by Willa Ramsey
“Caro—”
“And when such a thing happens to you many times over, always with the same pattern—you change yourself, but the man goes about his life, hurting another woman soon after, then another—then Adam, then you will know why I need to do what I am doing.”
As he tried to put all of this together, he watched her raise her arm, summoning a constable from the street.
She was having him ejected from the lecture.
Chapter Eleven
“What do you think, Mama?” Caro asked, pulling her brush from the bucket of thick, glutinous rubber and spreading it across the silk in firm strokes. “Am I as good a painter as you?”
“Yes, my darling. You are the Michelangelo of rubber,” Mama replied, kneeling next to her. She put her own brush back into the bucket and stood. “Since you’ve got this well in hand, Caro, I’ll go help Mr. Davies with the casks.” She walked off with her skirts held several inches off the ground, revealing the heavy men’s boots she wore on construction sites.
But they were not on a construction site. They were in Hyde Park, and it was not quite dawn. They’d been there for several hours, in fact, making repairs to the balloon that they owned. Papa and Mama claimed it was for surveying land, but Caro knew from the sparks it brought to their eyes and the fervor she heard in their voices that it was more of a pleasing diversion than a real investment in their business.
Caro just hoped that helping with the repair work would keep her mind off a certain gentleman, whose name began with an A, and who had set up her bristles two days earlier when he suggested that she “alter her behavior.”
“When’s the next launch?” she called to her parents as she moved on hand and knee, wearing thick leather gloves and her oldest dress. It had taken their whole family, all three pupils, and a half-dozen workmen to spread the massive silk “envelope” of the balloon—the part that would hold the hydrogen gas—across a large, level area of the park.
“Bertie II won’t be ready to survey for some time,” Papa called back. “But we’ll test him here in the park in a week or so, if the conditions are right.”
She had named both of their balloons Bertie. Bertie I had met a sad but spectacular end on a steeple just outside the park, and to this day, none of them could pass by that house of worship without wincing. “Will you keep him tethered during the test?”
“Caroline,” Mama called, interrupting them. “Where are we on the decision to work for Lord Ryland?”
Damn it. Just like that, he was back in her head.
She sat up and pushed the hair from her forehead with the back of her wrist. “I don’t know what to say about Lord Ryland,” she replied.
It was the truth.
She steeled herself for the anger that had seethed up in her at the very mention of Adam’s name since the lecture. But instead, with blobs of rubber dotting her dress and hair, armies of insects chirping indignantly at her from their hiding places all around, she felt some other feeling, gurgling deep in her gut.
Queasiness.
She got back to her sealing. “I was thinking, Papa, Mama. We could raise a great deal of money if we invited the public to the launch, and sold tickets,” she called out. “We could sell subscriptions, and attract quite the crush—”
“We will do no such thing,” Papa interrupted.
“Too true, Papa. Too true. We’ll need refreshments and at least a four-piece ensemble if we’re to expect a single soul. And decent chairs, and perhaps I could hold a contest—”
“No, Caroline—you know I support your work, but these launches are unnerving to me as it is. An audience would make it worse.”
“I would love to see that, Caro!” Mama called to them from farther off. “Do not let Papa talk you out of exercising your talents!”
Papa grumbled something about the tyranny of democracies and went back to coiling his ropes.
Caro got up and walked off the envelope to fetch another bucket of rubber. She passed by piles of metal braces—for the casks in which the gas would be made—and other balloon-repair necessities, all of them heaped inside the carts they had brought to the park from their warehouse.
Adam had bought his persimmons from a cart just like these, she recalled as a swoony smile made its way across her face.
She shook her head vigorously.
Anger, queasiness, and now swoony smiles? Am I suffering some new sort of vertigo?
It would make sense, really. On the night of the lecture—in the space of a single evening—she had all but abandoned her resistance to courtship, flirted with a man who made her buckle in all sorts of places, had a terrible row with him, resumed her resistance to courtship—or perhaps just a portion of it?—then hid in a closet because she could not catch her breath, find her wits, or cool her temper.
It might have been the shortest, most fraught courtship in history—so perhaps some dizziness was to be expected.
She returned to the envelope with a new bucket. “We could also charge rich aristos to go aloft. That would really make us some blunt.”
“We already have a partner,” Papa replied. “We needn’t any more cooks in the kitchen, so to speak.”
“I’m not suggesting you get a partner,” she replied gruffly. “Partners want you to ‘alter your behavior.’ Partners want you to ‘blend in with the debutantes.’”
“What was that, dear?”
“Nothing. Look—this is for charity, Papa. I know gentlemen who would pay a great sum to go up in Bertie II. Those young bucks are always looking for something new and dangerous to try, so they can best each other’s stories over claret at their clubs.”
“Have you inspected the car, dear? Please go inspect the car.”
“It’s just an idea, Papa,” she replied as she brushed off her skirt and headed toward the car. “I’ll bet our patrons would love it.”
She knew she had more important things to think about than ballooning for charity. Her efforts to devise a scheme for dealing with Strayeth and Chumsley had not progressed, as every time she thought of it she was reminded of Adam. And when she thought of Adam, she fell back into the same confusing muddle.
It was unlike her to be distracted from her goals. Had she lost her enthusiasm for teaching those awful gentlemen a lesson?
She stepped inside the small wicker car and began looking for weaknesses or separation in the weaves. She started at the bottom of the small door and knelt low, so that she could push carefully at every seam.
Making her way around, she swept aside some leaves and a sheet of newspaper that had been left on the floor, probably by one of the workmen. The familiar font of a popular gossip page—the Gabster—caught her eye, so she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and leaned back against the wall to have a look.
We are told that a certain lady scientist will soon set sail for Bombay on the H.M.S. Orca…
She sat up straight. She knew a “lady scientist!” Her classmate at Mrs. Hellkirk’s, a Lady Mariah Asperton, had enjoyed dissecting creatures so much that she had sometimes done so in one of the closets, in secret. Since leaving school, she had immersed herself in scientific pursuits—also primarily in secret—but Caro and Edie still saw her on occasion. This must be about the recent paper she published, under a pseudonym in a journal of herpetology.
…We can only wonder why she would choose to confine herself in such cramped quarters…
The heat began at the top of Caro’s dress and moved rapidly up her neck and face.
The use of the word “confine” was the paper’s way of suggesting her old schoolmate was…with child.
And Mariah was not married.
…We know, however, from her many unsuccessful attempts at joining a certain scientific society, that she longs for the company of gentlemen…
Perspiration formed on Caro’s upper lip, her forehead, and under her arms. Was no woman safe from slander? And why did the paper choose to print this, instead of the fact that Mariah had found success with a finely wri
tten paper?
…and we wish her well with her little bundle of adventure.
She crumpled the sheet into a ball and clambered to her feet. Then she threw it onto the floor of the car and stomped on it—and stomped and stomped and stomped on it—all the while letting out a savage yawp and grabbing onto the side of the car so that she could jump on it still further, this time with both feet simultaneously.
She realized, eventually, that she was making a great spectacle and stopped. She looked up, her hair tumbling from its pins in wild, sticky sections, and saw that the workmen and her parents were all staring at her.
But the good news was, her enthusiasm for her scheme had returned.
Chapter Twelve
“Miss Crispin, you are a vision,” Chumsley began, barely suppressing a yawn. “Why more ladies do not wear such an immoderate shade of purple is beyond me. But perhaps other ladies do not share your complexion? You are rather pale, I believe.”
Oh dear me, Caro thought. No wonder he called me foul names—he cannot put together a proper compliment. “Why, Lord Chumsley. I had no idea you approved of ladies wearing such bold colors. But then, we have not established if you approve of such ladies on the street, or perhaps only in the bedroom.”
He drew back and put a hand on his chest. “I cannot know what you mean, Miss Crispin. I only wanted to convey how lovely you look this evening.”
He grabbed her hand and held it tightly, and before she realized his intention he brought it to his lips and gave it a languid kiss.
She glanced around, forcing herself to remain calm. It was late afternoon, and only a few other guests had arrived at the Tilbeths’ famous, French-style garden. Why was Chumsley one of them? Few other bucks were so eager to attend the anniversary festivities of a grouchy baron and his standoffish baroness.
Perhaps he is here to find time alone with me?
“Miss Crispin?” he snapped. “You seem unwell.”
“I am a little feverish,” she replied, fluttering her fan. “Would you be so kind as to fetch me some refreshment? I can only be improved by…by the juice of a persimmon. Do remember.”
He bowed deeply and turned away.
She went in the opposite direction, toward a series of gravel pathways that wound around some boxwood parterres. Behind her, gentlemen and ladies were beginning to filter into the garden from the back of the home.
Conversing with Strayeth and Chumsley was going to be more difficult than she’d realized. Seeing the latter had brought the pain of ten daggers to her chest, but she had to welcome his attentions—and Strayeth’s—or risk letting on that she knew about their wager. She couldn’t seem too eager to see them, either, or she’d raise suspicions among other guests who had heard about the wager.
Because Adam had been right on that point.
Fine. Adam had been right about several things. She could admit that now, as she paced slowly back and forth against a tall hedge, near the entrance to the pathways.
And since she was admitting things now, difficult things, she might as well confess why she had accepted Lady Tilbeth’s invitation in the first place: She’d thought Adam was likely to be here. No true landscape enthusiast could resist an opportunity to visit such a spectacular garden. And she needed to tell him that she was sorry—that he had been right—but that she would never, ever hide herself, or be quiet, as he had asked.
“Miss Crispin?”
She turned and saw a thin man, just taller than her, with a thick wave of red-gold hair rising from his crown. Beyond him, ladies and gentlemen were streaming into the garden now, from large doors on the back of the home. “Yes?”
“My name is Mr. Perkins, from the Huffridge School for Boys,” he replied, removing his hat and holding it in front of him. “Please excuse the impertinence of my introduction—I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to thank you in person for your recent donation of books.”
“Oh, you are quite welcome, Mr. Perkins. Tell me—what are your pupils’ favorite volumes? Or don’t they know just yet?”
He laughed and scratched at his unruly sideburns. He kept them quite long, which seemed to be the fashion among some young men. “The little ones fight over anything with pictures of insects. The older ones are looking for passages that pertain to—well, to adult matters of any kind.”
The man blushed a little as he said it, and Caro returned his smile. “I was like that myself at that age,” she replied. “So you won’t find any judgment from me on that quarter.”
“Indeed?” Now Mr. Perkins was really listening, looking nervously over her shoulder and back again, folding the brim of his hat back most harmfully.
She saw that she had alarmed the poor man, and reached out to touch his arm.
“Come, Mr. Perkins. I’d like to tell you about some other ideas I have.”
But just as she said it, she saw Adam from the corner of her eye, stepping toward them and away from a cluster of gentlemen behind her. He seemed to have left the group mid-sentence. Their eyes all followed him, darting and furrowed, as he joined her and Mr. Perkins.
“Miss Crispin,” Adam said as he bowed to her. “I don’t believe I have the pleasure of knowing your friend.”
He was speaking in a lower octave than he normally did. It was almost as if he was trying to intimidate poor Mr. Perkins, who was now crunching his hat to the point of being unrecognizable.
She introduced them, and they bowed. “What business have you with Miss Crispin?” Adam asked.
“I—”
“Lord Ryland, that is none of your concern,” she interrupted.
Mr. Perkins gaped at her. “My lord, we were talking of Miss Crispin’s charity. She has given my school so many gifts over the years, I have quite lost count.”
“Ah! See there, Miss Crispin? I am always interested in charitable schemes of yours. Do tell me, what will you next be leeching from the men of good society?”
She could not read him at all. Was this cheek? Was he angry with her? He wasn’t smiling the way he had done at the market, or during the tour of his home, or at the lecture, when he asked her if he could get to know her better. Now, his jaw moved under the taut skin of his face, and he focused his penetrating gaze on poor Mr. Perkins.
Ah. He wanted him to leave.
And in all honesty, she wouldn’t mind it if Mr. Perkins left, either.
“Let me think,” she said after a long sigh. “I suppose I shall ask the men of society for the one thing they guard most carefully of all—the thing they are wont to keep entirely to themselves.”
“Coin?” Adam asked, turning to look at her for the first time.
Her heart flared as he did so, releasing a single pulse of something that diffused all through her, long after he’d looked away. “No. Their ears.”
“How very interesting, Miss Crispin. How very violent.”
“Not at all, Lord Ryland. I should only like to find a gentleman or two who are willing to listen, without prejudice, to those who were not born to the same advantages they were.”
He smiled at her now. “That would be an impressive feat, indeed. Your magnum opus, perhaps.”
“Indeed. Although clearly, I have yet to work out the details.”
Mr. Perkins looked from one of them to the other, and put his hat back on. “If you’ll excuse me, then…” He trailed off, and wandered off, but neither she nor Adam broke their gaze to acknowledge it.
Adam fought the urge to offer her his arm. That’s all he wanted right then: for her to put her small, soft hand into the crook of his elbow and turn with him into the crowd—announcing to him and everyone else that she was his.
Well, that wasn’t all he wanted. But it would certainly be a good start.
“Lord Ryland,” she said finally. Was that a tremor in her voice, or had he imagined it? “A pleasure to see you, as always.”
She started to curtsy, and he felt himself go cold at the thought that he might have to endure another evening without clearing the air, without
her knowing that he was sorry and that he would do anything to have her stick her chin in his face again.
“Miss Crispin—please. Let us walk awhile. I would very much like to continue our conversation from the night of your father’s lecture.”
“Of course,” she replied a little too quickly, then cleared her throat and glanced around. “Here. This path looks interesting.”
They turned toward it and were walking side by side when Caro stumbled on a misplaced stone. He reached behind her, thinking only to steady her, but ended up squeezing the far side of her waist as if his hand were a vise and her torso was something he’d very much like to work on. She jerked and turned her head, revealing cheeks that had bloomed brighter than his favorite Ardythe peonies. She righted herself and he released her, turning forward again.
He cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back. He had never felt such an urge before—the need, deep in his bones, to have another person respond to him so definitively, and exclusively. When he had seen Caro standing with that wheat-haired Mr. Perkins, he had wanted to insert himself between them and shout it to the Heavens that he would be the only one entertaining her ideas, thank you very much.
Good thing he had recently learned to behave otherwise.
“Was Mr. Perkins the next man on your list?” he blurted nervously.
She looked at him, open-mouthed. “I—I—What do you take me for, Lord Ryland?”
“The invitation to call me Adam remains.”
“I—Oh.” She had started to point a finger at him but something had dawned on her, and she lowered it. “You meant the next man I plan to confide in, about my scheme?”
“Yes. What did you think I meant?”
“Nothing.”
“What other role do I play in your life, Caro?”
She stopped walking and spun around to face him. “Adam, you cannot play the constable when it comes to my conversations with other people,” she announced, breathing heavily, her fists clenched.