Page 8 of A Devilish Element
“Having made your acquaintance, I freely admit I wasn’t averse to the idea of doing so again.”
Jem dropped a bow over her hands, a broad smile stretching his cheeks into aches. Rakishly, he planted a kiss on her bare knuckles and his pulse quickened at her gasp. He’d thought of her often, probably too often for his own good. Their acquaintance over the summer had sadly been too short-lived for him to have made anything of it, but that didn’t stop him imagining how things might have been if time and circumstances had been on their side. The haze, the passion of those summer days made his heart swell, and wakened parts shrivelled by fear at what was going on in the room beyond. His gaze lingered on her fingers, and finding no wedding band, muscles he hardly knew he’d held clenched, relaxed. It seemed his friend and rival had not pipped him to the post. He’d not forgotten the kiss she’d granted. First he, then Joshua, thus ensuring complete fairness.
“Mr Whistler, if that is so”—Eliza said, a merry old glint dancing in her eyes—“you might stoop to replying to the correspondence I sent you.”
“Ah.” He offered up a sheepish grin. “I confess my laxity in such matters. I am a dreadful correspondent.”
“Letters,” Jane interjected. “What is this?” Her lips quirked into a pursed smile before she levelled a meaningful stare in Eliza’s direction. “How exactly come you to be acquainted with my husband’s tutor?”
“His tutor?”
“As you see me,” Jem replied, making another bow. “And allow me to enlighten you, Lady Linfield. My aunt and uncle, Sir Thomas and Lady Lartington, were good enough to introduce us at Stags Fell last summer.”
“And Jem was good enough to show me both his work sheds and to converse with me about mathematics,” Eliza added. “He’s fanatical about steam engines. Did you know that, Jane?”
“I confess I didn’t. Nor did I realise it was something that interested you.”
“I’m woefully ignorant about them.”
The statement prompted a cough from Jem. “Not so very woefully. I recall you being a willing and very able student.” He looked her over, failing to take in the details of her appearance, instead seeing her as she’d been, with a borrowed leather apron tied over her skirts, and a smudge of soot on her nose, side by side with him and Joshua in the workshop at Stags Fell. Her delicate hands had been covered in grease that day, and her rose-scent entwined by the tang of metal filings. They’d both been utterly smitten.
“Well, I confess I was sorry to leave for I did have half a mind to petition for membership of the Puffing Devils. Did you ever solve the conundrum you were working on?”
“Hm, not as yet.”
“The Puffing whats?” Jane interjected.
“His society of gentlemen engineers,” Eliza replied, without breaking eye contact with him.
“Forgive me,” he mouthed. “How did I not know that you were to join us here?”
“Eliza, should I be the one to point out that you are neither a gentleman nor an engineer?” Jane remarked, though neither other party paid her any heed.
Eliza’s attention was raptly fastened on Jem. “I had no notion of your presence either, but it’s a joyous surprise.”
“Aye, it is that. But tell me how? How comes it to be?” He looked back and forth betwixt the two ladies, seeking answers.
“Jane and I were at school together. You’re looking at the co-founders of the Women’s Natural Philosophical Fellowship.”
Jane swished aside the remark. “More like the founder and her simpering devotee. I never could get my head around most of your arguments, even though I was thoroughly bewitched by them.”
Eliza jeed her head, dismissing her friend’s remarks as poppycock.
“You know it’s the truth. I’ve not looked at a sum nor read anything that wasn’t a novel or attached to a fashion plate since we left school, Eliza. But I see that Mr Whistler falls prey to the gravitational effect you exert. She is so very engaging, is she not?”
“What? Oh.” Jem relinquished his grip upon Eliza’s hands, which he had clung to far too vigorously and for far too long, judging by Lady Linfield’s remarks. While Jem mourned the loss of contact, Eliza clapped her hands together, glee painting a fresh glow across her cheeks as she turned to her friend.
“See, you say that, yet you still recall Mr Newton’s theory.”
Jane rolled her eyes toward the ceiling before casting her attention to the door once more. “Only in the vaguest sense. I couldn’t scrounge together the details no matter how hard I tried.”
“It relates force and mass,” Jem elaborated.
The lady only shook her head at his explanation.
“The one is directly proportional to the mass of the other and inversely proportional to the square of the distances between their centres.”
Bewilderment swept across his hostess’s face, while Eliza clapped again in delight. “Oh, how I have missed you, and I know I shouldn’t say it, but there it is, and I shall very much look forward to hearing about all your progress and new theorems, but we did come with a purpose. I wonder, if we might…” She cast a meaningful look towards the door at his rear.
