Starlight & Promises

by Cat Lindler

  “Tasmania? How wonderful.” Samantha stretched out a hand. “Let me see it.”

  “Not until you change. From the looks of the hall, I believe you have brought the entire bog into the foyer.”

  Samantha fled up the stairs, deposited Albert and the grass snake—who had yet to inspire her with a name—with the rest of her reptile collection, threw off her muddy clothing, and pulled on a day dress. Tugging on the waist of her dress to center the seam over her hips, she stepped over to the cheval mirror.

  With her butterscotch hair straggling down her back and about her shoulders and the hectic flush in her cheeks, she looked younger than a twenty-year-old spinster. She laughed at the turn of her thoughts, her golden eyes sparkling back at her in the mirror. Tripping out of the room and back down the stairs, excitement bubbling up inside her, she sped into the drawing room.

  Richard in Tasmania. How delicious!

  “Smilodon,” Samantha breathed and hugged the letter to her chest. She read it again and broke into laughter, spinning around the room, her skirts flinging papers from the desk to the floor.

  “Lady Samantha Eugenia Colchester! That is no way for a proper lady to behave in the drawing room.” Delia’s booming voice seemed out of proportion to the round, diminutive figure from which it issued.

  Samantha stopped, swaying dizzily for a moment, and faced her critic. She beamed and waved the letter in the air. “Something wonderful has happened. Uncle Richard has found a Smilodon!”

  “That’s nice,” Lady Delia said with a distracted air. “Have you seen my sewing box?” She hustled from corner to corner, peering behind Empire divans and wingback chairs.

  Samantha’s brows dipped downward. “Auntie, this is a monumental discovery. Perhaps the most important in hundreds of years. Simply think of it. A living Smilodon.”

  Delia straightened up from where she had bent over a Tudor chest in the corner. “For heaven’s sake, girl, what is a Smilodon?” she asked, as if Samantha spoke in Swahili.

  “‘Tis a large cat about the size of a lion.” She raised her arm to waist level.

  Delia sniffed, tiny hands resting on her plump hips. “Then I am sure I saw one at the zoo. The London Zoo is world famous. It has every animal imaginable.”

  “No. You don’t understand.” Samantha laughed again. “The Smilodon is a saber-toothed tiger. It has been extinct for over ten thousand years.”

  Delia tapped a finger on her chin. “You make no sense. If this animal is extinct, how could Richard have found one?”

  “That’s exactly what I plan to find out.”

  A week. Such a long week, full of frustration and disappointments. Lost in thought, Samantha stared out the parlor window at the pouring rain. She sat in the overstuffed chair, shoes off, feet curled beneath her, and chewed her fingernails. Her pet iguana, Narcissus, stared at his image in a polished brass flower pot beside the chair. He hissed at the mirrored intruder, and the serrated crest on his neck raised and lowered.

  Aunt Delia, established in a comfortable wingback chair by the fireplace, stitched turquoise flowers onto the pillow slips she was embroidering. Chloe, Delia’s eighteen-year-old daughter, played chess with the butler, Pettibone, at a corner table. When Chloe made a particularly clever move, squeals of laughter bubbled from her pouty lips, causing Pettibone to scowl, reposition his spectacles, and squint harder.

  “Samantha, dear,” Delia said, peering myopically over at her niece. “Whatever could be on your mind? Ladies do not put their fingers in their mouths.”

  Samantha pulled her fingers, topped with the familiar sight of ragged fingernails, from her lips and blew out a breath. “‘Tis this expedition Uncle Richard has asked me to organize. I’m to hire a competent mammalogist to pursue the Smilodon. I’m afraid my dear uncle has overestimated my qualifications. I’ve never even been on an expedition, unless you count the time Richard took me to Scotland to look for a rare sea grass when I was twelve or my reptile-collecting trips into the countryside. Perhaps he misinterpreted my slight exaggerations in the letters I wrote him.”

  “A mammalogist?” Delia asked, her brow wrinkling.

  “You know, a scientist who studies mammals, those with fur and teeth and, um, nipples.”

  “Nipples?” Delia squeaked. She extracted a lacy handkerchief from the bosom of her gown and fanned her fiery face. “You shouldn’t even know such a word. You are an unmarried lady.”

  Samantha sighed. “‘Tis a perfectly legitimate scientific word. Never mind. You must help me out here. I have no idea even how to begin to find the proper man or put together this expedition.”

  “My dear,” Delia replied, still visibly shaken by Samantha’s shocking language, “you must understand that I am utterly opposed to your taking on such a dangerous quest.” She inhaled and released a deep breath, her lumpy bosom rising and falling. “Nonetheless, I know you well. I suspect I will not hear the end of this until it is done. Therefore, I shall impart some advice. I have found that it is always best to start at the beginning.”

  Samantha sent her aunt a perplexed gaze.

  “What I mean to say is, if you must do something and have no expertise in that endeavor, simply find the person who does.”

  Samantha dismissed the statement with a wave of her hand. “I’ve already approached all Richard’s friends at the academy. They are either currently immersed in their own research or simply uninterested. I think they did not believe me on account of my gender.” Rising quickly from the chair, she clasped her hands behind her back and strode across the room, tossing the next words at her aunt. “They laughed, as though I were playing a jest on them. Ha! A jest. Merely Richard’s silly goose of a niece playing a jest.”

  Delia lowered the sewing to her lap and settled her gaze on Samantha. “They are only men, my dear, and British men at that. Surely you can expect no less. If you cannot gain their cooperation, then you must ask yourself who has the most to gain, the expertise and daring to carry it out, and the interest necessary to travel halfway across the world on a possible wild-goose chase.”

  “I do know of one person,” Samantha said softly, halting in the midst of the room and tapping her lower lip with a fingertip. “However, he’s an American and almost impossible to contact. You see, he no longer carries out expeditions and has become a recluse.”

  “There now.” Delia sent her a satisfied smile. “Woman prevails. You have already thought of someone suitable. And being retired, he is not likely to be engaged in other research. Nevertheless, I am concerned that he is an American. They are such ruffians, you know. I’m averse to the idea of you and Richard tramping through the jungle with a ruffian. Then again, if he is retired, he must be an older gentleman and will be of a more settled nature.” The corners of Delia’s mouth made a sudden turn downward. “I say, your scientist isn’t another of those reptile people, is he?”

  Samantha chuckled at her aunt’s turn of phrase. “No, he studies cats.”

  Her aunt’s brows went up. “Like Horatio? Very strange, I must say, to be one who studies cats.”

  From his warm bed by the hearth, Horatio lifted his head with a plaintive meow.

  “No,” Samantha said, “not like Horatio. Wild cats.”

  “Humph,” Delia said with a sniff. “My dear, as you well know, Horatio can be quite wild when he wishes to be.”

  On a fine, sunny day the following month, Samantha came through the drawing room at a run. “Aunt Delia,” she yelled, searching the parlor and the dining room before finding her aunt in the breakfast room with Chloe. Pettibone was forking kippers off a serving tray onto Delia’s plate and frowning at Narcissus, who preened over his image in his water bowl in one corner of the room and pawed at the water, wetting the Oriental carpet. When Samantha entered so hurriedly, the iguana lifted his head with a jerk and scurried under the table to tangle himself in Delia’s skirts.

  “Decorum, Samantha. Young ladies of breeding do not run.”

  Samantha grinned and waggled a
letter. “I received a reply to my inquiry. I have an appointment in Boston in four weeks.”

  “Goodness me!” Delia exclaimed, tossing her napkin onto the table. “We must rally the troops immediately. We have no time to waste. We must pack and book passage to America.” She rose from the chair and shook the clinging reptile off her skirt hem.

  Some of Samantha’s elation drained away. “We? I planned to go alone.”

  “Alone?” Delia planted her fists on her hips. Narcissus seemed to echo her question by cocking his head at Samantha. “It just isn’t done, my dear.” She shook her head. “Of course you cannot go alone. An unmarried woman must have a chaperone. I will fulfill that function, and we will require your maid, Gilly.” She tilted her head to one side, as though mentally counting. “We really should have a male escort, especially when we get to Tasmania.” She smiled. “Pettibone will do nicely.”

  Pettibone, having moved to the doorway, rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. Exceedingly tall, built like a stork, blind as a badger without his spectacles, and older than Methuselah, Pettibone had served the Colchester family for longer than anyone could remember. Worry lines permanently crinkled his bald head, and he attributed every white hair in the tufts above his ears to dealing, on a daily basis, with a most eccentric female household. “As though I do not suffer enough,” he muttered, “now they are contemplating dragging me off to the wilds of Tasmania, where my noble head will most likely become a shrunken decoration in some heathen’s hut.”

  Samantha’s shoulders sagged at the growing retinue.

  “And this would be the perfect educational opportunity for Chloe,” Delia continued. “Travel is such a broadening experience. Yes, Chloe must come along, too.”

  Chloe? Pampered Chloe? Samantha’s hopes for a quick, efficient passage to America died. Delia’s daughter was as spoiled as a three-day-old leg of mutton left languishing on the kitchen counter in summer’s heat. She cried for weeks if she broke a fingernail or scuffed her favorite shoes.

  “Leave the London social scene for the hinterlands?” Chloe said with a whine. She curled a blond ringlet about her finger and scowled. As though remembering scowling produced wrinkles, she smoothed out her face with her fingertips. “Tasmania is primitive and dirty and teeming with transported criminals,” she declared.

  Delia smiled at her daughter. “We shall visit Boston first. Boston has become a modern, lively city. We have relatives there, and with your beauty and aristocratic grace, you will become the cream of Boston society. Perhaps you will even meet a handsome, wealthy American and fall in love.”

  “And perhaps I can talk you into leaving me in Boston while you shuffle off to Tasmania,” Chloe whispered beneath her breath while beaming her sweetest smile. Her voice returned to its normal volume. “It sounds like a marvelous idea. When do we leave?”

  Samantha groaned and argued and pleaded but to no avail. Delia remained firm. Samantha’s mind whirled, grasping for a solution. Perhaps in Boston, she could foist off her crew on their relatives while she slipped out of the country with her elusive scientist.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the countryside outside Cambridge, Massachusetts

  “Professor Badia, the hem of my gown is positively mud soaked. I wish to return to the college. You must fetch me back immediately.”

  Recognizing the shrill quality of the voice, Christian Badia swore beneath his breath and turned his gaze on Miss Simpson. “I specifically informed you,” he said, swinging about to include the entire class of young ladies in his look, “that you were to don appropriate clothing for this outdoor excursion.”

  Miss Simpson pouted. “I did. This is my smartest country outfit. However, I imagined us to be riding in a carriage. I had no notion you would expect us to tramp through a swamp.”

  Christian struggled to contain his temper. “This is a class on marsh ecology, Miss Simpson. I could scarcely escort you to the Boston shops to study spring marsh birds.”

  “But the ground is so … so muddy.”

  “That’s why it’s called a marsh,” he mumbled, squelching the derogatory response that sprang to mind.

  Beside him, Garrett Jakes chuckled. “You’ll not win, Chris. I only bless the Lord for allowing me to witness this spectacle.”

  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 fly
ing 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.”