by Linda Banche
In a cushioned chair by the fireplace, a plainly dressed young lady leafed through a leather-bound tome. Both her bonnet and dress were grey, giving her the air of a governess or companion. Wisps of blonde hair peeped out from her bonnet. She was slender, by the looks of her. In profile, she had a pert nose and a sweet, pink mouth.
He narrowed his eyes. She looked vaguely familiar. Where could he have seen her?
She lifted her head. A pair of eyes the deepest blue he had ever seen snatched Laurence into their net and spun him into a vortex. For a few charged seconds, he froze, as the world contracted to the lovely lady with the bewitching eyes.
Then she again bent to her book.
***
Miss Ellen Palmer dipped her head to her book, but her gaze followed the handsome young man who had just entered the Reading Room.
A shaft of sunlight glinted streaks of gold in the artfully tousled curls of his light brown hair. High cheekbones accented his narrow face and his prominent, but not too large, nose. Dark brown eyebrows and lashes framed eyes the light blue of the sea on a partly cloudy day.
Gentlemen of fashion did not figure in her life, but he dressed exactly as she had pictured them. A well-cut, coffee brown double-breasted tailcoat over a lighter brown waistcoat. A pristine white cravat curling in a starched masterpiece of a knot. Pleated, light-colored pin-striped trousers wide at the hip that tapered down well-shaped legs to his ankles, where a strap anchored them under polished dark brown half boots.
Cossack trousers, they were called, and they were le dernier cri in male attire. Why, she couldn’t understand, because pleats made most men look fat. But on this man, they instead emphasized the leanness of his hips.
She gave an inward sigh. He was quite the best-looking man she had ever seen, as well as the most fashionable.
Although he did look a bit silly with his eyes all glassy and his mouth hanging open.
His blinked as if waking from a trance. Then he firmed his jaw and stepped up to the table where patrons left books they had finished reading. He swallowed hard, and then pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead.
Gracious, he looked so overset. How she would like to soothe away his cares. Her pulse fluttered.
She would enjoy meeting him, but did she dare? Such an action was beyond the bounds of propriety. She might not be a lady born, like the sprigs of the aristocracy that patronized the library, but manners were manners.
He shuffled the books and pamphlets on the table. If she did nothing, he would soon leave.
Her heart thumping a rapid tattoo, she closed her book. He was only a short distance away. All she had to do was walk over.
Visit my Smashwords Author Page: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LindaBanche
Excerpt from A Gift from the Stars, Part 1 of The Regency Star Travelers,
Available Now!
The Regency Star Travelers
Where the Regency and outer space meet with romance.
Chapter 1
Bradborne, Derbyshire, England
December, 1811
Oh, drat.
Miss Elizabeth Ashby bit her lip as she fished her handkerchief out of her cloak pocket. For the second time within the past few minutes, she muffled her sneeze with the soft linen. Good gracious, another cold? Winter had barely begun, and already she had suffered three.
After wiping her nose, she secreted the crushed fabric back into her pocket and then bent to her telescope’s eyepiece. With a little shiver, she pulled the hood and folds of her cloak closer. Winter nights in her garden were chilly, but the season’s deeper darkness afforded the best view of the magnificent comet that had first appeared last spring.
From within her cottage, the long case clock struck midnight, each chime rolling over the quiet landscape as if the only sound in the world. She had better finish her observations soon. The last quarter moon had poked its head above the eastern horizon and would wash out the sky erelong.
She adjusted her telescope’s view field. The image of a spectacular comet with two tails sharpened into focus. Soon after its discovery, the news sheets had dubbed this heavenly marvel The Great Comet of 1811. She was indeed fortunate to witness such a remarkable spectacle.
By all standards, the comet was impressive with one tail, but the summer appearance of an almost unheard-of second tail elevated the celestial body to the extraordinary. The second tail, thinner and wispier than the first, trailed gossamer-fine flutters of white light. The force of gravity amazed her. However sparse those glimmering flecks might be, gravity held them firmly in the comet’s thrall.
Until one long, threadlike fragment splintered off from the second tail. Moving at an angle to the comet, the shard flashed across the heavens.
Elizabeth looked up and narrowed her eyes. Even without magnification, the hurtling filament was visible.
The sliver flared with a thin, bright white light. Trailing its own tail, the comet flake streaked across the starry dome in her general direction.
According to the latest astronomical theories, the cast-off stony dust and debris of comets formed meteors. And here she was, lucky enough to witness a comet generate one. What a letter she would write to her friend, Miss Caroline Herschel! The eminent astronomer had discovered six comets, but she had never seen the birth of a meteor. Perhaps she would help Elizabeth write a paper, and if she was very fortunate, the Royal Society would accept her work.
The arc of the meteor’s flight flattened. Lower and lower the shooting star descended, much too slowly to Elizabeth’s way of thinking. From the angle and rate of its motion, the object would likely strike the earth close by. If she could distinguish some landmarks by its glow, perhaps she could find the stone.
She craned her neck back as the meteor soared across the firmament. The unearthly rock blazed with the colors of the rainbow from friction with the air.
Coldness pricked her spine. A meteor that enormous should race through the heavens, shrieking in outrage as its surface pounded through the atmosphere. This one was silent. And the stone—or was it a stone?—sloped down in a leisurely, graceful curve, as gently as a feather floating in a light breeze.
With eerie stillness, the object continued its glide across the ebony sky, looming ever immense as its bulk neared the ground.
She could even make out features. In her experience, meteors were dark, pitted lumps of rock or metal. This one was white, its pointed nose flaring out behind to form a stretched-out triangle, almost like a bird with unfurled wings.
And its size! Her heart in her throat, she jumped up. The thing was larger than a mail coach. And it would fall onto Sentinel Moor beside her house!
Continually slowing, the peculiar entity descended. The object slipped below the level of the high Sentinel Oak across the field, and then behind the top of the six-foot hawthorn hedge separating her garden from the meadow.
Elizabeth took a step to run around the tall shrub. Blinding whiteness exploded on the moor. She threw up her hands to shield her eyes and then tumbled to the ground.
Visit my Smashwords Author Page: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LindaBanche
End
