The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows
Page 31
“I . . .” He swallowed—and bless him, he took a moment to consider before he answered. “I think what’s been hard for me is the idea that I have to do it alone. You and Father had each other, and that seemed to work so well—but I . . .” He looked at Eliza, his heart in his eyes, then back at Agatha. “I can find us any number or kind of writers,” he said staunchly, “provided I have someone to decide what’s best to print. I have the energy—but she has the vision.”
Agatha nodded. “I absolutely agree,” she said. “So: how would you two like to take over—as partners?”
“Partners?” Sydney said, brightening.
Eliza’s eyes went wide, and she gasped.
“Partners,” Agatha confirmed. “We can have something legal drawn up with very little trouble. A proper contract, official and dependable.” She tapped a finger on the counter meaningfully. “But something you could always dissolve later, if you two decide to—to part ways.”
It was not an easy thing for Agatha to say, but she knew it was the right thing, and that helped her get over the awkwardness of it all. My son, you have my blessing not to get married.
Eliza’s mouth hung open for half a minute before she whispered, “But ma’am . . . are you . . . What would you be doing?”
Agatha pursed her lips to keep from smiling too broadly and giving the game away. “I find myself more and more intrigued by your suggestion about sheet music. We could probably open a whole second shop for that—maybe with a little poetry and broadsides as well. But London rents are so very expensive . . . Perhaps we should look at premises nearer the other press-works, so I can still check proofs and keep the queue moving.”
Light dawned in Eliza’s eyes, as she caught Agatha’s meaning. “Somewhere like Melliton, perhaps?”
Agatha nodded primly. “I know of a building near the high street that would do nicely.” Mr. Turner would be happy enough to sell at any price, she was sure.
Eliza’s grin had gone from a candle to a bonfire. “Do you think we could have it ready in time for Mrs. Turner’s next batch of ballads?”
“We can certainly try.”
Eliza squealed in pleasure, and clapped her hands over her mouth for a moment in sheer joy. She got hold of herself before too long, and schooled herself almost back to her usual semi-demure helpfulness. “Mrs. Flood will be happy to have you so close by, I’m sure.”
Agatha’s buoyant mood deflated a little. “I hope so. She asked me to—but I . . .” She paused, eyes narrowing at her soon-to-be-former apprentice. Who winked, the chit. “You know about Mrs. Flood and me?”
Eliza arched a knowing brow. “Did you two think you were being subtle?”
Agatha laughed until her sides ached.
Two days later, Agatha took the stage into Melliton. Even though she wasn’t expected at Fern Hall for another few days.
She wanted this to be a surprise.
She left her things in the care of Mrs. Biswas at the Four Swallows, and went walking the circuit toward Fern Hall to find Penelope. It felt wrong, striding along the familiar roads and paths in skirts rather than trousers. The fabric of her dress caught on quite a few more briars and branches than she was used to; her light cotton hem was rather dusty and her petticoat a bit torn before long. No doubt Penelope’s romantic soul would enjoy the idea, but not the reality, of Agatha showing up in tatters to beg for forgiveness. Penelope Flood was a pragmatist at heart, for all her love of poetry.
Just one more reason to love her, really.
Agatha walked as quickly as she could, but it wasn’t fast enough to suit her impatience—so as she walked, she plucked flowers: columbine, hyssop, kingcups, dog roses, and more. Names and natures she’d learned from Penelope, along with all the local plants most beloved by bees. To this bounty Agatha added a long, twisting tendril of enchanter’s nightshade—which, Penelope had said, referred to the witch Circe, who changed men into beasts. Agatha’d meant to ask more about that; she was curious about the full story.
If she could only find where the damned woman was!
She walked past the Turner place and up, across Squire Theydon’s sloping fields to the small copse beyond: a shady, curving bowl of trees, with a small spring and a carpet of lily of the valley.
And there was Penelope. Brown coat, men’s trousers, so beautiful and so very herself that Agatha had to stop and press a hand to her heart until she could breathe again.
No pointing apologizing if you were only going to faint before the thing was properly done.
Penelope didn’t look up from the hive as Agatha approached, her hearing muffled no doubt by her veil and the joyous buzzing of three hives’ worth of bees.
Agatha could relate: her own heart felt overfull of noise and wings. She had no idea how to begin, so she chose something utterly banal and said: “Hullo.”
Penelope froze, then slowly pivoted. The smoker at her side puffed once as her hand clenched tight, and her eyes went very wide as she took in Agatha with her hem in shreds and her hands full of flowers and a lump the size of Wales in the back of her throat.
“Hello yourself,” Penelope said in return.
And now it was Agatha’s turn again. She had to speed things up, or at this rate they wouldn’t get this mess sorted out before winter came and froze them where they stood.
“I made you something,” Agatha said, and held up the flowers. She’d used the enchanter’s nightshade to weave the various blossoms into a coronet, bright and blooming and fit for a fairy queen.
Penelope blinked, mouth opening and closing. She seemed staggered, as if Agatha were speaking a foreign language she only halfway understood. Her eyes never left the coronet. “Cowslips,” she said. “I could quote you some excellent poetry about that.”
Agatha sighed. “Go ahead: I deserve it.”
Penelope was startled into a laugh.
“You said you can’t have two queens in a hive,” Agatha went on, “but that just means only one of us can be queen.” She stepped forward, her heart hovering on the back of her tongue, ready to fly out from her lips. “I think it ought to be you. I came to tell you I’m sorry for yesterday—and to ask you if I could change my answer. To ask . . . if you’d like to share a home, and a life. With me.”
She stretched out her hands, holding the coronet. She was proud of the way they barely shook at all.
Penelope raised a finger and almost touched one trembling petal. A bee from the hive behind her beat her to it, diving into the bell of the flower, its velvet legs dusted with gold.
Penelope’s face lifted, and now her smile outshone the sun in the sky above. “What if neither of us are queens?” she said, to Agatha’s surprise. “What if we’re only a pair of lowly worker bees?”
Agatha stared down at the coronet, as more bees found their way toward it, setting themselves in the flowers like tiny gems. “That sounds much less romantic than what I had planned.”
“Is it?” Penelope set aside the smoker and moved forward, her gloved hands cupping the back of Agatha’s. Heat crept up Agatha’s skin at the touch. “Worker bees depend on one another,” Penelope said. “They can’t thrive or even survive on their own.” One corner of her sweet mouth quirked. “I’d be no good without you, you know.”
Hope struck like a kick to the chest. “Is that a yes?”
“Of course it is.”
Agatha’s heart gave a great leap, joy and gratitude and love all expanding infinitely, as if there was a whole second sky within her. She blew out a breath as the fear and tension of the past few days melted away. And here she was with stars in her eyes and her hands brimming over with flowers. “I still think you ought to wear the crown,” she said. “I went to some trouble.”
Penelope laughed, and bent her head, and blew gently until all the bees flew grumpily away. “We can take turns.”
Her gloved hands raised the coronet and set the whole on Agatha’s brow. It prickled terribly, but Agatha didn’t care—she was too busy pulling off Penelope’s
wide hat, the bee veil tangling between her fingers as she bent low for a kiss, catching Penelope’s breathy laugh on her tongue. One kiss led to another, and another, and together they sank to the grass of the meadow, as the buzzing of bees played a lazy, loving counterpoint.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
August 1821
The illustration of Queen Caroline’s funeral was one of Eliza’s finest etchings yet: a great black hearse, horses with plumes that drooped like willow branches, the tall, stern figures of the soldiery in black ink on the pale page. Agatha sold copy after copy as Mrs. Biswas read the account from the papers to the evening crowd at the Four Swallows. “Some stones and mud were thrown at the military, and a magistrate being present, the soldiers were sanctioned in firing their pistols and carbines at the unarmed crowd.”
“Shameful!” Mrs. Koskinen cried, to a chorus of agreement.
Two people had been killed, as the massed crowd confronted the guard and demanded the funeral be allowed to pass through London proper, despite Lord Liverpool’s forbidding it for fear of causing unrest. He’d been right to worry, it turned out. The crowd made its own riotous path. There had been wild, persistent rumors that the Queen had been poisoned: she’d kicked up a royal fuss in an attempt to attend her husband’s coronation a month before, and to the public’s eye the timing was something more suspicious than mere coincidence could account for.
All the contempt the people had expressed for her behavior vanished, and they once again rioted in her support.
To keep the Melliton folk orderly, Mr. Oliver had given a painfully patriotic sermon about kings and piety and respect for the crown—only to be shaken by the news that King George had not only gone to visit the Catholics in Ireland, with an eye toward their emancipation—but that George had at the same time enjoyed a cheery reunion with his mistress, Lady Coyningham, whose husband had recently been elevated to the Privy Council in return for the man’s great kindness in overlooking adultery.
It was a great blow for a simple country vicar to take all at once, and Penelope thought he would be some time in recovering from it.
He would have no support from his sister: Viscount and Lady Summerville had let Abington Hall and were sparing expenses by moving in with his lordship’s brother at his estate in Wessex. The Mendacity Society had rather flagged without its foundress—and without the support of the cash earned from the sale of Isabella’s statues. The new Abington Hall tenant was set to move in at the end of the month, and was already the subject of several unlikely rumors and base speculations.
Harry and John had sailed off to the southern whaling grounds, with promises to write when next they made landfall.
Mrs. Biswas finished reading the description of the funeral, and the usual arguments broke out in the usual corners. Mr. Thomas and Mr. Kitt had their heads close together, reading over some piece about the navy. The new ballad singer began tuning her guitar, in preparation for a performance that would include Mrs. Turner’s latest ballads and one or two still-popular works by the Widow Wasp.
Mr. Painter could be heard from the far side of the room, complaining as always that Melliton was growing too rude, too rough, and showed less and less respect for the law.
“Good thing, too,” Agatha muttered, making Penelope snort into her ale.
Acknowledgments
In writing this book I threw myself headlong into the work of Eva Crane, a quantum mathematician turned legendary beekeeper whose The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting has been an invaluable resource and a perpetual flood of inspiration.
Publishing is volatile at the best of times, but never more so than the past few months. I would like to send all my love and gratitude to the writers, editors, publicists, illustrators, booksellers, and librarians who have fought to keep making stories in times when it feels we need them more desperately than ever.
The Hellion’s Waltz
The next breathtaking romance in Olivia Waite’s Feminine Pursuits series,
THE HELLION’S WALTZ
will be available from Avon Impulse
Summer 2021
About the Author
OLIVIA WAITE is a former bookseller and Jeopardy! champion who writes historical romance, fantasy, science fiction, and essays. She is the “Kissing Books” columnist for the Seattle Review of Books, where she reviews romance both new and old with an emphasis on insightful criticism and genre history. She lives in Seattle with her husband and their stalwart mini-dachshund.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Olivia Waite
The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
the care and feeding of waspish widows. Copyright © 2020 by Olivia Waite. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition JULY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-293180-1
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-293182-5
Cover design by Amy Halpern
Cover type design by Patricia Barrow
Cover illustration by Christine M. Ruhnke
Cover images © Period Images; © Jannarong/Shutterstock (couch); © Dm_Cherry/Shutterstock (background)
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