The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,118

her heart singing like music.

Penelope was still buoyant when Agatha went down to Melliton three days later. She pulled Agatha into an embrace before she’d hardly stepped off the stage.

Agatha hugged her back rather anxiously as Penelope’s arms tightened around her waist. The other woman was laughing, silently, joyously—but Agatha felt too many Melliton eyes on her to enjoy it as she wanted to.

“I’ve got something to show you,” Penelope said, and as soon as they arrived at Fern Hall she brought out a small wrapped bundle. “Open it,” she urged, with a knowing grin.

Agatha unwrapped the cloth to find—honeycomb? Mostly honeycomb, but an odd formation, some of the cells capped, others standing empty. They were misshapen because they’d been built around something else: a small enamel box, brilliantly colored, with a ring of sparkling stones and the shockingly familiar face of an ex-emperor . . .

“The Napoleon snuffbox!” Agatha gasped. “But where . . . ?” She poked at the comb that encrusted fully half the small object.

“Remember when John was captured, and he’d knocked over one of the Abington hives?” Agatha nodded. “Well, when I finally had a chance to repair it, I found this jammed into the straw of the skep. Waiting to be found until the hive was replaced. Isabella must have hidden it there for me to find, because she knew I’d get it safely to its proper owner.” She laughed. “It was the one place she knew where her niece would never go looking for it. I’ve already written to Joanna to tell her the good news.”

“Aren’t you going to clean it?”

Penelope wrapped it back up. “I thought Joanna might like to see it this way first. It’s a little more poetic, don’t you think, if the bees were helping Isabella hide it?”

“Poets.” Agatha said it like a curse, but her heart wasn’t in it.

Penelope’s grin said she knew as much.

They changed into bee clothes and walked the circuit, feeling the heat rise off the earth as spring declined into full summer. Nell Turner’s hives were thriving, though her garden had become rather overgrown in her absence. Mr. Scriven showed them his newest baby goats, two heartbreaking, mischievous bundles of black and tan.

The women bypassed Abington Hall and curved around down the hill.

Grass shushed in the breeze, bees and other insects buzzed from flower to flower, and the wheelbarrow full of beekeeping equipment clanked and thunked as it trundled over the packed earth of the road. Agatha rolled up her sleeves and opened her collar against the warmth—and as they walked through one of the shady, forested sections, Penelope dropped the wheelbarrow, stripped off her gloves, and pressed Agatha up against the cool white bark of a birch tree. “I’ve been wanting to do this for months,” she said, kissing Agatha’s neck, hands clutching at her trousered hips.

Agatha tilted her head back and sighed happily as Penelope’s mouth skated over the pulse beating in the hollow of her throat. “I missed you, too, Flood.”

“A week shouldn’t feel like such a long time,” Flood murmured, a nip of her small teeth making Agatha shiver with pleasure. “What if . . .” She nuzzled into the crook of Agatha’s neck. “What if we never had to be apart?”

Agatha’s fingers had slipped into Penelope’s short curls—but at this question, they tightened.

Penelope’s head bent back at the pressure, her smile sly, and her eyes wanton.

“How do you mean?” Agatha asked.

“What if you came to live with me, Flood?” Penelope went on. “Harry and John won’t be staying past the coronation, and the house will feel so empty when they’re gone. It’s felt empty since Christmas, even with them here. Because you’re gone. You should be here. With me.” Penelope bit her lip. “I’m rambling, I know—how about I stop talking and let you answer the question?”

Agatha had forgotten how to breathe. Spending every day with Penelope Flood. Every night. No more empty beds, no more dull and solitary sleeps. To have someone again—not a husband, not something legal—but someone real, and loving, and true.

It was everything she’d wanted for herself, and it was going to break her to have to turn it down.

Because the truth was: “I can’t, Flood,” she said, through the iron bands tightening around her chest. “I can’t leave Griffin’s. There is so much to do in London still. Eliza and Sydney need me too much.”

The light went out in Penelope’s eyes. She smiled, but she stepped back, her hands tugging at her cuffs and