“I’ll say I’m with Florentia,” said Sybil.

Florentia nodded. “I’ll say I’m with Lady Eunice.”

“I do as I please,” said Lady Eunice. “That is the single greatest advantage of being a spinster.”

“Mayhap not the single greatest,” Tommy murmured.

Damaris curtseyed. “I shall be honored to attend, wherever we find ourselves.”

“I thought…” Philippa stammered. She turned to Lady Eunice. “But…your parents?”

“Have forbidden further interaction,” Lady Eunice acknowledged. “However, I am eight and twenty years old and in possession of a significant inheritance. I could leave home over this, which would cause far more gossip than they desire. I shall be allowed to continue attending a reading circle.”

“I won’t be allowed to,” said Florentia. “I think most of us will find a way anyway.”

“Ooh,” said Gracie. “We can all ride together!”

“We won’t all fit in one carriage,” Sybil pointed out. “I’ll make a schedule.”

Philippa’s heart overflowed. It was the happiest of endings. She had everything she wanted! A happy future with the person she loved, the life she wanted to live, and the best group of bluestockings London had ever seen.

“Meet me next Thursday,” she told the ladies. “By then, I’ll have had a chance to organize a space for all of us and—”

“Ow, no!” Tiglet leapt from Sybil’s chest and sprinted down the Brook Street pavement in the direction of Islington.

“Tiglet! Tig-let!” Philippa called out, though it was no use. “Tig—”

The kitten paused, his calico ears flicking as he glanced over his shoulder at Philippa. Then he turned with his tail in the air and pranced back to her without complaint.

Philippa scooped him up and cuddled him to her chest in disbelief. “But—he’s a homing kitten.”

“And you’re taking him home,” Elizabeth said.

Philippa touched her cheek to the kitten’s fur and smiled. From now on, there would be no more running away.

Not even for Tiglet.

Epilogue

Epilogue

April 1818
Wynchester Residence

A grin curved Tommy’s lips at the familiar sound of raucous bluestockings arriving for their Thursday afternoon reading circle.

Once the ladies were settled on the other side of the house in Philippa’s new library, their joyful, boisterous voices would no longer be heard from the sitting room, where Tommy was working on her maps. The cataloging system Philippa had created was phenomenal. Tommy now had several albums organized thematically. When they’d needed to infiltrate an auction house last Tuesday, it had taken mere seconds to pull the right maps.

With the new system in place, Tommy’s maps had multiplied. Thanks to Philippa, the Wynchesters could complete their missions more efficiently than before. There was even a new album dedicated solely to Philippa’s burgeoning network of community reading libraries.