A Hint of Starlight

by Connolly, Lynne

  He grazed her elbow with his fingers. That was the second contact, but he had not yet touched her bare skin. Her elbow was covered by blue silk, and her ankle with her silk stocking. Nevertheless, both contacts had imprinted on her down to her bones. She would never forget them.

  She glanced down, but he did not move his hand away. “We should go in,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, we should.”

  She was seized by a desire to do the unthinkable. She wanted to touch him in return, to hold him as if she had the right to do so. “I feel as if I have known you forever.” She gave a shaky laugh. “What a foolish thing to say!”

  “Perhaps.” He moved closer, the gleam in his eyes warmer. “Nobody can know another, although some imagine they do. We are alone when we are born, and alone when we die.”

  “Such a comforting thought.” Since she was one of a set of triplets, Damaris belied that statement by merely existing.

  He spoke again, softly, almost intimately. “Most people seek company, most in a frantic way. I look up.”

  He felt the same way she did, then, finding solace in the firmament. He touched her arms and then released her, stepping back into the shadows. “Be strong. Do not let small-minded people control you.” The lightly accented voice reached to the heart of her, where her secrets were locked away from prying fingers. But he had discovered them.

  The notion made her smile as she nodded and turned. At least, she meant to turn. The toe of her shoe caught in a loose part of her hem, and she pitched forward. All she could do was cry out and stretch out her hands to break her fall. The sickening sense of losing her balance overtook her…

  …Only to halt, abruptly, as his powerful, velvet-clad arm lashed around her waist. He turned her as he lifted her. As if she were a rag doll, she let him do what he would. As her senses returned, she became aware of being exactly where she had wanted to be a few moments before; in his arms. Reaching up, she clutched his coat, unwittingly bringing his face closer.

  His lips brushed against hers.

  Damaris had kissed men before. Not many, it was true, in fact a sum total of two, neither occasion especially memorable.

  On the other hand, perhaps she had kissed none. Mr. Logan’s embrace removed all memory of any others, wiped out as if they had never existed. His mouth pressed warmly against hers, and she gasped.

  With an essentially masculine grunt, he pulled her closer and, for a bare instant, he flicked her tongue with his, gently contacting the very tip.

  What was she doing? Her senses spinning back, Damaris planted her hands against his powerful chest. His heart beat hard, once, before she shoved him away and stood, panting, facing him before she turned on her heel. This time, she took care to twitch the damaged hem out of her way.

  She heard him speak before she strode away. “That should not have happened, but do not ask me to regret it. I will see you again. Do not doubt it.”

  Damaris did not reply. She could not. She was trying too hard to keep hold of her dignity. How could she have been so stupid, so needy as to let a man she didn’t know kiss her?

  Damaris descended to the gravel–sprinkled garden path, gripping her skirts tightly. The small stones pressed sharply through the thin soles of her evening shoes, but she didn’t hesitate. She swept up the path and climbed the steps back to the door she had used to enter. There she hesitated. She should not sneak inside as if she had something to hide. The people inside would assume the worst, if she tried to conceal herself.

  She could still feel his lips pressed against hers. Their imprint was seared there but she could do little about that.

  Damaris followed the terrace until she reached the main entrance to the supper room, and there she tapped impatiently. A livery-clad footman blinked, and jerked his head around. Hastily he put his laden silver tray on a nearby table and after fumbling with the lock, turned the knob.

  Damaris swept past him, as grand as any other lady.

  Mr. Logan was right. She had nothing to be ashamed of. The people who looked down on her, they should be ashamed.

  “Where have you been?” Hard though it might be to hiss a sentence with no sibilants, Matilda Cathcart managed it. As the aunt of Damaris’ sister-in-law, she was no blood relation, but she had accepted the role of chaperone. Although of an age that put her firmly on the shelf, Matilda preferred not to hide discreetly in the background. She flaunted her presence with an abundance of clothes and jewels in the latest style, daring anyone to call her too old or vulgar. Society deemed Matilda “eccentric” and since she cared little for what people thought, she did very well. Better than either Damaris or her two sisters.

  “I went outside for some air,” Damaris said mildly. “And to try to mend my hem, see?” At least her accident could be fortunate. Twitching her gown, she revealed the dangling hem.

  Matilda tsked and dropped to her knees, swiftly lifting the petticoat and deftly securing it with a pin that had, seemingly, appeared from nowhere in her hand. She rose and faced Damaris.

  Matilda’s green eyes glittered as she turned her head and caught the reflection of hundreds of candles. “Well, come with me now. I’ve been cultivating Sir Peter for the last half-hour, and he longs to dance with you.”

  Damaris forced a polite smile. Bouncing on a parquet floor to some country dance that should have been dead and buried centuries ago was not her idea of an enjoyable activity. However, she would endure it, and strive to gain pleasure from it. She was not a repiner. At least someone wanted to dance with her.

  Sir Peter would help make the dance more palatable. They shared a passion for astronomy. Sir Peter’s interest in her was roused after he discovered her poring over a star map which had been framed as a picture in the house of a mutual acquaintance. Their conversation had led to a short correspondence, and now he was showing particular interest in her.

  Matilda was expecting a proposal, but Damaris was not so sure. Sharing an intellectual pursuit did not often lead to marriage. Although she could not deny Sir Peter’s good looks, or his affability, he never stirred her. Certainly not as much as that brief meeting in the garden had just done. Damaris felt jittery and disturbed, her heart still beating too fast, and her skin tingling from the kiss.

  The main room was considerably more crowded than when Damaris had left it. Matilda led her around the edge of the floor in a manner Damaris could never begin to emulate. The older lady appeared to roll on wheels. However hard she tried, Damaris could never move without disturbing her skirts.

  Sir Peter Brady stood on the far side, away from the windows. He wore brown tonight, the color of hot chocolate, the lace at his wrists and throat substituting for the froth. The buttons ranging down the front of his open coat and fastening his waistcoat were gold or pinchbeck, but considering Sir Peter’s wealth, the former was more likely. His cravat was tied to a nicety, precisely performing its function. His hand bore only one ring, the signet passed down from his father, or so he had informed her on a previous meeting.

  He had met the triplets for the first time at a Venetian breakfast, held at one of the grandest houses in London. Another ordeal Damaris had piloted her way through. Sir Peter had spent some time conversing civilly with the sisters, and paid particular attention to Damaris on that occasion. Her sisters teased her mercilessly about his interest in her later. She had discounted it. He was only being polite, she said. But here he was again. Her spirits rose. Perhaps they had gained an ally, someone to help them counter the forces mustered by Lady Elizabeth Askew.

  “I have brought Damaris for you,” Matilda said complacently as Damaris dipped into the obligatory curtsey.

  “I am enchanted.” He took her hand when she held it out to him, palm down, and bent to kiss the air above the white silk. “Would you join me in the next set?”

  Graciously, she agreed. Aware that Matilda was watching her closely, Damaris smiled as if dancing at a crowded ball were the greatest treat she could imagine. She could dance, and she proceeded to prove it,
demonstrating a facility no less than any of the other young ladies present. However, several people turned away rather than meet her gaze. Damaris had always prided herself on her rational turn of mind but, for now, it seemed to have deserted her. Where she’d been distressed before, she was furious now. She was just as good as anyone here. Why should she allow them to distress her?

  Glancing around when she turned, she sighed. “Problems?” Sir Peter murmured.

  She forced a bright smile. “Not at all. I’m enjoying myself immensely.”

  After changing partners, and taking a measure with several gentlemen who barely acknowledged her existence, she found herself back with Sir Peter. At least he looked her in the eye and appeared to recognize her right to be here.

  They moved away from the floor when the dance ended. “May I take you in to supper?” Sir Peter asked kindly.

  That was kind of him. It was not his fault that through the supper that followed she could not stop thinking about the mysterious Mr. Logan.

  Chapter Two

  Logan stepped through the doors of his club the day after the ball with a sense of well-being, adventure simmering through him. He had a pleasurable task ahead of him. He gripped a leather folder, containing the material he would need later.

  Of course his two comrades-in-arms were waiting for him.

  Grant McLennen, Duke of Blackridge, and Adam Glinn, Duke of Kilsyth, lazed by the fire. Both men wore fashionable attire, but their appearances didn’t fool Logan for a minute. He had seen them in far less auspicious circumstances. After the stag hunt last year, for instance, when they were muddied, bloody but ultimately triumphant. They hadn’t cared about their lace or their jewels then.

  Grant lifted a hand. “Here he is, the traitor.” Like his two colleagues, Grant had a pure English accent he used for the benefit of his peers, but also like them, he had a Scottish brogue in his repertoire. He used it now.

  An older man sitting nearby rattled his paper. All three men waited for him to say something, but he did not.

  “I’m no traitor!” Fascinated, Logan took the empty seat waiting for him and waited for Grant’s reasoning.

  “You claimed there was safety in numbers,” the man said gloomily.

  Adam burst into raucous laughter. “You didn’t believe that, did you?” Adam spent more time in London than his two friends. “This is the height of the matchmaking season, and we are showing our faces everywhere, thanks to your pleading.”

  Logan grinned. “I couldn’t face the ordeal on my own. Georgie deserves a good come-out, but all that primping and prancing tries my patience.” He had been desperate for company on this benighted trip. His sister’s come-out had gone well, but he knew he’d be a target for the matchmaking mamas, so he’d sought to confuse the trail by dangling two other dukes in their paths.

  Grant exchanged a glance with Adam. “I had to come anyway. I plan to make a bolt for Greenwich in the next week or so. Do you care to come?”

  Grant’s snug little house in Greenwich sounded like heaven. “Yes. Even if I can only spend a few nights.” He could not stay long, but he’d appreciate the break.

  He needed to find some steel and propose and right now it was looking like Lady Elizabeth Askew. If he did not marry soon, the title, the estate and all that went with it would go back to the crown after his death. And that would never do. Using Georgie’s come-out to search for a potential bride seemed expedient, but he was glad of his friends’ company.

  He was finding the task very, very difficult. Between himself and the lovely Lady Elizabeth lay exactly nothing. No arousal, no spark, even though he’d tried and she hadn’t been unwilling to share a kiss or two. His mother had recommended her. She was gracious, beautiful and intelligent, as well as being the daughter of a duke herself. She’d been bred to occupy the position Logan could offer her. But not the position in his bed. He was sorry for it, but there it was. If necessary, he could console himself elsewhere, she had already made that delicately clear. But he didn’t want that for his marriage. He wanted a partner in all things.

  But if not her, then he had to find someone else. He needed heirs, and that was all there was to it.

  He would not mention her name in this room. Men gossiped as avidly as any fishwife. The gentlemen sitting nearby, ostensibly reading their newspapers or conversing, were listening as intently as they could.

  Neither would he mention Lady Damaris. That would be begging to have her name linked with his in the betting book. Although, in truth, Logan could not stop bringing her to mind, or that kiss exchanged in the moonlight.

  Grant grimaced. “I didn’t think the frenzy would be quite this bad. I assumed London had its fair share of dukes.” This was Grant’s first experience with the matchmaking season. Usually, when they came to town, they avoided the ballrooms, routs and musicales that were the matchmakers’ principal hunting grounds, but with Logan’s sister’s come-out, that was impossible.

  Logan threw his head back and hooted with laughter. “You are joking, surely. You’ve been to London before.”

  Grant growled low in his throat. His burly figure dwarfed the chair he was using. The chair creaked.

  Logan raised his voice. “I’ll have a guinea on that wager. Left rear leg, three minutes.”

  “How did you know what we were doing?” A man in a group of half a dozen grinned unabashedly when Logan turned his attention to him.

  “It’s happened before,” one of them said, a slender man in a blue coat. “Blackridge here is a giant, a full six foot four standing, and powerful with it. He’s broken chairs across the whole of Scotland, or so I heard.”

  Grant shot them a darkling glare when they dared laugh. “I could take that as an insult.”

  “You’ve never done that before.” Flicking back the lace at his cuffs, Adam picked up his wine glass.

  A sharp crack brought his attention back to Grant. Reluctantly, the peer stood and regarded the chair. Equally reluctantly, Logan picked a guinea from his pocket and flicked it to the group seated nearby. The golden arc was abruptly curtailed as a man plucked it out of the air. “Left front.” Logan grimaced.

  Coins chinked as they changed hands. A man in deep pink laced with gold appeared to have won the wager.

  A fresh chair arrived for Grant, carried by a porter who appeared to be as broad as he was tall. Grant eyed him speculatively. “Do you box?”

  The man blinked and his thick brows rose. “No, your grace, I do not.”

  “Pity.” There weren’t many who could face Grant in a fight, but this man looked as if he could take him on. A gentlemanly bout, of course, with side bets, conducted in a boxing saloon, or maybe a nice patch of greenery just outside London.

  Gingerly, Grant took his seat, but this chair was sturdier than the last, and took his considerable weight. Grant was not a man overburdened with avoirdupois, but he was tall, and powerful with it.

  Logan regarded his friends with affection. Without them, this trip would have been unbearable. He asked the question he’d come for. “Where did you two get to last night? Did I miss anything?”

  Adam and Grant exchanged a glance. “I don’t know,” Adam said. “Did you?”

  Logan sighed. Adam rarely gave a straight answer to a straight question. He only did it when it suited him. “I went outside for some air, came back and you were gone.”

  Grant shrugged. “We went to White’s. You disappeared. I assumed you had a tryst.” He raised an eyebrow.

  Logan refused to rise to the bait. “No tryst.” He got to his feet. “I can’t stay, I have an appointment. I dropped in on my way past.”

  “Oho!” Adam winked. “What’s her name?”

  “The Royal Society.” Logan’s mouth quirked at the expression on his friend’s face. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  Adam shrugged. “Next time, maybe. I will find you out, Glenbreck.”

  When Adam used his title like that, it was usually a sign that he was preparing to be his most ducal. Of the t
hree of them, he could act the duke most effectively. Perhaps because he’d been the duke for most of his life, whereas both Logan and Grant remembered their fathers. More’s the pity, in Logan’s case.

  Grant winked. “So you’re going to your precious society.”

  Logan frowned. “Yes, a committee meeting, but Lord Macclesfield wanted a private word with me beforehand. I have no idea why.”

  Adam lifted his quizzing glass and breathed on it, polishing it with his handkerchief. “Perhaps they want to give you an honor, dear boy.”

  That was what Logan thought, but he couldn’t understand why. The work he’d done was mainly in his notebooks, not yet in publishable state. He had published a few papers in the journal, but nothing too remarkable. He had his own niche and he preferred to stay within it. He would have to go. “Are you attending Lady Jordan’s tonight?”

  “Are we going everywhere together, like orphaned children?” Adam demanded.

  Recalling the lines of drably-clad orphans who trailed around London at certain times of the day, Logan smiled. “You would look magnificent in a brown cloak and conical hat.”

  Adam smoothed away an imaginary fleck of dust from his wide cuff. “I know.”

  Logan left the club laughing. He hailed a sedan chair to take him to the current headquarters of the Royal Society, situated in one of the small courts off Fleet Street.

  After climbing into the small space, the chairmen hoisted him up and set off at a good trot. He had chosen well, as the men were well in step with one another, which made his journey more comfortable than it might otherwise have been. The journey took twenty minutes, as Logan verified when his pocket watch chimed the half-hour just as they stopped.

  Plenty of time for him to put his encounter last night firmly out of his mind. As far as he could tell, love was a curse and he would do well to remember that. Logan would never allow a woman to control his life. His mother’s grief-stricken response after his father’s death had influenced his decision and he refused to change it now. He was set on a rational wife, one who would be a partner rather than a soul mate. But he would enjoy a little mutual passion making the heirs he needed. Lady Elizabeth gave him nothing in that department.