A Hint of Starlight

by Connolly, Lynne

  “I should have thought more clearly before I said I would marry you.”

  “No, my dear. We have much in common, and truly, I could not have found a better partner to share my life with.”

  She swept out her hand, inevitably knocking her over-full cup and spilling the coffee over the crisp, white linen tablecloth. With an exclamation of dismay, she leaped to her feet and grabbed a napkin, dropping it over the stain.

  He could not pretend he was sorry for the distraction. With the excuse of calling for a maid, he left the room.

  An hour later, he left the house and swung on his horse, nodding to his groom who would be his only companion on this trip. By the time he got back, they would have got over this awkward phase, and could enter on true married life. All he had to do was give it some time.

  When he reached the first hill, he paused and looked back. He would miss her, even for this short time.

  But that was normal, was it not?

  Damaris felt guilty for the sense of relief that filled her when he left. The nights he’d spent with her, or rather, the half-hours, smacked of duty. If that was all she had learned to expect, then she would have been content, but he had shown her so much more.

  She had no idea what to do, or who to talk to about her dilemma. Her family was so far away and she dared not put her problems into a letter. She badly wanted to speak to her sisters. But she could not and every day she grew lonelier.

  Her day was falling into a routine. She would visit her housekeeper, not surprisingly called Mrs. McKinney, before she took a little exercise outside. The pretty garden gave her some fresh air, but soon she would take a gig and visit the neighbors, return the bride-visits, when they’d exchange polite nothings over tea and bread-and-butter. Although this part of the country was new to her, she understood what was expected of a new wife. If she was to be disappointed in her personal life, she would make her public one exemplary. She should wait until Logan returned to pay the visits, but the absence of something to do left her restless and needy.

  At least she could use the observatory without being afraid that Logan would happen in on her, wreck her concentration and distress her all over again with his presence. When he was nearby, her heart still quickened its pace and her senses grew alive. However hard she tried, she could not stop that happening, so perhaps while he was away she could school herself better.

  Late that night, after she’d consumed her solitary supper and made her way upstairs, she threw on a loose robe and went to the observatory. There, she lost herself for a blissful few hours. She resumed the corrections to her calculations, a task made blissfully easy thanks to the excellence of the equipment she now had at her disposal. The telescope she’d had since she was a girl resided untouched in her trunk. She’d had no reason to unpack it. She had a new maid now, having left Murray behind. In any case, London servants did not like to go far. Her new maid was from Yorkshire, but was willing to travel, and she was clever with hair. That was all Damaris knew about her, and all she cared to know. Her curiosity was now entirely planted in her studies, and it would stay that way. She would put all her passion there as well. Even if nobody listened to her, or took notice of her studies, she would have the satisfaction of knowing that she was right.

  She sat heavily in the chair in front of the big table where books and papers were neatly stacked. Drawing a blank piece of paper forward, Damaris dipped the pen in the inkwell and began to write, outlining the details of her work and her new discoveries. If all else failed, she would go back to her pen name and pay to have her findings published.

  She had no idea how long she wrote for, but dawn was peeping through the windows and she’d had to scrape the last of the ink out to finish the last sentence before she looked up. Charts and details were neatly delineated. She had discovered her error, and corrected it, so her calculations went much more smoothly.

  Calm seeped through her as she worked. She had found her answer. If she continued to labor over her studies, she would find the same satisfaction she always had. So what if she had new duties to fulfill? They were not beyond her capabilities. Despite the risk of finding her husband here on occasion, she would claim her place. He’d given her a key, so she would use it.

  At least her decision made her calmer. As she was leaving, she swept up the journal from the Royal Society that she had not yet read, the one that had arrived today—yesterday, that was, she amended, glancing out of the window. She would read it in bed and tell her maid not to disturb her too early in the morning.

  Having discarded her robe and climbed into bed, Damaris flicked through the articles, enjoying the studies and the promise of more. That was, until she reached one article. She read through it, her anger building. Then she read it through again to make sure she’d got it right.

  Apparently, a public meeting was arranged, in which Sir Peter Brady would outline his revolutionary theories regarding the transit of Venus. She read the announcement a third time. Yes, it said Sir Peter, the man with no original ideas in his head, who planned to use his knowledge of astronomy to buy his way to a better title. From what she had seen of his work, he had little hope of that. The meeting was being held at an odd time of year, at the end of the season, when many people would have left town already.

  The article outlined a few figures, a temptation for attendees. He appeared to be outlining a different trajectory to the one most scholars preferred.

  She knew those figures. Bending closer, she concentrated on the figures. And the light from the window was enough for her to make out the tiny numbers printed on the chart beneath the announcement.

  They were her numbers. A chill went through her. How had he obtained those? They were not numbers she had published anywhere. They existed only in her private files and notes. It was impossible that he had come to the same conclusions, because one of the numbers was wrong. She’d only corrected it tonight.

  A flaw in the glass of the lens of her original telescope had led her to record the wrong numbers. Although she had checked, the fault in her equipment had led her to make the same mistake. As she’d worked on the figures, she’d become certain that she’d made a mistake, so she had tried again, and recorded a new set. One figure had led to an incorrect conclusion on the next, and her error had proved cumulative, leading to an incorrect conclusion. The journal had printed the original number, the first incorrect one. The number was too precise to be a coincidence, unless Sir Peter had the exact telescope that Damaris owned, with the exact same flaw in the lens.

  That meant Sir Peter had seen her numbers. It also meant that he had obtained them after her original article which had been published and before she had corrected her figures.

  Sitting up in her lonely bed, Damaris and her mind moved back in time to when Sir Peter was courting her. He had visited the house several times and although she had been careful to put her work away, she had not locked it up. Why should she?

  One time, he’d visited her in the study. That was the day Logan had visited her, and kissed her. She’d been flustered from his attentions and Sir Peter had visited her shortly after.

  She had lost a set of figures, she remembered it now. She had assumed that the maid had thrown it away, or that she had mislaid it. She’d always made copies of her work, so she had just shrugged at the loss.

  Damaris had not mislaid the figures. Sir Peter had stolen them.

  Fury rose in a rush to swamp her in anger. How dare he profit from her figures? More than that, his work could put the studies for the transit of Venus back years. Scholars would have to refute them, and waste their time instead of working on the real numbers. She could not allow it. It must not happen. But Lord Macclesfield was toadying Sir Peter, on account of his generous donations. He’d compel the Society to accept his figures.

  She glanced at the journal, checking the date of the forthcoming meeting. Any letter she sent would not arrive in time. In any case, they would probably not believe her. She would have to be there to handle a
ll their queries in person and to show why her figures were the correct ones. If she waited until her husband returned—no, there was only one course she could take to be sure of any success. If she waited for her husband to return home, she would miss her chance.

  Throwing back the covers, Damaris sprang out of bed and called for her maid.

  Logan sat at the table in the main room of the house where the father of his oldest friend had died. Callum had appeared resigned to the inevitable, as the old man had been ailing for some time, but that did not stop sorrow invading the household. “Do you want me to stay?” he asked his friend.

  Callum had moved on with his life, as his father had not. Callum, a talented scientist, was involved in engineering work, but he never failed to confirm his background as the son of a poor crofter. He had taught Logan a lot, not least was that worth resides in the person, not his birth. Not that he would have repeated that in a London drawing room. They would laugh him to scorn.

  But Callum was quite brilliant. Despite his origins, he would go far. Logan was his sponsor, but their relationship was far more than that. Their friendship ran deep and went back a long way. They were of an age, but while Logan was taller than his contemporaries, Callum was shorter and more slender, his appearance belying his talents. But in the lecture theater, he reigned supreme.

  “You need to get back to your wife. You’ve attended the wake and the burial. It appears to me that you were putting off your return,” Callum said.

  Logan shrugged and lifted his tankard, more to hide his reaction to Callum’s perceptive remark than because he needed more ale. “Nonsense. I made the right choice in my bride, and I’m happy with her.”

  Callum continued to give his unwanted opinion, but then he always did. Logan usually appreciated him for that, but not this time. “You love her.”

  “What?” Logan slammed the mug down on the table.

  Callum didn’t appear in the least concerned by Logan’s anger. “You heard me. You’ve missed her and do not pretend to me that you have not. She’s under your skin, part of you. When you talk about her, you get a faraway look and your voice softens. You want to please her, and you think of her before you think of yourself. All the time we’ve been here, you’ve talked about her.”

  Shock ran through him. Had he really? Yes, perhaps he had told them what Damaris would like, and her opinions on a few small matters, but nothing else. Surely any newly married husband spoke that way. “Is that all?” Logan infused his tones with as much scorn as he could manage.

  “No. I love my Jennie, so I know. Don’t try to fool another man in love. Why did you not bring your wife with you? Are you ashamed of us? She could have kept Jennie company during the funeral.”

  Women did not generally attend funerals, so Callum’s wife had remained at home while the service and burial took place with only her prayer book for company.

  Logan rubbed his chin, the stubble rasping his palm. “I told her this was a croft.”

  “I should take offense at that.” Callum deliberately gazed around the comfortable dining room, part of a comfortable dwelling he’d insisted on buying his father. “But since I know you, I won’t. If you’ve parted with her angry, it’s time you put that to rights. Then bring her back here, because I want to meet the woman who put the great Duke of Glenbreck in his place.”

  “You’re wrong about the loving part.” He had to put his friend right about that.

  “No, I’m not. It doesn’t matter if your mind hasn’t caught up with your heart yet. You love her. I’ve never seen you so taken over a woman.”

  Taken was one thing, love entirely another. Wasn’t it?

  “Think about this. What if you got home and, God forbid, you found that she’d taken a fever and died? Would you miss her as you would a friend, or would you be destroyed by the loss?”

  “But she’s not—” Logan broke off as the impact of Callum’s words hit home. A wave of pure misery overtook him, sweeping away everything but the truth.

  Chatty Callum was still talking. Where were all the stoic Highlanders when a man needed them? “You need to go home and tell her. Love isn’t something you can control, it just exists. Wait until your firstborn is put into your hands. You’ll recognize that as love the minute it happens, and love is love, whoever you feel it for. Go home, Logan, and thank you for coming to see my father.”

  Typical. Callum had always been the person to bring him to reality. Their paths in life had diverged, but even if they did not see one another for years at a time, the minute they sat down together, they could carry on where they’d left off the last time they’d met.

  And, yes, he was right. No matter what Logan called it, what he felt for his wife was love. Sheer stubbornness and a failure to see the truth had brought him to this pass. Time he told her.

  Logan was on the road in an hour. He’d been away a week, longer than the few days he’d planned, even though the old man had died the day after he arrived. He could have returned home and brought Damaris back, or sent word, but he had not. In his stupid blindness, he’d imagined that the separation would cool his ardor. It had not and now he knew why.

  He’d even woken up some nights reaching for her, even though they had spent barely three nights in the same bed.

  Used to dealing with plain facts, Logan went over what he had missed. His growing attraction for her, and the need to protect and care for her from the moment they’d met in that shadowy garden. The way she had enchanted him, and fascinated him with her intelligence. Lust did not account for all those, although he had plenty of that, as well.

  All along, she’d been right. It had taken the tranquility of a Scottish mansion and the good sense of an old friend to drive the truth home to him, but his eyes were opened now.

  He had a lot of making up to do.

  Logan arrived home to chaos.

  Entering the castle through the side door, he was mildly surprised to find a maid scurrying across the stone flags with an armful of linen. She curtseyed, almost dropping the teetering pile on the floor. The housekeeper would have been most displeased if she had done that. She rose, and would have hurried off if she had not heard Logan stopping her with a, “Wait.”

  The woman bowed her head and stood silently.

  “I detect a different atmosphere to the one I left. Would you have an explanation for this?”

  “Your grace, I’m only obeying orders. Mrs. McKinney told me to air all the beds while you and her grace are away from home.” She gabbled the words so quickly Logan nearly missed their intent.

  “Where is her grace?”

  “Please, your grace. I don’t know, your grace, but her grace left yesterday.”

  Finally, Logan took pity on the girl and went to find someone who could give him a more coherent account of what had been happening since he left.

  Having no compunction in venturing into the servants’ quarters, Logan found his butler in the strong room, polishing the silver as if his life depended on it. McKinney reached for his coat but Logan waved him down. After all, he had entered the house in his muddy riding habit and even muddier boots. Too eager to return to his wife, he had not bothered taking shelter during the downpour that had hit him partway home.

  “Where is my wife?”

  McKinney’s chest expanded as he took a deep breath. “Your grace, it’s like this. Her grace got in a pet and said she was wanted in London immediately. I suggested, reasonably, that she should wait for you to return and when she said she couldn’t, I offered to send a message.”

  “And where is that message?” Cold fingers crept down Logan’s spine. What had happened? Had the servants upset her or insulted her in some way? Whoever did it, he would have their head on a platter.

  “It must be on the way, sir.” MacKinney was most unlike his usual, collected self. Logan had never seen him so agitated. What hair he had left was ruffled as if he had run his fingers through it repeatedly and his neckcloth was decidedly askew.

  “So you’r
e polishing the silver?”

  “It helps me think.”

  “Take a deep breath. Tell me from the beginning.”

  At the end of ten minutes, Logan was in possession of the facts. Yesterday, his wife had insisted on the yacht being made ready. She had left on the first tide. That meant she would be in London in five days. What he didn’t yet know, was why she had left so precipitately.

  He did not discover that until he went upstairs to his room. His valet handed him a note. “Her grace instructed that I give this to nobody but you.”

  Glancing at his man’s imperturbable features, Logan broke the seal.

  My dear husband,

  I am forced to hurry to town. There is a special meeting of the Royal Society to be held next week which I must attend. Sir Peter Brady is to speak there, and not to put too fine a point upon the matter, he will be using figures that are not only incorrect, but they were purloined from my brother’s house. Time is of the essence, so I am taking the yacht. I will not return to Scotland unless you wish me to. I cannot expect a welcome from you, I know, but one day you might find yourself able to forgive me.

  I still love you,

  Damaris.

  He closed his eyes, swallowing his reaction to the last sentence. As the meaning of the words seeped in, his anger simmered and settled. Thank heaven she’d taken the yacht, because the road was rough and a woman alone, even traveling in state, would not have remained unmolested. As it was, the journey from the docks to his London house could be dangerous. If any of his servants allowed harm to come to her, he’d throttle them with his bare hands.

  “Did she take any servants?”

  “She took her maid, sir, and I ensured a couple of our largest footmen accompanied her. I gave orders that they not leave her until she reached the safety of your London house.”

  Logan jerked a nod. “Good man. Then you know what I will say, will you not?”