It was during this time that Liliana’s father would have been working as a chemist. Charles Claremont started out in the fields of eudiometry and pneumatic medicine, philosophies that believed that there were “bad airs,” which were detrimental to the health and safety of the public and could be measured around marshes, sewers, cemeteries and the like, and “good airs,” which could heal a body through their inhalation. Claremont would have naturally carried his studies into the quality of water, as well.
By the time Liliana would have come into her own as a scientist, the field of eudiometry had been mostly debunked. However, she took her father’s dreams to better the health of humankind a step further, trying to isolate the chemicals within living things so that they might be re-created and reproduced medicinally. She would have been just a little ahead of her time…Between 1826 and 1828, a German chemist, Johann Andreas Buchner, and a French chemist, Henri Leroux, did just what Liliana was attempting to do—isolated salicin from willow bark. Salicylic acid would later become the main ingredient of aspirin.
I chose to use the modern names for some of the chemical substances you read in the story. While sodium chloride and sodium sulfate, for example, were well-known, experimented with and easily produced, they would have been called by different names you mightn’t have recognized. Therefore, for the ease of the modern reader, I put the more familiar names in the book.
Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle, was indeed the first woman allowed to attend a meeting of the Royal Society—and only once, in May of 1667. The first paper written by a woman to be presented at the Royal Society was by an astronomer named Caroline Herschel in 1798. Another wouldn’t be presented until Mary Somerville’s paper on magnetism in 1826. Of course, neither woman was allowed to present the papers herself—they were read to the Society by Herschel’s brother and Somerville’s husband, respectively, as women were not allowed to attend meetings of the Royal Society.
As for Liliana’s hope to become the first woman member of the Royal Society? Sadly, she wouldn’t have lived to see it. The first woman was not admitted until 1945, though Queen Victoria was made an “honorary member.”
Don’t miss the next novel in the
Veiled Seduction series,
SWEET DECEPTION
Available in August 2012
from Signet Eclipse
Derbyshire, August 1817
T
he medieval tower rose high and proud above the bilberry heath covering the castle’s grounds, its vibrant red bricks proclaiming it a foreigner among a plateau of white limestone. Derick Aveline, Viscount Scarsdale, exhaled with a snort—he certainly knew what that felt like.
If there was one place on earth he’d hoped never to set eyes upon again, his northernmost family estate was certainly it. He supposed that would surprise most people, given the dangerous and often unpleasant spots he’d been to over the years. But these lush rolling hills and deep, narrow valleys of his childhood boded ominously and more treacherously for his well-being than even the filthiest of French prisons that had once held him.
With a sharp tap of his heel, Derick directed his steed down the knoll and onto the lane as a wealth of memories he’d thought long locked away assailed him. The restless boy he’d been, roaming the hills and dales of White Peak, with endless summer days stretching out before him. His mother’s red-rimmed eyes, looking at him with alternating sadness and indifference. The last day he’d seen this patch of England, the day his identity had crumbled away like the ancient limestone the area was named for.
Gravel crunched beneath his stallion’s hooves as they entered the stable yard, shaking Derick from his thoughts. He’d been a fool to come back. If not for this last mission for the Crown, he would have never returned. But he always did what must be done for love of country.
Even when it wasn’t his country to love.
“Boy!” Derick called out, throwing his leg over his saddle and dismounting. He rolled his shoulders, stretching knotted muscle. He’d had to race to stay ahead of the weather and felt every rough mile bone deep. If God were merciful, a hot meal, a warm fire, and a clean bed waited within. He scanned the yard for a stable hand.
The lane leading up to Aveline Castle was in clear view of both the stables and the main hall. It was inexcusable that no one waited to greet him, particularly as he’d sent word well ahead to expect him.
Several moments passed, yet no one appeared.
“Damnation,” Derick grumbled, turning up his collar against the chilly wind. The clime this far north had yet to recover from last summer’s unimaginable cold, and with dusk fast on Derick’s heels, there was little sun left for warmth. He’d only managed to beat the coming storm by minutes, he guessed. He led his horse to the deserted stable, secured the mount, and promised the animal he’d send a groom straightaway to brush him down.
Derick strode along the north side of the fifteenth-century castle, his gait far from the languid, leisurely manner he usually affected. He would slip into his ne’er-do-well persona once there was someone about who might observe him.
He climbed the front steps two at a time. When he reached the stoop, he found the massive door half-open. Had the staff lost all discipline since his mother had died? The place was drafty enough without them carelessly leaving the door unlatched. He pushed it wide, the ancient carved English oak giving way with a groan.
No candlelight greeted him. Indeed, it was as if the place were deserted. Derick frowned, his steps echoing as he walked into the stone foyer. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. His trunks, which had been sent ahead and should have long been unpacked, sat stacked at the base of the grand staircase. No fire burned in the grate. No lamps had been lit.
Where the devil was everyone?
“—take this area, from the bend in the creek to the waterfall—”
A female voice, full of authority, drifted to him from the back of the house.
Curious, Derick started in that direction.
“—and Thomas, you and John Coachman take from here to Felman’s Hill.”
Derick furrowed his brow. There was something eerily familiar about that voice, which was ridiculous given the only woman he’d known in Derbyshire was his mother, and she’d been dead two years. As he turned into the long hallway leading toward the kitchen, light spilled from the dining hall and a low murmuring of voices reached his ears.
He slipped unnoticed into the room, melting into the shadows along the far wall. It wasn’t even a challenge, as no one paid him a bit of mind. His eyes took in the whole room at once, a skill honed through years in the espionage game.
A dozen and a half people of mixed age and company hovered around the table—all servants from their dress. Aveline Castle only employed a skeleton staff now that his mother was gone. So who were all these people whispering quietly, their faces grim?
The room smelled crisp, filled with the tang of the outdoors carried in on the clothing of people. And indeed, most of the room’s inhabitants were dressed for the elements, garbed in coats and hats or scarves. Several noses were red, as if they’d been long out in the wind, and many boots were dirty, covered with mud.
The group seemed to be waiting for something or someone. Derick shifted more into the corner until he found a break in the wall of people large enough to see through.