Samuel Bingham. Sir Frederic and Lady Wells. The Lord and Lady Overbury humbly request the honor of your presence. He looked up at her, baffled. What are these?
Calling cards. Invitations. Sending them is rather a mania for Society. The cards arrive every morning, especially after a wedding. Have you never received them?
Some requests to dine from business associates but not this. Never anything so ... reputable. He seemed unused to speaking such a word.
She laughed. My nefarious respectability. I am afraid you may have caught it from me, like fever.
Have you responded to any of these invitations?
Not as of yet. I wanted to consult with you first. I did not know if you would want to attend such ... reputable entertainments.
He stared at the cards as though he held messages from beyond the grave. Cautious, curious. This world, he murmured. Its strange to me.
It touched her that this man, so proud and forthright, could feel even the slightest whisper of trepidation, and that he trusted her enough to reveal it.
What you need, she said, is a guide.
A separate world existed in the respectable hours of evening, one with which Leo rarely rubbed shoulders. Lit by hundreds of candles, it was brighter than the world Leo knew, and yet more obscure.
He and Anne stood at the side of a large chamber, watching the complex convolutions of human relations the subtle gestures, the layered discourse with more gradations than shale. The room itself showed signs of recent remodeling, for Leo noticed plaster dust collecting against the ornamental baseboards, but the interactions within its walls bore the weight of history.
A small assembly at the home of Lord Overbury. There were refreshments and mannerly games of ombre and a girl in the corner picking out a pretty tune on a fortepiano. The guests were rich, genteel, powerful, and far, far from the company Leo normally kept. He had attended a few events like this with the Hellraisers, but he had paid such gatherings little heed, his thoughts on wilder sport later in the evening. Now, he finally observed that the movements of the aristocrats were even more cunning and artful than anything he had witnessed or engaged in at the Exchange.
By angling his body just so, one guest indicated that he refused to acknowledge anothers presence. A woman whispered into another womans ear as they both watched a laughing female guest. Three men stood in a group, their conversation as portentous as their waistcoats. The very air buzzed with influence.
I feel like a naturalist accompanying a Royal Society expedition.
Anne smiled over the rim of her glass. Theres more treachery here than in the jungles of Suriname or Guiana.
Spoken as one having experience with both places.
Not personal experience. She glanced away. Barons daughters are seldom taken on Royal Society expeditions.
He suddenly found her much more fascinating than the tangled encounters of the assembly. His gaze traced the slim line of her neck as she kept her face averted. But you want to go. To Suriname or Guiana.
She shrugged. Having never been on a ship in my life, especially traveling somewhere over four thousand miles away, I couldnt say if I would find the experience enjoyable.
Interesting that she would know the distance between England and the distant northern coast of South America, when few men let alone women could locate Portugal on a map.
There is no way to know until you try, he said.
I am not a fanciful person. She turned back and her eyes were very clear. I dont entertain ideas that cannot come to pass.
Yet ...
Yet. His wife glanced around the chamber, as if concerned any of the guests might be within earshot. Seeing that no one paid too much attention, she continued. I dont long to travel. Not so far. However, on the rare occasions I was given pin money, I spent it at print shops on the Strand. On maps.
He could only regard his wife with genuine surprise. Maps. Of South America.
Or the Colonies, or Africa, or the East Indies. Maps of anywhere. Even England. It isnt the places so much as the drawing of the maps.
I had not pegged you for a lover of cartography.
She studied him, looking, he believed, for signs of mockery or dismissal. Yet what she saw in his face must have encouraged her, for she admitted, It is ... an interest of mine.
An unusual interest for a young woman.
I had not cultivated it on purpose. It just seemed to happen. She smiled softly, an inward smile at some remembrance. I recollect the day, I couldnt have been more than eight, and I was with my father at a print shop.
The printer was trying to get my father to buy a map of the Colonies. A special reduced price because the map was no longer accurate. New discoveries had been made, territory west of a great river, and there were new settlements, too. It fascinated me that something as stable and immense as land, as a whole country, could suddenly change. Not because of an earthquake or a flood, but because of human knowledge.