Chapter 2 #2
Sylvie faced Deila with her breath caught in her throat.
“She won’t find out, though, will she? Please, you must promise me you won’t tell anyone.
I’m not hurting anything. She has no problem with me practicing archery outside the house for hours a day, so why should she mind if I do it in front of other people? ”
They’d had the same discussion several times since Matilda had helped Sylvie concoct her plan.
The argument Sylvie made to try to convince herself that the job wasn’t a problem lacked any basis in reality.
There was no question her mother would be livid if she knew Sylvie was employed, and even more so because she was performing a very public archery demonstration at the Cedar Point resort.
Mother would never understand Sylvie’s need to prove she was capable of doing something big by herself.
No parents arranging things, no husband to take care of her, no expectations for her to conform to.
Just Sylvie, learning whether or not she could succeed.
Not to mention the opportunity to earn money of her own might give her a bit of leverage in standing up against her mother’s plans if it came down to it.
But Delia, sweetheart that she was, shook her head in surrender, freeing Sylvie’s breath to flow once again. “Of course not, miss. But please take care. It’ll be terrible for both of us if she does learn about it.”
A weight of responsibility settled over Sylvie, heavier by far than the cloak she removed and tucked back behind her gowns. Delia was right. If Mother learned that the maid had helped Sylvie, she would be punished, most likely with more severity than Sylvie would. “I will do my absolute best.”
Delia nodded and slipped out of Sylvie’s room, leaving her alone with the burden of what she was trying to do. It was terrifying to wonder if she could trust herself, but they would both simply have to believe Sylvie’s best could be enough.
Miles lowered his binoculars to make a notation on the notepad in his lap.
On both sides of him, a queue of other researchers and students sat in wooden chairs, all intent on their own observations.
Behind them, the laboratory sat on a sandy bluff facing the lake.
While it was a research facility, it also housed many of the students and a few faculty members.
The design was charming, with warm brown siding and carved banisters installed along the balconies overlooking the water, but the sparse living quarters were still similar to what students would find on campus, which didn’t appeal to Miles in the least anymore.
“Is that a blue heron, Professor Wentworth?” Miss Fording, the female student on his right, spoke in a hushed whisper, as did any of them when they had something to say. No one wanted to scare off the birds they hoped to examine.
“Yes, it is. You’ll want to add that to your list.”
“I’ll be sure to. Isn’t it wonderful how God put such care into making His creation beautiful and filled with variety?”
If only the Almighty would put as much care into the direction of Miles’s life, he might have a relationship with God like his mother and Alexander did.
He couldn’t say that aloud, so Miles nodded while the young woman turned away with a shy smile.
She was pretty, he supposed. The male students vied for her attention at any opportunity, anyway.
But even if he hadn’t decided to stay away from personal relationships with the students, Miles had only been able to think about Miss Bryce in the two days since the ball.
A sudden burst of nervous energy spurred him out of his chair.
Not wanting to disturb the others’ work, Miles retreated a few paces down the shore and knelt at the edge of the lapping water.
There was usually plenty to distract him there.
While no one from his past would believe it, Miles had developed a deep fascination with marine insects.
How such tiny creatures could thrive in conditions that conspired to kill them at every turn amazed him.
But it was almost painful to acknowledge God’s handiwork in that design, which Miss Fording had pointed out.
In England, Miles had faced responsibilities and expectations he wasn’t ready for and didn’t want.
The judgments of others had been enough to suffocate him.
Where was the God who cared about creatures as tiny as these insects then?
No, he was better off here in America, with the freedom to make his own choices. He could build the life he wanted. Not to mention how much of a relief it was living where no one looked at him and saw a murderer.
Miles leaned closer to the water, watching a swarm of hexagenia—mayflies—rising out of the mud.
He let his hands do the familiar work of sketching one on the paper he still held while his mind wandered.
The insects reminded him of the ball two nights ago, the way a swarm of ladies had surrounded him the moment Alexander introduced him as a marquess.
They’d all made assumptions about who he was and what he wanted, the same way people had in England.
He wasn’t a murderer, and he didn’t want to be a marquess.
But no one seemed interested in allowing him to simply be an unknown entomologist.
A spray of sand hitting grass nearby alerted him to someone approaching. One of his fellow professors at the laboratory for the summer, zoologist Henry Saiger, crouched next to him. “Find anything interesting?”
Miles shook his head. “Just the usual. A few hexagenia. I think there are some chrionomus annularius, although I can’t tell from this far if they’re midges or mosquitoes.”
“Well, the rest of us have finished and are heading up to eat supper. We decided to go over to the resort tomorrow. Care to join us?”
For a moment, Miles almost refused. He hated allowing openings for conversations to turn personal rather than being about insects, marine animals, or even botany.
He was terrible at managing the inquisitive stares and questions he didn’t want to answer, which always accompanied social situations.
Yes, people intended to be polite. But curiosity lurked behind their interested expressions, and curiosity far too often led to assumptions based on snippets of information.