Catherine's Heart by Lawana Blackwell

Author:Lawana Blackwell [Lawana Blackwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781441270962
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group

Twenty-Two

Though Girton’s summer pace was refreshingly relaxed, it was still a routine to which Catherine had to readjust herself after two months away. But she thought she was applying herself fairly well until the twenty-seventh of August, four days after her return to school, when Peggy took it upon herself to inform her otherwise.

They sat at Catherine’s sitting room table with a tin of chocolate Preak Freen biscuits between them. Catherine was penciling notes from The Iliad, and Peggy was reading the May issue of Philosophical Magazine, in which, she explained, chemist G. Stoney proposed that electricity was composed of discreet negative particles he referred to as “electrons.”

“But if they can’t be seen under a microscope, how can he be so sure they even exist?” Catherine asked.

“By the way they’re influenced by other materials. He used a cathode ray tube—” She stopped and squinted curiously at Catherine’s notebook.

“What is it?” Catherine asked, shielding her writing with her hand.

Peggy lay down her magazine and shook her head. “We’ve less than six weeks before term starts. At this rate, you’re not going to finish The Iliad. Remember how adamant you were about studying ahead so you wouldn’t have to struggle so?”

“But what do you think I’m doing now?”

Peggy reached over, brushed Catherine’s hand aside so that the half dozen penciled Lady Catherine Holts were visible. Mortified, Catherine covered the writing again and opened her mouth to snap something about Peggy minding her own business. But the concern in her friend’s expression gave her pause.

“You’re right,” she admitted, shame heating her cheeks. “I’m just not quite used to being back. But I’ll try harder to concentrate.”

Peggy pressed her lips together, the hazel eyes skeptical.

“I really will,” Catherine said. “Don’t you believe me?”

“I believe you think you will.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t want to make you angry.”

“I won’t be angry,” Catherine promised, trying to mean it. “Please, say what’s on your mind.”

Hesitantly, Peggy said, “You know how we’ve complained of Milly’s obsession with her stepmother?”

“Are you implying that I’m obsessed with Lord Holt?”

“How long did you spend with him? A day? And now you speak of leaving Tuesday to see him again, when we’ve only been back four days?”

The past five sleepless nights chose that particular instant to extract their toll from Catherine. Suddenly she could not fill her lungs with enough air. “I can’t help it, Peggy,” she whispered. “You’ll understand when you’re in love.”

Peggy stared, and at length said softly, “As you were with Lieutenant Elham?”

“I never said I was in love with him,” Catherine protested, chagrined at the memory of how she’d prattled on about the man. On her dresser sat another long letter from Bombay. She dreaded the duty of having to inform him that she would be too busy to correspond. “That was a schoolgirl infatuation.”

“And so it’s different this time?”

“Yes.” Catherine nodded to emphasize her answer. “I can’t explain it, but it’s very different.”

“I’m just worried about you. Girls who give their hearts so easily can end up in all sorts of trouble.

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