Late spring had transformed Goldenridge into something almost impossibly green.

Sunlight poured through the great south-facing windows of the conservatory, catching upon polished brass, glass vessels, and neatly arranged instruments that now occupied nearly every available surface. It had not truly been a conservatory for some time. The orange trees had long ago been removed to a proper glasshouse beyond the kitchen gardens, leaving behind broad workbenches that had gradually filled with books, notebooks, specimens, jars of curious minerals, and enough scientific apparatus to make several members of the Royal Society feel perfectly at home.

The old orrery no longer stood hidden away in a secret room.

It hung proudly from the center of the conservatory where the morning sun struck its polished brass wheels, sending tiny points of golden light dancing across the walls whenever the planets turned.

There were no secrets here anymore. Adele thought she loved that most of all.

She paused quietly in the doorway, careful not to disturb the young lady occupying the longest workbench.

Charlotte, now thirteen and nearly as tall as Adele herself had been at that age, was arranging three glass jars with the concentration of a surgeon preparing for an operation. A length of polished copper wire stretched neatly between two shallow saucers filled with brine, while beside them sat a small voltaic pile she had spent the better part of a fortnight constructing from alternating discs of zinc and silver.

Every piece had been measured. Every note recorded.

Beside her lay a much-thumbed copy of Sir Humphry Davy’s most recent paper, which she had persuaded Adele to obtain through what Charlotte had described as perfectly reasonable persistence and what everyone else in the household had agreed was relentless determination.

This afternoon she intended to demonstrate, before anyone willing—or unwilling—to watch, the decomposition of common salt into its constituent elements.

She had already informed the household that attendance would be educational.

Mrs. MacDonagh had sighed with long-suffering affection and announced that, educational or not, everyone would be there.

Charlotte approved of this arrangement.

She possessed not the slightest trace of nervousness.

Only the quiet confidence of someone who had performed every calculation twice and trusted her own mind completely.

Adele smiled.

Three years ago that confidence had existed only in hidden rooms and whispered conversations.

Now it flourished beneath sunlight.

She shifted the small bundle resting against her shoulder.

Frances stirred sleepily before settling once more, one tiny hand curling instinctively into the folds of Adele’s gown. At barely eight months old, she had inherited Shadrack’s fair hair and, rather alarmingly, what already appeared to be Adele’s habit of studying everything around her with solemn concentration.

Charlotte glanced up at last. “You’re standing in the doorway.”

“I am.”

“You’re blocking approximately three percent of my light.”

Adele laughed. “I do beg your pardon.”

“You’re forgiven.”

Charlotte returned immediately to adjusting the copper wire with minute precision.

Frances chose that moment to produce a delighted squeal.

Charlotte looked up again. “Well,” she observed thoughtfully, “she seems considerably easier to please than electrochemistry.”

“She generally is.”

“I imagine that will change.”

“I rather hope not.”

Charlotte considered this. “So do I.”

Adele watched her for another quiet moment.

Her heart felt so impossibly full that she scarcely knew what to do with it.

She thought of Althea.

How fiercely she would have loved this room. How proudly she would have watched her daughter standing here without fear, without secrecy, without anyone suggesting that curiosity belonged only to men.

A familiar warmth settled at her back before gentle arms encircled both her and the sleeping baby.

Shadrack rested his chin lightly against her temple. “She has your expression,” he murmured.

“Charlotte?”

“No.” He smiled down at the infant. “Our daughter.”

Adele looked at Frances, who had chosen that precise moment to yawn enormously before returning to sleep.

“She has your patience.”

“I hope she inherits yours instead.”

She leaned gently against him. “Althea would have been so proud.”

She felt him grow still.

His arms tightened almost imperceptibly.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “She would.”

For a little while they stood together watching Charlotte make one final adjustment before stepping back to inspect her work with obvious satisfaction.

Then, apparently content that science would not escape during the next quarter hour, she looked toward them.

“Tea is in the drawing room.”

“We know,” Shadrack replied. “They have already begun without us.”

“They would.” Charlotte nodded gravely. “I should not like the sandwiches to become stale before my demonstration.”

Shadrack smiled. “A catastrophe.”

“A preventable one.”

Adele laughed and shifted Frances a little higher against her shoulder.

Together they left the conservatory.

Behind them the orrery turned slowly in the afternoon sunlight, its planets tracing the same quiet paths they always had.

Only now, at Goldenridge, there was no longer anything that needed to remain hidden.

The drawing room had settled into the familiar, comfortable disorder of family.

Maurice occupied the sofa nearest the window with a London newspaper spread untidily across his knees, reading snippets aloud to no one in particular and apparently requiring no audience whatsoever. Catherine sat beside him with their little son asleep against her shoulder, one tiny fist still clutching the corner of her shawl.

Lady Whitebloom had surrendered entirely to the afternoon, dozing peacefully in an armchair with her knitting forgotten in her lap.

Near the tea table, Bess observed the newest housemaid with the quiet authority of a woman who had once managed an impossible household and consequently found every other domestic challenge rather less intimidating. Every now and then she offered a small correction, which the girl accepted with obvious gratitude before hurrying away to improve whatever she had unintentionally done wrong.

Goldenridge had changed.

Not all at once. Not dramatically.

Simply by becoming a home.

Shadrack accepted a cup of tea from Adele just as Maurice lowered the newspaper.

“Oh,” he said. “Before I forget.”

Nobody looked particularly alarmed.

Maurice was forever remembering things halfway through entirely unrelated conversations.

“I had a letter from London yesterday.”

“What dreadful scandal has society produced this time?” Catherine asked.

Maurice adjusted his spectacles. “It appears Miss Margaret Stanforth has at last married.”

That succeeded in attracting everyone’s attention.

“A widower,” Maurice continued, consulting the letter once more. “A gentleman of considerable fortune, apparently possessed of several estates, an excellent wine cellar…” He paused thoughtfully. “…and remarkably little hair.”

Charlotte looked up from buttering a scone. “How little?”

Maurice considered the matter with appropriate seriousness. “The letter describes him as possessing only enough to remember it fondly.”

Even Lady Whitebloom laughed herself awake.

“And his age?” Catherine asked.

“Twenty-five years Margaret’s senior.”

Charlotte frowned. “That seems inconvenient.”

“So my correspondent suggests.”

Maurice folded the letter neatly.

“It appears that, after the business at Goldenridge became public, society proved rather… reluctant to receive her. Few respectable gentlemen wished to ally themselves with a lady known to have conspired in entrapping an earl. Invitations became scarce, and matrimonial prospects scarcer still.”

He shrugged lightly.

“It seems this gentleman was the only one prepared to overlook it.”

“For reasons known only to himself,” Catherine observed.

“Or perhaps because he required a wife more than he required hair.”

Charlotte considered this carefully. “That also seems inconvenient.”

Maurice smiled. “Quite. My correspondent reports that she is already exceedingly unhappy.”

Silence lingered only briefly.

Three years earlier the news might have stirred something inside Adele.

Now she found herself feeling… almost nothing at all.

Margaret had become another chapter in someone else’s life.

Maurice glanced once more at the page. “There is one other piece of news.”

The room quieted.

“Whitebloom?” Shadrack inquired.

Maurice nodded. “He remains where the magistrate sent him.”

Shadrack said nothing.

“The settlement arranged after the trial has kept him housed in the poorhouse these past several years.” Maurice looked toward Adele almost apologetically. “It seems London has entirely forgotten him.”

Adele lowered her eyes to her teacup, watching the amber surface tremble slightly as she turned the china between her fingers.

Forgotten.

The word settled quietly inside her.

Once she would have imagined hearing such news would bring satisfaction. Or anger. Or perhaps some lingering grief for the father she had spent so many years wishing might one day love her more than he loved himself.

Instead she found only peace.

It surprised her a little.

There had been a time when Cyril Whitebloom had seemed large enough to cast a shadow across the whole of her future. Every choice she made, every book she opened, every opinion she dared to hold had somehow led back to him.

Now, three years later, she found she could scarcely summon the feeling that had once accompanied the sound of his name.

She hoped, sincerely, that he might yet discover the humility he had spent a lifetime refusing.

Beyond that, there was nothing left to forgive, nothing left to fear, and nothing left to say.

The conversation drifted gently onward, as conversations in happy houses so often did. Charlotte declared that electrochemistry ought to feature rather more prominently in civilized discussion, while Maurice maintained that sandwiches deserved an opportunity to be appreciated before anyone began decomposing common salt upon the tea table. Lady Whitebloom, having woken just long enough to pronounce both arguments perfectly sensible, promptly fell asleep once again to everyone’s amusement.

The afternoon slipped quietly toward evening.

One by one the household dispersed. Catherine carried her sleeping son upstairs, Maurice wandered into the garden with his newspaper tucked beneath one arm, and Bess disappeared in pursuit of some domestic matter that only she appeared capable of noticing. At length the nurse arrived to collect Frances, who protested the interruption by making a determined attempt to remove one of her father’s waistcoat buttons before allowing herself to be carried away.

The drawing room gradually settled into a comfortable silence.

When Adele looked up again, she found that only she and Shadrack remained.

She watched the fire for a little while before speaking.

“I saw Dr. Pritchard yesterday.”

He looked toward her. “And?”

She smiled. “He confirmed what I had begun to suspect.”

She rested a hand lightly against her abdomen. “We are to have another baby.”

For a moment Shadrack simply stared at her. Then, without a word, he crossed the room and sat upon the arm of her chair. His hand found hers. He held it quietly.

She could almost feel him imagining the future unfolding all over again.

When he finally spoke, his voice was wonderfully serious. “May I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

He considered the question with extraordinary care. “Would you prefer a son this time?”

Adele smiled.

“Or another daughter?”

She thought about it, because she always did.

Outside, sunlight filtered softly through the drawing room windows while somewhere in the conservatory Charlotte could be heard informing someone that sodium was an entirely unreasonable element.

At length Adele looked back at her husband. “I do not mind.” Her fingers curled gently around his. “So long as our child is given something neither of us received.”

He waited.

“A parent who is never afraid of what they might become.”

Shadrack’s eyes never left hers.

“No,” he said quietly. “Our children shall never have that.”

He lifted her hand to his lips.

“They shall know,” he whispered, “from the very first day… that they are loved.”

 

THE END