Page 27 of The Lady Sparks a Flame (The Damsels of Discovery #2)

But still try, for who knows what is possible?

—Michael Faraday

St. John’s Church

Two Weeks Later

“You must agree, the original grand gesture of jumping into the Thames was mine,” Grantham announced. “Now everyone is doing it. That Mrs. Foster ought to write a book about me. I’m what they call a romantic hero.”

Sam considered borrowing a pistol and shooting Grantham in the foot.

“Will you shut up?” said a voice that sounded like a blade against a whetstone. “We’re not here to listen to an encyclopedic recitation of every stupid thing you’ve ever done, you great eijit .”

If he shot Grantham in the foot, Sam would have to shoot Arthur Kneland in the foot as well. If he shot Arthur anywhere else, Grantham would complain that Arthur had a bigger wound in a more important appendage.

The two of them stood behind Sam at the altar of St. John’s church in Clerkenwell. Recently spruced up by a friend of his father’s, William Griffin, it had been the site of Letty and Greycliff’s wedding as well.

Less grand than St. George’s or St. Bart’s, for certain. Perfect for the Fenley family and their friends.

“You’re jealous because you didn’t rescue anyone,” said Grantham. “I did. It was magnificen—put away that knife or I’ll throw your tiny Scottish arse out the window.”

“You touch my arse—”

One of the great mysteries of life was how a woman as lovely as Violet could be comfortably married to a man who exuded danger the way Kneland did. Another great mystery was how Kneland had not used his famed skills as a counter-assassin to mortally wound, or at least permanently mute, the Earl Grantham.

“…still firm and supple, as opposed to yours, sagging with age…”

“…way to stick it down your throat, catch hold of your bowels, and pull them back out through your mouth…”

Jonas, the object of myriad women’s attention now that he’d shaved and put on a suit from this century, stood opposite Sam and frowned. Every time he moved, Sam’s sisters turned their heads to watch him.

“…shove that blade so far up…”

“…a head that big and yet so empty…”

From the pew a few feet in front of him, Sam’s mam cleared her throat loudly and glared at the men behind him.

“Now you’ve done it,” Kneland whispered to Grantham. “I’ll bet you fifty pence Mrs. Fenley won’t let you have a piece of her lemon cake at the breakfast afterward.”

“Fifty pence? Are you a pauper now?” Grantham countered. “I’ll bet you a pound she gives me an extra slice.”

When would this torture end?

“Shut up or I will give your children hedgehogs and puppies for Christmas every year they are under your roofs,” Sam threatened.

The men immediately fell silent. To Sam’s great relief, the doors of the vestry finally opened.

Five years earlier, the Queen had been married in a white dress. Since then, British brides wore white with a plethora of skirts and lace and flowered headbands.

Not Phoebe Hunt.

She wore gold, Sam’s bride. The same color as the coverlets upon which they’d slept that night at the emporium. The same material, too—her dress had been hastily sewn by a trio of bemused seamstresses he’d located in Hockney, as no one had ever given them bedclothes as material before. They were geniuses, these women, and shot through the gold silk were the green and purple embroidered flowers Phoebe had admired.

Phoebe’s hand sat on Greycliff’s arm, and Letty beamed at them both with love in her eyes. They walked steadily to the sound of the church’s organ playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Appearing buoyed by the impossibly beautiful notes, Phoebe, with admirable grace, settled in her place opposite Sam in front of the vicar.

Gone were the days when the banns would’ve been read for three weeks straight. For almost a decade, a civil marriage license could be had within a week.

Thus, it hadn’t taken long for his mam and Violet to organize a wedding and a wedding breakfast with little notice. Thank goodness, for Sam thought he might go out of his mind with anticipation of his wedding night.

Finally, the vicar began the ceremony.

Sam looked down into eyes the color of pansies, untrodden and fresh, sparkling with the dewdrops of unshed tears.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Because Phoebe needed to hear those words once more and perhaps again later and certainly each morning until the end of her days.

···

“I love you.”

Sam had told her this multiple times a day since Grantham had hauled them from the freezing waters of the Thames two weeks ago, repeating it like a catechism. Like prayer. Phoebe swore she would remain by his side, he didn’t have to say it on the hour, but Sam did it anyway.

It might take years for her to tire of those syllables ringing in the air like bells. Like trumpets.

I love you.

She had said it aloud only twice. Once when they lay gasping, clinging to each other in the bottom of a rotting skiff.

The second time was a week ago.

Moti understood their haste to wed but still insisted the formalities be followed. This meant Phoebe must spend every night after dinner in her childhood bedroom at Hunt House.

Luckily, Sam had a key.

It took him three days to work up the courage to sneak into the house and visit her.

“Look,” she’d whispered when he’d poked his head into her room. “A bed.”

At first, having to be quiet enough not to alert the servants made the act more piquant. Afterward, they’d lain together and stared at the faded blue linen canopy; plain compared to the riots of colors during their last trysts.

Sam had played with her hands, then kissed the indent between her knuckles, and Phoebe had closed her eyes and said a prayer to Saint Faraday and the universal current that their nights might end like this.

“One more week,” Sam had whispered.

One more week until the wedding, he meant.

“Violet, Moti, and your mother have been terrible bullies,” Phoebe had complained, only half jesting. “I cannot sit for one minute to breathe without being asked the most inane of questions. Do I prefer violets to lillies of the valley. Should we have two kinds of muffins or three at the wedding breakfast.”

She’d shuddered, but Sam showed no sympathy and chuckled at her distress.

“I thought after your enthusiasm over the emporium, you would be thrilled to pick out anything you desire for your trousseau and new household,” he said.

At first, Phoebe had been giddy at the chance to walk through the emporium and see the wonders it contained; powder made of rice and arsenic to whiten the skin, hairpins with paste jewels affixed to the ends, funny-looking teapots from the East, and more gloves than there were people in London to wear them.

After a day or two, however, the reality of what would happen after the wedding, that Sam would return to the emporium to oversee the staff or go to the newspaper and decide what news to print while Phoebe performed the duties of a newly married gentlewomen—this sat on her shoulders like a shawl made of bricks.

“Your sisters are a delight, and I have enjoyed myself,” she said. This, at least, was the truth. Phoebe did enjoy the Fenley sisters’ company.

She faced a life that she never thought she would have again. A family. A man who loved and respected her. A coordinated effort by everyone she knew to bring her back into society without scandal.

Phoebe should be ecstatic. Instead she felt suffocated.

“I have been thinking about Hunt House,” Sam whispered.

Phoebe had no head for business, but she was already so bored, she seized at the chance to put her brain to some use other than picking out chemises.

“What are you planning?” she asked.

“Would you like to live here?”

Sam might as well have doused her with a ewer of cold water. Phoebe bolted upright, clasping the coverlet to her chest with both hands.

“I cannot think of anything I want less than to live in this house ever again,” she said.

Worry pricked in the back of her brain. Yes, she loved Sam, but how well did she know him? What other terrible ideas might he have about their future?

Sam did not react to her concern, resting the back of his head on one arm in a languid manner.

“Shall we find some room in the house in Clerkenwell, then? Mam and Da love having family around.”

There must be a correlation between exuberant orgasms and terrible ideas.

“We cannot live in your parents ’ house,” Phoebe said, “Are we to share a room with Sarah? Whatever are you on about, Fenley?”

She examined Sam closely. He had tripped twice yesterday when coming to call. Once down a half flight of stairs.

A brain injury could take days to present itself.

“Well,” he said, rolling onto his side and smiling up at her, “if we aren’t going to live in your house and we aren’t going to live in my house, we shall have to compromise and find a third place. One that suits both of us.”

Phoebe settled down and nestled close to Sam’s side. “That will keep me busy for a while,” she admitted. “Looking for a house will occupy me for weeks.”

“Mmmm.” Sam nuzzled her temple and a shiver slid down Phoebe’s spine. “Especially if we wish to build a home near to Lake Michigan.”

“What?” she spluttered, again sitting up, not bothering with the coverlet this time, her shock was so great.

What?

Phoebe’s heartbeat quickened when Sam let loose that special grin of his. He remained on his side as though he hadn’t said something explosive.

And wonderful.

“I think it best, Phoebe-girl. Your mother told me this island wasn’t big enough to hold you. You belong beneath a sky that goes on forever, not in a place where you will constantly be butting your head against the ceiling. I love that you agreed to follow me, but I want to follow you .”

That was the second time she’d said “I love you” to Sam Fenley.

···

“…take Samuel Duncan Fenley to be your lawfully wedded husband.”

The wedding would be over after Phoebe repeated the vows, the breakfast would be eaten, and their new life would begin with a torrent of blessings from their family and friends.

“Will thou love him, comfort, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health…”

They would board the steamship first thing tomorrow morning. As Letty reminded her, they would still be the same people, but they would make a new start. In a new world.

“…keep thee only unto him for as long as you both shall live?”

“I will,” Phoebe answered.

The vicar cleared his throat to signal the end of the ceremony, but Sam wasn’t going to wait. To the cheers of the scientists, gasps of the aristocrats, consternation of Jonas, and delight of all that knew them, Sam reached over and pulled Phoebe to him.

“Yes, you will, Phoebe-girl,” he crowed, then kissed her.

Phoebe kissed him right back, knowing when the two of them touched, they both glowed.

Love is an invisible current like electricity. It has the power to pull the world out from beneath your feet, to light you up, or to propel you forward into the unknown.

Their love gave off a spark, and a spark is all it takes to set the world on fire.