Page 24 of The Lady Sparks a Flame (The Damsels of Discovery #2)

24

It is right that we should stand by and act on our principles; but not right to hold them in obstinate blindness, or retain them when proved to be erroneous.

—Michael Faraday

“How does one take over a territory in America? I know women don’t have the vote, but can they hold political office? I should like to be the governor of somewhere without having to be in the army first.”

Ten years ago, Phoebe, Letty, and Violet met in a parlor, having individually escaped the crowds of a grand ball. Seconds after introductions, they were engaged in a heated discussion of chemistry. The three of them once spent entire afternoons drinking brandy, eating tarts, and examining serious questions such as how best to prove Avogadro’s law and whether shortbread was a biscuit or a bread, and if it was a biscuit, why did they call it shortbread ?

Heady, intellectually demanding questions such as these occupied them for hours.

Much had changed since those days.

Letty Fenley had become Lady Letitia Greycliff. Lady Violet Greycliff had become Mrs. Violet Kneland.

Phoebe had become an outcast.

They sat now, the three of them, in a not-completely-irreputable pub near the London docks. Though sawdust littered the floor, a cheerful fire burned in a clean hearth and the walls were the particular shade of brown defining the combination of London’s air and the fug of clay pipers. A barmaid who had no patience for nonsense wiped the tables with vigor and exchanged good-natured insults with a group of dockworkers who played a desultory game of dice.

Letty wore her customary plain coat and sensible boots. Her bonnet was a deep indigo–colored velvet but had no adornments other than a blue satin ribbon around the crown. Violet, in contrast, wore an explosion of colors. A chartreuse dress over brown boots, covered with an aubergine paletot and topped with a pink bonnet.

Phoebe said nothing. She had tried for years to get Violet to dress differently, and it never took. Despite Violet’s protestations, Phoebe remained convinced her friend was color-blind. This had to be the reason she paired orange with purple. The alternative was simply too upsetting.

They nursed pints of warm ale while Violet listed the various changes that had occurred at Athena’s Retreat since Phoebe left.

The positive changes included housing giant ants in the basement of Beacon House, the replacement of their former doorman, Henry Winthram, with a matron who forged her own knives, and Violet’s decision to turn part of Beacon House into a small nursery for her daughter, Mirren, and any other children too young for day school whose mothers had projects ongoing at Athena’s Retreat.

The negative changes included allowing Lady Potts to continue her tarantula-breeding program—escape-proof cages, her arse —and using the funds from Flavia Smythe-Harrow’s nightmarish bird hats as stipends to women scientists who could not otherwise afford to take time away from their families and household duties.

Negative because Flavia’s bird hats were so horrifyingly ugly, they hurt Phoebe’s eyes and terrified her the tiniest bit.

After a while, the conversation turned to children. Violet had a two-year-old daughter, Mirren, and Letty had her twins. Phoebe made all the right noises and nodded at the right times, but Violet and Letty had wandered off into some other country where the language was foreign and Phoebe was lost to them.

“Yes, well, it doesn’t stop Arthur from wanting to make another one. Why, last night—oh, Phoebe, all this talk and I haven’t told you the most important news. Grey had me study the residue from the Kennington Common bomb.”

Violet Kneland had the face of an angel, round and soft, with expressive eyes and long black lashes. She had the heart of an angel as well. Violet’s brain, however, her brain was a steam engine; powerful, intimidating, relentless. Phoebe loved her but hadn’t always been kind to her.

Phoebe supposed her own heart was that of a devil.

“I explained how the weapon you built was a two-chambered canister,” Violet said.

The different chemicals in each chamber mixed only when thrown hard enough against a surface that the wall between both chambers collapsed. Once the wall collapsed, the chemicals mixed to form the gas.

It was a clumsy delivery method, but Phoebe had been rushed by Adam Winters during the last stages of design and testing. That weapon had killed the constable.

“This Kennington Common bomb was explosive,” Violet continued, “and left no traces of aluminum—with which you prefer to work but not many others can afford.”

Phoebe kept her eyes on her pint glass as though the bubbles therein were of great importance, as though she couldn’t care less what Letty and Violet believed.

“Yes. I remember Grey said while some bystanders reported a cloud of gas, most described a cloud of smoke smelling of sulfur,” Letty chimed in. She sniffed the warm ale appreciatively but didn’t drink.

“Mmm.” Violet made a noise of agreement. “Obviously, this weapon included gunpowder. You would never have used something so crude.”

True. Phoebe may have stolen the idea for her weapon from other scientists’ work, but at least she’d put some art into it.

“Arthur and Grantham have gone in search of the Welshmen,” Violet said gently. “Once the men confess, this will be finished.”

Phoebe said nothing.

She was no longer suspect, but only because Letty and Violet vouched for her.

It stung.

Even though she deserved their mistrust—it still stung.

“When you left for America,” Violet said as she ran her fingertip around the lip of her pint glass, “you were angry.”

Phoebe took a sip of her ale and wished it were whiskey. “I am still angry, Violet.”

Her reticule sat on her lap; within it lay a ticket to New York, issued by the Cunard Line for one of their new steamships. It cost her a pretty penny—twenty pounds!—but she would arrive in America by the beginning of January. Three weeks and she could pick up where she left off.

Alone.

“Are you?” Violet asked. “You do not seem angry. You seem content.”

Letty’s eyes narrowed. “You do seem awfully sanguine for someone on the run, Phoebe. You know, I saw Laila this morning. She said Sam never came home last night.”

An image of Sam when she left without waking him, his ever-present smile making him look angelic, popped into Phoebe’s head.

Violet shifted in her seat to stare at Letty. “What does Sam not coming home have to do with…”

Letty smirked. Violet’s eyes went wide, and she whipped her head back to face Phoebe.

“Oh my.” Her eyebrows poked almost to her hairline. “Is this true, Phoebe? You and Sam?”

Once upon a time Phoebe would have allowed Violet’s pleasure to fizz through her own veins, but the ticket had been purchased and the steamship lay docked only half a mile away.

She opened her mouth to say something dismissive. Something cutting.

Nothing emerged.

“Are you…do you love him, Phoebe?” Violet asked.

Again, Phoebe searched for a put-down, a searing remark that would set everyone back in their place on the outside and leave her alone. Where it was safe. Where she could be untouched and untouchable.

“Are you serious?” Phoebe let go a chiming laugh. “Love? Love is for idiots and children.”

“Ooooh,” said Violet. She looked at Letty. “She loves him.”

“I am leaving for America tomorrow,” Phoebe said quickly. “Grantham has agreed to loan a generous sum to my mother until the auction is finished.”

“But…”

“My reason for returning to England was to ensure my family had enough funds to be secure after my father’s death, not to try and clear my name. I am guilty of the crime,” Phoebe said over Violet’s objection. “My punishment is not complete.”

“Still, you could…” Letty interjected.

Phoebe shook her head; the bitterness of the ale dried her tongue and her words sounded stiff and mean.

“Even if the two of you are convinced of my innocence this time, what happens next time?” she asked. “Political violence has become inevitable. Will I be hauled in and interrogated every time a bomb goes off?”

Violet tried again. “Now, Grantham and Grey know it wasn’t you—”

“I did a terrible thing, Violet.”

Her friends’ agreement was implicit in their silence.

“I don’t believe in sin,” Phoebe said, “but neither do I believe in divine grace. No one can or should forgive me other than myself.”

The study of science had taught Phoebe the universe was subject to the laws of physics, not the whims of a cruel and arbitrary old man on a throne of clouds. The electrical force that fueled a bolt of lightning or the beating of her heart couldn’t grant forgiveness. There were no legions of angels awaiting her in the next life to mete out justice.

Only one life was available to them. No amount of prayer nor proselytizing would change Phoebe’s fate.

Acceptance, then action.

“Why can’t you forgive yourself here?” Letty asked. Her eyes, like Sam’s, were slightly unfocused as she waited for Phoebe to answer, a calculation of some sort running in the brain behind them. “You are the same person with the same flaws no matter where you find yourself.”

Phoebe wished she knew what gave Letty such insight. There was far more to Letty, to Violet, to most people than their surfaces, as pretty or as polished as they may be.

Violet gulped her ale, creating a wave of white foam, some of which stuck to her top lip.

“I could stay,” Phoebe agreed. “Swallow my rage and be a better person .”

Letty used her handkerchief to wipe some of the ale Violet had spilled. “You are the only person I know who can say ‘better person’ and make it sound like ‘leaking pustule.’?”

Taking another sip, then wiping the foam from her mouth, Violet agreed. “It is a singular talent of yours.”

Phoebe preened, then continued. “Or I go somewhere that doesn’t remind me of who I am and where I’ve come from. Someplace young and wild enough, anyone can start over.”

“Arthur says the Americans are brash and overloud. They make friends easily and take too many risks.” Violet relayed this in a tone of voice that conveyed more admiration than apprehension. “Also, they make terrible tea.”

That, at least, Phoebe could confirm.

Really, how difficult was it to boil water?

“Start over? What about your science?” Letty asked. “Won’t you stay for Athena’s Retreat?”

Karolina had asked Phoebe the same question before they left Prentiss Manor. Phoebe gave her friends the same answer she’d given her sister.

“Because I am not in the laboratory or writing papers every few months doesn’t make me less of a scientist. The greatest gift studying science has left me with is the willingness to question everything and the good sense to admit when I am wrong and have made a mistake so I can learn how to rectify the mistake.”

That and a good deal more, Phoebe had said to Karolina before they bundled themselves into the carriage for the long journey home. She’d encouraged Karolina to read widely about the world, to remain open to wonder, quick to absorb information, and slow to judge.

In turn, Karolina had said something to the effect of Phoebe sounding like an old man issuing proclamations from on high. Phoebe, being older and wiser, responded by sticking out her tongue.

“I suppose it is enough you are well educated in science. I agree, you don’t have to blow things up to appreciate how they work,” Letty said, glancing at Violet, for whom those last words seemed to be meant.

“Hmmm. Theorizing has its place, but experimental science advances civilization,” Violet said, the ends of her words curving softly now that she’d finished the last of her ale.

“Civilization is dependent on blowing up other people’s chicken coops?” Letty asked with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

Oh dear.

“Civilization is made of husbands who were eager participants…”

“Ahem.” Phoebe interrupted before Letty and Violet went further. She couldn’t picture Greycliff a party to an explosive science experiment, but in the end, most men are boys and boys love it when things blow up.

“Did you know there are several women agents for Tierney and Company in America?” Phoebe asked.

Violet, looking sheepish, grabbed hold of Phoebe’s distraction. “Are they scientists as well?”

Phoebe smiled. “They are scientists and flimflam artists, poets and blacksmiths. They are a motley mix, and I know you would love them.”

“Are they…are they like us?” Letty asked. “Friends?”

Friends .

“They are as different from you as night is to day in many ways,” Phoebe allowed. “They are the same in every other respect.”

Violet leaned forward, her eyes glassy from finishing her ale quickly. “Are they outlaws, Phoebe? How exciting.”

Phoebe could not remain in London, or Britain for that matter, even if the Home Office begged her to remain. Something had happened to her in that overwhelming landscape beneath the ambivalent American sun.

She had grown.

Grown too independent to submit to the rigid confines of British class hierarchy. Grown too confident to go back into hiding behind the walls of Athena’s Retreat.

“The Tierneys are opening a branch in the city of Chicago,” Phoebe said. “They hope to form an all-woman detective division. Before I left for England, I asked to be assigned to that division. Permanently.”

Simply saying the words sent a rush of anticipation through her veins.

Chicago was a place big enough to hold her. For a little while, at least.

Violet frowned down at the tabletop, then over at Phoebe. “You will not be coming home again, will you?”

“No,” Phoebe said. “I may still be hemmed in by my skirts, but I am not hemmed in by my title when I am there,” Phoebe said softly. “I am any woman and every woman, and America is large enough for me to find a place to fit and to begin anew, and to help. Just…to help. Not to harm. Not any longer.”

The women fell silent at Phoebe’s declaration, remembering, perhaps, whom Phoebe had harmed. Who had harmed her in return.

“Tell Sam, when you see him,” Phoebe said to Letty, “tell him he deserves better than this country will give him.”

Letty frowned. “He deserves to be loved.”

“He deserves to be respected, to be honored, and for the rest of London to get out of his way while he turns this city on its ears,” Phoebe countered. “Tell him I asked that he help Moti and Karolina if they need him, and I will never, ever forget him.”

If some nights Phoebe would dream of another life, one where she remained here with Sam and her family, well…dreams would vanish in the light of day.

Sam was going to change everything by becoming rich, powerful, and kind . The first mogul to live in Farringdon and let his sisters tell him what to do, a captain of industry who bought wrinkled oranges from little girls.

Sam belonged here and Phoebe, no matter what she did, would never truly be welcome ever again.

“We will miss you, Phoebe,” said Violet softly.

“I will miss you, too.”