Page 7 of A Lady’s Guide to Subterfuge and Science

“Caroline didn’t tell me we were expecting you!” she said, gulping for air. “What a perfectly wonderful surprise! Where’s Dameer?”

Kalila bit back a smile, knowing Amelia was asking for the same reason Caroline had. Despite her cousin’s stammering and blushing, Amelia was completely oblivious to his obvious affection toward her. She was usually caught in a daydream and was far too busy being away with the fairies to pay Dameer any mind.

Caroline was Amelia’s opposite, sharp as a knife and as rational and opinionated as anything. Kalila and Dameer had met them over ten years ago when Khalid and Sami had made a business partner out of their father, Jacob Southcott. That partnership had soon evolved into friendship, and the families had been closely entwined ever since.

“What happened to your leg?” Kalila asked, referring to Amelia’s wrapped ankle.

“Oh, I sprained it running down a hill.”

“Which is why we aren’t on holiday in France with your family,” Caroline added. “But back to the business you’re here on—”

“Business!” Amelia repeated. She took Kalila’s hands, pulling her awkwardly into the parlor. “Do tell us all about it!”

The three women distributed themselves across a series of armchairs, and Kalila found that she had a captive audience.

“Well,” she said, keeping her voice steady, “I mean to impersonate Dameer so that I might attend a series of lectures put on by the Society of Microscopic Biology.”

There, she’d said it. Now she’d have to go through with the thing, nerves be damned. Not that she had a choice, having written ahead to accept her place in the program. Two pairs of eyes stared at her in stunned silence. She swallowed audibly, prepared for a scolding.

Caroline spoke first. “What a clever idea.”

“Yes, but what if you’re caught?” Amelia asked, sounding thrilled by the prospect of such drama.

“She won’t be,” Caroline said. She gave Kalila a sympathetic nod. “Why should men have all the opportunities? Science is all the rage now, isn’t it? It would be ridiculous to expect us to sit it out.”

“Precisely,” Kalila agreed, relief coursing through her.

Still, she wished she could express that it was more than that, even. That she loved science with her whole heart and soul. That she would have found herself doing something drastic to push forward no matter what. If it hadn’t been this, it would have been something else. But she couldn’t even begin to articulate such a thing—it was impossible to put words to.

“But—” Amelia began.

Caroline interrupted her. “But nothing. Women have been doing brave things for centuries. Kalila is no exception.”

“I’d very much like to publish work under my own name,” Kalila said softly, sitting back in her chair. “And I think I might be able to convince Mr. Comerford—he runs the Society—to allow women to join.”

“How?” Amelia asked, voice tinged with wonder.

“I must simply make a case for it,” Kalila said, sounding more confident than she felt. “As a man, of course.” She turned to Caroline. “I wonder if I might take advantage of your sewing skills.”

“You’ve no need to ask.” Caroline stood with a great burst of energy. “Amelia, go fetch a pair of Papa’s trousers. Dark ones, if you please. And a white shirt.”

“Caroline—” Amelia attempted.

“And a waistcoat.” Caroline eyed Kalila. “Green, if he has it.”

Amelia disappeared from the room with a sigh, this time balancing on a single crutch. Caroline trailed after her, returning with a box of sewing supplies and an old crate.

“Won’t your father be upset at us mangling his clothing?” Kalila asked, taking a pair of trousers from a newly returned Amelia and beginning to fiddle with her bodice.

Caroline pulled the curtains over the windows. “I doubt he’ll notice.”

If Mr. Southcott hadn’t taken these clothing pieces with him to France, Kalila reasoned, then it was unlikely that he had any particular attachment to them. She hoped he didn’t, at least, because they were about to go missing from his closet in a rather permanent way.

“You know,” Amelia said, having perched herself on the edge of a chaise, “this might turn out to be a wildly romantic adventure, Kalila.”

“How do you imagine?” Kalila asked, stepping onto the upturned crate. Caroline went to work, pushing pins through the loose fabric.

“Lucky that you’ve no bosom to speak of,” Caroline said through a mouthful of pins.