“There’s something about you that’s just—mine,” he said. “Male, female…I’m not so sure it would really have mattered.”
“I’m glad I’m a female. So what exactly did you and Villiers say to each other in Latin?”
He frowned. “I can hardly remember. I thought up the test. Obviously, if you didn’t know Latin, you were a woman. And you didn’t. But then Villiers took the opportunity to tell me that if I allowed Kitty anywhere near you in a state of undress he’d take off my head.”
“I love Villiers,” Harriet said with satisfaction.
“Now love me,” Jem said, rolling over.
Days passed like strings on a pearl necklace: luscious, erotic, sweetly spaced, beautiful.
Harriet understood the Strange household now. Its secret revolved around the Game. No wonder Jem rarely came downstairs to meet new guests. It was the Game that mattered, and half the new guests were merely there to provide entertainment for the players.
And now Harriet knew why the Graces stayed so long at Jem’s house, though Jem himself showed no interest in their talents. And how sundry other young ladies came by their jewels and the smiles in their eyes.
Sometimes the Game continued until two or three in the morning. One night Lord Sandwich started a conversation about how to raise three hundred thousand pounds for the use of the Home Secretary. Villiers suggested a poll tax. Jem shook his head. Harriet suggested a wine tax.
“And why is that, young man?” Sandwich said.
“Wine is a luxury,” Harriet said. “Alcohol is the primary cause of most criminal incidents adjudicated in the family courts.”
“I don’t know who you are,” Sandwich grumbled.
“You must study your Debrett’s more closely,” Villiers said, with a cutting edge to his voice. “I have very few relatives, Sandwich. I can’t afford to have any ignored.”
“It’s scurvy few relatives you have on the right side of the blanket,” Sandwich said.
“Young Cope is one of them,” Villiers said, unruffled. “A wine tax is a fine idea.”
“I don’t like it,” a man said, who turned out to be the Lord of the Privy Seal.
But conversation evolved around Sandwich’s love of fine claret, and in the end the idea of the wine tax carried. It was a heady sensation. She, Harriet, had influenced the policy of England.
Jem began coming to dinner every night. And luncheon, many days. Some nights he sat beside her, and others he sat at the head of the table and flirted with Isidore.
The heady pleasures of being male—of being able to ride freely, fence, and argue—grew more and more dear to Harriet. She found every conversation interesting. One night she got into an argument with one of the scientists about the recent discovery of a new planet called Uranus. Mr. Peddle argued that the head of the Royal Society shouldn’t have given Herschel, the man who discovered the planet, a Copley medal.
“What did he really do? The man spends his time stargazing, that’s all. And now he’s elected a fellow of the Royal Society! For nothing. You know, Sir Giles, down there—” He nodded down the table at bespeckled professor. “—Sir Giles identified the genus of the Purple Swamphen. Now that’s a good reason to become a Fellow. This man just looks at the sky and notices a star. Bah!”
“But we need to map the night sky,” Harriet said. “We have to understand our world. And stars are no different than wings on a butterfly, to me.”
“I disagree,” Peddle said. “When you’re older, you’ll understand how very different it is to spend a lifetime doing exacting scientific analysis, versus sitting outside of an evening with a glass of wine and waiting for a star to catch your attention!”
Jem elbowed her. “Turned down as a Fellow of the Society,” he murmured into her ear. “Migratory habits of the grasshopper not considered an adequate topic. The study took him seven years.”