had nothing but time to think. Perhaps we'll need a barrister to present this to Parliament. Or is it a solicitor? I never actually know. What do you think?"

Andrew shuddered. "I have made it my life's work to never do anything that requires a solicitor. Or a barrister. Or having to know the difference between the two. It sounds like far too much."

"But it will be worth it."

"Come, Lily. It can wait a bit. Let's figure out the details later."

"But if we put it off too long, it might be too late. With the present earl ill?—"

He just smiled at her. "We're all getting together at the inn tomorrow, and I've work to do still. I can't wait to see you with everyone. You'll have fun."

She doubted it. "And after that, we'll talk?"

He looked upward. "As soon as I have time."

"Poor Andrew. So busy, and I've taken all your free time today with my trunk and wardrobe."

"Ugh." He rolled his eyes. "Don't feel sorry for me. I like your company."

"How sweet," she teased. "Did you miss me?"

There was an inhale of breath. He was looking out at the grasses behind her cottage again. They were little sprouts, the kind of thing that Andrew had always enjoyed paying attention to when they were younger, cataloguing different types and where they liked to grow. Perhaps he was doing that now, because he didn't look at her at all.

That meant she could look at him without having to meet his eyes. He was very pretty, although some men hated that label. She didn't mean that he was girlish. Andrew had freckles from the sun, and more of them then he once had. His skin was sun-dark and his hands were calloused. He didn't look anything like an earl. He looked like a man who worked with his hands.

These were the sorts of things that most people would call rough and not pretty, but rough things were often the most beautiful—the rough rocks of the shore where water crashed, or a weathered and twisted pine near the top of a hill.

It would be a better world if people like him were earls, instead of the pasty sort of man who never bothered to learn how grass grew or how many kinds of it there were.

"Yes," Andrew said softly. "I missed you a great deal." He looked over at her. There was a warmth in his eyes paired with a shadowed sorrow.

It hit her with a pang: Once Lily succeeded in making him an earl, she would rarely see him again.

It had been years since they last saw one another; still, it felt like no time had passed. She looked down, where his hand rested on the step. Hers was next to his; slightly smaller, and slightly less callused. For one brazen moment, she thought about taking his hand in hers.

Why, she didn't know—perhaps to show some of the feelings that were pulsing through her. It was likely just…memory. Memory of a thing that had happened between them, memory of a feeling she had harbored toward him, a feeling she had treasured even before she unraveled what it was.

No point getting maudlin about it. At least one day, when she was old and her hands too shaky to bind books, she could tell people that she'd had an earl in her bed.

She smiled privately, and maybe she let out a huff, because he turned to her and tilted his head. "What?"

"Nothing."

Not that she was still thinking about their time together. Not that she was pining for him.

"You're busy. I should have known you'd make yourself indispensable to Wedgeford. You always were the sort to help out whenever it was needed."

Andrew laughed. "Don't make me sound so charitable. I just do what I want."

"I know. That's what makes it all the more admirable. You know, don't worry about the steps to take with regard to the log. Leave it up to me." She finished the last of her barley tea in a long draught. "I'll take care of everything."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"Hmm? What's that supposed to mean?"

He just gave her a small smile, one that made her feel a twinge of sadness for a reason she couldn't express. "You always were beyond my capacity. Seven years, and nothing has changed."