Kathryn Caskie (11 page)

A broad smile broke on Mr. St. Albans’s lips. “You will not be disappointed, Miss Chillton. For tomorrow eve, I will show you . . .
heaven
.”

Chapter Nine

B
eing the gracious hostess she was, when the carriage drew up before Royal Crescent after conveying the quartet from the Octagon, Lady Letitia invited Mr. St. Albans and the earl inside for a glass of her favorite cordial.

A jolt shot through Hannah as she realized where the cordial would be served—in the drawing room—the very place she’d locked Lady Viola and Mr. Edgar.

The footman had not even let down the steps when Hannah flung open the cabin door, leaped from the carriage, and raced up the stairs and into the house.

She fumbled inside her reticule for the key to the drawing room, finally gaining purchase on it and shoving it into the lock. She pressed the latch and pushed open the door just as Lady Letitia’s cane tapped the first step outside.

Hannah did not know what she had expected to find when she swung the door open—a smear of red lip paint on Edgar’s cheek, or perhaps Lady Viola’s hair all a tumble—but the reality was really quite tame. Dignified.

Lady Viola sat upon the settee sipping her nightly crystal of cordial, while Edgar stirred the fire with an iron poker.

Hannah exhaled her disappointment. Her scheme had failed. The two would-be lovers were as tepid as this morn’s tea.

Lady Viola glanced up at Hannah and smiled. “Oh, thank heaven you have come home. The door must have blown closed when you left for the Octagon, and I fear Edgar and I have been locked inside all evening.”

“I . . . I suspected as much . . . er . . . when I found the key on the floor in the entry hall.”

Hannah never was much good at plying falsehoods, but it was not the lie that caused her to stammer. For protruding, just a bit, from Edgar’s coat pocket—was Lady Viola’s lavender stocking ribbon.

Hannah blinked. No. Impossible. It could not be. They were . . . well, aged.

To be sure, she took a step forward and peered at the satin ribbon. There was no question.

It was a lavender stocking ribbon—Lady Viola’s to be sure. Though one would never know anything was amiss by Lady Viola’s serene countenance.

Hannah smiled broadly. Success was hers!

Or rather
theirs,
truth to tell, for at long last Lady Viola and Edgar had given in to their true passion for each other—as she knew they would.

Hannah had done her job, perfectly, she might add.

It was just a matter of time now before they admitted their love to the world. It was inevitable.

As Lady Letitia and the two gentlemen entered the room, and the events of the oration were recounted for Lady Viola, cordial was poured and delivered to each of them on a silver salver by Edgar the naughty rascal himself.

Lady Letitia’s booming chuckle rattled the crystal chandelier above, seizing Hannah’s attention. She eyed the jolly old woman, who at the moment was batting the portly little earl with her unfurled lace fan. The earl smiled adoringly back at the playful plump lady.

Hannah smiled and tipped her glass to her lips. She still had one more Featherton to match to prove her worth as a matchmaker.

But the two elderly ladies were making her task far too easy.

Nearly three-quarters of the next day had passed before the card Mr. St. Albans had promised reached Hannah’s hand.

Of course, she hadn’t given the matter much thought. It was only that had
she
promised to send a card detailing the location of a meeting, she certainly would have had the good manners to deliver the card early in the day.

That way the person awaiting the card would know how to dress for the occasion. For if one was viewing the stars from atop Bath Abbey, a silk dress, in reverence of the sacred locale, might be appropriate.

Hannah lifted Mr. St. Albans’s simple card to her eyes and read the hastily scrawled words one more time.

Beechen Cliff. Follow the trail from west edge of Prior Park. Four hours after dark.

Now if Beechen Cliff was the designated meeting point, which it seemed to be, something less grand would be more suitable . . . such as a smart kerseymere frock with a coordinating pelisse to ward off the chill of the night and the coming rain.

For though the skies were clear at the moment, Lady Viola’s bones had told her that rain was soon to be upon them, and the old woman’s bones were seldom wrong.

In preparation for her study of the stars, Hannah spent what was left of the afternoon and through the dinner hour reading a clutch of Miss Herschel’s pamphlets about the comet.

It was dreadfully dry reading, with far too many formulas and numbers. More than once, Hannah was forced to ring for a reviving cup of steaming tea, just to keep her eyes from closing.

She didn’t dare tell the Featherton sisters of her plan to meet with Mr. St. Albans. They would only gloat, sure that they were correct in their assumption that Hannah and Mr. St. Albans were destined to marry.

But they were wrong.

The only reason she was slipping out her back window this very moment and climbing down the ivy vines was that the Featherton sisters would think meeting a bachelor on a dark rise outside town was beyond the bounds of propriety.

And they would be right about that.

But to be perfectly honest, Hannah truly did want to peer through Mr. St. Albans’s telescope at the stars. When would she ever have the chance to do so again?

So she felt justified in climbing down the back wall of the house.

It was a necessity, she told herself—and not just because the two old women were still awake downstairs.

It was five hours after complete darkness when Hannah finally reached the Prior Park gate and made her way across the manicured grounds to the steep cliff trail.

The wind had begun to blow, much more strongly than it had been when she left the house. She looked up, and, before her, the stars were bright and clear. But when she turned and faced the wind, she could see that the skies were naught but a thick blanket of ebony.

A storm was coming. And being so far from Royal Crescent, without a carriage or even a horse, she began to feel worried.

Hannah had all but decided to turn back, for Mr. St. Albans was nowhere to be seen, when suddenly she noticed a flickering light ahead of her—a lantern.

The light was barely visible in the distance, but since it was placed on a rise, a perfect location to situate a telescope, she decided it must be Mr. St. Albans’s signal for her, and she headed for the beacon.

Several times she called out for Mr. St. Albans, but the wind was strong upon the bluff, and her voice was lost in the gusts rustling through the trees.

After several minutes of hiking uphill, her breath all but gone from her lungs, she finally came upon the lantern.

She didn’t see Mr. St. Albans right away, for indeed he was not near the lantern at all. Hannah spun and squinted her eyes to look past the glow of the lantern.

There on a level summit, she found Mr. St. Albans peering through a telescope not a half furlong away.

She walked quietly to him, so as not to disturb his study, but it seemed he was aware of her approach.

“’Tis late. I thought you had decided not to come after all.” He lifted his eye from the device and turned to look at her.

“Hardly, sir. I was simply delayed.” She walked close enough that even in the wind, in the coolness of the eve, she could feel the heat his body was giving off.

She sighed, suddenly feeling comfort in his presence, which made her all too aware of her proximity to a bachelor in the dark of night.

She struggled for something to say. “This . . . this is not the telescope I remember seeing on the cliffs in Cornwall.”

He smiled at her as the wind blew his hair back from his handsome face. “No, indeed, it is not. This is a reduced Newtonian sweeper. I have it set to a power of thirty with a field of about one and a half degrees.”

Oh,
lovely
. Hannah could already see that this eve, which she had been so excited about, was going to be as arid as Miss Herschel’s pamphlets.

Then, everything suddenly changed.

“Miss Chillton, would you like to see the comet?”

She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, he abruptly took her hand in his and led her to the sweeper.

“But the comet has not yet arrived. Miss Herschel said it shan’t for another three weeks.” Hannah felt him place his hands on her waist and center her before the eyepiece.

“It is not yet overhead, ’tis true, but the comet is here.” His hands felt warm, and a little shiver of pleasure danced on her skin beneath his touch. “Look here and see. Just close one of your eyes and peer inside.”

He ran his hand up her back and rested it upon her shoulder, as though it were a most natural gesture between an unmarried miss and a bachelor. Still, she did as he asked, even though her heart pounded.

“There are so many stars, I can’t—”

“If you look directly in the center, you will see an object that resembles Mr. Messier’s Nebulae. The color and brightness are much the same. Do you see it?”

But the only object Hannah could focus on was the man standing directly behind her, touching her ever so softly, speaking so tenderly into her ear as she stared up into the heavens. “I . . . I don’t know,” she somehow managed to say.

“It’s round and somewhat blurred, like a star out of focus. Here, let me see.” His arms looped around her waist and moved her backward a step, giving her a moment to steady her breathing.

He peered into the eyepiece and turned a brass dial the smallest amount. “
There
. There it is. The Bath Comet. Look and see, and you shall be the first of Society to view it.”

Hannah brushed the blowing strands of her hair from her face, then hurried her eye to the eyepiece. And there, in the center, she saw it. A teardrop-shaped object. Vivid, round, and white in the center, but blurred behind. “I-I see it! I do! That is the comet? Truly? I-I can’t believe it!”

She whirled around so quickly that he hadn’t a moment to step away. Their bodies collided, and his arms came around her, to prevent her from disturbing the sweeper . . . or at least she assumed.

“Yes, that’s the Bath Comet.” He looked down into her eyes with a matching excitement that was palpable. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

Hannah looked up at him, and found herself so close that she was barely able to utter anything.
“Amazing.”

It was then that she noticed he was looking at her lips. Her heart thrummed inside her breast so forcefully that she felt light-headed, but even still, she tilted her head back and allowed her lips to part just the smallest amount.

Beckoning him.

Urging him to kiss her.

The way she wanted him to, but dared not ask.

And he did.

Mr. St. Albans ran his tongue lightly over his lips, then bent his head toward hers. He paused then and looked deeply into her eyes.

And then, like the maid she was, she actually felt herself swoon beneath the intensity of his gaze.

She felt somewhat embarrassed at her reaction. For only a woman in love did such a foolish, girlish thing as swoon. And this, of a certain, was not love she was feeling.

No, it was only the excitement of seeing the comet. Yes, that was it. How else was one to react when seeing such a celestial wonder?

But then he drew closer, and, at last, she felt his lips upon hers. Felt them move and urge her lips apart.

And she knew at once that despite her protests, she felt something for Mr. St. Albans. Something she had never experienced before.

But it couldn’t be . . .
love
.

That was quite impossible.

Chapter Ten

H
annah slowly opened her eyes, her senses still reeling from his kiss. Even in the coolness of the night, her body and mind felt warm and languid, as if she’d taken a glass of rich sherry too quickly.

His eyes were fixed on hers, but he wasn’t smiling. His pupils were dark and wide.

“Miss Chillton,” he whispered huskily. “I daresay I should apologize for . . . kissing you. But I cannot. I
will
not.”

Something sounding very much like a half laugh punctuated his words. “I will not, because in truth I am not in the least sorry for having kissed you.”

Hannah knew a true lady would be appalled at both his action and his audacious declaration. But she was but a simple city miss, and if she were to be honest, it did not take a clever scholar from Oxford to know that she took every bit as much pleasure from the touching of their lips as Mr. St. Albans evidently did.

She had just opened her mouth, realizing she must reply to his bold statement, when an icy raindrop struck her right between her eyes, stunning her.

She hadn’t known what to say before, but had thought something would come to mind. Now it was as if the droplet had dissolved any reasonable response, and Hannah found herself merely standing there mutely, mouth fully agape.

Mr. St. Albans had just drawn a handkerchief from inside his coat and dabbed the wetness from her face when another droplet slapped her cheek.

Hannah looked upward at the sky above Mr. St. Albans just as a cloak of blackness obscured the stars above the bluff upon which they stood.

Another droplet splashed her brow, and she returned her gaze to his. “I daresay, I do not think a handkerchief is going to be enough.” She gave him a tiny smile, though in the thickening darkness, she doubted he saw the movement of her lips. Indeed, though only moments before her eyes were fully acclimated to the darkness and she could see her surroundings as clearly as any cat—now it was as if someone had suddenly doused a candle. She felt utterly blind.

“The storm. Its timing could not be worse.” Mr. St. Albans spun around and stood beside Hannah, and together they watched a heavy, blurred veil of rain race across the dark valley toward them.

“We’ll never make it down to the Palladian Bridge.” Hannah’s gaze locked with Mr. St. Albans’s. “And I fear it is the only source of shelter I observed on my ascent.”