Whose Better Half
Thursday, 17 Feb 1870
Finch & Son Precision Instruments and Chronometers
London, England
3:00pm, GMT
Pieter checked his watch. It occurred to him then (just then) that he had not heard from Mrs. Finch in over two hours and that the plate with her lunch remained on the counter, unmolested. He picked up the tray and headed to the back room.
Ariadne flipped through yet another volume she'd pulled from her groaning bookshelves, riffling through the pages hunting for that passage that danced mockingly in her mind's eye. It's here. I know it's here. If I can just find it, it would perfectly support my argument in a way that those hidebound ignoramuses cannot possibly refute ... It's here. I can see it clear as day.
With a dainty grunt of displeasure, she set the book aside and pulled another title. Behind her on her worktable fully two dozen others lay open at various pages, a landscape of work interrupted. The ink on Ariadne's pen had dried long ago and she'd slipped the tapered handle through the topknot of her hair. More ink stained her bare fingers. A smudge decorated her nose, dust and other blotches besmirched her work apron. Frowning at the spine of the book she held, she muttered softly, "Perhaps in ...? No. It's not in 'Whippleworth's Treatise on Aetheric Reverberation During Aurora Borealis Presentation', that old windbag. Hmph. He wouldn't recognize an Aetheric Reverberation if it got shoved up his—Now where is that passage? Bother it all..."
If only she could find it, she could complete her working notes and carry on to the next step in her day's work. She growled to herself and glared at her uncooperative library, as if they hid the book she sought. Chin firming, she took two precise steps to the left and started at the top of the next bookshelf.
I will find that passage if it kills me. I know I have it here.
He sighed at the sight of her. Even facing away, she is beautiful, he thought. He placed the tray on the desk atop a pile of hopefully lesser-used books.
"Ariadne, your lunch is missing you."
"That is a shame, dearest, because I miss it not." Ariadne grimaced at her books before schooling her expression to something more ladylike. She turned then and smiled at her husband. Even with his sleeves rolled up and his glasses down his nose, he is handsome. For a second she rode the wave of fierce love and tenderness that seeing him never failed to engender in her. It would carry her beyond all return if she allowed it. For his sake, she forced herself back to the present, closed the distance between them, and said in a pleasanter tone. "Please don't mind my words, love. I am in a bit of a pique because I cannot find the one book I need. I need it for this."
She pulled her treatise from under a slim tome and a tiny frown creased her brow as she scanned her cluttered table. "I had my pen just a moment ago. Where did it disappear to?"
Pieter pulled a pen from his apron and smiled amusedly as he offered it to his wife. "I rather like your pen's current location. It's . . . appropriate." He flicked an amused glance at her topknot and deftly took her hand before it could fly upward to pluck the errant instrument free. "What book are you looking for?"
Ariadne's irritation began to evaporate the second his fingers twined with hers. She took the pen he offered and gave him a rueful smile. "If I knew the title, I would not be in such a horrible snit. However," she added, nodding at the books on her table, "I can picture three things: the words of the passage I am looking for, their position on the page, and the color of the book's cover. In order, they are—." She slid effortlessly into the recitation, finishing with, "About a third down on the left hand page. Blue, clothbound, and with black embossed lettering on the spine. Or perhaps gold."
She sighed.
"Truly, dearest. I know it sits on my shelves. Somewhere."
Pieter peered at the shelves and stroked his chin in mock studiousness. "Indeed, it is a puzzle. Do you know the topic, or at least the shade?"
"The shade: faded blue, not quite like your trousers," she said promptly with a nod at his current attire. "It is a little darker. The topic: Aetheric turbidity and agitation. Specifically, as detected during certain manipulative spells using Thaumaturgical procedures that target—oh bother. It is all as I've already told you. It was quite the cat amongst the pigeons at the Society. You do remember, do you not? Lord Heatherington went nearly apoplectic at the very idea that the Aether could be measured even as inaccurately as Sir Reginald proposed in his treatise and—Oh! Darling, you are simply magnificent!"
Ariadne squealed gleefully and kissed her husband soundly on the tip of his perfectly darling nose before wheeling across the room to yet another bookcase. She pulled a blue cloth bound volume with embossed black lettering and held it up triumphantly.
"I knew I had it. I had merely forgotten it was one of the softer sciences, and therefore shelved on the right hand side of the room."
She sat down at her cluttered desk, fanning through the pages to find the elusive passage. If she remembered her lunch tray or her husband, it was not readily apparent. Her avid gaze seemed reserved only for the knowledge she so keenly sought.
Pieter stepped behind her chair and stroked her hair. "It's really quite a good thing that my brilliance solved the problem before my mouth suggested anything as pedestrian as Lord Kelvin's work on Aetheric Thermodynamics. I know how you secretly despise the man."
A chuckle escaped Ariadne before she could quell it. Having found her passage, she closed the book on her finger and rose to throw her arms around Pieter (book and all). "You know me far too well, love. Should I fear you shall discover all my secrets before I find all of yours? And pine away when you leave me for a different enchanting creature?" She said it with a smile that clearly announced she was joking, yet there was something behind her eyes that expressed doubt, however small, that perhaps she believed her words.
Pieter gently ran his fingers around her ears, down her neck, finally resting his hands gently on her shoulders. He looked at her directly. "I doubt that you should be so easily shed of me. Should I ever come close I am fully certain you shall develop new ones, just to bedevil me."
He smiled puckishly and kissed the end of her nose. "Or failing that, I shall claim ignorance, so you'll never know."
Ariadne tightened her arms around his neck before he could draw away and she kissed him soundly, devil take the books, the research, the time of day. She loved Pieter with all her heart and nothing would keep her from letting him know it.
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