Starlight & Promises (4 page)

Christian rounded on Garrett. “Exactly why are you here?” he asked, his words sharp. When Garrett’s gaze wandered over to the curvaceous Miss Simpson, Christian sighed. “I suppose I need not have asked. Nonetheless, you shall hold your tongue and refrain from seducing my students, or you will find the hike back to Harvard long and lonely. These women are under my protection”—pulling out his pocket watch, he consulted the time—”for another hour and forty-three minutes.”

“If this is so painful for you, why did you agree to take on Professor Bradshaw’s lecture?”

“I can only assume that, as I grow older, my brain cells die at a more rapid rate, and my thinking has become muddled. At any rate, we need the additional income.”

“That or your brain is fixed on courting the favors of the most luscious Mrs. Anderson.”

Christian scooped up a plug of muddy grass and flung it at Garrett’s head, and the young man ducked with a laugh.

Christian wiped his hands on his breeches. “Let us simply say I could not refuse the dean’s imploring me to help her out of a most difficult spot.”

Garrett shook his head. “Notwithstanding the charms of Mrs. Anderson, in my estimation, you miss the expeditions. I must admit, however, this seems a poor substitute, at best, though I do thoroughly enjoy accompanying you and your harem.”

“Mister Jakes!” The cry came from a willowy redhead who had stumbled to one knee in the mud.

Garrett grinned at Christian. “Pardon me, but my assistance is required elsewhere.” He loped off through the marsh. “Coming, Miss Carter!”

Christian rested his hands on his hips and examined the group of floundering females. No bird in its right mind would alight within a mile of them. He rued his caving in to Margaret’s pressure and accepting this commission after Professor Bradshaw fell from his horse and broke his leg. A lecture course for females on marsh ecology. What an absurd idea. These women were as at home in the out-of-doors as he was at a Buckingham court function.

Harvard had admitted women in 1879, giving them their own annex, apart from the men. In 1894, the annex became Radcliff College, a wholly feminine institution. Since Radcliff offered no science courses, Harvard allowed the women to attend segregated classes on the hallowed campus. Christian scoffed at the notion.

Few women had the fortitude to pursue science, though a small minority showed promise. He glanced at Miss Browne, a sturdy brunette in a heavy tweed skirt, scuffed boots, and a workingman’s cap. But then, Miss Browne came from working-class stock and attended Radcliff on scholarship. She had the incentive to make a better life for herself, unlike the more privileged young women who sought only a husband among the professors.

“Professor Badia!”

Miss Simpson again.

“Yes?”

“We must leave straightaway. A rather large creature is attacking me.” When the grasshopper crawled farther up her skirt, she squealed loudly enough to flush the red-wing blackbirds from the cattails ringing the distant pond.

“No. Please wait in the carriage until the others finish with their sketches.”

“But—”

“Garrett! Kindly come rescue Miss Simpson from the depredations of a giant grasshopper!”

Christian wiped his brow with his sleeve. By the time he fetched the young ladies back to the college, he would have lost another thousand brain cells.

“Smilodon?”
Christian snorted. “What tripe is this?” He crumpled the letter in his fist and heaved it at the wastebasket in the corner. It banked off the wall and landed dead center. He swiveled around in the desk chair and shouted, “Garrett, get in here!”

Garrett popped his head around the corner and peeked into the room. At the lack of flying missiles, he sauntered in and perched on the edge of the desk. Brushing back a hank of wavy blond hair, he turned his innocent blue eyes to Christian. “Have we a problem?”

Christian shoved the rolling chair away from the desk and stood so abruptly the chair wheeled away, crashing against the back wall. Combing a hand through his thick hair, he glared at Garrett, paced to the middle of the room, and whirled around.
“We
don’t have a problem.
You
have a problem. I thought you screened my mail. That’s what I pay you for. You
are
my secretary, are you not?”

Garrett’s mouth turned up in a charming smile no woman within three counties could resist. He picked up an ornate gold fountain pen from the desktop and twirled it in his fingers. “Of course I’m your secretary, among other duties.” His smile grew broader, the innocent expression positively cloying. “Did I miss something? Is that why you feel compelled to yell?” His heavy sigh echoed about the study. “I do my best, but do you show appreciation? No. You belittle my attempts—”

“Stow it!” Christian stalked to the wastebasket. He plucked out the delicate vellum stationery and held it up. “
This
, Garrett.
This
is the problem. I pay you well to keep crackpots”—he smoothed out the letter and reexamined the signature—”like Lady Samantha Eugenia Colchester off my back. Especially women crackpots, and
most particularly
, women crackpots of the British aristocracy.”

Garrett looked up from the appointment book he pretended to inspect. “You know, someday you will have to come to terms with this unreasonable loathing for aristocratic ladies. Not all of them are she-wolves in ewe’s clothing. Some are quite nice. What happened to you happened long ago. The time has come for you to let it go.”

Something broke inside Christian, and he fought to take a breath. “I have no earthly desire to discuss my past with you or anyone else,” he said, his words blasting Garrett.

Garrett lowered his gaze, staring down at the desk. Hurt suffused his face. “I only thought I could help.”

Christian regretted taking his anger out on Garrett. But, damn it, he didn’t want to think about the past, much less banter about it with Garrett. “I need no help,” he said gruffly. “Particularly the help of some young pup.”

An affronted expression still plastered to his face, Garrett looked up. “As to the letter, I was mistaken in thinking I tossed it into the rubbish. Somehow it became mixed in amongst the bills, and you are quite aware of our financial situation and how monstrous that pile has become.”

“What?” Christian said, preferring not to dwell on his finances. “Been too busy bedding the entire local female population that you can’t find a few minutes to carry out your duties with a bit of diligence?”

Garrett’s face crumpled. “A low blow, Chris.”

“Obviously not low enough, if what I hear is true.” Christian shook his head. “Sometimes I rue the day I plucked your disreputable, criminal carcass off that dock in San Francisco. I should have left you with the rest of the wharf rats.”

“What if she’s not a crackpot?” Garrett asked quietly, shifting the subject back to the point.

Christian made his way to the hearth and poured a whiskey from a cut-crystal decanter sitting on the mantel. He turned back around. “Not a crackpot? You mean what if her uncle really
found
a Smilodon?”

Garrett nodded.

One side of Christian’s mouth edged up. “You know damn well the Smilodon has been extinct for ten thousand years.” With a jerk of his hand, he downed the whiskey. “Even if it wasn’t, you wouldn’t find one in the South Seas. Impossible. Smilodon never existed in Oceania.” He dropped the letter on the floor and fell silent for a moment.
Suppose Garrett is right?
His hand cupped his chin, lashes lowering to half-mast, and racked his brain for possibilities. His chest tightened, and his heart picked up its pace. Striding over to the bookcases, he yanked out several volumes, rifling through the pages.

“Inspiration strike?” Garrett ventured.

Christian raised a hand, throwing Garrett a quelling look over his shoulder.

Garrett clamped his lips together.

Christian stopped flipping pages, his gaze skimming a passage. “It could be a
mesonychid,”
he mumbled. “No. Impossible.” He slammed the book closed and shoved it back onto the shelf.

Garrett retrieved the letter from the floor, holding it to his nose and sniffing. “But, Chris,” he moaned, “she wears a most intriguing scent.”

Christian snorted a laugh. “Sometimes I forget how devious you are. Your mind permanently resides between some wench’s thighs.” He returned to the mantel, reached for the decanter, and downed another slug of whiskey, this time straight from the bottle. “Okay,” he said with a sigh. “Give her an appointment. I’ll relent this once and let you check out her assets while I listen to her crackpot claim.”

At the smug smile on Garrett’s face, Christian’s eyes narrowed.

“I already have.”

“Already have what?”

“Given her an appointment. She’ll be here next week.”

“How?” Christian sputtered. “She’s in England, for God’s sake. Did you exchange missives by carrier pigeon? Is she flying over on a pterodactyl?”

Garrett held out the letter. “Check the date.”

Christian snatched it from Garrett’s hand and examined it. It was dated two months ago. “More devious than even
I
imagined.” He laughed softly and reached, once more, for the whiskey.

Hobart, Tasmania

R
ichard and James prepared for Samantha’s arrival as best they could with the meager resources in Hobart. Each day at high tide, Richard met the docking ships, anxiously awaiting a return letter from his niece, and his impatience grew out of proportion to the distance between England and Tasmania.

He didn’t truly expect a reply so soon, and James admonished him to be patient. Nevertheless, images of the Smilodon raced through his head. For it to have escaped extinction for so long, it wouldn’t be a lone animal but rather one of a population. Evolution and the rules of mortality decreed that no animal existed in isolation.

His need to return to the island grew stronger each day, but he held it inside, fearing expressing too much interest in the Furneaux Islands, too many questions relating to tides and reefs and ocean depths, might alert others to the location’s importance.

On their way to the tavern one misty evening, Richard and James passed through a street darkened by extinguished gaslights. A chill worked its way down Richard’s back, and he shivered. Wary of the darkness and unusual silence, he urged James to gravitate toward the center of the street, away from the ebony pools of shadow hugging the storefronts.

They traversed half the street’s length before encountering a malodorous puddle of water stretching across their path. As they circled around it, four men stepped out of a black alleyway in front of them. Glare from a lone streetlight flashed off knives in the fists of two of the men; the others displayed pistols. All were taller than average height, wider than the broad side of a ship. Their faces were lumpy and hard, framed with bristly beards. Their eyes glittered like chips of marble and held cold stares.

Richard tensed and reached for the pistol inside his coat.

“If I were ye, mate, I wouldn’t de it,” said a harsh voice.

The man who spoke stepped forward. Richard had never laid eyes upon a more fearsome creature. Tall, beefy, red-haired, scarred, and one-eyed, with a whitened, puckered hole where the missing eye had been, he wore a ragged, dirty frock coat over a bare, furry chest.

“I’ll just take that,” the man said, leaning forward and plucking the pistol from Richard’s inside coat pocket. He inclined his head toward James. “Now ye.”

“I’m not armed,” James said stiffly. “Take what coin we have and leave. We have little of value.”

The man squinted from his one good eye, and his gaze ran over Richard’s and James’s clothing, which was obviously well-cut and made of fine fabric. “A couple o’ swells like ye two should be good fer a fair amount o’ coin. Ye dinna look like no charity cases ta me.” He turned to his men and grinned. “De they, lads?”

The others remained silent, faces devoid of expression. Slowly they moved, as soundless as wraiths, and surrounded the two men.

James threw a well-aimed fist at the man in front of him, knocking him back on his heels, but he was no match for four men bigger than he. Richard knotted his fists and gathered himself to fight when a cudgel came down on the back of his head. His vision receded to black, and he soon joined his friend, lying unconscious in the street.