‘I purchased it from an Inuit in Greenland before we boarded the ship for home. I had a great deal of free time on the voyage and cleaned the bones, the way you taught me.’
Their eyes met and the memory of their time alone together in the evenings, sitting side by side at the table in the conservatory while she positioned his hand over the bones, passed between them. His cheek would rest against hers while she’d reach over his wide shoulder to guide the small metal pick between his fingers in the patient removal of dirt from bone. She didn’t think he’d remembered the lessons, not with all the kisses and caresses which had distracted them.
She ran one fingertip over the smooth curve of her opal ring, regretting the loss of those days. They’d been some of the happiest of her life, but there was little time to ponder them or their passing as Conrad held out the skull to her. She took the heavy thing, her excitement heightened by the sweep of his fingers across hers.
‘What do you think?’ he asked.
She held it up to examine the row of long, dagger-like teeth lining the jaw, struggling as much to comprehend the animal as to avoid Conrad’s piercing gaze. ‘It’s marvellous. Like nothing I’ve ever seen in any of the books or private collections. It’s certainly not an ichthyosaur.’
‘Ichthyosaur?’
‘It’s what the lizard with the flippers Miss Anning found is called now. Mr Konig named it in his paper to the Royal Society last year. They rejected mine.’ She lowered the skull, bitterness marring her excitement.
‘Then they were fools.’ Conrad’s solidarity was only a slight comfort. ‘What will your father think when he sees it?’
‘He won’t see it.’ Katie set the skull down on the flat bed of the cart with a thud, irritated by how little the man knew and how much she was left to explain. ‘He’s dead.’
Katie felt more than saw Conrad stiffen with shock. She was too focused on the skull and holding back the tears blurring her eyes. She didn’t want him to see her pain, or to appear so weak and fragile around him. She wanted to be as resilient as she’d always been, but she was failing.
Without a word, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. He was hot from working and the heat penetrated the thin shirt to warm her tearstained cheeks. There’d been no one to hold her like this the day her father had died, or during all the lonely ones afterwards. ‘What happened?’
She didn’t want to answer, but she was too tired and worn down by carrying the pain alone to stay silent. ‘A patient had come to see him and he’d turned her away. I was angry, we needed the money and I told him if he didn’t earn some, I’d sell his fossils. He stormed out of the house, saying he’d find the one which would save us, something a private collector would pay a fortune to possess. A miner found him a few hours later at the bottom of a ladder, his neck broken.’
Katie squeezed her eyes shut, unable to block out the memory of her father’s limp body as the miners had carried him into the house. The foreman had swept the dining table free of her father’s fossils, making the bones clatter over the floor like pieces of broken china. Another man had crushed one beneath his work boot as he’d jostled with the other men to lay out her father’s body. Then they’d filed out, uttering their apologies and leaving her with nothing but the tragedy, bills and bones. ‘The only things he left me were his debts, and after what your uncle did to me there were few in England who’d purchase my finds. If it hadn’t been for my American collectors, I wouldn’t have had any buyers and I would have starved.’
‘I’m so sorry, Katie.’ His voice vibrated through his chest, the way it had on the Downs when she’d cried against him as she’d revealed for the first time the anguish of her mother leaving. In between sobs, she’d described the loneliness of sitting in the window at Whitemans Green waiting for her to return, and the letter which had arrived three months later with news of her death. Then, just as now, Conrad had tenderly rocked her, making her feel safe and loved in a way neither her father, nor the mother who hadn’t cherished her enough to stay, had ever done. ‘You should have told me sooner.’
She pushed out of his embrace, her heart nearly shattering at the absence of his warmth, but she steeled herself against it and her weakness. Despite the comfort he offered, she didn’t want to depend on anyone, especially someone who might disappear over the horizon as easily as her mother had. ‘I didn’t tell you for the same reason you didn’t explain to me minute by minute the hardships and suffering you experienced while you were gone.’
‘I’m not asking for the details, only the broad strokes.’
‘And now you have them. So you may return to London and Mr Barrow and publish your journals and enjoy everyone in the Admiralty and the Naturalist Society falling at your feet.’
‘Careful, Katie, your anger near drips with jealousy.’
Katie stared down at the mess of bones in the crate, shamed out of her resentment. He was only trying to be kind. ‘You’re right, I am. No matter what I write or draw, my success will never match yours simply because of my sex. Only my connection to you and my father’s work has ever made anyone take note of me before.’ Even then they’d pinned her success on her feminine wiles, not her talent, listening to the vicious lies of Lord Helton and all those willing to repeat them.
‘Then this could be your chance to change that. If this animal is as unusual as you believe, then stay with me and study it, draw it and write a paper the Naturalist Society won’t be able to ignore.’
‘Last night you said you wanted me to give it all up,’ she challenged, confused by his change of heart and the wavering of hers.
His enthusiasm dimmed as he picked at a splinter on the edge of the cart. ‘I think we both said a number of things last night we regret.’
Yes, she regretted saying a great deal, despite most of it being true.
‘Even if I did stay and study it, I doubt anything I do, even on something as unusual as this, could sway the Naturalist Society members to support me. The last night we were at the society, they tore my father’s reputation to shreds, accusing him of plagiarism. It was the reason we finally left London.’
He flicked away the splinter. ‘Why would they do such a thing?’
‘Because of your uncle.’ She stomped her foot against the soft soil. ‘He wasn’t content to ruin me, but my father, too.’
Conrad banged his fist against the cart. ‘Then now’s your chance to ensure he doesn’t win.’
‘You make it sound so easy, but it isn’t.’ She ran her hand over the curve of the creature’s skull, thinking through each of the books she’d read in the Naturalist Society library and how no animal in any of them resembled this one. ‘You don’t know what it was like to stand there and watch them tear him, and me, apart, to have everyone whispering about you.’
‘No, but I know what it’s like to fight awful odds, to keep going even when you, and all those around you, want to give up.’ He shifted closer, his face set with determination. ‘If you think I’m going to let you surrender to my uncle, to crawl away and hide from all the difficulties, you’re very mistaken.’
‘It’s not your decision to make.’ For the past six months she’d hidden from the world, facing no one except through letters and doing all she could to avoid criticism and judgement. She didn’t want to enter it again and confront the hostile men who’d dismissed her research simply because she was a woman.
‘It’s my creature, and if you don’t think you’re up to the task of studying it, I’ll hire another,’ Conrad threatened.
‘You can’t.’ Panic burned through her at possibly losing such a specimen and how much like her father she felt at this moment. She’d cursed him so many times for being too involved with his research to see her, her mother, his shrinking medical practice and the mounting bills.