by Georgie Lee
This is what money can purchase. It’d bought some northern factory owner her father’s collection. Once Conrad became Marquis of Helton, he’d have access to such wealth while Katie would continue to struggle to earn her living. The iniquity of it stung and in the darkest parts of her mind, the idea she’d given up on Conrad and his future position as a marquis by leaving Heims Hall grated. However, she wasn’t mercenary enough to marry simply for her own selfish reasons, or foolish enough to raise herself to such exalted heights and risk being shunned by the ton. It was difficult enough dealing with those of her own class and profession without suffering the pelting insults and cuts of the better sort.
She made her way past the impressive collection of animal bones displayed on red velvet beneath glass, focusing on them instead of all her other troubles. Aquatic animals dominated one case, while the next held reptiles, followed by small mammals and then birds. Katie looked over the skeletons in the last case, not finding one with a furcula like the creature she was studying.
It wasn’t until she reached the tall case at the end and spied the creature inside that her lack of money and all her other problems were forgotten. In the tall case stood the full skeleton of the emu, its toes and the position of its legs in the hips so similar to the creature’s it made her heart race.
‘Will this do?’ Conrad asked.
‘It will.’ Katie moved forward to lay a gloved hand on the glass separating her from the emu, jealous of Lord Mardling and the money which allowed him to amass such an impressive collection. Her father had done his best to mimic these great men, but he’d never possessed their means, though at times he’d spend as though he did to acquire a rare fossil. The rest he’d obtained through hours of patient digging and hard work, his pride in his collection no less than Lord Mardling’s. It was his pride in what he’d achieved which had made the Naturalist Society’s attack so cruel and increased Katie’s pain when she was forced to sell the collection. However, if he’d ever thought of her and her future, set aside even a small amount of the money he’d paid for the more exotic items to pay bills, or employed even the smallest effort to maintain his medical practice, Katie might not have had to part with the fossils.
‘Captain Essington, I have a lovely French wine in the drawing room,’ Lord Mardling announced. ‘Would you care to help me consume it while Miss Vickers completes her study?’
Conrad turned to Katie. ‘Do you mind if I leave you?’
‘Not at all.’ She needed peace to work. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Conrad handed Katie the sketchbook and the case of pencils, something of concern replacing the subtle condemnation he’d shown her in the carriage, as if he regretted leaving. She wished he regretted having mentioned the rumours of Mr Rukin more, then she might believe it was his care for her and not the lost chance to pester her with his suspicions which made him hesitant to leave. His willingness to believe the gossip was a sad reminder of why, when his current help was done, there was no future for them together.
‘We’ll be down the hall in the library. The footman can help you if you require anything,’ Lord Mardling instructed as he led Conrad from the room.
Once alone, Katie dragged a chair from a nearby escritoire and set it in front of the case, determined to focus and not waste this precious opportunity fretting about Conrad or anything else. She opened the sketchbook across her knees, selected the sharpest pencil and set to work. She sketched the creature as a whole, then moved closer to complete a detailed drawing of its feet, hips, legs and chest.
More than once while she worked, the deep roll of Conrad’s voice through the quiet house teased her. The steady cadence of his words would make her smudge a detail and long for his presence, silent judgement and all. The wide room with the dead animals felt cold and her pencil moved slower over the paper without him there to joke and tease her like he used to at Heims Hall. She wanted to speak with him about what she was seeing and how similar the creature’s stance was to the emu’s. Such discussions would have to wait until later and the quiet of the chaise, assuming his demand for information about Mr Rukin didn’t dominate the conversation.
Her pencil slipped, leaving a marring line across the thigh bone. Katie smudged it away, wishing the last year was as easily erased. She didn’t want to talk about Mr Rukin, or the accusations attached to her by him and so many other men. She picked up her knife and roughly sharpened the end of the pencil, making the shavings flick off the wood and fly over her skirt to land on the floor. She hadn’t earned her knowledge on her back, but by the same long hours of research as any of the men. Her work held as much merit as theirs and could stand up to the scrutiny of a hundred different societies.
She set down the knife, cleaned up the shavings and returned to drawing with a new determination. For all the creature’s similarities to this bird, it was astoundingly different and she’d be the one to reveal it to the world. It would force the Naturalist Society to take note of her and give them a presentation to debate and discuss for years.
The light in the room shifted as Katie continue to sketch. Then the clock on the mantel began to chime the two o’clock hour. Numerous drawings filled her book and she was putting the final details on the emu’s head when she caught the swish of footsteps behind her. She ignored them, thinking it a footman or maid since she could still hear Conrad and Lord Mardling chatting down the hall.
‘And who, may I ask, are you?’ a woman demanded.
Katie jumped to her feet and whirled around, sending her pencil case clattering to the floor.
The woman might not have recognised Katie, but Katie knew her at once.
‘Good afternoon, Lady Mardling.’ She dipped a respectful curtsy.
The shock which swept across Lady Mardling’s face, then settled into a horrified sneer, was enough to make it clear Lady Mardling knew exactly who Katie was.
‘What are you doing here in my husband’s curio room unaccompanied?’ the countess demanded, shoulders squared, ready to do battle.
Katie fought to remain calm, seeing no reason for the woman’s hostility. She’d done nothing wrong except return to London after the damage Lord Helton had wrought and dared to show her face in the Mardling house. There were worse sins a woman could commit, though in society’s eyes this was one of the gravest.
‘Your husband has graciously allowed me to sketch this bird for my research.’ Katie picked up the pencil case, then closed the sketchbook, tucking it under one arm.
Lady Mardling looked down her aquiline nose at Katie as though she were some kind of street urchin who’d crept in to steal one of the long strands of pearls wrapped around her neck. ‘And what exactly did you do for my husband to make him so eager to provide access to his collection?’
Katie stiffened in shame, biting back a vicious reminder of the rumours about Lady Mardling and a certain French nobleman which had circulated last year. She would get nowhere with Lord Mardling if she insulted his wife, nor would standing up to such insults further Conrad’s efforts to clear Katie’s reputation. Instead, it would only prove the Countess’s suspicions about Katie’s character and provide yet another story for people to use against her. Once again she was forced to endure the taunts and insults of others while she remained quiet and waited for their attention to turn elsewhere.
Katie dared a quick glance over the woman’s shoulder to the doorway, but it was depressingly empty. To hope Conrad might appear to extricate her from this situation was not only futile but foolish. He hadn’t been there through all the other insults she’d borne; she could hardly expect him to be present for this one. She would face the woman as she had all the others, alone.
‘Well?’ Lady Mardling demanded, eyeing her with all the contempt with which she might examine a stain on an expensive gown.
Katie met her imperious look, determined not to fidget, or fumble her words. Katie had been invited into
this house. She wouldn’t cower before its chatelaine like some criminal. ‘I didn’t seek out your husband and press him for an invitation. Captain Essington spoke to Lord Mardling on my behalf and is here now in the other room with your husband.’
Lady Mardling came forward, the whisper of her expensive silk gown over the carpet nearly as threatening as her disapproving glare. ‘My husband may see fit to cavort with those so obviously beneath him, but I refuse to pollute my house with people of low character, no matter how they managed to gain entrance.’
The pencils rattled in their case as Katie gripped them tight, holding back the rage welling inside her. She’d never done anything to deserve such treatment except love a man above her in station whose uncle had been determined to separate them.
‘Is everything all right, Miss Vickers?’ Conrad strolled into the room, moving like a sure ship upon steady waters. The light from the large windows heightened his square jaw and the cleft at the end of his chin. Relief rushed through Katie and it was all she could do not to run to be by his side.
Lord Mardling followed behind him, taking quick stock of the situation and looking less gregarious than when he’d left her. Katie held her breath, wondering if the high man would turn on her and apologise to his wife for having soiled her house with a woman of Katie’s reputation, or if he would stand up to her and let her know it was his right to invite whomever he wished. He did neither, but remained silent by the door, obviously hoping not to be noticed.
‘Good afternoon, Lady Mardling.’ Conrad paused to bow before coming to stand beside Katie, making his support for her clear. Even if he acted out of duty, instead of the deep regard he’d once harboured for her, the one she’d killed, she didn’t care. He was here at last and she was thankful.
Lady Mardling offered Conrad a polite curtsy in return, her lips twisting into an unsteady smile. ‘Captain Essington, what an honour it is to have you grace our house.’
It was clear Lady Mardling’s admiration for Conrad had more to do with his new position as a future marquis than as an esteemed explorer. It provided a glimpse into the future Katie might have known if she hadn’t broken the engagement. Regret mingled with nervousness. Perhaps she shouldn’t have tossed Conrad away or allowed her fears to govern her instead of her heart.
No, it wasn’t fear which had guided her, but experience and good sense. As a marchioness, Katie would be forced into these people’s company and her children made to endure the rumours whirling about her, just as she’d heard time and again the stories of her mother’s downfall and the mistakes she’d made with Katie’s father. Katie wouldn’t put a child through such torture, not for all the manors, diamonds and titles in England.
‘I was enjoying a fine conversation with your husband. I’m glad to see you’ve extended an equally warm welcome to Miss Vickers.’ Conrad smiled.
Lady Mardling’s back lost some of its indignant straightness, though she wasn’t entirely cowed. ‘Miss Vickers informed me of my husband’s invitation to view his collection.’
‘Your husband is a very generous patron of science.’ Conrad laced his hands behind his back. ‘He’s keen to get at the truth of a matter instead of relying on the speculations and theories of others, especially those who are often misinformed.’
‘Of course it’s always better to learn things straight from the source than it is to trust others for your opinion, though sometimes the opinions of others are correct,’ she countered.
‘It’s a rare occurrence.’
Lady Mardling blanched, her puce gown emphasising the sudden lack of colour in her skin. Before she could think of a retort, Conrad shifted his attention to Katie, offering her his arm.
‘Shall we be off?’
Katie hesitated, eager to be gone, but unable to believe he’d defended her against Lady Mardling after being so suspicious of her in the chaise. Deciding to accept his help instead of questioning it, she took hold of his arm with her free hand, hoping the slight tremble gracing her fingers went unnoticed by him and Lady Mardling. While the countess might have missed it, Conrad didn’t, laying his hand over hers and giving it a steadying squeeze.
‘Thank you, Lady Mardling, and you, Lord Mardling, for your hospitality today.’ Conrad bowed as befitting a man descended from peers.
‘My pleasure,’ Lord Mardling mumbled, garnering a threatening look from his wife.
Conrad escorted Katie to the carriage as though he were already the Marquis of Helton. Katie maintained his easy pace despite wanting to bolt from the house and all the way back to the country, though there was nothing left there for her to return to. The house in Whitemans Green was gone, like her reputation.
It wasn’t long before she and Conrad were in the chaise and Lord Mardling’s impressive house was receding into the distance.
‘Don’t let Lady Mardling discourage you,’ Conrad encouraged. ‘She’s but one woman and an ignorant one from what Lord Mardling tells me.’
‘Yes, but many share her opinion, just as you seemed to on the way here.’
Conrad trilled his fingers on his thigh. ‘If you’d tell me the truth, it might set both our minds at ease.’
Katie stared out of the chaise at the grand houses, catching through their windows the movement of a maid of some regal lady. Conrad had stood up to Lady Mardling, risking his good name to defend hers. Despite his doubts when they were together, in public he’d showed faith in her. She owed him an explanation.
‘The night after the Naturalist Society turned on me and my father, I wanted to make it right, to help him. I went to Mr Rukin’s to ask for his assistance. I knew he’d been at the meeting and he’d always been so supportive of us before. I thought he would be again. I was wrong.’ She picked a sliver of wood off her skirt and flung it out of the chaise. ‘We were alone in his study when he tried to force himself on me, saying if I wanted his help I’d submit. Thankfully, his housekeeper interrupted him and I got away. Father and I left London that night. In my absence, a different story spread, one your uncle encouraged and I couldn’t refute because no one believed me and there was no one to challenge him.’
* * *
Conrad’s heart dropped as if the unseen hole under the snow which had swallowed his best sledge dog had opened beneath him. Suddenly Mr Prevett’s advance on her in West Sussex made terrible sense, as did Mr Rukin’s objection to her yesterday.
‘You should have told me sooner. If I’d known the truth, I never would have said the things I did, or blamed you.’ Or failed you again. She’d come to Conrad for help and he’d treated her no better than those men, the ones whose heads he wanted to rip from their shoulders.
‘There was no point in telling you sooner. There’s nothing you could have done.’
‘I could have broken the man’s neck yesterday, or ground Mr Prevett into the ground.’ Conrad banged his fist against the squab, disgusted at society, his uncle, himself. ‘I’ll see to it Mr Rukin is driven from the Naturalist Society, his work discredited. A man so disreputable in his personal life is surely shoddy in his research. I won’t let him get away with what he’s done.’
‘You’ll do to him what your uncle has done to me?’
‘They deserve it, you don’t.’
She stared out of the carriage at the passing trees, her expression as desolate as those of his men when they’d watched Gorgon founder. ‘I shouldn’t have come back to London.’
The resignation marring her features turned Conrad’s blood to ice. She couldn’t give up, he wouldn’t allow her to surrender to her fears, or his stupid, idiotic doubts. ‘Don’t let them intimidate you.’
‘It isn’t intimidation, it’s exhaustion,’ she shot back. ‘I’m tired of fighting the men, the women and all their petty rumours.’
He caught her hand in his and rubbed the skin above the glove with his thumb, shocked by the coldness. ‘Yo
u’re frustrated. It will pass, I promise.’
‘It’s more than that. You have no idea what it’s like to face such censure again and again and again.’
‘You think I didn’t see what the marquis’s relentless attacks on my parents did to my mother and father? My mother might’ve had the strength to stand up to it, but my father didn’t and my uncle destroyed him. I don’t want the same thing to happen to you.’
She tried to pull back her hand, but he refused to let go. ‘You can’t be with me every day, or challenge every person who whispers against me.’
‘Maybe not, but Lady Mardling and her ilk are not the only society in London.’ He shifted to be beside her on the squab, heartened when she didn’t move away. ‘I’ve been invited by Miss Etheldred Benett to attend a dinner party tomorrow night at her house. You’re to attend as my guest.’
‘I’m to meet Miss Benett?’ Her stiff hand relaxed in his and the excitement brightening her eyes eased the worry scratching at Conrad’s insides.
‘And other influential men, the kind who don’t look askance at a lady scientist. Miss Benett has cultivated their support, you will, too,’ he assured her, trying to draw out more of the optimistic Katie.
The hope in Katie’s eyes dimmed. ‘As a woman she can hardly afford the taint of associating with someone of my reputation.’
‘Miss Benett is hardly one for convention, or the opinions of polite society. She’s assured me you’re most welcome.’
* * *
Katie watched Conrad’s thumb continue to make circles on the inside of her wrist, his skin warming hers as much as his body beside hers made the lap blanket unnecessary. As elated as she was at the prospect of meeting Miss Benett, with Lady Mardling’s remonstrations still ringing in her ears, she was reluctant to accept the generous invitation. Though there were many who admired and accepted the lady geologist, there were more closed-minded society men who cast aspersions on her interest and made her struggle to be accepted as difficult as Katie’s.
