Read an Excerpt
1
London, 1844
You will take that monstrosity back to where you purchased it, or I remove your spine with my bare hands."
"If you put your tiny hands anywhere near my perfectly fashioned body, I will crush you. What do you have against sweet little bunnies? Everyone loves bunnies."
George Willis, Earl Grantham, stood in the foyer of a large town house off Kingsbury Road and held a toy rabbit aloft, safe from the threatened predations of his onetime romantic rival, Arthur Kneland.
Two years ago, Grantham had proposed to his best friend, the Lady Violet Greycliff. Violet, a genius chemist, and the founder of a secret society of women scientists, had chosen instead to marry Kneland, her former bodyguard. Grantham had opined-aloud and on multiple occasions-that her choice was a consequence of inhaling a few too many gases in her quest to prove Avogadro's law. Kneland had responded by dosing Grantham's tea with emetics.
The affection between the two men bordered on unseemly.
"Listen, Kneland," Grantham said with the patience of a saint, "I allowed Violet to marry you-"
Kneland-whose sense of humor matched his height-rudely interrupted.
"Violet chose to marry me. You had nothing-"
"-despite your obvious shortcomings," Grantham continued. "If she saw fit to spend the rest of her days leg-shackled to a dour little Scot, who was I to stop her? However, I will not begrudge my goddaughter the attention and belongings she so richly deserves."
Ever since the arrival of Violet and Arthur's daughter, Mirren Georgiana, Grantham had brought a baby gift when he came to visit. Kneland, being an aforementioned dour little Scot, had objected to the increasing size and elaborateness of the gifts.
In fact, Kneland had called the steady stream of presents-culminating in this four-foot-tall stuffed rabbit made with costly angora wool and clad in a custom-designed silk dress with sapphires for eyes-"outrageous, exorbitant, and unreasonable."
Admittedly, tweaking the former counterassassin with increasingly preposterous trinkets did provide the tiniest bit of amusement. Who would begrudge Grantham a sliver of light in an otherwise gloomy and miserable autumn?
"I will take that rabbit and shove it so far up your . . ."
Kneland, that's who.
A tiny flush high on the man's cheekbones stood out against his weathered white skin, eliciting the sole clue he enjoyed himself as much as Grantham.
"If you keep holding that monstrosity above your head, it leaves your underbelly exposed to any sharp blade that happens to be in someone's hands," said Kneland through gritted teeth.
"Tiny hands that can't fit around a knife handle," Grantham observed. Tired of holding the damn thing in the air, he set his other hand on his hip. "Well, where is Vi? Let's ask her if Baby Georgie would like a bunny."
"My child's name is Mirren, and my wife is not at home. She is fetching a guest from the train station," Kneland informed him. His brows met and he craned his neck to peer around Grantham into the street. "I believe that's her carriage now."
Grantham looked at Arthur.
Arthur looked at Grantham.
Grantham looked at the rabbit.
A grin ghosted across Arthur's face . . .
And they were off.
"What on earth?" the housekeeper, Mrs. Sweet, said, entering the foyer as the men tore past her.
"Good day, Mrs. Sweet. Don't you look radiant?" Grantham called as they ran by.
While Grantham had the superior muscular physique, Arthur was slippery like a weasel and the men were well matched as they raced through the hallways of Beacon House. Turning the corner into the kitchen, they both headed toward a thick oak door which led to what was once a series of outbuildings but had been transformed some seven years ago into Athena's Retreat, the first social club for ladies in London.
Grantham took the opportunity to jab Arthur in the ribs with his elbow.
Hard.
While Arthur slowed, using precious breath to utter an impressive curse, Grantham flung open the door and slammed it shut behind him.
Breathing heavily, he approached a fork in the hallway. Each corridor ended in a door. The door to the left led to the public rooms of Athena's Retreat. There a group of members attended lectures on the natural sciences, drank tea, and held discussion on topics such as the use of botanicals in household cleansers.
The door on the right led to the true Athena's Retreat. Behind the facade of the public rooms were workrooms and laboratories given over to women scientists from all over England. Women who were forced to keep their work secret from society due to myriad prejudices found a haven in this warren of strange sounds, nasty smells, and the low vibrations of brilliance.
The carriage house serving both Athena's Retreat and Beacon House was at the back of the public-facing rooms. However, a stairway stood outside the second floor of the hidden rooms and might get him there quicker if he-
Too late. The evil little Scot caught up to him and used his cursed assassin tricks to swipe Grantham's legs out from under him.
"Damn, but I love the sound of your giant arse hitting the floorboards," Kneland twittered as he flew through the door on the left.
Feck.
Grantham heaved himself up and resumed his journey at twice his original pace while plotting another baby gift.
Perhaps a live circus including pygmy monkeys?
Shouldn't Baby Georgie have her own boat?
Contemplating how he might haul a yacht down Knightsbridge Road, Grantham slammed open the door to the outside staircase and decided to leap from the second-floor landing onto a patch of brush in the kitchen garden rather than waste time taking the stairs.
In the seconds before his brain reminded him any decision prompted by his manly bits never turned out well, he caught sight of Violet Kneland and her companion.
Maggie.
Instead of neatly dropping feet first into the shrubbery-for which cook might scold him, but he'd soon charm her into forgetting-Grantham lost his footing and fell headfirst in an ungainly heap atop an untrimmed hedge of dog roses.
Maggie had returned.
Of course, she was now known as Madame Margaret Gault.
Try as he might, Grantham could never twist his tongue around the name.
Almost his whole life, he'd called her Maggie.
His Maggie.
From upside down, he watched as she turned the corner of the carriage house, the wind unfurling the hem of her simple bronze pelisse. A brown capelet hung about her shoulders, and a matching muff hid her hands. Catching sight of him, she paused, tilting her head so he caught a glimpse of lush auburn curls peeking out from beneath her tea-colored bonnet trimmed with bright red berries. Margaret's fair skin showed no hint of the freckles that had once plagued her every summer, and thick brown lashes shielded her hazel eyes.
She was unusually tall for a woman; nevertheless, she moved with effortless grace, and not even the blazing clash of colors adorning Violet next to her could detract from her beauty.
For she was a beauty, Margaret Gault. Once wild and graceless, she'd bloomed into a woman of elegant refinement.
A woman who was more than met the eye.
A woman who would rather feast on glass than give him the time of day.
For eleven years, the first day of summer meant Margaret would be waiting for him beneath the willow where they first met. She and Violet attended the Yorkshire Academy for the Education of Exceptional Young Women together. While Violet came home to her large, affectionate-and very loud-family, Margaret had no one waiting for her at home. Her father had died of a stroke when she was ten and her mother had little interest in Margaret's whereabouts or well-being.
Violet and Grantham had been Margaret's family. The three of them had been the best of friends until one hot afternoon when Margaret had smiled a certain way and the ground went out beneath his feet. A year later he was soldiering in Canada and Margaret lived in Paris and their summers together were nothing but a memory he pulled around himself like a blanket on cold lonely nights.
"Good afternoon, Grantham," Violet greeted him, seemingly unaffected by his headfirst dive into her rosebushes. She wore a shocking yellow day dress beneath a burgundy velvet paletot and atop her head sat a garish blue bonnet topped with a life-sized stuffed parrot.
Swallowing a barrelful of curses, Grantham tried wriggling out of the bushes, every single thorn piercing his flesh a hundredfold as Margaret stared without saying a word.
"Ahem." He cleared his throat as he managed to get to his feet despite being trapped in the center of one of the bushes. As he pulled a branch from his hair, a shower of wrinkled brown rose petals drifted down his shoulders. "You are especially . . . vibrant today, Violet. I brought this for Baby Georgie."
He thrust the torn, dirtied rabbit at Violet, who received it with a bemused air. One of the buttons had come off and the silk was stained green and brown.
"Madame Gault," he said, bowing to Margaret. "So lovely to see you again."
No matter how strongly Grantham willed it, Margaret did not speak to him in return. Instead, she bent her knee a scant inch in a desultory curtsey, her lush mouth twisted like the clasp of a coin purse, no doubt to hold inside the names she was calling him in her head. He had a good idea what some of them were, considering he most likely had taught them to her.
Grantham hadn't seen Margaret for thirteen years until their reunion-if one could call it that-a year and a half ago in the small parlor of Athena's Retreat. He hadn't exactly met the moment then, either-although to be fair, there'd been a hedgehog involved. The handful of times he encountered her since, she'd avoided meeting his eyes with her own, as though he were an inconsequential shadow cast by their past.
Someone to be dismissed.
Someone who had broken her heart and whom she would never forgive.
"See who is come to live in England for good." Violet linked her arm with Margaret's and beamed at her friend.
This was news.
When Margaret had come to stay at Athena's Retreat a year and half ago to complete an engineering project for her father-in-law's firm, Grantham had hoped she'd stay but she returned to Paris after three months. He'd asked Violet if Margaret might ever return, but Violet had doubted it.
"She's one of the only women engineers in Europe with an excellent reputation. Why give up a dream hard fought to come back to England and fight all over again?" Violet had asked.
Something had changed, however, and now Margaret was home.
His heart leapt in his chest and the bitter orange flavor of hope flooded his mouth.
"Clean yourself up and come inside for tea," Violet said to him now.
Margaret did not echo the invitation. Instead, she tightened her hold on a stylish carpet bag and accompanied Violet and Arthur into the building.
There are moments in life when the world shifts as though a door has opened somewhere out of sight. Whether a person runs toward that opened door or not depends on how fast they're stuck in place. Grantham considered for a moment how painful it would be to get himself unstuck.
Although the tangle of branches in front of him twisted menacingly, he pulled a deep breath of resolution into his lungs alongside the scents of rosehips and crushed greenery. Gritting his teeth, he made his way through the thorns toward the open door.
“How wonderful you are back to stay, Margaret. Grantham visits nearly every day when he is in London. It will be like our summers at the Abbey-the three of us together again.”
Margaret Gault avoided comment by sipping her tea. Violet sat at her side on a low settee, serving her guests small plates of rock-hard biscuits.
Arthur, Violet's taciturn husband, stood across the room, giving off the impression of a coil poised to spring. His nearly black eyes somehow remained on Violet at the same time they roved over the room.
Violet favored this small blue parlor. The velvet curtains had faded over the years from violet to periwinkle and a cheerful fire lent its warmth to the wan October sunlight, revealing delicate etchings on the glass-shaded sinumbra lamps. Training her gaze on a charming print of a tiny cottage amid the gorse-covered hills of the Scottish Highlands, Margaret let Violet's words wash over her in a comforting stream.
". . . the members of Athena's Retreat are over the moon at the news you've returned for good," Violet said. "You will miss seeing Letty and Greycliff. They have decided to remain in Herefordshire until the baby is born."
Last spring, Violet and Arthur went north to Yorkshire for half a year. Violet had suffered a miscarriage and needed time to heal, and as luck would have it, Margaret needed to be in London to work on a project for her father-in-law's engineering firm. She'd stayed in rooms at Athena's Retreat and served as the club's temporary secretary.
Her time at the Retreat served as an awakening. Meeting women scientists from various disciplines and learning about their work had inspired new ideas of her own. Margaret had made friends with like-minded-and sometimes not so like-minded-women who had both relied upon her and challenged her.
She'd become especially fond of Letty Fenley, an extraordinarily talented mathematician who had fallen in love with Violet's first husband's son, Lord William Greycliff. Watching her fierce and prickly friend bring the reserved viscount to his knees had been delightful if somewhat bittersweet.
Upon returning to Paris afterward, Margaret's perfectly ordered life lost its previous appeal. For the first time since her husband's death seven years earlier, she was lonely. While she and Violet had carried on a lively correspondence for years, the letters were not enough.
Loneliness alone wouldn't have precipitated moving to England but for her father-in-law's sudden announcement. In the absence of a son to carry on the work of the family engineering firm, he would be closing Henri Gault and Son.
Once more, because of one man's unilateral decision, Margaret's life was upended. For a few days she'd railed against the perfidy of men who, in their shortsightedness, could not imagine a woman taking the reins of such a prestigious firm, despite her status as daughter-in-law. No argument could sway Henri, however. He'd valued her work but would not leave his legacy in the hands of a woman.
Unlike the last time she'd been abandoned by a man, Margaret was not a lovesick seventeen-year-old with no other prospects in sight.
