“Thanks.”
When they pulled up in front of the student accommodation of Lady Margaret Hall, she paid the driver of the brougham double to stay put in case the rain continued and they needed a ride back. Despite the damp conditions, two dozen students had already assembled round the emergency meeting point in front of the college’s dorm. The captain of the brigade was a sharp-featured girl whose voice carried without the help of the megaphone.
“Today’s maneuver is focused on equipment testing and maintenance,” she announced, “so expect to use the chute, all water wagons, and the hoses.”
“No bucket lines?” someone asked, although there were a number of buckets in plain sight on the lawn before the house entrance.
“We shall certainly practice the bucket lines, just not inside the building. We begin now. Subcaptains, lead your brigades.”
A groan went through the group. Bucket lines were considered exhausting yet boring. Catriona liked them; there was a meditative rhythm to grabbing a new bucket while passing one on, quick yet careful to not spill a drop. While they were lining up, one of the girls took the whirling ratchet from the captain’s basket and ran a lap around them. Krrrrr krrrrr . . .
“We’re all quite awake,” Catriona told her when she passed a second time.
Krrrrrr went the ratchet in her face, rattling her teeth.
“It’s more authentic this way,” the girl said with a laugh.
Grab, pass, grab, pass, all while fantasizing about snatching the ratchet and dismembering it into tiny pieces.
A cab stopped near the brougham just as their exercise ended.
“Who is that?” asked Ratchet Girl when Elias smoothly descended from the vehicle. Realizing they had an attractive male spectator, she doubled her noisy efforts.
Catriona plonked her bucket down and strode to the engine room, her face hot under a sheen of rain and perspiration. The engine room homed the pump wagon, which was heavier than an ox when full. She waited until the wagon crew arrived to roll her vehicle into the open. Outside, the wheels sank into the softened lawn. Shoving and pushing, she helped move the wagon, one foot, another foot. The soles of her boots slipped on the wet grass. She looked up to take a deep breath, her pulse in her ears. Nearby, Elias was holding his umbrella over Hattie while she was setting up her plate camera. He glanced over, and her heart gave a thump in her throat when his brilliant eyes met hers. She dropped her gaze and joined the last push to maneuver the wagon into position. In the dorm in front of her, several girls stuck their heads out of an upper-floor window, awaiting rescue. A chute appeared among them and while they let it unfurl to the ground, Catriona unspooled the hose. She instructed her crew to pump. Elias Khoury was of course right there, watching. It made her aware of her every move; her own limbs felt cumbersome. The hose stiffened in her grip when the water came in; it pushed back like a living thing in a fight, and she dug her heels into the ground to take control. Water gushed out and hammered the building fa?ade, spraying the brigadiers below the evacuation window. Shrieking ensued, but the hands of the different teams soon worked together as if directed by a conductor. Catriona’s breathing calmed. Hattie was right, she excelled at handling the equipment. She liked pitting her physical strength against it, to feel the force of the water, to channel it purposefully.
Had she been much younger, fifteen or so, she would have relished Mr. Khoury watching her put out a fire, confident that he’d find her skills charming. These days, she knew better; a spurting hose in a woman’s hands was quite shocking, and men usually found nothing alluring about a lady mastering manly tasks. Boarding school and an equally painful season in London had made perfectly clear what type of behavior must be performed to charm a man in want of a wife—and to her, it was a performance. Growing up, she hadn’t witnessed romantic interactions between spouses, since Wester Ross had remained alone. While she knew how to act—coy, cheerful, moderately clever—whenever she had tried it, it felt like she stood there in a clown costume and everyone else could see the costume, too. She had never aspired to master it better. For a long while, she had just kept hoping for someone who would find her charming as she was, but the few men who seemed intrigued were her father’s age, which did not appeal to her.
At the evacuation window, the first girl climbed into the tube. She plummeted down, a bulge in the canvas like a fish in a pelican’s throat, until she was spat out moments later, laughing and disheveled.
When the drill was over, and all equipment cleaned and returned to its positions, the subcaptains distributed towels and biscuits. As Catriona dabbed her face dry, she watched Hattie emerge from under the dark cloth of her camera. She had taken a photograph of Elias standing in front of the dorm. She had taken another one of him earlier, with his right hand on the pump wagon. Now he was saying something to Hattie that made her flip back her head and cover her mouth with her hand. She was giggling, and there was nothing performative about it. Catriona balled up the towel and tossed it straight into the nearby basket. A circle of curious girls was forming around Elias. She stayed back; her face still felt damp and sticky.
“Are you riding back into town with us?” she asked Lucie, who had supported the ground team for the chute. Lucie’s house was located on Norham Gardens, only a short walking distance from the college.
“I’m going home,” Lucie said, and snapped open her umbrella. “Boudicca needs feeding.”
The mention of Lucie’s little black cat eased the tension in Catriona’s neck. “Give her a treat from me.”
“I’m taking her to London tonight,” Lucie said darkly. “She loathes the pet carrier.”
“Then I shall see you next at the Blackstone dinner on Friday?”
“Yes.” Lucie glanced across the lawn to Elias, who was picking up Hattie’s camera. “I hope your father’s colleague won’t eat too much of your time until then. Tally-ho, my dear.”
Elias carried the camera to the waiting brougham, and Catriona watched this with alarm. Surely, surely he would not climb aboard. He didn’t. He briefly chatted with Hattie at the carriage door, then turned and walked down the road at a leisurely stride. He was returning to town on foot.
Hattie bounced back to Catriona, her eyes suspiciously shiny. Beneath her flouncy cape, she vibrated with poorly repressed excitement.
“You secretive thing,” she whisper-squeaked as she looped an arm through Catriona’s. “That is your father’s colleague?”
She moved her chin to the direction whence Elias was disappearing.
“Aye.”
Hattie’s fingers dug into her wrist. “Why didn’t you tell me that he was young, charming, and terribly handsome?”
“It hadn’t occurred to me that this was relevant information.”