Talk Sweetly to Me

Patricia’s face was a mask. Rose stepped forward, all the heat rising to her face. “Doctor Chillingsworth, my sister does not—”

Patricia interrupted this defense with a swift shake of her head. “Thank you for seeing me, doctor. I’m much obliged to you for putting my fears to rest. Now that you’ve explained what I must look for, I shall be sure not to bother you again until it is time.”

“See that you don’t.” Chillingsworth ran a hand through his hair and glanced at his pocket watch once more. “Right in the middle of dinner,” he muttered. He dropped the gold disc into his waistcoat pocket and gathered up his bag.

Patricia did not say anything until after he had left. For that matter, she didn’t say anything immediately then. She simply sat on the sofa looking at Rose, while Rose stood in place, afraid to speak.

“I’ve been frantic,” Patricia finally said. “Waiting for you to come home. I was afraid something had happened to you. I looked all over—up and down—I went to the Observatory myself, and they told me you weren’t there. I was so frantic, and then I thought my contractions were starting.”

It didn’t matter what Stephen’s intentions were. It didn’t matter what he wanted. It didn’t matter how sweet or how gentle he had been. It didn’t even matter how much she loved him, how much she still yearned to run back to the spire and fall into his arms.

He hadn’t made her forget herself; she’d just forgotten her sister.

Rose came in and sat on the chair Chillingsworth had vacated. “I’m so sorry, Patricia. But the transit of Venus…”

“Would not have been visible after sunset,” Patricia said. “Or with the clouds that rolled in. I do listen to you. What were you doing?”

“I know it looks bad, but—”

“It is bad. I’m responsible for you, and you disappeared out from under my nose. Being out past sunset—that does not look good, Rose. Please tell me that you were with Dr. and Mrs. Barnstable the whole time, celebrating…whatever it is that astronomers celebrate.”

Rose swallowed. “Um.”

“Please tell me that Mr. Shaughnessy was not with you.”

Oh, she could see it now. Patricia was right. It didn’t just look bad. It was bad. What was she to do, lie to her sister for the rest of her life? Tell her she was marrying a man who would carry on in such a fashion? Their father had scraped and worked so hard to achieve even the barest measure of gentility. Was she to give it up so easily?

Rose examined her knuckles. “Did I…” She swallowed. “Did I not mention that I’ve been tutoring him in the methods of calculating astronomical distances?”

Patricia’s eyes grew wide. “No. You know very well you did not mention any such thing.”

“He may have set up a telescope in the church spire. So I could observe the transit.”

“Together?”

Rose nodded.

“Alone?”

Another nod. Rose felt her cheeks burn in mortification.

“Did he hurt you?” Patricia demanded.

“No. He wouldn’t.” Not the way Patricia meant it anyway. “And don’t look at me like that—I don’t know what you must think of him, but he wouldn’t hurt me.” He would tell her that she was beautiful and brilliant. He would say that he liked her. But in the end, it would always come down to this—that if anyone found out that he was pursuing her, they would instantly think the worst.

“Oh, Rose. What am I to do with you?”

“How should I know?” Rose asked bitterly. “I don’t know what to do with me, either.”

Patricia didn’t hesitate. She held out her hands. Rose stood, going to her, wrapping her arms around her.

“Sometimes,” Rose said, “I can make myself remember that we live in two different worlds—he in his, and me in mine. Other times, I think that we live in the same place—one world, so much better because he’s in it. I think I could fall in love with him, if only I dared.” She swallowed. “But I can only dare to do so many things at a time.” Her voice was thick. “And now, daring to do this one… I left you.”

“Oh, Rose. You mustn’t worry about me.”

So like Patricia, to insist she needed nothing for herself.

“How can I not? I promised Doctor Wells I’d be here for you, and I wasn’t.”

“Shh. You’re here now. And I do understand. Hypothetically speaking, I might have been willing to sneak out at night to see Isaac, when I was your age.”

Rose smiled wanly. “Why, Patricia. We are speaking hypothetically, are we?”

“Oh, shh. Then say it’s realistically speaking, too. Just…don’t meet a man alone at night unless you’re sure he’ll marry you.”

Rose sighed.

“And, ah, even then… Don’t let things go too far.”

“Whatever do you mean by that?” Rose asked innocently.

Too innocently, apparently, because Patricia gave her shoulder a slap. “Hussy. You’re not that naïve. If you feel like falling asleep afterward, you’ve done too much.”

“Oh, dear. I feel like falling asleep now,” Rose told her, shutting her eyes.

“Cuddling with your sister doesn’t count,” Patricia said severely. “I don’t have designs on your virtue. All I ever want to do at this point is sleep. Use the chamber pot and sleep.”

“How indelicate.”

“Anyone who thinks that ladies are delicate has either never been pregnant or has put the experience from her mind out of sheer horror.”

Rose snorted. For a long while, they did not say anything. Rose held her sister’s hands, her head resting against her shoulder. She could almost pretend that they were still young, that she was a child and Patricia not much older, that she was once again falling asleep to the sound of her sister’s heartbeat.

But they weren’t. Rose was twenty. Her sister was pregnant, and she had to take care of her. She had not thought anything would ever make her forget that…but then she’d underestimated Stephen Shaughnessy for too long.

He made her think this would all be easy—that all she had to do was love him and then all her problems would disappear. They wouldn’t, though. They would multiply: his problems with hers. All he could do was what he’d managed tonight: He could make Rose forget herself long enough for real danger to threaten.