At first, Phoebe met his gaze, but she dropped her eyes after a moment.
“Why?” Violet whispered.
Phoebe frowned. “I told you. The Omnis were a tool—”
“No,” said Violet. “Why couldn’t you tell me? Why couldn’t you speak to us about your father?”
“What could you do?” All of Phoebe’s fire had been smothered with Arthur’s blood and Violet’s tears, but the anger remained, a sullen, stubborn pulse beating beneath her words. “My father owns me until I am sold to a husband. Every step I take out of doors in the shoes he purchased is dictated by the length of his leash. Will you upend the legal constrictions on women? Can the ladies of Athena’s Retreat change the marriage laws? Property laws? Could you have convinced Parliament to reverse the Reform Act and grant women suffrage?”
Violet rubbed her forehead, moved by Phoebe’s pain but frustrated by her friend’s twisted reasoning.
“We don’t have to choose between acting like a mob of angry men or doing nothing,” Violet said. “Why can’t we find a third way? Look what happened at the lecture. We didn’t let Limpenpot continue his drivel, but we didn’t blow him up, either.”
Phoebe crossed her arms and pushed her toe against the coal scuttle. “You wanted to blow him up, though,” she muttered.
“Sir Thaddeus Limpenpot?” Grey asked. When Violet nodded, he snorted. “I’d want to blow him up, too.”
Violet resisted stamping her foot. “My point is, we found another way to counter his harm without doing any damage of our own.”
Addressing Phoebe, she continued. “The world can be a terrible place, and I suspect your father is guilty of perpetuating those terrors. You let your rage blind you. Your constant battle against this world has left behind innocent victims. Winters may have changed your formula, but it was your idea and a man is dead.”
Two tiny lines appeared on Phoebe’s brow, the only outward sign of fear Violet had seen on her face all night. “I know that, Violet,” she said. “I’ve retraced my actions from the first time I met Adam at one of those stupid lectures I attended with Grantham, all the way to when he and the Omnis took over production of the canisters. It’s clear where I let my pride and anger override any better judgment I may have had, but if I let go of the anger, who am I? Who is left but that frightened girl I used to be before I found a way to fight back?”
“You are still Phoebe Hunt,” Violet reassured her. “Still a scientist, still a champion for the protection of women.” She smiled. “Still a firmament in the fashion heavens.”
“Still a friend?” Phoebe asked.
Grey opened his mouth, then shut it, wise enough to let Violet make her own decision.
She stared at the jars full of specimens lining Mrs. Sweet’s walls and considered dreams deferred, the ache of impatience with the world’s unwillingness to change, and the slow boil of frustration so many women accepted as their lot in life.
“You must find a way to atone,” Violet finally said. “Think of Letty, who already suffered a terrible betrayal by someone she loved. Learning about your lies will compound her pain. What of the club members who trusted you with their work, only to find you’ve used it to harm people?”
Phoebe’s gaze skittered to the side, and she nodded. “All of them. I owe all of them an explanation and an apology. And the man who died . . . I owe his family reparations. Somehow . . .”
Meeting Grey’s cool gaze, Phoebe pulled her shoulders back and let go of her skirts. “If you can keep me safe from my father, I will find a means of restitution. I won’t change my goals, but I will change how I attain them.”
It was lucky for Phoebe that Grey had the final decision over her fate. He would understand better than most how a father’s disappointment or neglect could shape a child’s actions. Daniel had despaired of his son’s condition, embarrassed and frightened by his sudden seizures. An upbringing in isolation while suffering through punishing “cures” gave Grey a unique empathy toward the outcasts and the forsaken.
“I know of a group who might be able to use a female agent,” he allowed. “You’ll no longer be Lady Phoebe, and you won’t see home for a long time.”
“I don’t suppose I’d want to come back until I’ve changed a few things,” she said. Worry still lingered in her amethyst eyes, but Phoebe’s face appeared younger, lighter somehow, and Violet could not resist smiling.
“Will you forgive me, Violet?” Phoebe asked.
Violet tapped a finger to her mouth in consideration. “I might, after a while.”
“If anything happens to Mr. Kneland,” Phoebe said, “would you be able to forgive me then?”
All these years, Violet had excused Phoebe’s carelessness for others as a clumsy attempt to keep a cruel world at bay. There were limits to absolution, however.
Violet answered with complete honesty. “I will always love you. But if Arthur does not recover, I will see you stand trial without a shred of remorse.”
* * *
“I HATE BEING shot,” Arthur said.
Mrs. Sweet glanced up at his complaint, then returned her attention to his wound. Pulling on a length of catgut, she finished the last of her stitches.
“Maybe stop jumping in front of bullets,” she suggested.
“I didn’t jump,” he muttered. “I slipped.”
Distraction from the pinch of the needle had come when Thomas, Alice, Winthram, and even Grey filed through Mrs. Sweet’s treatment room and offered opinions, sympathy, encouragement, and critiques in the same order as the visits.
Although Arthur made light of his injury, Alice was especially upset. Risking Mrs. Sweet’s wrath, she brought him three stale black buns she’d been saving for herself. Arthur ate one under her watch, pronouncing it almost as delicious as his mam’s.
He enjoyed it more than the bag of boiled lemon drops Thomas had placed on the bedside table with a devilish wink.
“Seems you have made a few friends,” Mrs. Sweet observed.
Friends. Imagine that.
Mrs. Sweet packed the wound with honey and rosemary, admonishing him not to disturb the dressing.
He must have fallen asleep then, because he’d closed his eyes on Mrs. Sweet and opened them back up to see Grantham looming over his cot.
“Shot again, eh? Don’t you look where you’re going?” Grantham groused.
As the anesthetic properties of fear and shock wore off, Arthur didn’t know which was the greater pain, Grantham or the gunshot wound.
“Chrissakes, I didn’t fall,” Arthur said. “I slipped.”
Grantham cleared his throat in disbelief. “Suppose you thought to woo Violet by literally falling at her feet?”
Every nerve in Arthur’s body screamed a protest, but he forced himself to sit. “I have no plans to woo Lady Greycliff.”
“No?” The big man scratched his head. “Must I thrash you again? Poor form to pummel a man with a hole in his chest.” Grantham leaned over and squinted. “Huh. Not so impressive up close.”
“You realize I still have my knife,” Arthur said.
Grey popped his head in at that moment to give them news: Violet had a strained ankle. She’d refused Mrs. Sweet’s treatment last night, insisting on sitting by Arthur’s bedside as he slept, until Alice had tricked her into eating a bowl of Mrs. Sweet’s soup. They’d dosed it with large quantities of laudanum and carried her upstairs.
“All that seaweed masks the taste,” Grey explained. “Mrs. Sweet is binding her ankle right now. I’m off to question Winters. Are you coming?”
Arthur swung his feet to the floor. When Grantham put out a hand to stop him, Grey intervened.
“He’s made of stone, that one. Doesn’t feel a thing.”
Made of stone, indeed.
Grumbling something about stubborn Scotsmen, Grantham helped Arthur to stand.
&nbs
p; “Post came today,” said Grey. He pulled an envelope from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to Arthur. “This one is addressed to you.”
Grantham whistled when he caught sight of the franking. “What’s the Queen have to say to a leaky little Scot?”
“Possibly the same thing she’ll say to a toothless earl,” Arthur replied, flexing the fist on his good side.
“I’ve the train ticket you asked for as well,” Grey said. “Staying or going?”
“I don’t know,” Arthur answered. “I’m not the one who has a decision to make.”
27
ARTHUR CLOSED THE lid of his worn traveling chest and lay on his bed.
Once he had a home, he would furnish it with an eye toward permanency. Enormous wooden beds that would have to be taken apart to get out of the room once he died. Oak dressers and toile curtains, and whatever else other folks filled their homes with, would sit in piles in each of his rooms.
Or so he told himself on this first morning the sun had deigned to reappear in London since he’d come to Beacon House. He’d told himself any number of silly stories since waking, lying like a corpse in his narrow cot, staring at the ceiling. His wound throbbed beneath his dressing, but Mrs. Sweet had checked it an hour ago and declared him sound in body, if somewhat damaged in the head.
The tea she’d given him for the pain soon took effect, and he slept for a while. He woke to a tingling at the back of his neck.
“Sheep!” chirruped a voice from the corner of the room.
“Feck!” Arthur shot into the air, then fell off the cot. Scrambling like a lunatic, he pulled open the bedside drawer and grabbed for a pistol with one hand while unsheathing his knife with the other, pulling at his stitches in the process.
“According to Flavia Smythe-Harrows, they are intelligent animals. Their reputation for stupidity is the result of herding behavior. Flavia’s father owns a large sheep farm, and she took an interest in their habits, although her first love will always be Tetrao urogallus urogallus.”
Arthur released his grip on the pistol and groaned. Opposite him in a chair by the cold hearth sat Violet.
Her brilliant green camail trimmed with gold braiding covered a silk dress the color of roses, like a spring garden blooming in his room. A heady combination of wet slate and jasmine filled his nose. He had to ask.
“What is ‘Tetrao urogallus urogallus’?”
“That would be the western capercaillie. The wood grouse. Pronounced sexual dimorphism.” Violet’s cheerful explanation sounded like the chiming of bells to his ears. She blinked. “Did I alarm you?”
“Not really,” he lied. “Why are you telling me about sheep and wood grouse?”
“Grey told me this morning that he’d purchased you a ticket to Scotland. I assume you plan to leave and search for your farm in the Highlands. My research tells me that sheep farming is the largest agricultural occupation in that region. You do remember my interest in the latest agricultural innovations?”
He laughed, and she smiled back with delight.
A tiny finger of sunlight pushed through his curtains and stroked her cheek. Outside, a blue sky covered the city, and songbirds nearly drowned out the rattle of wagon wheels and the cries of coffee sellers.
“I wanted to apologize. You would never have been hurt if not for my clumsiness,” she said. The sincerity of her words twisted the anguish in her gut.
“Apologize? I was the one who failed you. Phoebe was in front of me the entire time. I should never have left Adam Winters loose once I learned of the connection between him and the club. He put that bomb there to punish you.”
The truth had come out when they’d questioned Winters. He’d confessed to breaking the window but insisted the goal was to create noise and attention, not to harm anyone. When asked about the bomb, Winters had been defiant.
“Henrietta would never have stayed away this long if it weren’t for that club. I figured if the club shut down, Hen would have to come home. I know what’s best for her. Once I had the formula in my hands, I could have made enough money so that she wouldn’t have had to go back to work.”
However, he’d disputed Phoebe’s story of having his men rewire the bomb because she was a woman.
“’Twas because she was impatient,” Winters had said. “You couldn’t trust her to do the work properly. Like those gas canisters of hers. She stole the work those other ladies were doing and mixed it together, then claimed it as her own.”
“I failed you,” Arthur said now.
“You took a bullet in the chest for me.”
He crossed the room and knelt before her, gripping her hands. “This was my fault. Right from the beginning, there were too many coincidences. I spent weeks investigating Winthram, Letty, even the Pettigrews—the wrong people—the whole time. All because I doubted my judgment,” he said. “I let myself get distracted. I always will around you.”
Violet slipped from the chair and, with his help, settled on the floor facing him. They knelt together, a hair’s breadth apart. He breathed in her scent as though it were air and he’d been locked away in a box.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she whispered, “because I am no longer in danger.”
He turned his head, hiding from her imploring gaze. “But you may be again. I am not the man for you.”
* * *
VIOLET HAD WAITED all day for this moment. Well, not this moment exactly. When she’d pictured their reunion, it hadn’t consisted of her clothed and Arthur refusing to even glance her way.
She’d imagined him throwing himself at her feet and declaring his love for her.
Except he hadn’t. She’d donned a new dress, which had arrived this morning, but the corset pinched. This and the throbbing in her ankle was making her irritable.
“Arthur,” she said. “While I am sympathetic to your sensitive nature, I am afraid my patience with your delicate nerves is nearing its end.”
Three lines appeared between his eyebrows as he puzzled over her statement.
“Delicate nerves?” he asked.
“Yes. It is all well and good to harbor a feeling of responsibility for me,” she began.
“I do not have nerves,” he said.
“You are a mere mortal, with the limitations that come with that state. Whether your focus is on me or not, you cannot control the rest of the world. We might be walking arm and arm and lightning strikes me dead. Will that be your fault?”
“No,” he said cautiously.
“A carriage might flatten me when I cross the street to greet you. A house could fall on my head while we are sleeping together in bed.”
They blinked at the same time when she said those last words, and the tips of her ears buzzed.
Sleeping together in bed.
First things first, however.
“The study of science is a study of the rational.” Violet tempered her admonishment with a quick smile. “We do not deal in myths, dreams, or dark forebodings. We deal with the senses; we learn without prejudice, and we test our hypotheses.”
“I find it incredibly erotic when you say the word ‘hypotheses,’” Arthur remarked.
The corner of his mouth turned up a fraction of an inch, and Violet’s heart soared in response.
“Consider the evidence to the contrary of your theory,” she continued. “It hasn’t been death, but life you’ve given to me.”
He lifted her gently into his lap.
“Oh, be careful. I don’t want to hurt you,” she cried.
“Put your head here.” Arthur positioned her so that she rested on the opposite side of the lump where his bandage lay beneath his coat, then set about removing her gloves.
The heat poured off him, and she snuggled close to the warmth. A shimmering wave of joy started from the tips of her toes and prickled beneath her skin all the way to her scal
p.
“By the time Daniel died, I was a tiny version of myself,” she said. “I’d shrunk beneath the weight of his disappointment and forgotten how to grow back. Those years I spent building Athena’s Retreat never satisfied me. I thought I wasn’t trying hard enough, doing enough to support the members.”
Fortunately, Arthur found the patience to unbutton her gloves and not tear them off. Alice had spent hours picking them out and would not have been well pleased to see anything happen to them. Her hands freed from their confines, Arthur reacquainted himself with them, running his lips over the backs of her fingers and rubbing her palms against the delightful roughness of his unshaven cheeks.
“I didn’t need to create a secret club to make me happy,” she said. “I needed to make myself happy. You reminded me of how to live again. To be kind to oneself as well as others. To grab hold of and hang on to joy when it comes.” Violet’s voice hitched, and she continued in a whisper. “To let go of grief and regrets when they become overwhelming.”
Arthur placed his hand at the side of her face, tracing her lips with his thumb.
“I’ve lost everything I ever loved,” he said. “My family. My home. If I lost you? That is a grief I could never let go of.”
“As great a grief as if we lived without each other due to fear?” said Violet. “These few weeks have taught me to fight fear in all its forms. I won’t be diminished again. I have you to thank for this. You woke me up.” She stared into those formidable eyes that once told her nothing and now gave her the courage to lay herself bare in their gaze.
“I love you, Arthur Kneland. You’ve made me come alive again, and I don’t want to live without you. Someone else can be the face of the club. It doesn’t have to be me. I am learning how to be brave outside of those walls. My work will continue no matter what. I am not ashamed of you.”
She paused. A ticket sat on his bedside table. “But you are in search of a home . . .” Her words trailed off at the way his hand flew to his heart at the word home. Better to have lost him to a place than to fear, she supposed.
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