The Railway Countess by Julia Justiss

Author:Julia Justiss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-04-01T17:22:56+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Still smiling faintly, Crispin followed Miss Cranmore into the bookstore. So they were to search out tomes on mathematics and astronomy written by females. He’d been as surprised as his sister to learn such women existed, and genuinely curious to know more about them.

If the son of land-owning aristocracy could involve himself in new, radically different pursuits from most of his class, why shouldn’t females have more options?

With Miss Cranmore’s enthusiasm for engineering design, he could appreciate how such learned women would be her heroines. Not one whose aspirations were limited to catching a suitable husband and raising a family, his Miss Cranmore.

Many men disdained women of intelligence. Society disparaged them as ‘bluestockings’. But from the first, he’d found that Marcella Cranmore’s lively intellect and mathematical abilities made her more, rather than less attractive to him. That the lithe, curvaceous body with its speaking eyes and tempting lips also housed a keen mind piqued both his interest and his desire.

He was delighted at the opportunity to accompany her to the bookstore—to extend his time in her enchanting presence and learn more about what fascinated her.

He assumed she would make enquiries of the store clerk who greeted them, but telling the man she knew where the material she sought would be shelved, she waved him away and set off down the aisle, not halting until they reached an obscure corner.

‘Priding themselves on stocking most everything that can be obtained in print, Hatchard’s does carry these ladies’ writings. But believing interest in them to be minimal, the shop doesn’t display them in a prominent place,’ she explained as she gestured towards the out-of-the-way shelf.

‘They can’t expect to sell any to casual browsers if they place them here,’ he observed.

‘As long as they are at least available, I’m content. The majority of the writers are botanists, which is understandable. Females may be barred from studying at university, but no one can keep a curious girl from examining, classifying and drawing the plants that grow in the fields and gardens around her. Maria Jacson published several works, from Botanical Lectures by a Lady to several volumes about Linnaean botany and plant physiology to this Florist’s Manual,’ she said, tapping the spine of the book.

‘And several volumes of it, I see,’ Crispin noted.

‘Elizabeth Andrew Warren works with the Royal Horticultural Society of Cornwall,’ she continued, ‘organising their yearly plant collections and along the way, discovering a number of new, rare specimens. Anna Worsley studies plants in the Bristol area and has contributed her lists to H. C. Watson’s New Botanist’s Guide, which the staff here tell me will be available next year. Sarah Drake does the illustrations for this horticultural magazine, Edwards’s Botanical Register,’ she said, handing him a copy.

Dellamont took the magazine and flipped through. ‘I’m no botanist, but these are beautiful.’

‘And of much more value to the world than painting violets on china plates,’ Miss Cranmore said with a disgust that made him laugh.

‘Were you ever tasked with painting flowers on china plates?’ he asked.

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