Mariah sunk down on the settee, trying hard not to cry.
“I don’t see why she needs to go,” Charles said. “There are plenty of rooms in the house, and she seems so thin that I don’t think she’ll eat us out of house and home.”
“I’m not sure it is very wise for her to stay here with an unrelated bachelor in the house.”
“Don’t worry, Sophronia,” he said in his dry voice. “I have no intention of falling in love with her.”
“If you are sure that you do not mind, I suppose she can stay,” Lady Bentley said heavily. “Although, I only offered out of Christian charity. I’m sorry that it is a great inconvenience to you.”
Mariah covered her face with her hands. Maybe Sophie was right: She didn’t need to find a husband, she needed to find some sort of employment—some way to take care of herself without the help of anybody. Certainly not him.
Footsteps approached. Mariah quickly sat up and placed her hands on her lap, one over the other.
The disapproving butler, Mr. Taylor, opened the door and Lady Bentley walked into the room. Mariah stood up and curtsied to her. Lady Bentley sat down on a chair and motioned for Mariah to sit back down on the settee.
“To be frank, Sophie, I am not pleased that Charles—Lord Bentley—has arrived home at this time,” she said. “You must promise me that you will not bother him at all during your stay here while he is recovering. To engage his interest would be a spiteful way to repay both his and my kindness.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mariah said.
Lady Bentley smiled coldly. “You may call me Aunt Bentley.”
“Thank you, Aunt Bentley.”
“I will arrange for us to go shopping in the next day or so, but for now you can make yourself useful by helping me with my correspondence,” Aunt Bentley said. “That is, if you are literate? But I suppose you must be since you wrote me a letter.”
“Yes, I can write copperplate hand and I would be happy to be of service to you in any way.”
She would do anything to be allowed to stay.
THREE
SOPHIE’S FIRST STOP, once she escaped the house through the servants’ entrance, was to retrieve her reaming tool from the bush. The prickly bush proved to be a formidable adversary, scratching her arm through her dress and dirtying her new gloves. If she ever encountered it again, it would be with a sharp pair of shears.
As she walked down Hyde Street, Sophie spotted a bit of wire in the gutter—always useful in experiments. She pocketed it, then looked both ways before carefully crossing the cobblestone road, avoiding both horse and dog droppings. She hadn’t worn so very fine a dress since the Tren— for a long time, and she didn’t want to spoil it.
Hyde Street led her to Hyde Park, and as she approached, she was surprised to see so much space in the middle of a bustling city. Yet there it was, with lakes, lanes, and more trees than she could count. And in the distance, she spied the Crystal Palace gleaming like magic in the early morning light.
Her heart flooded with hope for the first time in years. This beautiful building proved that the impossible could be achieved with hard work and a little ingenuity. Joseph Paxton had built it around the existing trees without felling a single one, and he had shown the skeptics that it could be done both quickly and efficiently. The Crystal Palace drew her toward it like a magnet; her head could barely keep up with her feet.
There were not many people in the park at this early hour. She passed a nursemaid flying a kite with some children. There was an old man walking slowly, using his cane for each laborious step. And then a young man caught her eye. His hat was on the bench beside him and his hair was the color of sunshine. He sat reading his paper.
When Sophie strolled by, he took a pocket watch out of his vest and checked the time. As a connoisseur of all things clockwork and mechanical, she could not help but glance at the highly ornate golden piece. The young man wound it up and held it to his ear, but the pocket watch was clearly not working.
“I can fix that, if you’d like,” Sophie offered.
He looked up at her, and his eyes were like a rainbow of color: blue, green, and gray. He smiled and said, “Pardon me?”
For the first time in Sophie’s life, she didn’t feel quite as confident. In fact, her stomach had flipped in a most pleasantly unpleasant way for no reason in particular.
“I’m sorry to have disturbed you, sir,” Sophie said. “I noticed that your pocket watch had stopped, and I’m rather good with clocks. I thought I could repair it for you.”
Without hesitation, he unclipped it from his vest and handed it to her. Sophie sat down on the bench beside him and took off her borrowed gloves. She pulled out the bit of wire she had picked up off the street and used it to pry open the back of the watch case.
The problem was immediately clear: The hairspring was detached from the balance wheel. Carefully she reattached it with the help of her reaming tool. As soon as she did, the balance wheel began to oscillate and the wheels in the watch moved.
Sophie snapped the back of the watch closed and handed it to the young man. She sat up a little taller on the bench, feeling awfully pleased with herself.
“That was incredible,” he remarked. “May I know your name?”
“Sophie Carter.” She pulled on her gloves and stood up. Her stomach behaved abnormally again when she added, “Miss Sophie Carter.”
He stood up as well and quite towered above her. “What can I do to repay you?”
From the corner of her eye, she saw the glittering light of the Crystal Palace. “Buy me a ticket for the Great Exhibition,” she blurted.
“The Great Exhibition?” he repeated.
Sophie put her gloved hand to her hot cheek. “I’m sorry, that came right out. Your thanks is plenty. I’ll continue my walk. Good day, sir.”
She turned away, hesitating when he touched her glove.
“Wait,” he said, “is that where you’re going now?”
Sophie shrugged. “I’m going on a walk to see the exterior of the Crystal Palace—what a feat of ingenuity and engineering.”
“But not to the exhibition itself?”
“I can’t go in. I don’t have money for a ticket.”
“In return for repairing my pocket watch, I would be most honored to escort you to the Crystal Palace and purchase you a ticket to the Great Exhibition,” he said.
“I’m sure you have other plans for your Saturday.”
“I wish to go with you.”
“But I don’t even know your name,” Sophie half-heartedly protested.
“Mr. Ethan Miller, at your service,” he said, offering his arm.
“This is my first time in London,” Sophie confided as she placed her hand on his arm. “I’m staying with my aunt, but she doesn’t approve of the different classes mingling like they do at the Great Exhibition.”
“Should we leave a message for your aunt?”
“No!” Sophie said, too loudly. “I mean, she doesn’t even know I’m out.”
“Very sly,” he said with a hint of a smile.
“Oh, I was,” Sophie said. “I had to escape so that I could experience more of London than my aunt’s sitting room.”