“Remember to say as little as possible,” Robert warned. “We don’t want any of the Society men to guess who either of you is.”
I nodded. We couldn’t afford any mistakes. Our plan was simple: mingle with Royal Society members, learn which ones were the king’s favorites, and, if they’d gone missing recently, hunt them down. With luck, they’d be the men who’d attacked us outside Oxford. We would break into their private laboratories—most Society men had them—and steal the vial back. Then we could tell the world about Galileo’s discovery, just as Father would want—we’d simply be doing so sooner than he had expected.
Father. My hands gripped my knees, my fingernails digging through the satin into my skin. He would probably die before we could find him. Galileo’s reputation as a heretic would be sealed for all time. But we would have accomplished their goal—their secret would be shouted from the rooftops. I swallowed against the emotion constricting my throat. And Father would be proud of me. It would have to be good enough.
“Elizabeth, you make such a pretty boy.” Robert’s voice sliced into my thoughts. “Try to hunch your shoulders more so no one notices your . . . um . . .”
I raised my eyebrows. “My what, Robert?” I asked sweetly.
Even in the dim carriage, I could see his face flush. “You know what I mean,” he mumbled.
Antonio and I laughed. “I wish you wouldn’t hunch, at least until we go inside,” Antonio said, grinning.
“Bold talker.” I nudged him in the side.
He leaned closer, murmuring in my ear, “You make me want to be bold. And Robert’s right—you do make a pretty boy.” His lips brushed my earlobe, sending shivers shooting down my spine. “But you make a truly beautiful girl.”
Beautiful. Part of me wanted to snort in derision, but then I saw the gravity of his expression—he meant what he said. Everything within me softened, like butter left on a sunlit table. Unsure how to accept the compliment, I muttered a thank-you and glanced at my clothes. The breeches and doublet in green satin looked as though they had been tailored for me. I ran my hands down my arms, feeling the cold lengths of my knives through the fabric and glad for their comforting presence. Lady Katherine’s brother’s spare wig of rippling blond curls had transformed me into a stranger. In this disguise I planned to pose as one of Robert’s boyhood friends, a nobleman from France whose inexact grasp of the English tongue would excuse my silence.
For his part, Antonio had dressed as he ordinarily did. He sat so close his knee brushed mine when he shifted on the seat, and I had to fight a blush. It wouldn’t do for this French boy to turn pink every time his Spanish friend looked at him.
The carriage jolted to a stop, rocking slightly as the driver leaped down from his perch outside. He opened the door for us. Robert, as was his due, stepped out first. I jumped to the pavement after him, then gazed up at the massive house looming in front of us.
Chattering gentlemen poured into the building, their satin and velvet clothes gleaming in the glow of the lanterns. Several of them bowed to Robert. He acknowledged them with a small smile and a wave of his hand.
Despite the danger we might be walking into, excitement ran a line of sweat down my spine. For years I had daydreamed of the opportunity to listen to these learned men discuss their theories and present their experiments. As I climbed the front steps, I had to wipe my damp palms on my breeches.
We followed the long line of men into a low-ceilinged room where rows of chairs had been set up. Something shaped like a box and concealed by a black cloth sat on the table at the front of the room. Beside it stood a slender, brown-haired fellow of middling age. He hurried to greet us, his slim face creasing into a smile.
“Your Grace.” He bowed to Robert. “On behalf of the Royal Society, I welcome you to our humble quarters. We’re gratified by your interest in our activities.”
He spoke with a faint Irish accent, smiling at me and Antonio in turn. Robert clasped the man’s hand and turned to us. “My friends, this gentleman is Mr. Robert Boyle, who, although he is far too modest to tell you, has one of the finest minds in England, and whose knowledge of chemistry is without compare. This,” he said, nodding at me, “is Baron Louis de Laval, a dear school friend of mine,” then, nodding at Antonio, “and this is Senor Alroy de Vargas. He’s a student of mathematics and is visiting from Spain.”
Boyle shook our hands. “Baron de Laval, you are most welcome. Senor de Vargas, I daresay you will find our Society unlike what you are accustomed to in Spain—our organization is dedicated to disseminating our discoveries rather than keeping our advancements to ourselves.”
Antonio’s eyebrows rose. “An aim both honorable and revolutionary, Mr. Boyle. Most natural philosophers are lone geniuses who hoard their secrets. To gather in one place where you can share your knowledge and work out your theories . . .” He shook his head, looking troubled. His concern was one I shared: If the Society was composed of such generous men, how could the king’s associates number among them?
Mr. Boyle ushered us into seats in the first row. Some forty men were in attendance, all gentlemen, to judge by their fine clothes. They sat quietly, their gazes fixed on Mr. Boyle. When one of them muttered to his companion, nearly everyone in the room glared at him and growled, “Hush!”
“Tonight we have assembled a special meeting in honor of the Duke of Lockton, who has kindly expressed interest in our proceedings,” Mr. Boyle said. “As His Grace has told me of his admiration for the Italian natural philosopher Galileo Galilei, I have asked Mr. Hooke to present the experiments he conducted two summers ago concerning Galileo’s theories on gravity. Mr. Hooke, you have the floor.”
A short, pale man wearing a wig of brown curls scurried to the front of the room. He bobbed a perfunctory bow to Robert, then whipped away the black cloth to reveal a wooden box. With jerky movements, he removed objects from the box—a feather, a book, and a brass candlestick—and set them on the table.
“Two years ago, I devised a series of experiments to prove Mr. Galilei’s suppositions about gravity were accurate,” Mr. Hooke said. The room was so quiet, I could hear the rumble of carriages in the street. “Mr. Galilei assumed a constant force draws objects toward the earth, regardless of their mass. With that thought in mind, I went up to the tower of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where I dropped a variety of items toward the ground, recording the speed at which they fell, the changes in air pressure, and a variety of other factors.”
Cradling the objects in his arms, he clambered awkwardly onto the table. It groaned under his weight but held. “What I came to realize,” he announced, “is that all bodies and motions in the world are subject to change.”
All at once, he dropped the three items. Beside me, Antonio stiffened. I leaned forward in my chair, unable to tear my gaze from the white feather, its wispy edges brushing the book’s spine as they lay on the floor next to each other. The candlestick glinted a foot away. The three weighed different amounts; they had landed at different times. I would have thought they would fall at the same rate of speed, since they had been dropped from the same elevation, but I understood what Mr. Hooke was saying: gravity varied depending on height and weight.
It was as though a candle had been lit in my mind, burning brightly in a corner that had been dark. Nothing was constant. There were so many forces we had to take into account when considering how an object would react to external stimuli.
This world, this beautiful world, was filled with secrets we were only beginning to comprehend.
Which also meant there was so much we still didn’t know about Galileo’s discovery. I frowned. This liquid might not be as miraculous and beneficent as Galileo had believed. After all, it may have caused his and my father’s blindness.
We did not know what we were dealing with. We only had guesses. Smoke that dissolved in our hands when we tried to catch it; suppositions and theories wrapped in darkness. I shivered. What would we unleash on the world when we shared Galileo’s discovery? Perhaps
we hadn’t thought this through.
Someone started clapping. The sound pulled my mind into the room. Dozens of men had begun applauding and cheering.
“Huzzah!” the men shouted. “Brilliant!” “Excellent experiment, Mr. Hooke!”
He bowed, then scuttled to his seat. Mr. Boyle strode to the front of the room and launched into a discussion of a proposed treatment for eye ailments he had devised using dried dog excrement.
The men listened with rapt attention to Mr. Boyle. They looked ordinary in their long wigs and fine clothes. Any one of them could be in the king’s employ, though, and I had no way of knowing. I ran my hands up and down my arms. Through the satin sleeves, I could feel the hardness of my knives. As long as I had them, I wasn’t helpless.
When the meeting broke up, men milled about in clumps, chattering loudly. Robert, Antonio, and I stood together, forcing smiles at the fellows who hovered nearby, bowing and looking pointedly at Robert, no doubt hoping for a favorable comment from the king’s son.
“We’ve learned nothing,” Robert whispered to me and Antonio. “At least one of these men must be in collusion with my father, but I can’t figure out how to ask—”
“Quiet,” I muttered. Mr. Boyle was approaching us, his mild face wreathed in a smile. A short man of about thirty, with a fleshy face and a wig of dark brown curls, trailed in his wake.
“I hope you enjoyed your evening, Your Grace,” Mr. Boyle said to Robert. “And both of your companions, as well. This is Mr. Samuel Pepys,” he added, pronouncing the surname “Peeps” and gesturing at the small man at his side. “Mr. Pepys works for the Royal Navy.”
“I am gratified to make your acquaintance, Your Grace,” Mr. Pepys burbled, bending low in an overly dramatic bow. “I’m a loyal servant to His Majesty. At his request I stayed in London throughout the plague, to keep our naval operations running.”
“My father and uncle have spoken to me about you.” Robert gave the man a patient smile. “They were impressed by your selflessness in remaining in the city during such a dangerous time.”
Mr. Pepys gasped. “Oh, thank you for your kind words, Your Grace!”
Robert’s nod was a clear dismissal. As Mr. Pepys backed away, Robert glanced at Mr. Boyle. “My father often speaks of the high regard in which he holds your Society. There are a few men in particular he mentions frequently—special friends of his, I gather—but I can’t recall their names. . . .”
Mr. Boyle easily picked up Robert’s meaning. “Ah, Your Grace must mean Sir Henry Vaughan and his two assistants. They often help His Majesty when he conducts private experiments in his laboratory at Whitehall.”
Robert’s eyes narrowed. “Indeed.” The single word was loaded with so much venom that I touched his arm, a silent warning to be careful. Robert shook me off. “Where are Sir Vaughan and his assistants? I’d like to meet my father’s favorites.”
“Hmm.” Mr. Boyle scanned the crowd. “I regret to say I don’t see them. Rather unfortunate. They’ll be disappointed at having missed the event—they’re keen adherents of Mr. Galilei and would have enjoyed witnessing Mr. Hooke’s demonstration.”
“Adherents of Galileo’s,” Robert repeated slowly. “I think I have become one myself tonight.” He shot me and Antonio a guarded look. “Perhaps we should call upon these gentlemen. We can tell them how informative we found the meeting.” He turned to Mr. Boyle. “Where do they live?”
“Sir Vaughan has a house on the Strand, and his assistants reside with him. But you might not find Sir Vaughan at home. I believe he’s out of town.”
Robert paused in the act of pulling on his gloves. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Boyle replied. “I last saw him a week ago—he didn’t attend this past Monday’s meeting, either.”
A week. It was just enough time for Sir Vaughan and his assistants to have heard about an Italian searching for my father in London and to have made the journey to Chalfont. They could have arrived after my family had been rounded up. Like Robert, they could have forced my location out of Francis Sutton.
They might be the three who had attacked us in the fields outside Oxford and wrested the vial from Robert’s grasp. If they hadn’t yet returned to London, it was possible they were still making their way to the capital, slowed by the injuries I had inflicted on one of them.
There might be time to steal the vial back from them—and retrieve the torn piece of Galileo’s story, if the king had given it to them as Robert suspected.
These were big leaps in thinking to make, but they were all we had. My eyes met Robert’s. It was time to go before we asked too many questions and raised suspicions. He nodded in immediate comprehension and looked at Mr. Boyle. “Thank you for a pleasant evening. My friends and I must take our leave.”
“Wait, Your Grace,” Mr. Boyle cried as we started to walk away. He hurried after us, stopping and bowing low when Robert swung around to look at him. “If you wish to meet Sir Vaughan, you might see him tomorrow night at the ball.”
“What ball?” Robert asked. A few feet away, Mr. Pepys was still making his groveling way from us. He bumped into a chair and burst into a flurry of apologies to the elderly man sitting in it. Robert glanced at him and shook his head, looking irritated. No doubt he was accustomed to having his presence turn grown men into fawning, anxious sycophants.
“The ball at the Duke of Buckingham’s estate,” Mr. Boyle said. “Sir Vaughan is a dear friend of the duke’s. May I be bold enough to ask if you plan to attend, Your Grace? It should be one of the great social events of the summer.”
Robert smiled thinly. “Mr. Boyle, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Twenty-Three
IN THE END, ROBERT RETURNED TO WHITEHALL IN Mr. Pepys’s rented hackney coach, rolling his eyes at us through the window opening as Mr. Pepys bubbled with excitement beside him. They pulled away from the pavement, iron wheels rattling on the pavers. Antonio and I stood on Gresham College’s front steps, watching the carriages inch forward to pick up their passengers and rumble off into the night. In the dim light of the lanterns, the conveyances gleamed, all painted black wood and nail-studded leather.
Lady Katherine’s carriage lurched to a stop in front of the college; I recognized it by the coat of arms painted in gold on the door—a snarling lion intersected by a D, for “Daly.” The footman jumped down from his bench, opening the door for us with a flourish. I stepped into the shadowy interior. The carriage rocked as Antonio settled beside me on the padded seat. The horses started forward, the familiar clip-clop of their hooves floating to our ears.
In the glow of the passing lanterns, Antonio’s jaw looked hard. “I don’t like the idea of you attending this ball at Buckingham’s home. It sounds far too dangerous.”
I bristled. “But it’s fine for you and Robert to go?” I rolled up my sleeve, exposing the silver gleam of my knife. “Don’t tell me the two of you would be safe because you’re men. I think we both know I can handle myself.”
His gaze fell to my bare forearm. “You’re right,” he said quietly. “I do know that. But I still hate the thought of you in danger.”
Something delicious and warm spread through my chest like mulled wine, fragrant with spices and heated over a fire. I rested my hand on the curve of his cheek, feeling the roughness along his jaw where he hadn’t shaved closely enough. “What will you do when this is all over?”
“I haven’t let myself think that far ahead.” The carriage jolted over the uneven paving stones, and my hand fell from his face. “When I first arrived in your country, all I wanted was to return to Florence. But now . . .” He glanced at me, his eyes guarded. “We don’t know what will become of any of us. It seems pointless to plan when we might not have very long to live.”
I thought of Father, vanishing somewhere in London six years ago when the king had made his triumphant return. Yes, he had run and hidden, much to the merriment of his political enemies. And yet he hadn’t fled to a foreign land, as so
many others had. He had stayed in his beloved England—daring to believe he might have a future.
“Hell is the absence of hope,” I said softly. “And I refuse to live that way. Of course we might die . . . but we might also survive. And we could work—” I could barely get the words out, nerves wrapping their tentacles around my throat “We could work side by side in a laboratory.” Please, please don’t let him laugh.
He didn’t. Instead he looked swiftly at me, his eyes searching. “There is nothing I would like more than that. You’re right—we can’t give up, not when there’s so much to fight for.” He stared out the window, lost in thought. “We’ve been forgetting your father’s poem. Except for him, you’re the only person who’s read Paradise Lost in its entirety. You said yourself he wrote the story with us as the characters. Perhaps he’s left a message for you secreted within its lines—something the king and his men would never be able to figure out. Maybe it’s time for us to look at it again.”
Sitting cross-legged on Antonio’s bed, still dressed in the clothes we had worn to the Royal Society, we talked late into the night. I had removed my wig, letting my hair tumble loose down my back. A servant had left a bottle of wine, and Antonio poured us glasses and set them on the table, their scarlet liquid glowing in the candlelight.
“I’ve already written out the first seven books, as best as I can remember them,” I told him. We spoke in whispers, our ears attuned for creaking floorboards in the corridor. The estate was grave-quiet except for the occasional breeze that rattled the windows in their frames. “He’s left no special messages for me in them, I’m certain of it.”