The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,69

at once.” She nodded to the apprentice, and slipped out of the shop.

Agatha still couldn’t find her voice.

Sydney could. And did. He cursed, so loudly that beside him Eliza started and shook. “We can have another fifty broadsheets made up by this evening,” the young man began. “The chapbooks will take a little—”

“No!” Agatha cut him off. “Out of the question. We’re not selling any more of the Wasp’s work.”

“What?” Sydney yelped. “Why?”

“Did you miss what just happened?” Agatha snapped. “The King’s own soldiers came and took them all away. Do you take that as an encouragement to continue flouting the libel laws?”

Her voice was rising in pitch and volume, and through the open workroom door Agatha could see the apprentices and journeymen gathering around to listen.

Eliza’s eyes were wide and white at the edges. “Maybe we should’ve published ‘Lady Spranklin,’” she murmured.

Sydney’s jaw set mulishly. The dangerous glitter was back in his eyes. Maybe it had never left. It sparked like a knife blade against flint. “Soldiers means we’ve been noticed,” he said. “We’re speaking loudly enough that they had to react. That means what the Widow Wasp says matters. Why would you want us to stop just when we’re starting to get what we wanted?”

“Is this really what you wanted?” Agatha demanded. “What if the Countess of Moth hadn’t happened to be here? What if they’d destroyed the shop, smashed the presses, harassed our workmen? Or you, or Eliza? What if they decide to bring charges, and put us on trial?”

“They can’t jail all of us!”

“They don’t have to jail all of us,” Agatha shot back. “They only have to jail some of us, and frighten the rest.”

Her son folded his arms, looking every inch of nineteen. “I’m not afraid.”

“Well, I bloody well am!” Agatha shouted.

Everyone froze.

Agatha sucked in a deep breath, but she was too far gone to stop now. “I am frightened for you, and for myself, and Eliza, and for every single person who works here. I’m scared for the shop—what your father and I worked our entire lives to build—but above everything else I’m deathly afraid that you’re so selfish you would choose to put all of that—all of us in peril, just for a few moments’ acclaim from your reckless, radical friends!”

Sydney stepped forward. Agatha realized with a bit of a shock that he was a good six inches taller than her. She’d known that, of course, but somehow it constantly slipped her mind. His voice was low and furious and the unshakeable conviction there nearly splintered her heart to pieces. “Mum, you’ve run Griffin’s for nearly three decades, in the heart of one of the greatest cities in the world. Aren’t you angry when rich, powerful men try to tell you what you are and aren’t allowed to print?”

“That kind of anger is a luxury I do not have,” Agatha said bitterly. “Not when I am trying to ensure that we still have food and shelter and clothing. I want us to be safe.”

Sydney scoffed. “There are greater things than mere safety, Mum. Happiness. Liberty. Justice.”

Agatha yearned to shake sense into him. “But all those things start with safety—don’t you see? How can you be happy if you aren’t certain where your next meal is coming from? How can you fight for justice if your hands are trapped in chains?”

Sydney only shook his head. “How can you fix a broken world if you can’t talk about where it’s broken?”

“Talk all you like,” Agatha said, “so long you print none of it on my presses.” She slung her gaze around, pinning every single person in place so they understood this edict applied to all of them.

“You’re making a mistake,” Sydney insisted.

“It’s my mistake to make, because it’s my press,” Agatha returned. “That’s what liberty gets you.”

“That’s what cowardice gets you!”

Agatha gasped, then snapped her mouth closed. Hurt and fury raged like two wolves within her, tearing at each other.

Sydney huffed, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the store. Walter and Crompton looked grim; Eliza was twisting her hands and biting her lip; Jane the apprentice looked to be on the verge of tears.

All those eyes, reflecting Agatha’s own pain and frustration back to her, multiplied . . .

Now the anger overwhelmed her, surging up and overflowing the banks of her soul. “Whatever’s next in the queue, get it done,” Agatha snapped.

Everyone leaped into motion, some hurrying back to the press or worktable, others moving more slowly as if unsure of