The teasing tone of his question told Miriam he had asked it more than once, jolting her from her frozen position on the main steps leading up to the massive doors painted with gold leaf. Sending him a tremulous smile, she squared her shoulders and marched up the steps. Dithering on the walk wasn't going to get her any closer to achieving her dreams.
Bounding up behind her, Leo leaned around to knock loudly on the door. The light woodsy scent of his cologne drifted to her nose, making her want to shift closer and sniff his neck.
Which would be appallingly improper, and she'd promised herself she would keep her distance this time. No matter how lovely and strong his shoulders were.
The door swung open to reveal an elderly man, who squinted at them. Well, he squinted at Leo. Miriam could have been dandelion fluff on the wind for all the attention he paid her. She stifled an aggravated sigh.
"Eh? Are you members?"
"No, but—"
"People cannot just wander in off the street, young man, this isn't a bookshop. Begone!"
Leo wedged his foot in the door as it began to close again, much to the affront of the doorman. "But Miss Rosenbaum here does have friends who are members, sir. Mr. Charles Minsky and his sister, Miss Minsky."
"Hmph." The old man looked at them both narrowly for another moment, then shrugged and gestured for them to follow, heading into the building. "Come on then, if you're coming."
"Delightful old fellow," Leo whispered in her ear, as he placed one hand on the small of her back, guiding her inside. Miriam's belly jumped at his touch, in a not unpleasant way. The heat of his palm burned through the fine cotton of her dress, distracting her as she tried to take in the grandeur of the Academy. Miriam concentrated on following the slightly hunched man leading them down a long hallway, ignoring the feelings that tumbled inside her.
Now was not the time.
After a few moments, they came upon an open doorway, the sound of arguing coming from inside the room. The butler stepped up, peered inside with a frown, then turned and left them standing there without an announcement. Blinking, she turned to Leo, who just shrugged and spread his hands wide, his mouth twitching upward in amusement.
"...and I say your calculations are off!"
Miriam stepped into the large room, heart thumping. It was cluttered with tables filled with star charts and reams of inked upon paper, a large slate board positioned in one corner, and a man and woman shouting at each other, nose to nose. Both had the same strawberry blond coloring, slight build, and freckles, it seemed safe to assume they were Charles and Charlotte Minsky.
Oblivious to their visitors, the pair continued to argue. Miss Minsky grabbed up a handful of paper and shook it in her brother's furious face.
"I know it's horrifying to you that a woman might be right where you are wrong, but I assure you, my female attributes do not impede my abilities as a computer," she snapped, her sandy brows drawn down in a fierce frown.
The siblings' heads whipped around at Leo's snort of laughter. He hastily straightened his face, as Miriam dug into his side with her elbow. She wanted to melt into the floorboards, as mortified as if they'd been caught sneaking.
It wasn't their fault the Academy's butler had no sense of duty!
"Who are you, pray tell, and what are you doing in our laboratory?" Miss Minsky's hands landed on her hips, the paper still fisted in one hand, irritation writ large across her face.
"I do apologize for our interruption of your, um, work. The butler left before announcing us." Miriam's cheeks flushed as she stepped forward, ignoring Leo's cheeky grin as best she could. "Might I assume you are Miss Charlotte Minsky?"
She turned to the small woman's brother, whose expression was curious as his gaze flicked between her and Leo. "And Mr. Charles Minsky?"
"Yes, we have that honor," he replied for them both, and bowed as if suddenly recalling his manners. His sister remained silent, her expression closed. "Whom do we have the pleasure of addressing, then?"
"I am Miss Miriam Rosenbaum, of New York City," Miriam replied, her excitement at meeting the pair rushing back. This was it, the moment she'd been waiting for, for the better part of a year. She couldn't stop the wide smile that spread over her face. There were so many things she wanted to share with them.
Mr. Minsky bowed in a pleasant manner, but no recognition lit his eyes. Charlotte still said nothing, her posture rigid, mouth pressed into a flat line. It was disconcerting, her joy crumbling around the edges as she took in the other woman's expression. Miriam had been so sure she'd be welcomed with open arms and cries of happy tidings by her friend. What was happening instead was nothing she'd ever imagined.
It had never occurred to her that she would be unwelcome.
Her smile wobbled as she gestured to Leo.
"This is Mr. Blakeley. My family is staying at the home of his mother, the Countess of Pennyworth."
Charles looked at them both and nodded, still pleasant... still confused... still waiting to find out why they'd barged into his laboratory.
This was awkward. And devastating.
Miriam twisted her hands together, casting a pained look at Leo. He just nodded in encouragement and made a little go on gesture, his expression warm. It was the little bit of fortification she needed to push herself into speaking again.
"Since I wrote nothing of traveling in my last letter, I know this must come as a surprise." Miriam tried to smile again at the woman she'd considered a friend for the last year. A compatriot. Someone who knew what it was like to dream of things beyond the restrictions of her station and gender. But the smile would not hold in the face of Charlotte's chilly regard. "A pleasant surprise, I had hoped."
Charles looked even more confused, turning to his sister. "Lottie, you are previously acquainted with Miss..."
His sheepish look prompted Miriam to speak through gritted teeth. "Rosenbaum."
"—Miss Rosenbaum?"
Drawing in a sharp breath, Charlotte narrowed her eyes at her sibling, fingers laced together in a tight grip. "Yes, we've corresponded."
Her stark answer pained Miriam. How cold that sounded. As if they'd not shared their scientific works, their troubles, and their greatest ambitions, over the course of thirteen months.
"What brings you to London, Miss Rosenbaum?"
"Well, I... I'd hoped to meet you. Both of you." Again, the lack of enthusiasm was soul crushing. Miriam paused, searching for words, then decided not to mention her desire to join in their research. Clearly, it wasn't going to happen. Nothing was unfolding the way she'd thought it would.
Pasting a bright smile on her face, she attempted to inject levity into her voice.
"Now I can say I have, and what a moment it was."
Perhaps that came out a bit sharper than Miriam intended. Leo shifted behind her, his movement arrested, as if he'd started to intervene and stopped himself.
"How entertained my friends will be."
"That's... good." Charles said weakly, casting his sister another questioning glance. But she was staring at the table in front of her now, shoulders tense.
Miriam would never share this moment with anyone. If only Leo wasn't here, witnessing her utter humiliation. How naive she'd been. How silly to think it would be any different from New York.
She bared her teeth in a smile one notch below frightening.
"Thank you ever so much for your time."
"Ahh. It was... our pleasure?" Charles could not sound more baffled than if the King Regent himself had popped in for a chat and bit of tea. Miriam swallowed a laugh she knew would emerge with the shrill edge of hysteria.
"Yes, yes, I'm sure." She backed up toward the door at a quick pace, nearly tripping over Leo as he attempted to move out of her path. His large hand enveloped her elbow, steadying her. His presence at her side, calm and uncharacteristically quiet, soothed her frayed nerves. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, drawing in a deep breath.
Opening them again, Miriam looked straight at Charl
otte's bowed head. Regardless of her poor reception, she had learned much from the other woman over the last year, through their numerous communications. She did not take that lightly.
"Thank you for your letters." Miriam let her voice show her grateful admiration she'd had for the Charlotte she'd thought she knew, her friend. "I will cherish them, Miss Minsky."
Then she turned on her heel and left the room.
Chapter 10
Miriam's silence was worrying.
Glancing over at her, pulling his concentration away from guiding the horses through Mayfair's streets, for what felt like the hundredth time since they'd left the Academy, Leo wondered if he should say something.
Such as?
Terrible that your friend rejected you so soundly in front of witnesses? Sorry your dreams just went up in smoke? My apologies for being a coward and nearly allowing Lord Ashbury to snap you up like a hungry fox?
None of it seemed like something she'd be receptive to hearing at the moment. Leo fiddled with the reins, then glanced over again. Her face was turned away as she stared at the buildings they rolled past, her shoulders tight, hunched inward. As if warding off a blow, or curling around an injury already done.
He clenched his jaw, then deliberately relaxed it again. "If I turn left at the next street, it will take us back to my mother's house. If I turn right, we can drive a little longer. Which would you like?"
Because he wasn't sure she would be able to hold herself together if she had to face her mother, his mother, and her sisters right now. And it seemed like keeping her composure was something that mattered to her very much at that moment, with her clenched hands and lifted chin.
"To the right, please," came the answer, her voice low but steady.
Leo nodded, took the right turn, and drove on. He didn't thrust conversation upon her, just hummed to himself idly as they wound through the streets for the next hour. Muscle by muscle, she slowly relaxed, until she drew in a long, shuddering breath and dropped back against the seat.
He turned the horses toward his parents' town house then.
When they arrived, there was an unfamiliar carriage out front.
"Wonderful." She frowned as he jumped down, then reached up to help her out of the phaeton. "Perhaps I can sneak past the drawing room, if I'm quiet enough. I've no interest in meeting another one of Mama's old friends now."
He didn't doubt it.
The pain he'd seen in her face when Miss Minsky rejected her, a woman Miriam had obviously felt to be a friend, had been like a punch in his own gut. He wished he could have prevented it, could have cushioned her from the blow, but she didn't need him to. She was dealing with the hurt masterfully, with clear eyes and straight shoulders.
There was also no doubt he'd fallen completely in love with her.
He couldn't put a finger on what moment it had happened, only that it had. It could have been when she spoke of her love for astronomy, her eyes bright and sharp. It could have been when he kissed her. Or when she kissed him back.
If he was being honest with himself, and he was attempting the practice more often now, he'd probably started falling in love with her the first moment he saw her sitting in his mother's drawing room.
Which made him three times a fool, because he couldn't ask her to marry him without confessing his idiocy first. Now was not the time for that. Thinking back on the way she'd slammed that door in his face, he worried there might not ever be a time for it. But he wasn't going to pile his feelings, perhaps unrequited feelings, on top of her current troubles.
"Should I create a distraction? I could knock something over." Leo turned and smiled at her as they entered the house, careful to show nothing but good cheer. "Harrington would have a fit, and then we could finally have our long overdue shouting match. You would be able to easily slip upstairs in the meelee."
The corner of her mouth twitched, a victory if he ever saw one.
"I worry about you at times, Leo Blakeley."
"Do you?" He put his hand over his chest as if in exaggeration, but it wasn't much of one. Emotion squeezed his heart, the idea that she thought of him when he wasn't around. Perhaps his suit wasn't entirely hopeless. "I confess, I worry as well. Harrington is quite spry for a man his age. He might hurt me."
There it was, that beautiful, wide smile.
He lived for that smile.
He'd like to spend the rest of his life in pursuit of that smile, if she would let him.
"Miss Rosenbaum."
"Drat, we were too slow," muttered Miriam, as the butler stepped into the entryway. Leo reached out for a vase nearby, but she swatted his hand before he could tip it from its pedestal. "Oh, good gracious, behave. Your mother would murder you."
He shrugged. "It would be worth it."
She blinked up at him, then turned back to Harrington with a shake of her head. "Yes?"
"There is a guest waiting for you, Miss." He stepped forward and handed her a visiting card. Leo couldn't catch the writing on the face of it, but he didn't miss the way Miriam's expression went blank as she read it. "A Miss Charlotte Minsky, I believe."
Ah. Well, damn. All the good done by their long drive around Mayfair was undone, Miriam's hands shaking again, just the slightest bit. Maybe something most people wouldn't notice, but he was not most people. He noticed everything about her.
"Would you like me to go in with you?" He would, of course he would, if she wanted him there. Leo would brave a den of vipers if it would save her from any more pain this day.
But she just shook her head, looking at the closed door of the parlor.
"I think I need to do this myself," Miriam said softly, pocketing the card with a sigh. She started across the entryway, then stopped and looked back to where he stood. "But thank you. For everything today. And... don't go far?"
His heart did a slow flip in his chest, landing with a thump.
"I'll wait right here."
She arched one eyebrow, a gleam of humor coming into her gaze.
"Right here?"
He cleared his throat, feeling like a bit of a fool. "Perhaps in the garden."
"I'll find you, then."
He sincerely hoped she would. Otherwise he was liable to sit out there all night, waiting to see her again. Ignoring the heated flush that had worked its way north of his collar, and Harrington's amused snort as he passed the older man, Leo went out to the garden to wait.
After a little while, the warm sunshine—finally, no more damned rain—lulled him into a drowse as he reclined on one of the stone benches under the arbor. It was peaceful here, with the new flowers waving in the breeze, no hint of the smog or traffic that plagued London beyond the high brick walls of the garden.
Leo woke to a hand brushing back the hair out of his face, and squinted up at the outline of Miriam as she perched on the bench, blocking the sun from his eyes. He sat up, tugging at his coat to smooth out the wrinkles, embarrassed to be caught sleeping but too pleased to have been awoken by her touch to worry over it.
"Was I snoring?"
Miriam laughed, low and clear. "Not yet, but I had the feeling you could have started at any moment."
She looked lighter, as if a great deal of her burden had been eased. Some of the worry left him, and he was able to ask in a casual voice, "Your second visit with Miss Minsky went well, I take it?"
"Yes."
He wasn't going to pry. If she wanted him to know... Oh, to hell with that.
"And?" He bumped her shoulder. She bumped him back, harder. But not before he caught the grin on her face.
"We came to an accord. I think." Miriam leaned against the side of the arbor, resting her head on the flowers as she spoke. He thought she looked liked a goddess, with morning glories haloing her dark curls. "She had left directly after us, it turns out, having felt quite ill over the way she reacted to my visit."
"Did she now?" He wasn't going to pass judgment on the woman, but he did feel she'd deserved that stomachache. Alright, he was passing
a little judgment. But she'd hurt Miriam, and made him vengeful. He couldn't be faulted for wishing a week's worth of stomach pain on anyone to do such a thing.
"She did. She could not apologize enough. Apparently, some of her brother's colleagues had been making things quite unpleasant for her there as of late."
Miriam's gaze darkened as she spoke, her mouth pinching in distaste. "Small things, nothing truly harmful. Nothing she could point out to her brother without sounding like she was just attempting to garner attention. But it wore away at her."
Now Leo had some dark thoughts himself, directed at the faceless gentlemen in the halls of the Academy. Using the term 'gentlemen' loosely.
"When we showed up, when I showed up, she said she was frightened that she would be shoved aside from all that she'd had to work so hard to achieve. Or that they'd decide they'd had enough of females trying to elbow their way in, and shut us both out, if she invited me to work with her and her brother."
Leo shook his head. "How could she have corresponded with you for any length of time and not realize you're not the sort to allow such a thing to happen?"
"That's what I said!" Miriam leaned forward, not realizing a morning glory had become lodged in her hair and came away from the arbor with her. It looked so fetching, he decided not to mention it.
"Truly baffling."
She nodded, a small frown on her face, but this one was more thoughtful, less angry. "I told her I understood, I've been the center of such censure myself. It's a difficult place to exist in. Since she's not comfortable with sharing her space at the Academy, she'd like to come here every few days instead. I agreed to that. There are calculations she's done, and places she wants me to look, and I have some ideas of my own..."
Leo dipped his head when she trailed off, her gaze dropping to her lap.
"What's wrong? That sounds like what you'd hoped for, if not exactly, then very close. You've finally found a partner."
"It is." She looked up again, eyes shiny with happiness. "It is what I wanted, what I've dreamt of, and it's because of you I had the chance. Without your encouragement—"
Dismissing the Duke Page 20