Chapter Eleven
“Are you out of your mind?”
Kalila opened her eyes to see Dameer’s face hovering over hers. His blond curls were wild, indicating that he’d likely just rolled out of bed.
“What time is it?” Kalila groaned, turning over.
“Six,” Dameer responded. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Kalila shoved him out of the way as she sat up. A pearl escaped from her hair and fell to the floor with a delicate clatter. “Out of my mind how?” she demanded. “I’ve just woken up.”
“I saw you, Kal!” Dameer dropped onto the edge of the bed with a heavy thud. “No, let me rephrase that. Everyone saw you. Out on the terrace, huddled together with Booth like a pair of lovebirds.”
“I wasn’t there for long.” Kalila pulled her legs up underneath her. Also, lovebirds? Ridiculous. “I didn’t even see you after you disappeared last night. How did you see me?”
“Of course you didn’t,” Dameer said. “I tucked myself upstairs to save the both of us from embarrassment. Granted, Amelia took pity on me and kept me company, so—”
Kalila let her knees drop, and she reached over to push his shoulder. “Ah, so I wasn’t the only one being improper last night, was I?”
Dameer’s cheeks colored. “That isn’t the point. I think you’re distracted.”
Kalila frowned. “Distracted?”
“By Booth,” Dameer said with some hesitation.
“That’s ridiculous,” Kalila replied, knowing full well she was lying. Of course she was distracted. No woman alive wouldn’t be distracted by charming, smiling, golden Oliver Booth, and especially not after he’d kissed them.
Again, it had only been her hand, but still.
“Have you forgotten that you’re supposed to avoid discovery?” Dameer asked. “And when was the last time you focused on what you came here to achieve?”
Kalila opened her mouth to respond before snapping it shut. She had no argument, because Dameer was right. He was right, and she was distracted. She hadn’t even worked on her—
Jumping out of bed, Kalila rushed to her desk. Her paper, the one she had specifically gone to retrieve, was nowhere to be found. She must have left it at the university again.
Because she’d been distracted.
But she hadn’t seen it since she’d gone to the university without her disguise on. Unless she’d been too preoccupied to notice it floating about. She wasn’t that taken with Oliver, was she? She couldn’t be. He was—he was nothing but a man. Men did not take precedence over scientific research.
You are the most interesting person at this ball by far.
She wasn’t interesting. She was a fool.
“Are you all right?”
Kalila placed both of her palms on the smooth wood of her desk. Taking a deep breath, she said, “You’re right.”
“I am?” Dameer echoed. He cleared his throat. “That is to say—I am.”
How had she allowed herself to become so distracted that she’d lost sight of her goals? Granted, the freedom had been intoxicating. She’d been diverted by her fellow scientists.
She’d been diverted by Oliver. Because he was handsome and charming and sincere and—
She felt so very human when she was around him.
The last man had made her feel quite the opposite.
Edward Morris had made her feel like an oddity, like something that needed fixing if she were to continue to receive his affections.
Oliver had given his attention to her freely, even when she was out of her trousers and no longer on equal footing with him.
It was no wonder she’d grown inattentive toward her work, but it did not make it acceptable.
“I need to focus,” she said.
“Yes,” Dameer agreed. He paused. “Kalila?”
She turned to him, her heart hammering in her chest.
“Do you like him?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped, going to the wardrobe. “That is not what I came here to do.”
“But—”
She produced the day’s suit and stepped behind a screen to begin pulling the various pieces on. “I’ve wasted far too much time already.”
“I don’t want to pry,” Dameer said, “but did you spend the entire ball in his company?”
Kalila poked her head out from around the screen. “Too busy to notice, were we?”
“I wasn’t going to watch you all night,” Dameer muttered, turning pink. “I had other things to attend to, you know.”
“Other people, perhaps?” Kalila asked, retreating behind the screen as Dameer threw a pillow in her direction.
“Answer the question.”
“It was just the terrace,” she said. “There was no need to risk any more than I already had.”
That, and she’d just been—overwhelmed. He wanted to see her.
Why?
She still didn’t understand. Someone like Oliver Booth—arguably her opposite in every way—shouldn’t want to be around someone like her.
He should want to be around someone charming, who laughed easily and was free of cynicism.
It wasn’t about insecurity—not entirely—but rather about logic.
Things were meant to make sense, were they not?
It had been critical for her to extract herself from the situation. Not only had she been at risk of discovery, but there was another, more terrifying risk that had begun to creep up on her.
One that had followed her off the terrace, even.
Still, she had to focus on her primary purpose, which was to convince Comerford to allow women into the Society. She had never in her life failed to complete a task she’d assigned herself, and a man wasn’t going to change that. Even if that man was Oliver Booth.
“Well,” she said, coming out from behind the screen, “I’m off.”
Dameer, who had apparently decided to go back to sleep, sat up with a groggy, “Shall I walk with you?”
“No.” Kalila grabbed her hat and went to the door. “I need to think.”
Dameer murmured in acceptance and Kalila left, making her way down the stairs and out the front.
She had wasted far too much time and had made very little progress.
Only big strides would make up for it today.
So big, that she’d have to toss out most of the intermediary steps and jump right to the end.
She marched into the university with the intention of making a beeline straight for Comerford’s office. She knew he usually spent the morning before a lecture reviewing papers in his study, and she hoped the early hour would provide them some privacy.
She’d knock, let herself in, sit down before him, and—
“Oh!”
Running into someone wasn’t on her to-do list.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
For the love of all that is good and holy, why does this keep happening to me?!
Oliver Booth’s warm, brown eyes greeted her, her breath coming up short at the sight of him.
He had a gentle smile on his face and an almost beseeching air about him.
He’d caught her by the shoulders when she’d bumped into him, the pressure of his hands bleeding through the layers of her clothing and singeing her skin.
Wait.
Kalila took a quick step back. In the same moment, Oliver seemed to catch himself and made his own shuffling retreat.
“I have to speak to Comerford,” she said, refusing to let the awkwardness linger in the air. It was her fault for panting up at him like some love-starved fairy-tale princess.
Her fault for feeling like one, too.
Oliver didn’t move. “What for?”
“I just—” Suddenly, desperately, Kalila wanted him on her side. She wanted to know that he wanted to be on her side, even if he couldn’t be. Not really, and not in the way her silly heart was hoping for. “What do you think about letting women into the Society?”
He let out a nervous laugh. “I—what?”
Kalila’s heart dropped. “Women. They should be allowed into the Society.”
“Is that why—I—you—” Oliver stammered. He let out another uneasy laugh and ran a hand through his sandy hair. “I’m sorry, I—”
Kalila wilted. It wasn’t a shocking suggestion. It seemed women were only considered equal to men when it was convenient.
“It’s something for Comerford to consider,” she pressed, wanting him to respond differently. Not wanting to be disappointed. “Women are always kept on the sidelines, don’t you think?”
Just say yes.
“Of course they are,” he said. “But Comerford, he’ll—that is, women are better off starting their own society.”
“Oh?” Kalila said, feeling as though a sliver of ice was slowly sliding down her spine. “With what resources? What equipment?”
“I didn’t—”
“Who will take their findings seriously?” she demanded. “Philosophical Transactions?”
They would always be at the mercy of men. It would take just one act of benevolence to let them in.
When he next spoke, it was to rather pathetically tell her, “You’re very passionate about this.”
Kalila straightened, pressing her lips into a thin line. “I should go before the lecture begins. I will see you in 107, Booth.”
“Oliver,” he corrected.
Kalila ignored him and marched to Comerford’s door, giving it a sharp knock.
“Enter!” he barked.
Kalila slipped inside, closing the door behind her. Trying not to focus on how much pointless time she’d wasted, she met Comerford’s icy-blue gaze.
He acknowledged her presence with a simple, “Rafiq.”
“Sir,” she said. “I wanted to talk about the—the structure of the Society.”
No stammering.
Comerford leaned forward, folding his hands together. “Go on, lad. We haven’t much time before class begins.”
Kalila took a deep breath, so deep that her lungs felt fit to burst. It wouldn’t do to dillydally. “Women,” she blurted out.
Oh, well done.
Comerford tipped back in his chair, an amused look in his eye. “Women? Have you come here for romantic advice, Rafiq?”
“No!” She gripped the back of the chair that sat before Comerford’s desk. “No. I think we should allow women into the Society.”
He examined her for a long, tense moment, his expression contemplative. For a moment, Kalila thought he might be considering it.
“No,” he said finally, “I don’t think we should.”
Good God, was every man gearing up to disappoint her today?
“Why not?”
His response was calm. “What good would it do?”
“Good?” Kalila repeated. “You’d be engaging the half of the population nobody even considers.”
“What is it, Rafiq?” he questioned in that same irritating, serene manner. “Sister? Cousin?”
“Excuse me?”
“Which one of them fancies herself a scientist?”
Kalila blinked. “I—”
“Well,” he interrupted, clearly uninterested in the answer, “you can tell whoever put you up to this that you did your best, if that helps.”
Whoever had put her up to this? Was it impossible that a person should try to speak up for others without there being some ulterior motive?
“This is no place for women,” Comerford continued, beginning to tidy the piles of paper that littered his desk. “Now, off with you. I’ll be in 107 in ten minutes.”
Kalila considered bringing up asking the opinion of the other men, but something about Comerford sucked the fight out of her. His words were resolute, as if he’d brook no further argument. As if there was no conversation to be had.
Noticing she had yet to leave, he asked, “Is there something else you wish to discuss?”
“No,” she said, “there is not.”
She crept out of the room, shutting the door behind her. In what universe would that have worked? Her original plan had been fine. It had been logical, sensible. It might have worked if she’d had the whole lot of them in the study with her, it might have worked if—
She felt herself droop. Perhaps there was no avenue for it to have worked. Perhaps she’d been overconfident in her abilities.
What would she have done if he’d said yes? Revealed herself? No. She would have had to submit her paper under Dameer’s name while hoping the next one would be published under her own.
Perhaps she lacked the logic she so often claimed to possess. That, or her impulsive nature overrode it, forcing her toward her goals whether it made sense to try to reach them or not.
“Comerford said no, I assume.”
Kalila saw Oliver leaning against the far wall. The pity on his face made her want to kick him.
“Indeed,” she said, tone emotionless as she began to walk down the hall. She needed to leave, had to return to the townhouse to her own space, to the altar she had built to the pursuit that seemed to hate her so.
Oliver pushed himself off the wall and made quick work of catching up to her. “Where are you going? I want to apologize.”
Kalila stopped dead in her tracks and, this time, it was Oliver’s turn to almost crash into her. “I’m going home. Apologize for what?”
“When you asked me about letting women in, I—” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “You caught me off guard, is all. I thought—”
Goodness, but she was tired of men today. “What did you think?”
Oliver went silent then, his manner uncharacteristically unreadable. “I can’t say.”
“I see,” Kalila grumbled. She began to move again, the sound of Oliver’s footsteps echoing behind her.
“I am sorry, though,” he said, coming up beside her once more. “And why are you going home, anyway? Lecture starts in five minutes.”
“I’m feeling a bit ill.” She made a sharp turn toward the exit. “Give my excuses to Comerford, won’t you?”
“Come now, Rafiq,” he said, wrapping his hand around her arm and bringing her to a standstill, “you can’t have thought—”
Of course he would think so, with how unbelievably stupid her plan had been.
This would never have succeeded. It wasn’t just that it had been ill-conceived, it was about her being in the wrong time, the wrong place, surrounded by the wrong people.
She was far ahead of the whole lot of them, and it had been silly of her to expect them to understand.
“It’s about being open-minded,” she said, annoyed at the thrill that shot through her stomach at his grip on her arm. “How shall we ever move forward?”
“We’ll need more than four members to start,” Oliver muttered.
“Tell me—what do you think the others would have said about my idea?”
Oliver released her arm. “Jennings would have been against it.”
“Obviously,” Kalila said with a roll of her eyes. She wanted to know if any of it had ever held any promise at all. “And the rest of them?”
“I imagine they might have reacted the very same way I did.” Oliver’s tone was tinged with what sounded like guilt. “Not quite against it, but—”
“Not enough to bring it to Comerford.”
He clenched his jaw. “No. Not enough to bring it to Comerford.”
She shifted her attention to the empty hall, still desperate to leave. “Will you make my excuses?”
“You really won’t stay?” he asked, concern evident on his sinfully handsome face.
“Not today,” she said. She would allow herself a day’s rest, a moment to recuperate and recover from her own foolishness. “Will you make my excuses or not?”
“I’ll always make your excuses, Rafiq.”
She wondered at his choice of words, then remembered how little all of this had mattered.
How much she had failed by being so ignorant of her own impulsive nature and by being so intoxicated with the freedom her disguise had offered her.
So she thanked him, turned on her heel, and left.