The Scoundrel and the Scientist

Chapter 1

1816 England

LIFE WAS ALWAYS CHANGING. There was no time to stop and catch one’s breath, nevermind correct one’s footing. There was only one way forward, and that was to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. 

“What does a woman know about making soap? Nevermind that she’s Irish.” The disgruntled customer scoffed at her. 

A whole feck of a lot, she wanted to say. She could feel her palms sweating enough that a smack across his arrogant face would just slide off. This was her new home. She had to hold it together. 

“Let’s go. There’s better soap down the road.” He dragged his apologetic looking wife out the door. 

Life was always changing, but people weren’t. Miss Chloe Penbrook knew this only too well. 

She stepped back into her shop, yet again rebelling against society’s strictures. She couldn’t help but think of her mother and father as she readied herself for work. With gloved hands, she stirred the heavy mixture and breathed in heavily through the fabric covering her mouth. This work was all for them.  

Her parents were aging, and her father could no longer continue the soapmaking business he had started many years ago. It had sustained their family for as long as he ran it back in Ireland. Unfortunately, he could no longer do so with his declining health. A few turns around the shop left him winded. Fortunately, he had taught his only child the chemistry behind making soap. Unfortunately, his only child was female. Fortunately, she had a mind for business. 

Though at this point, she was a bit behind on counting her fortunes. 

It was to his credit that he didn’t disparage the female gender, else their family of three would not still have a roof over their heads. 

But this ultimately induced a significant stress that was pushing squarely upon Chloe’s diaphragm. Daily. 

Just one more week. One more week, and she could enter the business competition hosted by a few business moguls who owned Bond Street. The prize was a shop, rent free, for two years in one of their properties. Being on the busiest shopping district in London, whoever won the prize were deemed business worthy by the experts, and would thus likely be able to remain on Bond Street for the foreseeable future. Since London was her home now, she was determined to see this through. Or perhaps she should say, again. Her mother being English and Chloe having been born in England meant that this was a return, though it hardly felt like one since she had no working memory of London. 

Chloe carefully added the potash to the liquids, stirring it until it dissolved. Without the recent discovery of caustic potash, her new soap would never have been possible. So it was that keeping up with the times, keeping up with life, did have its benefits. 

But that contest, though? That was the dream. No, that was the plan. Chloe corrected herself. It was a plan. Well thought out with easy steps to put into action. Experiment with the soap. Test it. Win the contest. Sell the soap. Simple, easy steps. Well, some of them.

One of her biggest challenges would be to convince people that what she had created was in fact soap. 

Another monumental challenge was her gender. As it turned out, most of the customers, upon finding out that she herself was the soap boiler, had turned quite suspicious. Often returning their items to their shelves. 

Another challenge was the fact that she had not only taken over her father’s business, but she had taken a risk and they had all moved to a new location–new country, really–in hopes of making the business more profitable. At this point, the risk had not paid out, and this contest was her last hope. Perhaps if she had stayed where her father had done business, the trust of the customers would have transferred from her father to her. That was wishful thinking and completely unhelpful to Chloe right now. 

The truth of the matter was, the only priority was making a business of her newfound soap and providing for herself and her family. She did not ever want to have to depend on someone for her livelihood. It was too easy for a husband to die, leaving the wife destitute. Or just desperate. Neither situation appealed to Chloe. It was also far too easy for a couple to only have a daughter, as was her case. 

Hunger is good sauce. From hearing it repeatedly by her parents, the Irish phrase rang through her head. She had nothing right now except hunger, which would make the winning later so much sweeter. 

She couldn’t rely on anyone else to help her with that.

No, she needed to provide for herself. She counted only on herself. Succeed or fail, she would do it on her own. 

Or so she planned.

***

NOTHING EVER CHANGED. LIFE was static.

ACHOO! Point in case, thought Barnaby Ashbourne, second son after Arthur, the Duke of Whitewood. 

He was–ACHOO! he rubbed his nose in his handkerchief–walking down Piccadilly when he–ACHOO!–chastised himself for thinking he could take a leisurely stroll through Burlington Gardens. In blooming season. 

It was ridiculous to even try. Of course he would be–ACHOO! Nevermind. Resigning himself to fate, he just needed to make his way home and out of the blooming–erm–blooms. 

The sound of horses approaching, combined with him being downwind of the equines, put his nose and handkerchief on alert. Looking up, he saw them fast approaching. He took a step back to give them room. 

In doing so, he inadvertently nudged into a gruff, “Watch where you’re going.” 

Which, incidentally, pushed him into a, “Hey!” 

Followed by a brush with, “Get off me.”

And much to his chagrin, that bumped him into a door that must have been partially ajar, for he fell right through it, unwittingly into his worst nightmare. 

After the bumble and the stumble, he regained his footing, and took inventory of his surroundings. Bars and bars and bars. Everywhere. He felt caged in. How one could stumble into such a prison while innocently perambulating down the street, he would never know. Nor did he have the heart to ask fate why it would destine him to such misery. 

Truly, he wasn’t sure he was up for fate disclosing any particularly nefarious acts of malevolence he had committed over the years. Perhaps laughing at the man last week who had tripped over his own umbrella was finally catching up to him. Or maybe borrowing his classmate’s quill with every intention to return it, but failing, was what he owed his current fate to. Most likely he was being punished for blaming his youngest sister for breaking that priceless, and of course irreplaceable vase. Naturally it had also been his mother’s favorite. Barnaby shook his head and covered his eyes. Perhaps fate knew of an even more pernicious iniquity that was staining his soul. 

Whatever fate’s source, Barnaby did not want to remove his hand from his eyes, for although it would not prevent him from sneezing, it somehow made him think it might prevent him from sneezing. Which, in this baffling situation, it was.

Most baffling indeed, since Barnaby was in a soap shop.

He braced himself, flexed his feet, thighs, shoulder, and neck. Even his jaw. Waiting in anticipation for the downpour of sneezes that was sure to cascade any second now. It was soap after all, surely they had fragrances. Yet… 

No sneezes. 

No sneezes? Barnaby removed his hand from over his eyes. 

His eyes had not deceived him. He was in fact in a soap shop with bars and bars of various soaps. There were also a few glass jars with liquid in them, but not many. 

An eeriness drooped over Barnaby’ shoulders as he scanned the shelves in disbelief. “What the blooming devil of a place is this?”