Chapter Twelve
Jo
It was a risk, sending the photograph.
She shouldn’t have done it. For so many bloody reasons. First and foremost, Paul had heard evidence of further snooping around the press on Holywell Street last week. The political pamphleteers they worked alongside without much fond feeling had found it in their hearts to let him know someone had been by, asking suspicious questions.
“I swear I’m not here to force you to discuss the baby,” Paul assured her when he came to let her know, the rings on his fingers flashing in the sunlight as he waved them reassuringly. “You seem quite content to save all practical discussions until you can have them with the child itself. While I question whether the two of you will be able to hammer out a living arrangement on your own, I respect your decision to give the wee one a voice in the matter.”
“God, you are ridiculous—”
“I am simply here,” he went on, “to let you know that while we are not fucked, you need to keep your head down, be on the lookout, and if you see anything suspicious, please do not opt to save it for the birthing room like you are doing with the rest of our problems.”
It was hard to tell how worried to be. This sort of thing happened now and again, and had never proven too difficult to get out of. They were very careful with their enterprises. Paul’s distress was more palpable than usual this time, but based upon his delivery of the news, she suspected it was fear for his domestic future that had him so on edge. After all, he was still waiting on Jo to start behaving like a reasonable person, and in the meantime, Vanessa had taken ill again in the last few days. Jo couldn’t bring herself to fix her part in his distress yet, but she still cared enough for the blasted idiot that she pitied his position and promised to be on her best behavior.
Sending a naughty photograph to her prim penpal was not exactly her best behavior, coming not only with a chance of discovery through the post, but the risk of taking things a step too far with Emily and scaring her off.
But that’s why she’d had to do it.
These past few weeks, Emily’s letters had been a balm more powerful than anything out of a medicine bag. She was witty. She was smart. She was good and kind in a way that Jo hadn’t really even believed a person could be, and there was a certain sensuality underlying all her buttoned-up trappings that seemed to slide under the layers of Jo’s dapper dress to curl up in the center of her chest and purr for hours. Her upcoming visit had become a bright spot upon a future that was murky and uncertain.
She needed to make sure, though, that Emily did not forget who she was dealing with. Because if she forgot, and Jo got more attached than she already had, then the eventual remembering would be more painful than Jo could stand. Best to send a reminder now, so that neither of them got a nasty shock later.
While she’d hoped for a quick response to ease her worries about disastrous discovery or tragic rejection, the weekend came too quickly. If Emily was either offended by Jo’s photograph, or had sent on information about which train she was taking in, her response did not arrive in time for it to do Jo any good. Once she’d closed up the shop for the day, she was left with nothing to do but go straight to The Orchid and Pearl Society House and hope for the best.
Jo had sent word to Winifred Withers that she and possibly a guest would be at her place for supper. When she’d first started coming to the society house, it had felt presumptuous to invite herself over for meals whenever she felt like it, but it was Miss Withers’s way. She wasn’t old, only around forty, but there was something intrinsically matronly about the wealthy spinster; she liked to house, to clothe, to feed. And while she was always willing to do those things on-the-fly for a stranger, she preferred that those already under her wing give notice if extra plates needed to be set.
When Jo arrived as the sun was setting, she found Miss Withers in the lovingly decorated drawing room, sitting at the piano in a simple, tidy gown as she made notes in a music book. When she heard Jo’s footsteps behind her, she turned to peer with a look half sweet and half scolding.
“You friend isn’t joining us, then?” Miss Withers said. If one looked just right, they could imagine they saw the evening’s guest list in her sharp eyes, names being scratched out and numbers updated in real time.
“Hello to you too.” Jo took off her hat in greeting before popping it onto the rack. “And as for that, I’m not sure. She’s not here yet, then, I take it?”
Miss Withers looked scandalized. “Why aren’t you meeting her at the station?”
“She never told me when to be there.” Jo shrugged and headed to the bar near the piano, where her favorite whiskey was ready and waiting just for her. “It was a bit of a hasty situation. I wasn’t expecting her for another week.”
A snort of laughter by the fireplace caught Jo’s attention. Margot Levin was over there behind her easel, her black curls pinned back clumsily, paint stains on her hands and trousers. Jo hadn’t noticed her before, but ought to have assumed she was here; for years, Margot followed Miss Withers around like a puppy. Margot was always here.
“What’s so funny?” Jo asked, forgoing the whiskey bottle to shove her hands in her pockets and move to see what she was working on—she’d met Margot through the illustration work she did for some of Paul’s authors, so there was always a chance she was working on something fun. “We don’t all sit around pining half our lives, you know. Some of us move decisively.”
Margot twirled her brush through a few colors on her palette until they’d blended as she wished. “I’m simply amused that you’ve found someone as decisive as yourself. More decisive, perhaps, what with her hasty arrival. She’s got you a bit unbalanced, doesn’t she?”
Jo peered at the start of a painting composed of Margot’s signature satyrs and nymphs, ignoring her friend’s playful eyes on her.
“I’m not unbalanced,” Jo snapped, wishing her face wouldn’t burn. “And anyway, I hope you’ve told Miss Withers that you’re over here painting her in such scandalous poses, and nude to boot.”
Miss Withers looked up from the piano, but Margot’s eyeroll told her that it was just Jo causing trouble again. “Well, Jo,” Miss Withers said, returning to her notes. “I counted your friend in when planning dinner. If she comes, do know there is plenty of roast for everyone.”
“Oh, shit,” said Jo. “I think she might be a vegetarian. I’m not sure, though; it didn’t come up specifically, it’s just a few things she said makes me wonder—Fuck, do you think...?”
She trailed off as Miss Withers shrugged. “She’s not the only one. Plenty of bread and vegetables too.”
“She’s not unbalanced,” Margot snickered, dipping her brush. “Not unbalanced at all.”
Jo shoved Margot with her shoulder, but only when she knew the jostle wouldn’t ruin the painting. Margot returned the attack by trying to dot Jo’s nose in green paint, which she dodged at the last second, retreating to the table of hors-d’oeuvres and spiked punch. The Orchid and Pearl wasn’t a large society, usually somewhere between five and fifteen of them in at a time, but it was certainly a well-catered one. Jo ladled punch into a goblet and wondered if Emily was as strict a teetotaler as she seemed, or it if was just that she’d wanted her wits at The Curious Fox—
The bell rang. Jo whipped her head toward the front hallway so fast she nearly sloshed punch straight onto the blue-and-cream carpet.
Miss Withers closed her music book and stood, smoothing her skirts and taking the goblet carefully from Jo, so as to avoid any further close-calls. “That’s either Quinn and Tansy, or your most decisive and bothersome Miss Clarke.”
“Dr. Clarke,” Jo corrected automatically. “She’s, you know, a full doctor.”
Miss Withers and Margot shared a look over Jo’s shoulder before Miss Withers went for the hallway.
“Someone’s got it bad,” Margot muttered, eyes fixed on the half-formed satyrs on her canvas.
“I have not,” Jo insisted. “I don’t even care for her, really. But she seemed like she could use, you know, the influence of a few people like—”
“Save your breath, Joey,” said Margot, all sly smiles and patronizing love. “You hide your accent better than you’re hiding your interest in this woman.”
“I hide everything I wish to hide just fine. I am an impeccable enigma,” she said petulantly, peering after Miss Withers and worrying at her waistcoat button as she strained to hear who had arrived.
“Good evening,” came a distant greeting from the stoop. “My name is Dr. Emily Clarke. I’ve brought along my invitation from Miss Jo, though I would prefer to leave it in my suitcase if possible, for reasons that are particular to our common acquaintance.”
How wonderful to hear her voice again after all their letters! It was just as tight and proper as she remembered, with that same failing attempt at a low pitch. It had been difficult to imagine that voice sounding out the instances of dry wit she often penned, but as she described the reason she didn’t want to flash Jo’s invitation, it made sense. Unlike Jo, who sometimes felt like she was a dozen different people stuffed into one suit, Emily spoke just the same, no matter what was said.
But there was no time to be fascinated by that. Jo needed to look like she was doing anything but lurking around, straining for snippets of a voice. Not that she was doing that. She wasn’t. She wouldn’t. But it sure looked like it right now, and if she wasn’t careful, Emily would be smirking at her just the same as the others were. She got her punch back up and took it to the powder-blue chaise behind Margot’s easel, where she could not so easily fall victim to knowing glances. She crossed her legs. Uncrossed them. Fluffed the bolster. Flipped it over. Drew the untouched goblet to her mouth, then changed her mind...
Miss Withers led Emily into the drawing room, and what struck Jo first was how perfect she looked in this place.
Emily marched in on those practical heeled boots, swathed in a traveling dress the same color as the inevitable station soot, clutching a valise in a simply gloved hand. She looked very much a woman who’d never, not once in her life, given a fuck what the world saw when they looked at her. Zero fucks about whether gents found her attractive. Same number given regarding whether she came across ladylike or butch in this crowd, a concern Jo herself remembered with sickening clarity. Jo had spent two hours getting dressed the first night she came here. But Emily, clearly, had not. Because Emily was Emily. She was comfortable and put together, and it showed in each assured step.
In the blue-and-cream drawing room, her eyes looked more like the sea than a storm. As soon as they fell on her, Jo leapt up, nearly spilling her punch again as she reached to remove a hat that she’d already taken off and left on the rack.
“You made it,” Jo said.
“Seems I did,” said Emily, shoulders square but face flushing. “It was easy enough to find. Your instructions were suitably revealing.”
Her lips didn’t even twitch with the joke; it was so straight-faced that a few weeks ago, Jo would have assumed the innuendo was accidental.
“May I put this down?” Emily asked once introductions were done, lifting her suitcase. Jo instantly reached out a chivalrous hand to take it, but Emily jerked it just out of reach. “I can carry it; I should just like to put it somewhere appropriate.”
“Joey, why don’t you show her upstairs?” said Margot, eyes flashing mischievously from behind her canvas. “Miss Withers figured the two of you would want to catch up before supper, so the parlor is ready for you. And of course, the usual bedrooms are all made up for anyone who needs them.”
“My brother lives in town,” Emily said. “And while there is room in his study, it has become crowded over there of late. The society house is accustomed to providing lodgings, then? I should hate to put anyone out, but it would be appreciated.”
“Oh, visiting friends and wandering strays are always coming and going,” said Margot brightly. “No trouble at all, so long as Miss Withers knows the breakfast numbers by midnight.”
“Well, put me down for breakfast then,” she said with a polite but confident nod.
“Speaking of, are you a vegetarian?” Jo blurted in her haze of wondering.
Emily turned back to her, all wave-colored eyes and frothy wisps of hair that could not be adequately contained during a day’s travel, like it was the sea she’d risen from, rather than the suburbs. “Near to it, but not strict. Gratitude for hospitality is of greater importance than perfect adherence to a diet, so I am more than happy to share in whatever is offered. The only thing I strictly avoid is strong spirits.”
“That should work, then,” said Margot with a naughty little grin. “Seeing as Joey didn’t pick the menu, we should have a few offerings aside from Irish whiskey available to you.”
Emily not-so-subtly flicked her gaze to Jo’s goblet.
“It’s punch,” said Jo defensively. “Bit of port wine in it, but nothing I’d count as ‘strong.’ Would you, ah...would you like some, Emily? I know you weren’t keen on Mr. Forester’s champagne, but...”
Jo trailed off as Emily looked suspicious and straight-spined again all of a sudden. But then she softened by a smidge. “Bring one along to the parlor for me. I find myself more willing to lose the edge of my wit in this location than the last. But first, my luggage?”
Jo filled another goblet, then led Emily toward the stairs. As she gestured with the glasses for her to go up first, nearly spilling again as she did, she felt a gentle hand on her upper back. She turned to find Miss Withers looking somewhere between scolding and amused.
“We’ll have some refreshments brought up.” She carefully slid both glasses from Jo’s hands. “You allow your attention to focus firmly on...what it’s going to focus on anyway.”
Emily selected an open bedroom and settled her valise on the stand while Jo watched awkwardly from the doorway.
“The water closet is right across the hall,” Jo said, strangely pulled to be helpful somehow. “Just. You know. If you’d like to freshen up. It’s got a tap.”
The words fell a little stupidly between them, but Emily nodded with obvious appreciation. “Glad to hear it,” she said. “I very much look forward to the day when they all have taps, hot and cold both. Far more sanitary.”
Jo nodded, trying to push thoughts of every filthy pump she’d ever sipped from far enough away that Emily couldn’t peer into her soul and spot the memories like specks of dirt.
“Is there, ah, anything else you need?” Jo asked. “I could have Miss Withers’s maid come up to help with...like...your buttons or—”
“Believe it or not, the point of rational dress is not to look drab.” More dry wit laced her words, though this time, a lingering smile curved their tones pleasantly. In spite of all the simple gray, the laughter made her look anything but drab. “All my clothing was consciously designed to be a one-woman affair. While I appreciate your hospitality, I require nothing more. I shall meet you in the parlor shortly.”
“Do you know where—?”
“You pointed it out on the way up.”
Jo started off, but before she’d shut the door all the way, she stuck her head back in.
“This is awkward, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes,” Emily admitted with another of those small smiles. “One of the more awkward things I’ve ever done, actually. And as a physician, you can probably imagine that that’s saying something.”
Simultaneously reluctant to leave and practically running for the exit, Jo left the smiling and severe sea of Emily and escaped down the hall to what she affectionately referred to as the gents’ parlor (much to Miss Withers’s chagrin). It had been set up to look like one, though...or so Jo was told, having never visited houses rich and proper enough to have separate parlors for the sexes to retire to after dinner. In fact, she’d never been in a proper house at all, and had only seen rich ones after she found company that didn’t even bother separating, since the women all smoked and half of them worked the streets on the weekends at least. Still, Jo knew that the décor—dark woods, sturdy upholstery, smoking implements and liquor carts and stately chess boards—were standard-issue for spaces dedicated to the constitutional restoration of upper-class Englishmen.
Though Miss Withers hated the nickname, Jo thought it was fun. She could light a cigarette and pour some whiskey by the stony fireplace, taking on the handful of gentlemanly traits she found enjoyable while leaving the bothersome parts behind.
Surrounded by the familiar scents of old tobacco and wood polish, Jo squished down onto one of the sofas to take up the punch and plate of fruits, nuts, and toast points that Miss Withers had seen safely set up on the coffee table, trying not to eat them all in her anxiety. As a woman of letters, Jo knew perfectly well that she sparkled better with a pen than in a conversation. What if Emily discovered that the real Jo—the one beneath the clothing and the puns and the postcards—wasn’t as interesting as she seemed? That she was, in reality, just an Irish runaway and bookish wife who happened to have good taste in cravats?
Surprisingly quickly considering how long it usually took people to get out of the women’s garb they’d arrived in, Emily joined her. The traveling attire had been swapped for a simple navy skirt, creamy cotton shirtwaist, and practical knitted cardigan. Her face was pink from a presumed scrub at the oh-so-sanitary tap, and she’d repinned the froth of her hair so the lines of her face were once again simple and severe. She looked like someone who would never accept Jo’s invitation to anywhere in the entire cosmos.
And yet, here she was, staring between the two sofas that faced each other, clearly unsure where she ought to sit. Across?
Or beside?
The fact that it was even a question had Jo’s stomach flipping worse than it had when hearing what women got up to at the medical college. She found herself scooting over on her own sofa, making space.
Jo half-expected the doctor to spook, but she actually looked relieved. She sat down with a soft, huffing sigh before seeming to remember herself and folding her hands on her lap. She remained very still, as if she had not a single need in the world, but Jo didn’t miss how her eyes flicked to the tray of food before her.
“I assume you’ve had a very long day of work and travel,” said Jo. “Help yourself.”
Emily took up a point of toast with a gentle nod. “You were right to pick this place,” she said, sounding a bit prim again. “Truly incredible hospitality. A bed, a meal, and a running tap are far from what I expected when all I really wanted was... I don’t know what, exactly. To get away, I suppose. To indulge a bit.”
“Get away from what?” Jo asked. “And indulge in what?”
“Get away from everything,” Emily sighed. “And indulge in anything.”
“Except strong spirits.”
She nodded. “Precisely.”
“That’s not very specific,” Jo accused.
“Well, you deserve it for the mysterious comments you’re apt to make, don’t you?” Emily took a nibble off a toast. “Don’t deny it, Jo. You purposely pique my curiosity, only to leave me unsatisfied over and over again. It’s only fair you let me partake of the fun.”
Jo stared at her as those words soaked in, genuinely unsure whether the innuendo was intended. “The fun of being mysterious, you mean?”
Emily picked up her glass and peered over the rim of it, eyes flashing with a new sort of wickedness. “Sure. That’s one aspect. But you know how to have all sorts of fun, don’t you? Your recent correspondence shows that well enough.”
Jo had long since lost the decency to even pretend to blush. “That was fun, at the time. Not something I’d do again in a hurry, but the person I fancied I was then enjoyed the excuse to get done up.”
“The photographer, he...” Emily faltered. “He treated you well?”
“Oh yeah,” she said, thinking back to that day with the detached feeling that was so often packed up with her memories like a sachet of mothballs, acrid and annoying, but necessary for safe storage. “Yeah, he wasted a shit-ton of coal keeping a good enough fire going for me. Blankets and tea between the sets. Very kind chap. Haven’t seen him since we moved to print, but I wouldn’t be sad to run into him again.” In fact, if not for that useful sense that her left-behind lives belonged to someone else, she might have been sad to have fallen out of touch with him. “Why do you ask?”
“I should just...” Emily faltered. She brought her punch to her nose, like the vapors might hit her strong enough on their own to see her through whatever was making her blush so bright. She went on in a rush with her eyes squeezed shut: “I should hate to think I had enjoyed something that was terribly unpleasant or degrading for you.”
Jo couldn’t help but laugh at the reaction. Goddamn, how long had it been since she’d talked to someone with a mindset quite like that? Normally, she’d find it annoying. Maybe quaint, at best. But she’d already gotten the sense that Emily’s strict attitudes came from care, not judgement, and so it was actually sort of...well...sweet. In a way.
“It would be disingenuous to pretend every postcard you pick up will have such a happy story behind it,” Jo said carefully. “But enjoy my pictures all you like, Princess. I’m just glad to hear it was well-received. I was thinking it might scare you off.”
“Were you trying to scare me off?”
“I was trying to make sure that if you were scare-offable, it happened sooner rather than later.”
Emily nodded, satisfied with that answer. She did the same little song-and-dance with her goblet, smelling, almost tasting, thinking better and going for a bite of food instead.
“May I ask another question, Miss Jo?”
“So long as you aren’t too attached to getting an answer.”
“How did you go from that...” She reddened spectacularly, making a gesture with her hand that was quite vague, but that Jo liked to think was supposed to indicate knickers. “To...this?”
“That’s a big question,” Jo said. The way she’d shed old lives like a snake leaving its skin behind didn’t make for terribly charming conversation, and seeing as Emily had traveled all the way here to see her, she wanted to seem charming at least through the appetizer course. “Can I ask a better one?”
“Oh? And what would that be?”
Jo leaned in, elbows on knees. “Which version do you prefer?”
“As much as I can appreciate both views,” Emily said with a pragmatism belied by her continued flush. “Your creative additions to the former makes me think that it’s the latter that is genuine. And therefore, the latter is the one I prefer and the one I came here to see.” Though her face stayed soft for a moment, imbuing the words with a pleasant and flattering warmth, she eventually caught herself relaxing, and startled upright again. “Came here to seek,” she corrected. “To seek assistance from. In my...my quest.”
“Your quest for enjoyment?”
“Yes.” Emily sighed. “I’m sure it’s tiring to have gone through all the things you did to get here, Jo. The move, the nunnery, the husband, the postcards. But there are also downsides to knowing who you are and your place in the world from the day you’re born.”
“No fun?”
“No fun at all!”
Jo laughed. She wasn’t sure if she herself was as interesting in person as she was in her letters, but Emily certainly was. In fact, she was much better for the proximity.
“And that’s bothering you all of a sudden?” Jo coaxed. She herself was having a bit of an existential crisis. While she didn’t wish such a thing on Emily, it was intriguing that she seemed to be going through something similar. “The unfunness of your position?”
“It would be worth it if it was getting me anywhere,” she said. “I have lived every day assuming it was. But it’s not. It was an illusion. Everything I’ve done, every sacrifice I’ve made, every good time I’ve turned down...it’s still led me down a path where my future is entirely dependent on my father and brother, neither of whom, if I’m being honest, is...” She paused, reaching for the words she wanted. “Is especially... They have their own concerns, you see. And the fact that they see me as equal tends to blind them to the reality of... Not that they’re trying to make things difficult for me, it’s just that—”
“Are you trying to say that they have their heads too far up their arses to be of use to you?”
“Miss Jo!” Emily’s eyes went wide and shocked. It seemed like it might be the end of their conversation until she grasped Jo’s forearm. “That is exactly what I’m trying to say!”
“Well, that’s good,” Jo muttered, relieved.
“You understand, I’m sure,” Emily went on. “Your husband is a radical, isn’t he? I find that well-meaning as they may be, these sorts of men simply do not understand that their own enlightened views aren’t actually protecting the women in their lives from the reality of our circumstances. It takes a bit more than that when there is literally no hospital in Surrey that will pay me my worth for the work that I do. No field that wants me save for the one I’m probably least suited to.”
Jo’s first thought was that she didn’t actually relate to that. As a pair, she and Paul had put “reality” as far behind them as possible a long time ago, refusing its false promises in favor of a more unscripted life.
But she didn’t want to correct Emily, and even more than that, she didn’t want to linger on what a good friend Paul had been to her up until this point. Because at this point, he was a wanker, and that was all there was to it.
“Least suited to?” Jo said, latching on to that subject, rather than the more complicated one. “What are you talking about?”
Emily looked a little sheepish. “Now, I don’t want you thinking I’m unequal to the task of delivering a baby. I am more than capable of the work. What I struggle with is the pressure of it. I know what it is to grow up in a home torn by the particular grief that can enter through the childbed. All my troubles, my father’s troubles, my brother’s...they trace back directly.”
It took Jo a moment to wrap her mind around the nervous look Emily was fixing her with.
“Your own mother,” Jo said when it clicked. “She...”
“I suppose in some sense, this makes me even better suited,” Emily said, clearly not believing the words. “I am very driven to attain a better outcome for Miss Garcia, and, I suppose, will continue to be driven as I take on other patients. But I fear that if ever some tragedy happens that is beyond my control, or heaven forbid a result of my own mistake, I will be driven as mad as my father was when he lost my mother.”
“That’s why you wouldn’t take Vanessa on initially,” Jo said. “It wasn’t Paul’s press. You were protecting yourself.”
“That’s right.”
“I wouldn’t blame you, if you had to step back from it.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I don’t have a choice,” Emily explained. “As I said, I am not being paid a livable wage at the hospital, but my father is going to be forced into early retirement. I need an income. Private practice is the only way forward, without moving to London—”
“Why not move to London?”
“Because my father is on my very last nerve, but he has not been so dreadful that I wish to leave him alone in his old age.” She sighed. “He’s not infirm, and we do have such a supportive community back home, many friends and neighbors. But it’s not the same as the company of one’s family. If my brother would take on at least some of the responsibility, we might be able to make it work between the two of us. But that’s not looking very likely.”
“It’s funny to hear both your sides of this,” Jo said. “He makes you out to be some moralizing harpy.”
“If he wants me to be less of a moralizing harpy, he is more than welcome to lighten my load a bit. As it is, I am harsh with him. Yes. It’s hard not to be when someone leaves you in an impossible situation only to turn around and berate you for not being any fun. Lack of fun was not my choice. And seeing as my choices are narrowing even further, I bring us back to my goal for this weekend: to have a bit of fun for once, while I can. Accompanied, I hope, by someone knowledgeable in the subject.”
Good God, had Emily been intriguing like this during their first odd meeting in that greenery-filled, lemon-scented parlor? Had Jo simply been so put off by a dull dress and a notepad that she’d failed to notice the wit, the sharpness, the—there was no other word for it—the heat that simmered just under the surface of this woman?
“Well,” Jo said, scooping up her own punch. “If it’s a little indulgence you’re looking for, I’m knowledgeable enough to get the job done. And seeing as I too have troubles I’d rather forget for a few days, I can think of no better way to spend my weekend than being your guide in the ways of the decadents.”
“Lovely.” She peered into the goblet she’d been flirting with since she picked it up. “We’ll start with this.”
“Spirits,” said Jo in a misty voice, as if she meant the other sort.
“Spirits indeed.”
She moved as if to take a sip, but Jo put a halting finger on her wrist.
“Ah, ah!” Jo said. “Indulgence isn’t meant to be taken quick like medicine. It has trappings.” She lifted her own glass. “We have to toast.”
“To what?” said Emily, lifting her glass as well, but not touching. Not yet.
Jo looked into the lovely face beside her. “To cordial meetings?”
“In all honesty, I’m not known for my thrilling toasts.” She brought her glass just the tiniest bit higher. “So, I certainly can’t think of anything more fitting. To cordial meetings.”
And it was still very awkward as they locked eyes and clinked glasses, but wonderful as well. A decadent and a dissenter seated so close on the same sofa that one’s skirts covered the toes of the other’s boot, so different that they were nearly natural enemies, with no real reason to have found themselves here, sipping punch that Jo found a little weak but made Emily’s eyes bug and her cheeks go pink within moments.
“Very indulgent indeed,” said Emily with that hand back on her chest, peering into the glass as if she expected to find wild little nymphs swimming around in there.
Jo laughed, grateful to be able to break the tension with the comfort of mirth. “Well, do you like it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, that line between her brows deepening in thought. She brought the goblet up toward her face, smelling and looking at it for a moment before pulling it to her lips. It was like she was running an experiment on it, sipping so slowly that Jo could only assume she was hunting down data with her tongue.
By the time Jo watched the final delicate swallow, she realized she’d been holding her breath in anticipation of the final conclusion.
“Quite good, actually,” Emily declared. “Undoubtedly intoxicating in certain quantities, and far too much sugar to advise regular consumption. But there’s something very bracing about it. I do think I like it.” She picked up another of the toast points and allowed it to line her sensitive stomach before going on. “What do you think?”
“I very much prefer whiskey,” Jo said.
A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Emily’s mouth. “Somehow, I’m not surprised.”
Was that a jab? Who could say? And what did it matter? She set her own goblet down on the table, and when she leaned back, she was an inch closer to Emily than she had been before, turned toward her with an elbow up on the curving, wooden top of the sofa.
“So, Emily,” Jo said, crossing her legs inward as she did. “Seeing as we’re being exceptionally candid here, I have to ask. When you say you’re looking for lessons in indulgence, exactly what kinds of things—”
There was a knock on the parlor door, and before Jo could shout at whoever it was to bugger the fuck off, they’d already opened it. Jo tipped her head back to see Tansy Wickersham bubbling on the threshold. Though married and lacking anything resembling a grim or academic edge, she had a habit of dressing almost as plainly as Emily.
Shame, just now, that her disposition was not as polite and timid as her clothing.
“It’s true!” Tansy said, coming around to the other side of the sofa to stare at the pair of them. As she did, Emily gasped and clutched her cardigan tight.
“Mrs. Wickersham?” Emily exclaimed.
Jo looked between Emily’s shock and Tansy’s delighted nods. Bewildered, Emily stood for a proper greeting.
“You know each other?” Jo stood as well, nervously trying to get on a level with whatever was happening.
“We go to some of the same talks,” Emily explained, still looking a little shaken. “I... Goodness, Mrs. Wickersham, I can’t say I ever would have expected to run into you here.”
Tansy laughed. “Well, you’re not very observant then, are you? As for you, well, I can’t say I’m overly surprised by anything but your proximity to Joey in particular.” She gave a little wink. “In any case, I simply had to come up and see if you’d noticed how very unsurprising it is that you eventually made your way here! Quinn’s downstairs saying I conjured you myself. She’s into all those pagan notions right now, though honestly, with a coincidence like this, I can’t blame her this time.”
Emily turned to Jo, blinking in confusion and distress as if the rhythm of it were some sort of code for help.
“What are you talking about, Tansy?” Jo asked.
“The chess set!”
When they both fixed her with more confused stares than ever, Tansy took Emily’s glass and set it down. Bit brash and forward, but not so much as when she took Emily by the hand and led her to the chessboard near the window, always so neatly set with two armies of curving, feminine pieces that Tansy had found more fitting for this parlor than her own. “Oh, Emily, we all love it! You’re practically a celebrity here already, though of course I didn’t mention your name when I brought the set in. Didn’t seem relevant.”
Jo followed them with something uncomfortable flaring behind her ribs the second Tansy touched Emily’s hand. She positioned herself between them, making them break that contact.
“What of it?” Jo asked.
Emily had gone quiet. Clearly, this was not some bizarre flight of fancy of Tansy’s (who, as a Quaker from a family that made Emily look like an excessive socialite, used the excuse of this place to fly every imaginable fancy). Emily picked up the white queen, her fingers pinching the unmistakable curve of her majesty’s lovely waist.
“She made it,” Tansy stage-whispered. “I told you it was purchased from a friend who was quite adept with a whittling knife? Well, Dr. Clarke was the friend.”
Jo was torn between admiration for the skill required for such a beautiful, intricate piece of work and something that felt unpleasantly like jealousy that Tansy had known about it first.
“Anyway,” said Tansy, putting her hands on both the others’ backs. “I’ll leave you to finish up in here. Supper’s nearly ready. I just couldn’t wait to share this one. It’s simply too much!”
With that she was, thankfully, gone.
“Goodness.” Emily put the queen back where she’d found it. “That was all a bit of a shock.”
“You know Tansy, then,” Jo said a bit stiffly. “You’re...friends?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Emily peered toward the nearly closed door like she’d seen some unlikely imp pass through it. “Particularly since even the friendship I’ve shared with her has been...with sort of a different Tansy Wickersham. Goodness, I don’t think I’ve heard her say that many words at one time before. I think of her as a very quiet and unobtrusive person. A good person: she and her family do a lot of admirable work getting people fed in this city. But not a person who talks much.”
“Really?” Jo laughed, relieved to hear there was not some other sort of friendship between the two of them. “We can hardly get her to shut up, normally. In any case, did you really make this? All these pieces, by hand?”
Emily smiled and nodded, looking pleased as she picked up one of the pawns and turned the bottom to Jo, revealing EC1883 carved into the smooth cherrywood. “I don’t often finish a whole set, but when I do, I like to sell them off and put the money toward charity. Mrs. Wickersham gave a very good sum for this one, but I admit, I’m happier to see it here. I assume it gets more use than it would have done at her home. Did you know she’s married? With children? And it’s not a home well-suited to chess, I suppose. I agreed to sell her the set because she enjoys the game, but her children are still young and her husband is a bit...well, let’s just say, I’ve met him. Once again, I have only the greatest of admiration for his character, but suspect that a game with him might be brief and unsatisfying.”
Jo nodded knowingly. “Yeah. She’s said something to that effect about him before.”
“You’re terrible,” Emily said with a laugh and an unmistakably flirty nudge. Her eyes were looking into Jo’s again, calling her. The room grew very quiet, the air rather close. Jo became hyperaware of how the sweep of that long, navy skirt was dusting her own shoes again.
“Anyway,” Emily said, voice and chin lowered in a way that was as unmistakable as it was alluring. “What were we talking about? Before the interruption?”
It seemed pretty clear that she remembered what they’d been talking about just fine, but Jo wasn’t up to arguing about that. Or about anything. They’d argued enough, probably. Any more would be waste of time that could be much better spent.
“I was asking what sort of indulgences you came here hoping for this evening.” Jo brushed a light finger over the rounded head of one of the wooden pawns. “Though, if you made these, I must say, I think you’ve at least got some mind for art and leisure.”
Emily watched Jo caress the pawn with parted lips and wide eyes. She smiled, the expression far from prim and angelic.
“Am I to assume that means you’re in less remedial a phase than I previously thought?” Jo asked.
“That depends on what you mean.” Emily stepped in even closer, running a single finger down the back of Jo’s hand. “You see, I learned all the important anatomical foundations at the women’s medical college. But it was quite a perfunctory thing. I fear I am quite remedial indeed when it comes to matters of true indulgence.”
Oh, fuck. There really was nothing for it, was there? Any hope of avoiding this was destroyed by the knowledge of these carvings. The fact of more facets to this woman than even Emily seemed to have noticed.
Jo leaned in and Emily leaned up.
“Emily?”
“Yes, Jo?”
“Would a kiss be too indulgent a place to start?”
Emily’s breath caught and her eyes shone. “Too indulgent? Not at all, Jo. Not at all.”
Jo had imagined kissing Emily more than once by now. She’d assumed it would take a lot of coaxing to soften her lovely lips up. But when Jo finally pressed her own to them, they were not pursed at all, but plush, and perfect, and tasting of port wine punch.