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But her mother waved her hand. “You’ve been friends since childhood, and this is a private space. Just keep that familiarity out of the larger settings during the party. We wouldn’t want to give any would-be suitors the wrong impression.”
“Never that,” Tillie replied, her teeth grinding together. But she quickly forgot her irritation as their carriage arrived back at the estate. Alex helped them all from the carriage and then walked them inside before they parted company with the two matrons, making their way to the very back of the house, where Tillie had set up a laboratory of sorts. The room was in the corner of the building, the two-story space had upper and lower windows on two sides, allowing a great deal of light to flood into the space for her work. She’d had to be careful with preservation, thanks to all the extra light, but she’d managed the task.
Her focus was on taxonomy, the naming and categorizing of various species of insects, though her studies overlapped with other researchers in the newly developed field. Her greatest dream was to publish a book of her work. She had notebooks full of labelled drawings and observations that were the start of what might be a published book.
Not that many women could tout such a feat, publishing a scientific work, but she’d like to try.
She blinked, realizing she’d stumbled across another absolute in her future. She wished to share her findings with the world. They reached the locked doors of her laboratory and she turned back to Alex. “Are you ready?”
“Ready,” he answered.
She drew in a trembling breath. “Odd. You spend your time looking up at the sky while I have my nose to the ground. I hope you don’t find insects terribly boring compared with stars.”
He chuckled, his hand discreetly brushing her back as the maid who had accompanied them stopped several feet behind them. “I am certain I won’t. Anything you discuss is mesmerizing.”
She flushed with pleasure. “Thank you. But if you don’t find it dull, then my next fear is that you’ll see it as very strange, just as my mother does.”
Alex’s hand pressed to the small of her back. “Tillie. Lead on. Fearlessly.”
Lead on. Fearlessly. She liked the sound of those words and with that thought dancing in her head, she opened the door.
* * *
The space caughtAlex’s attention first. With the sheer number of windows, he wondered if he could use it as an observatory. It was stunning.
Then he saw the cases on the far wall filled with neatly arranged insects clearly categorized by size and variety. The displays were both fascinating and unexpectedly beautiful. “Tillie,” he murmured, his gaze climbing up where the cases continued close to fifteen feet up the wall.
“Is that a good Tillie or a bad Tillie?” she asked quietly. “You’ll notice that Clara is hovering in the doorway. Only one maid will even come in here to dust and I’ve been told that she has the constitution for nearly any manner of repulsion.”
He looked at Tillie, realizing that it was more than just her mother who’d eroded her confidence. The world had not appreciated her gifts. He understood that all too well.
But whatever she felt about him, whether or not she returned his affection, Alex could remind her of the girl he once knew and the woman she had the potential to become. Tillie was a woman meant to take on the world and mold it to her liking not the other way around. Of that, he was certain.
“Oh Tillie, I’ve never…” He swallowed, overcome with an emotion he could hardly name. “It’s stunning.”
“Really?” she croaked, her hands coming up to her mouth before she dropped them again. “You actually mean that?”
“Mean it?” Gads, he wanted to pull her close and comfort her. “Tillie, this is incredible. The work that went into this…” He only watched the sky through a lens, looking for patterns that had already been charted. But Tillie. She was searching out the subtle patterns right under their feet. Ordering their world in a way that had yet to be done. It was magnificent. “I’m in awe of what you’ve done. What you’re doing. Show me everything.”
He saw the tears shimmering in her eyes.
“Tillie?”
“No one appreciates my work,” she whispered. “Not even Juliet. Not like that.”
His heart twisted. He ached for her, but also, the fact that he got to give her something no one else had… “Well then. You’d better get started.”
For the next two hours, she explained the order of the insects, how she’d grouped them and then she went onto the drawings.
Meticulously drawn and labelled, she’d diligently categorized hundreds of insects. The amount of detail…
“Are each of these to scale?”
“Of course,” she answered as though she would never even consider anything but. Then she pulled out the tiniest tool. “I use this to take my initial measurements.”
“And how are they preserved?” He pointed to the carefully crafted cases on the wall.
“Arsenic and aloe,” she said. “My very own mix.”
