The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics

by Olivia Waite

  It was when she pulled the countess a little leftward to go around a flower seller that she saw it. There in the window of a print shop, placed right in the heart of the display, was a copy of a painting. The engraving had been carefully hand-tinted, and it was the contrast that first caught Lucy’s eye, yellow on blue.

  Then she saw the subject, and her heart stopped dead in her breast.

  It was her own portrait, as though she’d stopped to stare into a mirror someone had left there waiting for her. But where her mirror always showed her the truth of her looks—the long length of her nose, the narrowness of her jaw—this image had rounded her off into someone or something more unrecognizably beautiful.

  This other Lucy was seated at a telescope, but she wasn’t looking through it. She was looking past it, staring with naked eye up at a collection of stars. Winter and summer constellations mixed together with no regard for chart or science or season. Her languid, ladylike hand held a pen above a sheet full of numbers, and a lantern—a lantern! yellow and bright as a bonfire—cast a strong clear light over the scene and ruined any astronomer’s chance at proper night vision. The ghostly figure of Albert Muchelney hovered at Lucy’s shoulder—his features, she noticed, had not been beautified; the likeness was precise—his long arm pointed up at the sky, as the painted Lucy’s gaze followed his guidance. Her clothing was romantically loose and drapey—where was her cloak, or even a good warm shawl? The cloth gleamed like finest silk in the lantern light, but who would wear silk while working outdoors at night? Especially pale blue and white, easily the least practical color of them all.

  The title of the painting was printed below: Miss Muchelney’s Stars, or: The New Ourania. In the corner, faithfully reproduced by the engraver, was a signature Lucy recognized with a sick floating sensation, as though the solid earth had been yanked out from underneath her.

  “Oh, Stephen,” she whispered, “how could you?”

  Catherine’s hand tightened on Lucy’s arm.

  She looked down to find the countess’s eyes wide and her mouth a flat line. “Did he tell you he was going to do this?”

  Lucy shook her head. Through the window, she saw a shop clerk pull a copy of the engraving from the top of the stack piled behind the display. Despite herself, Lucy flinched. The clerk’s head snapped up at the motion, and when he saw the two women standing there, his eyes went wide as recognition dawned.

  Lucy’s vision went gray at the edges. So this is what fainting feels like, she thought, swaying on her feet and leaning heavily on Catherine.

  Who, bless her, leaned back into Lucy’s weight instantly, as steady and supportive as a rock in an ebbing tide. “Come,” she said. “We’re going home at once.”

  She got Lucy into the coach and thence home—Lucy would later have no memory of the journey—it felt as though she only woke up when she was in the parlor, with the stellarium shawl tucked around her shoulders, and a glass of Catherine’s best port in her hand. The glass was half empty, so she must have drunk at least a little of it, but she barely tasted it on lips gone dry with dread and hurt.

  Catherine was at her desk, writing what she’d told Lucy was a very sharply worded note to Stephen, but Lucy knew already that her brother would defend his actions all the more as soon as someone criticized him. The damage had already been done.

  Stephen had sold the world a false image of Lucy, and he had done it for money and fame.

  And so the wider world learned that L. Muchelney was a woman, and an unmarried one at that. The admiring letters Griffin’s sent along to her began to take a different tone. Some previous correspondents wrote to temper their earlier enthusiasm, citing their shock at being deceived about the author’s identity. They felt cheated, they said. New letters arrived from people whose flattery was much more carnal and appalling. Polite Philosophies ran an oily essay by Mr. Wilby that suggested Lucy might also have been the mind behind some of her father’s more outré scientific speculations; the whole affair of the sun cities was brought up and laughed over anew.

  There was even a rude cartoon in Punch, which Lucy would not have seen except that someone who claimed to be acting out of friendly concern had carefully cut it out of the magazine and posted it to her. The caricature showed Lucy as she appeared in Stephen’s painting, albeit with significantly more bosom and sheerer draperies, gazing up swooningly toward an equally buxom female shape composed of stars. The stars in the most scandalous places were a particularly lurid touch.

  The Nude Ourania, read the caption.

  Lucy was so stunned she couldn’t even move. She just sat there, the paper rustling in her trembling hand, until Catherine noticed what was happening.

  The countess took one look at the cartoon, bit back a curse, snatched it out of Lucy’s hand, and threw it into the fire. “How dare they,” she growled, with as much rage as Lucy had ever seen from her. “How dare they.” She went red, then white, then back again, muttering epithets and cursing every cartoon-scribbler in London.

  “It’s nothing,” Lucy said. She pressed her hands between her knees, watching the burning paper as it curled and burned to ash. Despite the flames, she felt cold, and shaky, as though there were an unmeltable piece of ice in the center of her belly. Chills ran up and down her spine, and she hunched her shoulders against the cold. It always happened this way; nothing to do but hold on and wait for it to pass. “You should have seen the doodles Flora Gretton used to draw at school.” She clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. “Nobody could produce filth like Flora. This is practically a ladies’ watercolor by comparison.”

  Catherine stopped pacing and looked at Lucy with dawning alarm. Her brows slashed down and her lips turned mulish. “From now on, I am opening any mail you receive from persons unknown. You have borne quite enough insults already. It shall not continue.”

  Lucy shook her head, even as the ice softened a little beneath the blaze of Catherine’s anger on her behalf. “They’ll just keep sending them until something new distracts them.”

  “Then we’ll go away for a while. High time we both had a holiday.” The countess stalked over to her writing desk and began pulling out sheets for a letter. “I have enough friends in the country, surely one of them could entertain us for a few weeks until this tempest blows over—”

  “Couldn’t it just be you and I?” Lucy asked. “No house parties, no hosts to be polite to.” She chewed on her lip and thought for a moment. “What if . . .” It was such a big question she had to stop and take a deep breath before she asked it. “What if you came home with me?”

  Catherine stilled. “Home?” she asked carefully.

  “To Lyme.” Catherine’s face had gone blank, and rising anxiety had Lucy’s tongue tripping faster than usual to get her ideas out. “Stephen’s going to be busy in London for a while, riding the publicity he’s garnered—”

  “Stolen.”

  “—alright, yes, but it means he’ll probably stay here in the city for at least a month, maybe two. And the house is very small but very quiet, and the garden is lovely in the summer and it would be just the two of us, we could take walks and have picnics and I could teach you how to do telescope sweeps—”

  Catherine’s stillness broke. She walked across the room and cupped Lucy’s face with delicate hands. “It’s a brilliant idea,” she said fervently. “I am in love with a brilliant woman.” She kissed Lucy soundly, as Lucy felt the compliment set her cheeks burning beneath Catherine’s tender fingers.

  Chapter Eleven

  The sky was gray, the drizzle was icy, and Catherine was happier than she could ever remember being.

  They had been in Lyme—or rather, a little west of Lyme—for three days, Lucy and Catherine attended by Narayan. The journey itself had been a relief, even though it required long hours on the road with only rickety inn beds to rest in at night. Catherine used her money and her title shamelessly to commandeer the best rooms and private parlors, attempting to give Lucy a more pleasant journey back tha
n she’d had on her trip out. They arrived at Lyme in perfect cheer; Narayan had begun unpacking their trunks while Catherine and Lucy had aired Lucy’s old bedroom for them both to share.

  Lucy went so quiet during this work that Catherine was moved to ask if she was feeling well after the journey. “No, I’m perfectly fine,” Lucy replied, “it’s only . . . The last guest I had in this room was Pris.”

  “Ah,” said Catherine, as if this were an adequate response.

  Lucy tugged harder on the sheet with downcast eyes, and Catherine wondered with a shameful pang if there were memories associated with this room—and this bed—that would sour the adventure further.

  She fluffed the down pillows extra hard out of sheer pique.

  But that evening, full of good country fare and wine and, finally, beautifully warm, Lucy had taken Catherine’s hand and led her to the bed, heavy-curtained and pushed up against the wall to make a cozy den just large enough for two, provided they stayed pressed close against one another.

  There, in the velvet darkness, far away from the endless sounds and scrutiny of the city, Catherine had lost track of the number of times Lucy’s hands and mouth had made her lose track of herself.

  The next morning she woke to a breakfast of toast and cheese, and the weather was clear enough to go for a bracing walk through the woods to the village market. Even when the rain returned two days later, it could not dim Catherine’s mood.

  And now she stood on a dismal beach, with raindrops landing on her hair and sliding down the back of her neck, cheerfully picking up rocks.

  Lucy told her the locals called them snake-stones, or verteberries, but Catherine had known enough shell collectors in her youth to recognize ammonites when she saw them. But seeing one or two in a curio case was one thing—seeing a whole shoreline of them was another.

  If they’d each been priceless gems, she couldn’t have been more enchanted.

  “Some years ago,” Lucy explained from beneath her umbrella, “a young woman down the coast found a full skeleton of an ancient, terrible creature—something between a fish and a lizard. It’s displayed in London now, for scholars to gawk at and attempt to guess its true age.”

  “We should go look ourselves, when we go back,” Catherine said, and felt her happiness dim at the thought of returning. She loved London—but she’d been raised in the country and spent years away from the city.

  She had needed this holiday as much as Lucy had, she realized. Perhaps even more: When had she last taken a journey simply for the pleasure of it? It appalled her that she couldn’t remember.

  “I would like that,” Lucy said, her country coat fluttering sail-like in the relentless sea wind. She spun the umbrella handle so raindrops flew off the cloth in a sparkling arc around her.

  One splashed against Catherine’s cheek; she laughed and didn’t bother brushing it away, since there was such a company of them.

  Lucy shook her head, exasperation and amusement warring in her expression. “You’ll catch your death if you aren’t careful,” she said, and stepped closer. The umbrella was both shelter and a symphony beneath the drumming rain, as Lucy’s gloved fingers flicked the droplet away from Catherine’s happiness-pinkened cheek. The smaller raindrops Lucy kissed away, cool moisture vanishing beneath warm lips and sweet breath.

  Behind them, the endless sea roared approval.

  Later, they wound their way back up the cliff path, Lucy leading, Catherine’s pocket full of stones—some to keep, some to add to Aunt Kelmarsh’s grotto. They had just reached the top when Lucy, in the lead, stopped and went, “Oh,” very softly.

  Another couple—a gentleman and a lady—had been about to descend. The gentleman was tall and lanky, with worried creases at the sun-browned corners of his eyes. The lady was young and slim and fair, all blond hair and blue eyes and a green wool coat embroidered with lilies-of-the-valley. She had one hand tucked in the crook of the gentleman’s arm, and the other clutched a scarf tight around her throat.

  The gentleman grinned and bowed most cordially. “Miss Muchelney!” he cried. “So it’s true, you are back from London.”

  “Only briefly,” Lucy said. She drew Catherine up beneath the umbrella, as a chill wind howled up from the crashing waves far below. “Lady Moth, may I present the Honorable Harry Winlock and his wife, Priscilla?”

  The couple bowed, as Catherine felt her heart go as cold and stony as any ammonite.

  “The Countess of Moth,” Lucy went on, completing the introduction, “my benefactress and friend.”

  Catherine bowed politely, not missing how Mrs. Winlock’s eyes flicked to where Catherine’s and Lucy’s arms were linked.

  The infamous Pris stepped forward, pulling her hand from her husband’s arm to extend it to Catherine. “So pleased to meet you. Are you the same Countess of Moth who used to write to Lucy’s father?”

  “The very same,” Catherine murmured, accepting the handshake, two gloved hands gripping tight on the edge of a sheer cliff.

  No warmth came through the fabric—perhaps the other woman was just as awkward about this meeting as Catherine was, for despite her polite expression, the corners of her eyes and mouth were tight with tension.

  “Your letters were always so diverting,” the new Mrs. Winlock said. “I used to try and sketch the places you described, while Lucy was going over your columns of figures. How strange to meet you at last, and so close to home.”

  “We have a view of the coast from the parlor, and were wondering who would brave the shore in such weather as this,” Mr. Winlock added, beaming. “But we hardly expected such an intrepid traveler as yourself, Lady Moth! May we have the pleasure of asking you to take tea with us?” He unhooked the umbrella from his other arm and unfurled it, earnestness and expectation written plainly in every line of his face.

  Catherine glanced at Lucy, who was looking strained beneath the polite mask. “Another time, Mr. Winlock, thank you,” Catherine replied. “I’m afraid we were just heading home.”

  “Ah,” he said, and for one moment a ghost of anxiety passed over him like the spray from a cresting wave. But then his expression smoothed out, and he tucked his wife back into the safety of his encompassing arm. “Then I shall repeat the invitation at a more convenient time,” he said.

  Everyone bowed and curtsied again, as was proper, and then the two umbrellas parted ways to bob each couple back to shelter.

  Catherine walked in silence, watching Lucy nervously. There was a wan tinge to the younger woman’s complexion and a flatness to her mouth that made the stone in Catherine’s breast weigh heavier still. There was nothing she could think of to say that felt safe, so Catherine held her tongue and her lover’s arm and put one foot in front of the other.

  Halfway through the wood, Lucy’s silence broke. “I’ve always liked Harry Winlock.”

  A non sequitur like that was a delicate thing: pull too hard, and the thread would break. Catherine kept her face open and her voice calm. “Oh?”

  She’d done exactly right: Lucy’s voice gained strength as she continued. “He and Stephen used to play together, before they went off to school—but afterward, they ran in different circles. Stephen’s friends were striving for genius, even then: they always wanted to be clever, or brilliant, or lauded in some way. And Harry wasn’t—isn’t—clever. Which isn’t unusual, young boys are never half as clever as they think they are, after all—but Harry never minded. He didn’t have to be the best, or the first, or the loudest. He just . . . he just liked everyone, despite how they treated him, and despite their own flaws. I never noticed it until I came back from Cramlington, and started helping my father with his astronomical observations. I would fall asleep in church, and all the other young people would mock me, but Harry simply asked how late I’d stayed up, and if I’d seen any comets, and how many stars I’d counted.”

  She paused to duck the umbrella beneath a branch that hung particularly low over the path.

  “And then Pris came to visit—partl
y, she said, because her family was always pressuring her to marry, and I was sort of an escape.” Her mouth pursed up as if she’d bitten into something sharp. “Apparently I wasn’t escape enough. She met Harry, and of course he fell in love with her. Even then, I couldn’t be mad at him—how could I? I’d fallen just as quickly, when I met her. But I never expected her to accept when he proposed. I left for London the day after they were married.”

  So quickly! Catherine thought back to Lucy’s wild manner, which she’d chalked up to scientific ambition. It looked very different now in the light of this revelation. “We don’t have to see them socially, if you don’t like to,” Catherine offered quietly. “One of the great privileges of being a countess is that people expect snobbery, so you could tell them I refuse such low connections and we could continue as we have done.”

  Lucy slanted her a look. “But you aren’t snobbish, love.”

  “Nobody in Lyme knows that.”

  “But I don’t want them to think it, even for a second. You deserve better.”

  They walked the rest of the way in silence, while Catherine alternately yearned to move on to less painful subjects and cursed herself for a coward. Narayan and Sadie had tea ready when they arrived, hot and steaming, and they gladly shed their wet things and curled up before the fire in the parlor.

  Catherine had brought her ammonites in and was turning them over and over, tracing the delicate spirals of ancient life.

  Lucy tilted her head. “How old do you suppose they are?”

  “Older than mankind,” Catherine replied. “Though by how much, I do not have learning enough to speculate. Aunt Kelmarsh might have a better idea.”

  “She will love these for her memorial grotto, I am sure.”

  “Very fitting,” Catherine sighed. Pris’s face wouldn’t leave off haunting her. “A memento of something wondrous and beautiful, which can never die.”

  She must have sounded as mournful as she felt, because Lucy’s hands wrapped around hers, around the stones. “This creature has died,” she said. “It lived once, long ago. But all that remains is the impression—fixed, not animate. Its time has long passed.”