The laggard spring became a tempestuous summer, ominously wet and chilly. Lucy, who hadn’t trained a telescope on the sky since coming to London, found herself feeling restless and earthbound. Mrs. Kelmarsh offered a welcome distraction by inviting them to something called the Friendly Philosophical Salon. It was a reading club for ladies, who gathered in the back room of a ramshackle bookstore in Paternoster Row: some older women of Mrs. Kelmarsh’s long acquaintance, some comfortably matron-aged like Catherine, a handful around Lucy’s years. A small closet in one corner provided a discreet dressing place for anyone who felt more at ease wearing (or changing out of) shirtsleeves, jacket, and breeches among friends; the chairs and couches were much mended, much sat-upon, and much less flexible than any of the minds in the room. Catherine and Lucy’s introductions were made swiftly and without fuss, and then the group erupted into a medical-philosophical debate about the potential physical location of the soul, clearly a cherished argument of long standing. Lucy joined in with a will and a sense of belonging she hadn’t felt since the gates of Cramlington had clanged shut behind her.
She was very near the end of the Oléron, but had not yet managed to pin Catherine down about money. “Finish the manuscript, then we’ll take it to Griffin’s and see about their terms,” the countess said.
To add to Lucy’s puzzlement, Stephen’s pointed letters on the subject of Lyme and returning to it suddenly switched tacks entirely. Apparently, instead, he was planning a journey to London himself.
“A few of Stephen’s friends have paintings to show in this year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy,” Lucy explained to Catherine, “so they’ve all come down to town to celebrate. By which I mean argue, mostly. They’re impossible, but very amusing to listen to. Stephen’s invited me along for the afternoon.” She squirmed, worried that she would be outnumbered and vulnerable and a ready target for more of Stephen’s pressure. “I’d love you to join us.”
“Are you quite sure you want me to meet your brother?” The countess dropped her eyes, taking one of those shy turns that Lucy had hoped were becoming less and less frequent with time and affection. “Are you certain it’s wise?”
Catherine’s hesitance was understandable, but it still pricked all the tender spots of Lucy’s hopeful heart. “Stephen can be downright priggish where I am concerned, but he is far more liberal-minded to people who are not his sister,” Lucy said. “And a few of his friends are quite talented. Their paintings alone will certainly be worth the trip.”
So Lucy put on one of her gray gowns—livened up with a puce chevron trim in Eliza Brinkworth’s clever hand—and they drove to the lofty neoclassical pile of Somerset House on the River Thames.
The sky outside was lumpen with clouds, portending more rain, but Lucy didn’t pay this any mind. That was the one landscape she wasn’t here to view today. Bubbling with excitement, she slipped her arm through Catherine’s and led the countess up the curving flights of stairs and into the main Exhibition Room.
The space was busy with people, but the bright half-circle windows far up in the high ceiling made it feel airy despite the throng. Every inch of every wall was covered by paintings, small delicate landscape sketches shoved right up against huge portraits and elaborate history scenes with ornate frames. As the eye wandered up, row by row, the paintings tilted forward more and more, arcing as if they were a wave about to crest and crash down upon the throng of viewers in a flood of paint and canvas. Lucy watched Catherine’s head tilt back in wonder, and wished she dared press a kiss to the graceful column of her throat.
But this place was public, and it would be dangerous for Lucy to forget herself.
They had barely wandered the length of one wall before Lucy caught the pitch of a familiar voice. Her brother and his coterie were massed in front of one of the largest paintings, hung right at eye level, a desirable placement that spoke of the judges’ strong approval. The artists in front of the piece, however, seemed less in awe of its genius than one might have expected. Arms were being flung with abandon, and gestures made toward particular parts of the canvas.
The group was plainly midargument already, but if Lucy waited for the debate to end she’d be waiting until the next century. “Stephen!” she cried instead, pulling Catherine gently forward.
“My dear sister!” Her brother was looking well, as he always did after a spell in the country: all bright eyes and ruddy cheeks and the air of a burden lately lifted. He pressed a kiss to Lucy’s cheek and bowed over Catherine’s hand when she was introduced. “It is an honor and a delight to meet the woman who was such a constant correspondent of my father’s—and who has lately taken my rather wayward sister under her wing.” He shot Lucy a sharp glance.
Lucy’s pleasure at seeing him went brittle, and she had a sudden terrible urge to stamp her foot and pitch a tantrum like she hadn’t done since she was four years old.
Catherine only smiled serenely: all her earlier shyness hidden carefully away beneath her countess’s poise. “Your sister is brilliant, Mr. Muchelney. The honor is mine, that I can enjoy her company until she has a chance to share her genius with other scholars and scientific minds.”
Stephen blinked, surprised by Lady Moth’s staunch defense.
Lucy felt pride and self-consciousness war with each other to burn in her cheeks, and wondered: If she were to burst into flame right here in the gallery, how many great artworks would perish with her?
She turned to the large painting they were arguing over, hoping for a distraction. “Tell me why this one has gotten you all so stirred up.”
Stephen spun on his heel, so eager was he to follow the change of subject. “It’s Kelbourne’s latest: Lord Elgin Approaching the Parthenon.”
Lucy gazed up at the painting, slightly longer than her arms could span: the Parthenon’s ancient form took up most of the upper portion of the canvas, shining white and crumbling nobly against a background of rose and gold clouds. Below and to the right stood a solitary figure in a deep burgundy coat: one leg was planted up and forward, and two hands were clamped behind his back as he surveyed the ancient temple.
Stephen’s best friend, Mr. Banerjee, leaned forward, a gleam in his eyes. “The question, Miss Muchelney, is whether the painting is a sunrise or a sunset. Is our hero arriving or departing this land of legend?”
“Surely it’s the latter,” said one of the artists.
“Preposterous. Look at the shade of that light. Rosy as the dawn.”
“Dawn? Hah! That is obviously the rich, heavy gold you get at day’s end when the light has had time to steep.”
“Pardon me,” Catherine interjected softly but firmly, “but it must be a sunrise.”
Everyone stopped and stared, even Lucy.
“How do you know?” an artist asked, tones laden with suspicion.
Catherine gestured to the section of brightest light, to the left of the row of columns. “Because that is where the sun rises when you view the Parthenon from this angle.”
Mr. Banerjee’s voice was all eager excitement. “You speak as though you’ve been there.”
Catherine smiled. “I have.”
“So it is a sunrise,” Mr. Banerjee said decisively, and frowned. “And what is the significance of the sunrise, do you think?”
And so the argument played on, with Catherine adding occasional notes to the painterly chorus.
Lucy hid a smile and drifted away to look at the rest of the Exhibition. She’d never thought painters could spend more time talking than painting, but they never seemed to run short of opinions.
“Oi, Miss Muchelney!”
Lucy spun round at the sound of the voice, and found herself looking at a big, broad-shouldered man with a face like a boulder and a boxer’s broken nose. “Mr. Violet!” she cried happily, holding out her hands.
Peter Violet grasped her hands in his—not with a gentleman’s chivalrous grace, but as one would grip someone’s hand to seal a bet.
She felt the strength of it all the way down to her toes, and grinned. “It’s wonderful to see you. Are you showing anything this year?”
“A couple things,” he said, in the low-street London accent he’d never shed. “Are you here with Stephen?”
“Stephen and—a friend,” Lucy said.
Mr. Violet leaned closer, his voice a low rumble. “Not the famous Priscilla?”
“No.” Lucy bit her lip. “The Countess of Moth.”
“Fancy you taking a liking to a nob.” Mr. Violet’s grin was a whole dirty joke on its own.
Lucy snorted before she could stop herself, and some tight-wound internal part of her relaxed. She’d been so careful and proper the whole time she’d been in London, and it had been more of a strain than she’d realized. It was nice to be with someone she didn’t have to play the lady in front of. She took his elbow just so she could secretly pinch him in rebuke. It only made him grin wider. “Come, now—show me your exhibits, and then if you behave I shall introduce you.”
He had had three paintings accepted by the judges this year, it seemed. Two were sunset studies of the sea, rocky coastlines and roiling skies expertly rendered with confident, minimal brushstrokes in black and blue and searing orange. Ships were sketched in like ghosts, hulls and sails muddied by distance and the tactile weight of light. Half the art world hated his pieces; the other half lauded him as a genius. “It’s good you’re seeing this one now,” he said, “because the red in the center is going to fade by this time next year.”
Lucy was appalled. It was one of his most successful paintings, in her semilearned opinion, and much of the vitality came from that bold red streak. “If it won’t last, then why use it at all? Why not use a paint that will still be bright in ten years’ time?”
Peter turned horrified eyes on her. “This red is the right red,” he protested. “You’ve got to paint the colors right, even if they won’t stay that way forever. Nothing lasts.”
“Some things do,” Lucy argued. “We’ve looked up at the same constellations since Aristotle’s time, and even earlier.”
Peter’s smile was crooked, and a little sad. “They just change slower, is all.” He led her to the third and final painting. It had been hung right on the line, in the center of the wall: pride of place.
Peter’s voice was sly and satisfied as he told her the title: “Medea Meeting Jason.”
Lucy had a hard time finding the title figures, at first. The painting was mostly architectural—not surprising for Peter, who tried to avoid painting people insofar as he could—an airy confection of glowing domes and spires. At the city gate were two small and ghostly figures: a red-haired woman in flowing lilac, with touches of gold in her hair and around her wrists. Her lithe arms were wrapped around a bare-chested hero with a Grecian helmet and curling hair. He seemed to be half avoiding the embrace, head turned away and one arm raised to point down the wooded slope to a tree where the Golden Fleece hung in splendor, a guardian serpent twined around the trunk the same way Medea was trying to twine around Jason. A ship sailing away on the distant sea foreshadowed the coming moment when they would attempt to outrun doom and disaster.
“Lovely,” Lucy breathed, because it was. “But not a very happy moment to have chosen. He looks half bored with her already.”
“He doesn’t want her,” Peter explained. “He wants the Fleece, and seducing her is the easiest way to get it.”
“The fastest, maybe,” Lucy replied. “I’m not sure it was easy on him, at the end.”
“When she kills their boys, you mean?” Peter said, chuckling. “That’s going to be the next painting, to pair with this one. Jason on hands and knees, gold crown rolling from his head, and Medea sailing away in a chariot drawn by dragons. The corpses of her two littles slung all horrid over her arm. And in the background a ruined city, with towers aflame.”
Lucy’s eyes goggled at the description. “I’m not sure how the judges are going to feel about that.”
Peter Violet’s smile turned wry. “I don’t paint for the judges. If they like it, that’s terrific, we’ll hang it up and sell copies and let everyone ooh and ahh all they want. But they could tell me it’s not worth the trouble to spit on it, and I’d still choose to paint it—because there’s nothing else I can do and still feel like myself.”
“So what’s this one really about, then?” Lucy asked. “Since unlike so many artists I know, you’re capable of giving a straight answer.”
Peter’s eyes went grim as he looked over his own work, the product of so many months’ time and effort. “It’s about two people reaching out to take what they want, and getting burned.” His eyes flickered away from hers to land on the vivid red tongue of fire lancing out of the dragon’s open mouth.
Lucy recognized the tone in his voice. She’d heard it often enough in her own, in those first few weeks after Priscilla’s wedding. Peter had known about her inclinations ever since Lucy had caught him and Mr. Banerjee together during one of their visits to her house: she’d told them about Priscilla to reassure them that she had no intention of using their secret against them. Pris had been furious, even though the two men were in a much more dangerous position than two women would be if anyone were to find out.
Peter looked so tough, with his fighter’s face and the accent he refused to shed, but he felt things more deeply the less he showed it. Heartbreak would not sit easily on him.
She squeezed his arm. “The red will fade, you know,” she said, since the dragon’s flame was the same bright but ephemeral shade he’d used in the other painting. Sometimes the passage of time could be a comfort. “You said it yourself: nothing lasts.”
Peter’s smile was a hesitant, half-bitter thing, but it gave her some hope. “Let me show you my favorites by the other painters,” he offered, and Lucy agreed with a laugh.
Catherine didn’t know how much time had passed when she emerged from the tempest of artistic opinion and noticed Lucy was no longer at her side.
A quick glance around was enough to reassure her: there Lucy was, holding the arm of a, well, a rather rough-looking man, if Catherine were being honest. She could practically see his calluses from across the room.
Stephen Muchelney caught the direction of Catherine’s gaze and smiled. “Ah, that’s our Peter Violet,” he said. “Born by the docks, not far from where we’re standing, and he’ll tell you all about it if you give him half a minute.”
“But what is he doing here?” Catherine asked.
“He’s got three pieces showing,” Mr. Muchelney replied. “You can pay for schooling, and you can pay for paint, but there’s no way to purchase genius, and Violet has that if any of us do. He and Lucy have always enjoyed each other.”
As they watched, Peter’s eyes lit up and he said something to make Lucy laugh. The familiar sound of it did queer things to the tight-knotted strings of Catherine’s anxious heart. She pulled cold air into empty lungs.
Mr. Muchelney leaned in conspiratorially. “To be perfectly frank, Lady Moth, I rather hope they’ll end up making a match of it. He may not be gently bred but he’s kind to her, and works harder than any artist I know. And Lucy’s not enough of a snob to sniff at his good qualities.” Mr. Muchelney’s smile was serpent-sly. “Maybe it won’t be too long before my sister stops taking advantage of your hospitality.”
They did look well together, Catherine couldn’t argue with that: Lucy’s height and slenderness balanced by Mr. Violet’s craggy bulk.
The countess swallowed hard against the ashes in her mouth. “You seem to think your sister nothing but a burden, Mr. Muchelney,” she said, hating the gravel at the bottom of her throat. “Let me assure you, the day she leaves me is not something I look forward to.”
Beside her Mr. Banerjee twitched, his own face tight with a peculiar sort of intensity.
Stephen Muchelney tilted his head as he looked at her—a gesture so like his sister’s that Catherine had to catch her breath. “What would you think, Lady Moth, about having my sister’s portrait painted? Then you’d always have something of her to treasure.” He grinned boyishly. “I happen to know an excellent portraitist presently in need of commissions.”
He meant himself, of course. So either he had guessed that Catherine and Lucy were something other than simply friends—or it was blindingly obvious even to a total stranger how much Catherine cared.
Catherine didn’t want to imagine what her face looked like just now. She could feel the strings of politeness’s mask pulling tight, and the porcelain going brittle and thin. “Pardon me,” she murmured, “but I think I will take a turn about the house and view some of the other paintings.”
She walked away and found another frame to stand in front of, but could not tell you what colors had been used on the canvas or even what the subject was. She stared straight ahead, but her vision was turned inward, upon the wounds and ruins of her own heart.
Foolish, to have let herself dream so much! Catherine had been so comforted by the freedom of knowing Lucy couldn’t ask to marry her, that she had lost sight of the simple fact that Lucy might very well think of marrying someone else. That was what Pris had done, after all. It’s what so many young women did, even the ones who loved other women—look at Aunt Kelmarsh, who’d loved Catherine’s mother deeply but who had nonetheless been married and widowed twice over in the course of her long and interesting life.
She’d been in such high and tender hopes, today, being presented to her lover’s brother as though that might signify something about the nature of their connection. As though it meant Lucy cherished her a little. But Mr. Muchelney did not even seem to know about Lucy’s preferences—was that a deliberate blindness on his part, or had Lucy taken care that he shouldn’t know? Brothers had such power over their younger siblings, particularly sisters, and most particularly when that brother was head of the family.
And Stephen Muchelney wanted his sister to marry Peter Violet. Would he cut her off if she refused? Catherine could save Lucy from penury; the girl wouldn’t end up starving on the streets. But what if Lucy came to resent that dependence? What if Catherine, watching Lucy turn cold and bitter, became a brittle, anxious tyrant like George had been? She felt nearly tyrannical already, some wild part inside her howling with pain and rage even now, here in the heart of the polite and civilized world.
She was so wrapped up in these fears that she almost stumbled headlong into Mr. Frampton. “Lady Moth!” he said. “Are you quite alright?”
She forced a smile for him, then felt it take true hold. He was familiar, and kind, and his concern steadied her. “Just a little overwhelmed, I think,” she said. “There are so many people here!”
“There are,” he agreed, peering down at her. His smile was sincere but a little tight, and there were worry lines in the corners of his dark eyes.
So she took him by the arm, and saw some of those worry lines fade. “Come, sir,” she said. “Let us find the quietest corner and the humblest painting. Its creator will appreciate our attention more than any of the judges’ darlings, I’m sure.”
His lips curved in amusement. “That’s one way of making an inexpert opinion valuable.”
They turned their back on the chattering crowd and wound through the rooms of the Exhibition in search of silence and quietude. Catherine caught sight of a small, mud-colored painting in a corner of the last gallery that looked like it would do, but halfway across the space she was forced to halt because Mr. Frampton had jerked to a stop as if his feet had put roots down into the floor.
His face was shocked, his lips parted as he sucked in a breath and held it.
Catherine followed his gaze and saw nothing but a portrait of a merchant. A Frenchman, according to the title—a weaver. He sat at a desk among the detritus of his trade: spools of thread, measuring sticks, bolts of fabric, a large loom frame hovering behind his shoulder. One of the merchant’s hands was gripping a pair of calipers, and beside him, newly finished, lay a stack of cards with holes carefully punched in. A few other such cards were strung up on the machine behind him, waiting only for the handle to be turned.
The brushwork was fine and the colors well chosen, but Catherine couldn’t see why this painting should have struck Mr. Frampton like a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky. “Do you know this man?” she asked.
The mathematician shook his head, eyes never leaving the portrait. “Not at all. But he’s given me a miracle.”
Catherine had lived all her life among scientists. She knew the sound of revelation when she heard it. And she knew what to do next. “Do you need to write something down?” she asked, and began digging through her reticule for the pencil and notebook she always kept handy.
Mr. Frampton looked at her, some miracle still shining in his eyes. “Thank you,” he breathed, and began scribbling and sketching at once—in the back of the notebook, far away from her own botanical sketches and plant studies. Very thoughtful, even in the grip of inspiration. George had once scribbled calculations over a full-page sketch of Captain Lateshaw, and had never even seen the need to apologize.
Catherine suppressed a smile and left Mr. Frampton to his work. No doubt he would be occupied for some few minutes. She would come back in a quarter hour and see if the dream had relinquished him then.
She wandered a little farther on her own, still reluctant to return to the crowded main gallery. A stairway lured her outside to a small terrace that fronted the river, boats and barges trundling through its murky waters, and waves lapping up against the very foundations of the house. The sky above was still roiling with clouds, but the river made a break in the buildings, as though some great knife had sliced through so all the layers of the city could be seen. A brisk wind brought Catherine the scents of land and water, refreshing after the crush of perfumed, perspiring humanity within Somerset House.
Near the terrace edge, hem dancing in the breeze, sat a woman with an easel. A little older than Catherine, maybe, to judge from the silver that streaked a few of her dark locks where they escaped her simple cap. She was sketching the view, hand flying with confidence over the page. Catherine crept closer as soundlessly as she could, peering avidly while the woman’s pencil conjured boats and waves and the sweep of the sky, quickly and with feeling. She seemed to know just which lines were important and should be made bold, and which ones should be skipped as unnecessary. She stopped, cocking her head to consider her work thus far—and a flutter of Catherine’s skirt caught her eye and broke her concentration.
The countess flushed. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to trouble you.”
“No trouble,” the woman said, though her mouth pressed thin with something close to annoyance. Catherine noticed her clothing was serviceable but not expensive: broad cotton rather than silk, dyed soft green but mended here and there where only a careful eye could see. She wore no jewelry, but her eyes were hard and bright as gems. Something about the way she kept herself angled to face Catherine said shopkeeper.
As quickly as it had appeared, the annoyance on her face smoothed out into polite blandness. “Are you enjoying the Exhibition?” the woman inquired.
“Very much,” Catherine said. “The landscape with Lord Elgin will be in my thoughts for some time, I think.”
“Ah, yes.” The other woman turned to the sketchbook on her easel and quickly flipped through to an earlier page. There in penciled shadow was Lord Elgin, an extraordinarily faithful reproduction of the painting Catherine had just been admiring. “This one?”
“You’ve captured it exactly,” Catherine replied, eyebrows lifting in pleasure and surprise. “It’s striking, is it not?”
The artist smiled. “Yes, all the artists are buzzing about it. Which means it should prove quite popular.” She turned to her pencil box and pulled free a small card impressed with the image of a mythical beast, half lion and half eagle. “I’m with Griffin’s,” she said, to Catherine’s secret delight. “We offer quality mezzotint reproductions of interesting and notable portraits, paintings, and landscapes; commissions by special request. Also selected views of the city, with historical landmarks and points of interest. And of course, Griffin’s Menagerie.”
“I’m an ardent subscriber,” Catherine said as she accepted the card. “Do you have any work in the Exhibition this year?”
“Me?” The woman scoffed. “I’m only an engraver, madam. A copyist. Not an artist. Not one the Academy would recognize, at any rate.”
Catherine looked at the sketch on the easel, at the easy lines and effortlessly perfect proportions that spoke of a gifted eye and willing hand, carefully trained. She bristled. “But surely this is no different, in any essential way. Your sketches would not suffer by comparison with many of the landscapes I walked past just now.”
“But those landscapes were done in oils,” the woman countered. “Or watercolors, or charcoal. Each one done by hand, one stroke at a time.” She tapped her pencil end against the paper. “These are mere copies. Since I did not create the initial portrait, none of them can properly be labeled art.”
Catherine listened to this with dismay, but the engraver seemed to take it in weary stride.
The woman’s mouth crooked wryly up at the corners. “Still, I’ll sell more of them than most of the great artists whose work you’ve just strolled past. Reprints and scenic views and embroidery patterns—which don’t count as art, either, of course.”
Catherine imagined the gallery behind her full of embroidered panels instead of paintings. Tambour and scrollwork and satin-stitched florals, all flung up in one giant patchwork, while the public paid good money to admire them and the critics debated what the embroiderer’s choices of stitch and color signified. It was an absurd thing to yearn for, and yet . . . she saw it so vividly, she could almost feel the texture of the threads beneath her fingertips.
The engraver began another question, but a clatter on the stairs behind Catherine cut the conversation short.
Lucy appeared in the doorway, breathless, cheeks flushed, framed like a very picture of alarm and dismay. “There you are!” she cried. “Stephen told me—” She stopped, as she registered the presence of the other woman. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She dropped a flustered curtsy. “Lucy Muchelney,” she said. “Are you a friend of Lady Moth’s?”
Oh, this was awkward. Catherine hadn’t missed how the engraver’s eyes had widened at the use of her title. Nevertheless, there were rules, so Catherine completed the introductions and nodded politely to the other woman, whose name turned out to be Mrs. Agatha Griffin. “We were discussing her work,” Catherine said to Lucy, “but I am glad you found us.” She turned back to the engraver. “Miss Muchelney is nearly finished with a very scholarly translation—we were hoping to approach you about printing a full run of copies.”
“You’ll be wanting to speak to Thomas—my husband, that is,” Mrs. Griffin said. “He oversees the contracts. He’s away at the moment, but he should be back in the shop on Thursday. If that suits you, my lady?”
Catherine replied that it did.
Mrs. Griffin thanked her again and returned to her sketching; Catherine and Lucy went back inside to collect Mr. Frampton.
There were still haloes in his eyes, but his frantic sketching seemed to have run its course. He showed them his pages as the carriage rattled down the street, elation crackling off him like one of Mr. Edwards’s voltaic contraptions. “The trouble I’ve been having is not how to build the calculating machine,” he said. “Even the ancients knew how to use assemblies of wheels and gears to calculate the movement of the moon and the stars. No, the trouble was that this machine would have to run different calculations for different sets of data. How do you tell it which one you want it to run? The French factory-owner’s portrait had the answer right there.” He pointed to a sketch he’d done, a detail of the painting. “Punched cards. That’s how you tell the machine which levers to shift and which gears to turn at the right time.” The rest of his sketches showed an assemblage of dense metal wheels, stacked tightly one on top of another.
Lucy turned sharp eyes on the later designs. “These are going to have to be very precise—how are you going to get them milled?”
Mr. Frampton laughed ruefully. “I’m not even convinced it’s possible. If it is, it will surely be ruinously expensive. But for now it should be enough to work out the design in full and present it in a paper for Polite Philosophies.”
They parted with the euphoric Mr. Frampton at his lodgings and continued home. Lucy reached out with one arm and half of the stellarium shawl and gathered Catherine close against her, as the gray afternoon shaded into a chill evening. Horses’ hoof beats sounded a soft percussion in the quiet.
After a while Lucy asked: “What did you and Mrs. Griffin talk about?”
Catherine squirmed slightly. “Art. What it is. What it’s not.”
“You’ll be as bad as Stephen next.”
“Heaven forbid. What did you and Mr. Violet talk about?”
Lucy sighed. “Art. What it means.”
Catherine plucked at the edges of the stellarium shawl, her eyes downcast. “How long have you known him?”
Lucy laughed. “Sometimes it feels like forever. Especially when he’s in one of his moods. I enjoy when Mr. Violet’s paintings are tortured and tempestuous—but not so Mr. Violet himself.”
Catherine squeezed Lucy’s waist as another pang went through her. “Does the art not mirror the artist’s soul, then? I’m sure I read something about how a truly sublime painting requires the union of spirit and matter. Or soul and will, or I forget what.” She righted herself and leaned back against the seat. “I can’t pretend I’ll ever create anything artistically sublime. There are no geniuses of embroidery, after all.”
Lucy sat straight up. “And why shouldn’t there be?”
Her indignation was perfectly adorable and made Catherine’s fond heart beat faster. “Embroidery is a handicraft, my dear. Domestic and ladylike. Perfectly ordinary. Art is—grander, is it not?”
Lucy rejected this with a firm shake of her head. “Why should you not consider what you make to be art?”
Catherine held her breath as a door she’d thought long shut cracked open, just a sliver; it was equal parts frightening and exhilarating. Bravery had done well by her in recent months—but when did one cross the line from bravery into foolhardiness?
Lucy, noting her dawning interest, pressed harder. “I’ve seen you create so many wonders these past few months. Tablecloth borders, chemises, gowns—you work in unusual stitch patterns, exotic plants, bold colors, unexpected mixes. I never thought about any of these things until you showed me your work. For example.”
She pulled off the stellarium shawl and stretched it out in front of them both.
“Look at this. It’s sophisticated and striking and absolutely lovely. Anyone who sees it is dazzled—and the more they know about how it was worked, the more they take away from it. Everyone can admire the sparkle—but only another embroiderer can recognize the skill it took to create the design, and to make it a concrete reality. I told you once your stitches looked like brushstrokes—and I’ve spent enough time around artists to know a gifted eye when I see someone use it. Catherine,” she said more softly, “this is art. You are an artist.”
A lifetime’s worth of struggle and frustration rose up around Catherine like a storm cloud. She fought back, instinctively. “The Academy would beg to differ. Barely any women were allowed space on those walls today. And not one—not one!—works in a medium so ephemeral and frivolous as fabric and thread.”
Lucy pulled back, folding the shawl up crisply, in precise, angry movements. Her tone was sharp as a stiletto. “Let me ask you something. Am I an astronomer?”
Catherine blinked at the swiftness of the subject change. “Of course you are.”
“The Polite Science Society doesn’t think so. They wouldn’t accept me as a Fellow. Mr. Hawley all but threw me out of his dinner party.”
Catherine shook her head, guessing where Lucy was going with her argument. “That’s different—”
“How?”
“Because science is about truth!” Catherine cried. “We have ways of measuring it. Numbers and data and cold, irrefutable facts. When you present a scientific theory, well, people have to agree with you or else they’re wrong, and if they’re wrong then nothing they try to do in their own scientific projects will succeed. But art . . .” She huffed out a breath, and quickly sucked another one in. Her heart was racing and her cheeks were flaming and Lucy was beginning to look slightly alarmed, which only made Catherine more agitated. “Art is only art because people call it so. Art is an illusion: a reflection of something, meant to communicate a thought or a feeling or the sense of a scene. There’s no possible way to be concretely, completely, objectively correct about it. Is the painting a sunrise or a sunset? And if it’s a sunrise, what does that mean? Six people fought about it for half an hour and no solid consensus was reached. Because no consensus could be reached.”
Lucy’s hands were bunched in her shawl, spoiling the careful folds. “But they had to agree on some things. Essential things. You said it yourself: the Academy believes that embroidery is not art, and an oil portrait is.”
Catherine folded her arms. “So?”
“So why can’t you try to change those parameters?” Lucy said. “Why can’t you try to persuade them that embroidery could be counted as art on its own merits?”
“Because I am tired!” Catherine cried. She could hear the burn of unshed tears in her own voice, as the words tore themselves from her throat. “I am tired of twisting myself into painful shapes for mere scraps of respect or consideration. Tired of bending this way and that in search of approval that will only ever be half granted.”
The carriage turned a corner, and Catherine felt as if the whole world spun sideways around her.
She swallowed hard and tried to explain. “My mother sent men all over the globe to fetch trinkets for her, bits and pieces of the world that she tried to put together into something like the whole. They fought to bring her the best specimens, the rarest species from the farthest places. Her approval counted for something—but only briefly, and only as a result of her accumulation. As soon as her treasures were sold, her achievements—her learning, her science!—vanished with them. I tried for more: I went out into the wider world, and I tried to do work that lasted. Even if I could only help as an assistant, and not a full participant. And still I ended up as an outsider: I didn’t have the skills or the education or the experience of men like George, Mr. Hawley, or Captain Lateshaw. They dismissed me out of hand, and I can’t even blame them for doing it.” She dashed hot tears from her eyes, furious that her body was betraying her with this frailty, clouding her sight when it felt like she had a chance to look at her own self clearly for the first time in her life. “And then today, talking with your brother and his friends, I was an outsider again.”
Lucy shook her head. “You were the only one who knew that painting showed a sunrise.”
Catherine scoffed. “One brief moment where I could offer something of use—but as soon as it was over they began to talk about Lord Elgin’s pose instead, what it might signify about his character, referencing paintings from Exhibitions past that I hadn’t had a chance to view and therefore can’t offer thoughts about. And you—” She cut herself off, finally, more tears rushing to spill down her cheeks as she relived the horrible, helpless jealousy that had sent her fleeing the gallery.
Lucy gripped her shoulders, gray eyes soft and worried. “And I what?”
Catherine gulped in a breath. If she was going to ruin everything, best do it quickly. “And you knew everyone already, and Peter Violet made you laugh, and your brother said you might marry him.”
“Oh, love.” Lucy’s hands slipped up to frame her face. Those gray eyes never wavered, though sorrow lurked in the corners as they held Catherine’s gaze. “Peter Violet is miserably, hopelessly in love with Mr. Banerjee. He doesn’t want to marry me; I’m reasonably certain he doesn’t want to marry anyone. He has rather radical thoughts on the whole institution. He wrote a pamphlet once.”
Catherine couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of her, a helpless, watery sort of sound.
Lucy bent down and captured it with her mouth. Catherine kissed her back desperately, even as her heart wailed in her breast with an unquenchable loss. It wasn’t enough—could never be enough . . .
The carriage jolted to a halt, and Catherine fumbled to put herself somewhat to rights. But being a countess was an old, old habit by now, and it helped that if she refused to acknowledge the tear tracks on her cheeks, nobody else would dare do differently.
There was but an hour until dinner; she announced her intention of resting in her room until then, and dismissed a worried Narayan.
As soon as they were alone, Catherine wrapped her arms around Lucy. “I can’t bear the thought of losing you,” she said, shaking.
Lucy’s slender shape stood firm against Catherine’s onslaught of emotion; she only twined her arms around her lover and held her close and steady. “Why would I go anywhere?” she whispered, her mouth hot against Catherine’s temple. “Everything I want is right here, because you are here.”
She turned Catherine around, her mouth brushing over the countess’s nape, her hands undoing the line of buttons down the back of Catherine’s dress. Silk whispered encouragement as it slid to the floor, and Catherine trembled as cool air rushed in where she stood in only stays, petticoats, and chemise. Lucy brushed gentle fingers over her shoulders, thin lines of fire following her touch. Shivering, Catherine turned and tugged at the laces of Lucy’s gown, lavender and primrose opening beneath her hands to reveal the worn muslin beneath.
It cut her to the quick, that Lucy was still stuck with these old things when Catherine could easily have bought much finer fabrics for her to wear against her skin. She pressed apologetic kisses to Lucy’s collarbone.
Lucy gasped and urged her on with breathless murmurs.
Too impatient to wait for further disrobing, Catherine pulled Lucy down atop her on the chaise.
Lucy hummed happily, her greater height blocking the wan summer sun and casting Catherine in shadow. Her arms bracketed the countess like columns as she hovered above her, and Catherine felt her panic ease a little to be so confined and protected. She slid a hand beneath Lucy’s petticoats and up the long length of her thigh. Her other hand curved over the back of Lucy’s neck, pulling her down for deep and ravenous kisses.
Lucy held nothing back, making hurry up noises in her throat and gasping into her lover’s mouth when Catherine’s fingers slid into the heat of her. She shook and trembled and Catherine gave her more and more until she shuddered and cried out, back bowing and fingers clutching at the upholstery. At last she collapsed on top of Catherine, who gloried in the slight, trembling, dewy weight of her.
Lucy blinked to clear her eyes of passion’s mist. “But you . . . ?”
“Later,” Catherine whispered, and pressed her lips to Lucy’s temple.