Page 5 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms (Tales from Honeysuckle Street #4)

Like her pain might have an end or a set allocation of torment she just had to withstand before it would fly from her body. At the start, she’d been convinced that if only she were good enough, stoic enough, and pious enough, then it would all end.

She knew better now.

The fogginess of a broken night leeched into the morning.

Florence breathed until the pained haze cleared.

In the hall, the clock chimed out eleven steady bongs.

After it had finished, she listened for a chair scrape or a cough or muttering, but the upper floors remained as silent as dust. Her mother had a way of sensing when Florence needed to sleep, and had likely spared her the tedium of errands and visits today.

With a wobble, she stood. Mama had laid out her wrapper, and Florence wrestled herself into her corset, then slipped it on and pulled the tie at her waist. Today would be an inside day, but that did not have to mean it was a wasted day.

She would read the latest issue of The Builder , and in the afternoon, she might begin the book her father had bought or flip through some catalogues. And that meant a trip to the office.

Left right, left right . Florence gripped the banister as she descended from the building’s home layer to its work layer. In the entrance, the scent of dry paper and paint powder and ink laced the air. She set off down the hall, her mind already bounding with thoughts of innovations and articles.

Then he stepped into the doorframe.

She stopped. The hallway narrowed to a rectangle of light, now partially blocked by the tall silhouette.

Only a bright flash reflecting off a buckle or a button, or a shimmer from his waistcoat, gave any definition to the man who spent his days at the drawing table where she had once sat.

He stood before the bookcase, one hand resting on the shelf.

The other held a book in one substantial, splayed hand.

He licked his fingertip, then turned a page.

A tingling ran from Florence’s heels along her calves and right through her torso.

From there it spread to each point in her body, warming and pinching in an appalling betrayal of her disdain for this man who had so effortlessly taken her place.

The cotton of his shirt hugged his muscular biceps, and the floral embroidery on his waistcoat was at odds with his rude strength.

His trousers sat just a little tighter over his firm buttocks before they fell to a straight line of obedience down the length of his legs.

Every bit of him appeared hard and unwavering, without a hint of indulgence or weakness.

He perched his reading spectacles on the top of his head while rubbing his eyes, then lowered them again.

Licked his fingertip.

Turned another page.

If a man was to take her place, he might as well be a well-composed man.

Florence kept a hand half-raised for balance as she inched through the last few feet of the hallway.

On days like today, when the cold bullied its way beneath the door and between window sashes, she would normally use her cane, even around the house.

But seeing him in the office filled her with a determination not to show weakness. This city would not beat her.

As she stepped into the room, the assistant looked up from his book. He flicked her a small smile and bent his head.

Then he raised his gaze once more, and it was as if he was blinking his way free of a stupor.

‘Mrs Murray. Your father isn’t in. He is meeting with a client.

A potential one, I mean.’ He snapped the book closed and took two steps back, colliding with his drawing table.

A brush rolled and dropped to the floor.

‘I’m not here to see my father,’ Florence said. The man was as skittish as a new foal—probably scared at being caught distracted. He bent and picked up the brush from the floor, then set it back into place.

‘You aren’t?’ That same lazy smile turned his lips. He tugged at his waistcoat. ‘I had been wanting to speak with you about—’

A knot of pain tightened in her shoulder, and his words were lost in the flare. ‘I am here for a book,’ Florence snapped, before adding, a little more softly, ‘I wish to read by the hearth.’

‘I can suggest… I mean, might I recommend… if you are wanting a recommendation, that is…’

Florence had never been lost for words. How could she be, when she had so few opportunities to voice them?

They jostled against one another as she itched to wedge them into small spaces as egalitarian observations, begging to be taken seriously beneath it all.

The imposter, perhaps, had space in spades for words, for he erred and ahhed some more, then strode forwards and drew a weighty tome from a shelf.

Even he had to clasp it with two hands. She would never be able to carry it upstairs, but as she read the spine, she huffed her dismissal. She didn’t want to read it anyway.

‘Ruskin?’

‘ The Seven Lamps . Have you read it?’ he asked.

‘Yes, and I regret every minute spent with it.’ Florence crossed to the shelves and scanned the spines.

Reference material, old catalogues, manuals, and guides—where were the newer books?

The latest edition of The Builder , or the Architectural Magazine ?

What was the point of being in London if she could not read the news while it was fresh, instead of receiving it months late, after it had crossed the seas?

‘You don’t like Ruskin?’

Florence paused, her finger still flat to a book’s spine. That was interesting. When provoked, it seemed the lackey had spirit.

‘My father has hired a Ruskinite.’ She pivoted to face him, but moved too fast. Pain flamed in her knee, then across her back. Florence bit the inside of her cheek. ‘He’s an eloquent writer. And an excellent illustrator. Men in Sydney used his drawings as templates for stonework and motifs.’

‘And no one summarises a solution to free the cities from the vices of industry like him. If, like he says, industry took second place and society placed more emphasis on craft and workmanship, on creating proper handmade things again, then the poor would be able to provide for their families once more. One of the greatest losses to the modern world is the loss of the craftsman.’

‘The craftsmen hoarded knowledge. Ordinary people could not access the teachings they needed, nor could they learn from them to improve their lives. Why would they not exert their power again if they returned?’

‘I am not talking about guilds in the cities.’ He picked each word with delicate deliberation.

‘I am talking about the skills of the village. Back when there was pride in creating something by hand, perfectly crafted and unique, instead of the same thing replicated by machines over and over again. The work of master craftsmen. The world could find its way back to that.’

‘Craftsmen. No wonder father likes you.’

He lowered the book and pulled it against his chest. Red bloomed on his cheeks, and he shook his head. ‘You haven’t been here long, and perhaps you haven’t seen what I have. The old ways give us a path out of all this. The workers deserve better.’

‘Working man, always the working man. And in your utopian communities, in your world where we all discard steam and factories and embrace the old, I assume all the men are passing on their knowledge to their sons? Where does the working woman feature in your handmade dream? I can guess—she is where she has always been. In kitchens, at the copper, or dying of childbirth as she brings a longed-for son or disappointing daughter into the world. Machines let a woman’s hands do what men have done for decades.

Did you figure that into your vision of a perfect past? ’

‘You play with my words. You ascribe the views of others to me…’ He took a breath, not just a regular one, but a passionate inhalation, as if readying himself for an intellectual onslaught. Then he exhaled softly and looked to the floor. Frowned and swallowed. He was holding back. Why?

Of course.

She was his employer’s daughter.

And arguing with her would do him no good.

Florence turned away from his discomfort.

She grasped at a book, any book, focusing only on finding a size she could carry.

It no longer mattered. She would not read now.

And without a word or a glance, she walked back through the small hall.

Once out of sight, she let the banister take her weight.

The light in the hallway dulled with his shadow but thankfully only for a moment. He had moved away.

Florence took the first step. Left right. Then the next. Left right.

It was wrong to hate him, but in this moment, she did. He had everything she wanted—a strong body and a seat at the drafting table. He’d have a career and a future in a world made for him, a world she would be grateful to possess just a sliver of.

If he had to deal with a little of her ire, then so be it.