The little circular side tables held tumblers, one empty, one with a generous dose of amber liquid gleaming within. As Damaris took her seat, a glint from the sun illuminated the glass. The shot of golden light drew her attention to what lay on the table.
Perhaps she should not have picked up the folder and opened it, but once she had, the contents drew her in.
As she flipped the pages rapidly, she realized what she was looking at. She went back to the beginning. Half the articles she knew well, but the notes, scribbled in a hand she could only just decipher, drew her in. He—because it had to be a male in this place—had an incisive manner. Question marks drew her to parts of the piece she needed to explain more fully, underlined passages had her re-thinking her theories, and the occasional “Good!” in the margins had her glowing with pride.
The other pieces had been written by Sir Peter Brady. The notes on those were far less frequent. Did that mean he was doing better work? A closer perusal reassured her. Sir Peter mainly reiterated what others had said, and tried to draw the old theories together to reinforce commonly held ideas. Grinding work, and by no means interesting. She should not be hard on him. It was not his fault that she felt no more for him than mere liking. Before last night, that would have been enough. Now she was not so sure.
The folder kept her from going mad while they waited, so she chose to ignore Matilda’s halfhearted murmurs of, “You should really not do that.”
“If they had meant the folder to be private, they would not have left it in the open.” She wasn’t at all certain about that, but nobody had told her not to.
Matilda tapped her foot against the floorboards, the sound irritable and impatient. “Do you think they intend to leave us in this room until we grow bored and leave?”
Damaris glanced up. Matilda had her watch in her hand, the lid up. “We’ve not been here long, surely.”
“It’s been half an hour. You become totally engrossed when you’re busy with your numbers.”
Damaris shrugged and went back to the papers.
Finally, the door opened and the man who had let them in, sighed and said, “Since Mr. Singer is not present, they couldn’t discuss with him what they wanted to. They would prefer to see him in person another day.” He gave them a perfunctory bow. “I’ll show you out.”
Desperate disappointment made Damaris’ stomach sink.
Matilda sniffed and got to her feet, smoothing her skirts with a steady hand. “You didn’t even offer us refreshment.” She picked up her gloves and reached for her hat.
Damaris was still wearing her hat, although she had doffed her gloves. She vaguely remembered them getting in the way when she tried to turn a page. Closing the folder, she stood. “I will see the committee,” she said, as if she were honoring the gentlemen. “I am D. Singer.”
The man made a scoffing noise. “I think not.” He sniffed, his wide nose effectively conveying his contempt.
“I am willing to prove it.” She glanced at Matilda, trying to convey a silent message. Her duenna raised one penciled brow. She dropped her hat, and when the man bent to help her, let her gloves fall, too.
Damaris didn’t waste any time quitting the room. She had come here as a visitor a time or two, ostensibly to view the curiosities, but she was not unobservant when it suited her. Peering through a half-opened door one time, she’d seen a spacious room with a long table dominating the center and portraits of eminent gentlemen on the walls. She would bet good money that was where they were meeting. Picking up her skirts, she hurried along the narrow corridor, not pausing to examine the engravings of the firmament that hung on the walls. Somehow, she still held the leather folder.
She rapped on the door sharply, but she didn’t wait for an answer. After barreling through, she came to an abrupt halt.
The room was full of men, all staring at her. Behind her, the man who had vainly tried to stop her blustered, “My lords, gentlemen, your grace… she got past me. I’m sorry. I’ll deal with the woman directly.”
In a flurry of silk, she turned to face him. “That you will not. Lay one hand on me and I will call the watch and lay a complaint.” She had not grown up on the busy, sometimes dangerous streets of London to no purpose.
She stared him out. To her satisfaction, he didn’t come any further inside the room. When Matilda elbowed him aside, he looked defeated. Abandoning fashion, Matilda had jammed her hat on her head and gripped her gloves in one hand. Matilda had her priorities right, and her first duty was to care for her charge. “Gentlemen, this is Lady Damaris Dersingham. She has an announcement to make.”
“Indeed, I do,” Damaris said, chin high, knowing that if she did not seize the moment, she would lose it. “I am the person you are discussing. I’m D. Singer and I wrote all those articles you were so kind to contact me about.”
Although she had lost her train of thought and ended the sentence with a confused collection of words, the gentlemen seemed to get her drift. At the head of the table sat a man she recognized as Lord Macclesfield, the president of the Royal Society. Taken aback by finding herself in his presence, she halted in her outpouring of words. She had meant to get everything out before they ejected her, but her words had tangled up. She couldn’t say anything more until she got her senses back.
That was when she saw him. Larger than life, the man who had kissed her at the ball last night sat watching her, his dark eyes betraying nothing. Mr. Logan.
Chapter Three
Damaris closed her eyes. She wanted to die, or better still, for the floor to open up and suck her down.
When she dared to open her eyes, she did it in full knowledge that she would meet his gaze. There he was, oblivious to the fuss going on, staring at her across the table. The link between them snapped into place. He sat completely still. If anyone had come between them at that moment, she’d have struck him.
She was only dimly aware of the cacophony her outburst had caused. He kept her gaze, as if she were the only person in the room, the only one who mattered. His eyes widened fractionally, and a muscle at the corner of his mouth twitched. If she had not been watching him so closely, she wouldn’t have noticed.
Then he nodded briskly, breaking the contact that was as intimate as anything they had shared. Even that kiss.
She shivered. The memory of their encounter in the garden returned as if freshly minted. Their intimacy in the midst of a room filled with men she’d never met was both unbearably embarrassing and arousing. The tiny hairs on her arms stood on end, creating an itchy prickle of awareness.
“You have met his grace?” Lord Macclesfield said.
She looked around. There were no dukes at the table, so why had his lordship said that? “I-I’m sorry, I don’t understand you.”
“His grace, the Duke of Glenbreck,” Lord Macclesfield said, as if explaining something to a child.
Before she could speak again, Mr. Logan got to his feet and bowed to her. “I had the pleasure of making the lady’s acquaintance last night. I was not, at the time, thinking of her membership in the Royal Society. Indeed, I was completely unaware of the identity of D. Singer until this moment.”
Then that made two of them because, until now, Damaris had been completely unaware that humble Mr. Logan was in reality a duke. Why had he done that? To laugh at her? His deception was outrageous. If he’d told her who he was, she would have immediately known that he was a prominent member of the Royal Society. She’d read his articles, and admired his work. If only the man matched the work in integrity and truth.
By her side, Matilda remained stock-still, her cheeks red beneath the powder.
A veil fell between the duke and Damaris, as palpable as if it truly existed. “Lady Damaris,” he said, his hard voice ringing around the room as his colleagues fell silent. “Do you have any proof that you are D. Singer?”
Staring around at the ring of faces, she knew she had little chance. Surprise and instinctive protest had given way to suspicion and hostility. She’d gone
about this the wrong way. But there was not a right way. But she had to pull this around. It was her one and only chance to fulfill her lifetime’s ambition.
“Test me,” she said. “Ask me about my discipline.”
Lord Macclesfield leaned back, folding his hands over his ample belly. “Tell us how you managed to do this. Do you have a brother, or an uncle, maybe, who wishes entry and sent you as his ambassador?”
She shook her head. “I have a brother, but his interests lie elsewhere. I am the only member of my family interested enough in the heavens to make a study of them. The articles you kindly published are all my own work.” Now, she sounded like a child assuring her tutor she had not had any help with an essay. She hated herself for it. Lifting her chin, she folded her hands, trying to stop them shaking.
“Describe the night sky, starting with Andromeda,” the duke rapped out.
That was unfair of him. Taken completely off balance by his words, she glared at him. She had to make a supreme effort to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes and the lump to her throat. “A-Andromeda,” she said, as if she’d never heard of it before. Last night, she’d shared her passion with him. Now he wanted her to declare it in public.
She could do it. This man would not defeat her.
She could do this in her sleep. She’d spent so many hours studying star maps, and reading all the books she could find on the subject. She could describe the night sky, the constellations and the other bodies, and their angle to where she was standing to a nicety for every month of the year.
Except, it appeared, for May. She plunged into the description before she had the picture in her mind and, consequently, she had to go back, acknowledge her mistakes and start again. Her brain had frozen, and she could not thaw it enough to discover the information she needed.
On the third attempt, Lord Macclesfield held up a hand to stop her. “I think we’ve heard enough,” he said, his voice so kind that Damaris wanted to hit him. “Madam, we admire your loyalty, and your bravery in coming here today, but we would prefer to hear from the man himself. Women do not have the right cast of mind for such detailed calculations as the proper study of the sky demands.”
“They do!”
Her breathing quickened as Lord Macclesfield continued. “Women are helpmeets, and beloved companions.” His kind, condescending tone infuriated her. He paused and she looked into his face. His lordship’s expression had changed slightly, softened, even. “The members of the weaker sex are invaluable, but do not fare well in the scientific world. It can only be that their minds are not made for profound and detailed study. As you have just so amply proved.”
“I cannot agree.”
His mouth tightened. “My lady, your agreement is not necessary to the facts. I have no idea why Mr. Singer is not available today, but please tell him that we would appreciate a meeting with him at his convenience.”
“You’re looking at him!” And finally, her knowledge came roaring back as if someone had opened a door to an incoming tide. “Andromeda is in the southern quadrant of the sky, if the observer is facing south in the northern hemisphere. In May, it is past its time of best visibility, but it can still be seen. It is in the shape of—”
Maddening, the way his lordship held up his hand. The other members were watching, some in rapt fascination, and others, like the Duke of Glenbreck, stony-faced. If she blustered on, they might have her removed. That would ruin any chance she had in society, because word would get around like wildfire. She’d be labeled mad, not merely eccentric.
What she really needed was an ally, someone from a powerful family with a great deal of influence; someone to counter the people who were calling them upstarts and worse.
“Madam, I am sure you have a basic knowledge of the heavens,” Macclesfield said now. “If you have been talking to Mr. Singer, then some of the brilliance in his articles may well have rubbed off on you. I do not doubt your intelligence, or your eagerness to please your benefactor. However, we would rather talk to him. In any case,” he went on with an indulgent smile, “women cannot join the Royal Society.”
“Why not?” she demanded before she could put a guard on what she was saying. “I have read the rules and there is nothing that explicitly bars them from membership. Women are rational and intelligent creatures. Surely, if a brilliant mind was in a female body, you would not deny her?”
“It would not be fair to her or her family to drag her into a world where she patently did not belong,” Lord Macclesfield said. His watch chimed, followed by the large clock at the back of the room. Several echoes tinkled as other pocket watches marked the hour. The sound was melodic, although it did nothing to soothe Damaris.
She had wrecked her chance. Her lifelong ambition was to join the Royal Society.
Matilda cleared her throat meaningfully. Damaris could see nothing more than her chaperone’s hands and her skirts without turning her head, as she had moved closer to the board in her passionate appeal. However, she did not have to see the older lady’s face to know what she meant. Damaris was fully aware that when she became passionate over her chosen topic of study, she could go beyond the socially acceptable, and become voluble and argumentative. Normally, she wouldn’t give a pin for that, but Matilda was reminding her.
Live to fight another day. If Damaris continued in this way, not only would the Society refuse to consider her or any other woman for membership, they’d put a new rule in their book to exclude any members of the female sex. She would wreck the chance for any woman who came after her.
Reminding them that their rules did not omit women was the best way to persuade them to change that.
She subsided. “I can provide you with all the proof you need, gentlemen,” she said, emphasizing the last word. Her senses had returned, but they would do her no good now. The most she could do was get out of here in one piece and try again.
She should have known better.
She tossed the leather folder onto the table as if it meant nothing. “I would be interested to know,” she said, “why you are giving membership to a man who, in the words of whoever wrote this, ‘has a mediocre mind’. It seems to me, gentlemen, that you are becoming an organization devoted to the mediocre. I am not mediocre. With your help, I could have pushed our studies ahead of the others trying to depict the transit of Venus. I don’t have to tell you how important that discovery will be to the world. Imagine the funds that would come your way. Imagine the prestige the world would be forced to give to the Royal Society. You have thrown that away today.” She dropped a curtsey, too humble to be anything but ironic. “Your grace, my lords, gentlemen, I wish you good day.”
She left, Matilda sweeping in her wake. If she had not left, they would have thrown her out.
Once back home, Damaris indulged herself in a hearty bout of tears and a pot of tea. She began to feel better. Her sisters and Matilda went out on a round of visits without her, so Damaris went to the study and got out her notes.
Eventually, the stars drew her back. She grew deeply immersed in calculations. They would always take her away from her worries. Her love for astronomy was constant. Not the beauty of the night sky, or the raging curiosity that had seized her the moment she had realized the immensity of what she was looking at, but the minutiae, the way the numbers painted the picture for her, and told her so much more.
She was about to ring for another pot of tea when the doorbell jangled. The ponderous footsteps of their butler crossed the floor and male voices murmured. Then a tap came on the door of the study. “Come!” she said, without looking up.
“My lady,” Watson said, but another voice interrupted him.
“Give us a moment,” he said.
Her head jerked up so fast she ricked her neck. A sharp pain lanced through her head and she winced. “No,” she said sharply, driven by the sting. “Absolutely not. I’m on my own,” she added, clutching at straws.
“Leave the door open then.” At his most aristocratic, resplendent in b
lue twilled silk, the Duke of Glenbreck strode past the hapless manservant into the room. Not a trace of the brogue that had bewitched her remained in the lordly tones. “I will do nothing to compromise her ladyship.” Turning, he glared at the butler who lifted his chin and met his grace’s eyes. But not for long. The duke folded his arms over his broad chest.
A telltale folder dangled from one hand in a loose grip.
She wanted to scream at him, to remonstrate and cry and she was so furious she could spit. Yes, she’d appreciate a private interview so she could vent all that. He deserved to hear. “Leave us, Watson.” There was nobody else in the hall, so the only person she would have to deal with was the butler. He would not gossip, if she had to give him a quarter’s pin money to ensure his silence.
Glenbreck stayed where he was, not looking at her, until the servant left. Then he laid the folder down on the desk.
“I’m sorry they rejected your membership,” he said softly.
“I’m sure you have nothing to apologize for, your grace,” she said, equally quietly, keeping the smile fixed on her face. “Dukes never do, do they?”
That low laugh came. “I have much to apologize for,” he said. “I would like the opportunity to explain.”
She stuck her nose in the air. “Indeed, sir, why should you wish to do such a thing?”
He sucked in a breath. “I appreciate your honesty. If, at the end of this conversation, you prefer to keep your distance, I will naturally respect your wishes.”
“Why did you let me call you Mr. Logan?” she demanded.
“Because I wanted to hear it on your delectable lips. My true surname is MacIver.” He waved a hand vaguely. “Logan is my first name.”
Furious, she was in no mind to listen to explanations. “Do you wish to ruin me? Will you tell everyone what I did? Is that it? Do you wish to make a fool of me?” Was he part of the faction that wished to eject Damaris and her family from polite society? No doubt about it, she was the greatest idiot in nature. “You are a friend of Lady Elizabeth Askew’s, are you not? Did she send you to shame me?” Of course she had, and Damaris had fallen right into her trap.
A Hint of Starlight Page 4
