Her smile softened, for she recognized the significance of that. If he’d come to know her over these last weeks, then she’d done the same with him, knowing now how important his brothers were to him.
“Then I’m honored, Rivers,” she said, “whatever it may be that you’ve squirreled away behind this door.”
He felt like an ass for dragging this out so long, and instead of making things any more ridiculous, he threw open the door and stepped aside to let her pass first.
She pulled her skirts to one side and slipped through the narrow doorway, and stopped still, pressing her palms over her mouth in wonder.
It was exactly the response he’d hoped to have from her. He’d been coming here for years, even before the Lodge had been his, yet he still felt that same sense of wonder and awe each time he stepped through the door.
They were standing on the flat roof of the Lodge, far above the rest of the county. The house stood on a slight rise, and with no trees immediately around it, the unimpeded view was sweeping and vast. By day, he could see most of the county from here, and to the west, when the sun was setting, the golden marble of Breconridge Hall, his family’s grand country house, gleamed like a polished trophy in the far distance. On a clear night, as it was now, the sky was limitless, an overarching canopy of deep blue velvet scattered with stars.
But as breathtaking as the view was, that wasn’t all that made the Lodge’s roof so special to him. Over the years, Rivers had transformed the roof into his most private space, and when the weather permitted, it served as an outdoor room. There was a large telescope that he used to study the sky, plus a sextant and a compass for more calculations, and baskets filled with books and journals in which he recorded his observations.
A canvas canopy was slung between the towering square chimneys, shielding the Spartan space that was made more comfortable with a bright Turkish carpet, a desk, an oversized armchair, and a folding camp-bed with another small bed beneath it for Spot (who had, for this night, been banished below into Rooke’s keeping). Everything, in fact, had been made along the lines of a military officer’s kit, and could be quickly taken down and packed away by the servants into the heavy, weatherproof chests that remained on the roof year-round.
But on this summer evening, the outdoor room had been dressed for entertaining. Beneath the shelter of the canopy, a small dining table had been brought upstairs and was elegantly set with fine linens and gold-edged French porcelain. Red and white roses from the garden were arranged in a crystal bowl, flanked by small lanterns that protected the candles within from the breeze. Two chairs were set beside each other at the table, each cushioned with bright silken pillows, while more pillows were strewn across the bed, giving the space the exotic feel of a sultan’s tent.
“Oh, Rivers, this is—this is perfect,” she said, gazing around with unabashed pleasure as she walked slowly across the roof to the stone parapets. “I feel like a most fortunate bird with a perch on the tallest of trees.”
He laughed, both from relief and delight in her reaction. “It rather is like that,” he said. “This is my favorite place on earth, and I suppose in the heavens, too.”
“We are in the heavens,” she said, resting her hands on the carved stone rail. “From here I can see the rose garden, and your mother’s wildflowers, and in the distance is the lake. All the times we’ve walked below, and I never once knew any of this was here.”
“You wouldn’t,” he said, joining her. “Because of the lines of the roof and the parapets, no one on the ground can see any of this. It is completely open, yet completely enclosed as well.”
“So it is your own private aerie,” she marveled. “No wonder you have kept it your secret. If I’d created such a magic place, I wouldn’t share it with anyone else, either.”
He’d told her earlier that she was beautiful, but that was nothing to how she looked now in the moonlight, with the warm summer breeze tossing the tiny loose wisps of hair against her forehead and along the nape of her neck. He knew that her formally arranged hair, tortured and pinned into place, was all the fashion, but it was the disarray that he found far more beguiling, how her heavy locks were already beginning to rebel and slip free of the pins.
It was the same with her gown. He much preferred it now with the red silk fluttering about her legs than when it had been static and flawless. He always thought of her as being constantly in motion, of darting here and there and twisting and turning with unconscious grace, and he supposed that was how he liked her dress to be as well.
She turned now to look over her shoulder at him, her expression expectant, and he realized he’d been staring at her too long instead of answering.
“I didn’t create this place,” he said, somehow managing to recall the thread of their conversation. “The roof has always been open like this. Stag-hunting was the fashion when the Lodge was first built, back in the days of Queen Bess, and those who chose not to ride to the hunt could still watch its progress from here on the roof. Then later, when the huntsmen returned, there would be banquets and dancing held here as well. My father claims that that’s the reason for the size of these stone parapets, to keep the guests who were deep in their cups from toppling from the roof.”
She peered over the rail as if imagining some luckless reveler lying broken on the ground below.
“Dancing and drinking and mad from hunting,” she mused. “At least one of them must have gone over the side. Have you ever had a ghost for company?”
“Not one, Lucia,” he said. “If a guest had died with such violence, then it would be remembered, even after a hundred and seventy years. It would have been an unforgettable tragedy.”
“I suppose so,” she admitted. “But it could have been purposefully forgotten, to hide a scandal. There could be a ghost here even now.”
Abruptly she drew herself up, holding her arms out as if beseeching some phantom specter as she began to quote from Hamlet, her voice ringing out over the railing and into the night.
“What art thou that usurp’st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? by Heaven I charge thee, speak!”
He laughed. Now that she knew the play so well, she often did this, hauling scraps of dialogue out of context to amuse him. It did, too, even as it impressed him to see just how far she’d come as an actress, and he thought again of the upcoming audition he’d arranged for her with McGraw. That first raw magic that he’d glimpsed on the street before his house still remained, but even these impromptu recitations—exaggerated for effect—showed how she’d learned to command both her lines and an audience, and he dared anyone to look away from her when she was speaking a part.
“Pray deliver me from the ghost of Hamlet’s father,” he said, chuckling. This was one of the best parts of being with her, laughing together over some bit of shared foolishness. “That’s not the company I wish to keep, any more than those are your lines to learn.”
“Well, no,” she said, laughing with him as she slipped back into herself. “You’ve told me that boys played women’s roles in Master Shakespeare’s time, but I don’t believe it would work the other way around.”
He snorted, thinking how no matter how much of an actress she became, there would never be a way to mistake her for a male. “Nor do I believe that Horatio would ever present himself before the castle in red silk. Whatever would Prince Hamlet say?”
“But since Horatio is the only major character to survive the entire play, he can likely dress himself however he pleases.” Her laughter fading, she turned away from the rail, and rubbed her bare forearms below the flounces. “I’d no notion we’d be out-of-doors, or I would have brought a shawl with me.”
“Forgive me.” Swiftly he began to pull his arms free of his sleeves. To him the air was agreeably warm, but ladies did feel things differently, and he regretted not thinking of that before. “Here, take my coat.�
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“No, no, that’s not necessary,” she said, gliding away from him and his offered coat to the camp-bed. She shook out one of the light wool coverlets that was folded at the foot of the bed and wrapped it over her shoulders. “There now. Mrs. Currie would be horrified, but I’ll be quite snug.”
He was sorry to see the red gown hidden, yet also relieved that the temptation it offered was now out of sight.
“I can send for Sally to fetch a proper shawl for you if you wish,” he said, following her across the roof. “They’ll begin bringing up dinner anyway as soon as I ring for it.”
“I’m not hungry yet,” she said, perplexed as she looked down at the pillow-strewn bed. “I thought this was a settee, but it’s—do you sleep here, Rivers?”
“On a night as warm as this one, I might, yes,” he said. Her confusion was understandable, for the bed was not neatly made up like more ordinary beds meant for rest. Instead he’d made this one a respite for inspiration, indulgently piled with striped silk Turkish pillows and soft wool coverlets and bright silk quilts, all on an embroidered blue velvet counterpane. “But mainly I lie upon it and gaze up at the sky. By day I watch the clouds, and by night the stars, and let my thoughts wander where they will.”
As soon as he’d spoken, he realized what an astonishing confession that was for him to make. An English gentleman was supposed to proceed through life with purpose and forethought, and not while away his hours and thoughts lying on his back and staring idly up into nothingness. He had wanted to share the roof with Lucia, but perhaps he’d shared too much.
“That is, I read whilst I am here,” he said, hedging. “I consider it my outdoor library.”
She smiled, her arms folded inside the coverlet. “Liar,” she said softly. “You know it, too.”
He shook his head doggedly. “I’m not lying. I do read here.”
“I’m sure you do, Rivers, because you read everywhere, but that’s not why you brought me up to this rooftop,” she said. “Earlier you said that you wanted to prove to me that you didn’t live through your books. Yet here, now, when the proof is all around us, you’re denying it.”
He made a low grumbling sound deep in his throat, feeling completely abandoned by the words that were usually his facile friends. Why was it now, when he’d so much he longed to tell her, he could say nothing?
She, however, didn’t seem disturbed in the least. She tipped her head, gazing up at the gauzy wisps of clouds drifting over the silver moon.
“In our Whitechapel lodgings, I’d always take the outside place in the bed,” she began, her throat pearly pale and vulnerable in the moonlight. “Three of us shared the bed, you know, and being on the outside isn’t as warm as taking the middle or the wall, but from there, if I lay on my side, I could see the sky from the little window up near the eaves.”
He nodded, letting her continue uninterrupted. He hated the thought of her living in such a place, yet she had simply accepted it as her lot, no doubt the way countless other young women in her situation were forced to do. But she wasn’t one of them: she was special, and he would make sure that she’d never go back to that kind of life again.
“It was only a little scrap of sky,” she was saying, “squeezed by roofs and chimney pots, but I still could see the stars. On some nights, I’d even see the moon glide by, and I’d think of all the great places and grand folk that same moon had smiled upon. It made me forget what had happened during the day, and gave me the freedom to dream.”
“That’s it exactly,” he said, though he was looking at her, not at the stars. “The same moon, those same stars, shone on Cleopatra and Marc Antony, on Eloise and Abelard, on Petrach and Laura.”
She glanced at him uncertainly. “Cleopatra I know, but not the others. Are they all grand folk, too?”
“In their way.” He didn’t want to explain that they’d all been famous lovers; not because he was reluctant to mention lovers, but because tonight he didn’t want her to think of him as her tutor, endlessly explaining what she did not know. “But I’ve always thought that of the moon as well.”
She smiled wistfully. “From now on, whenever I see the moon, I’ll think of it shining down on you.”
He didn’t want to be reminded of a future without her in it. “But tonight that moon is shining on us together.”
“Yes,” she said softly, a single word, then turned away from him.
He wondered if she felt the same sadness about their future, or more accurately, their lack of a future together. He almost hoped she did, even as he could not think of what to say to ease her regrets, or his own—especially as that faceless specter of the bland, proper young lady who would one day be his wife rose, unbidden and unwelcome, in his thoughts, only to be quickly banished.
“Can you see the stars better with your spyglass?” asked Lucia, fortunately unaware of his thoughts. She ran the fingers of one hand lightly along the telescope, a large and costly instrument of mahogany and polished brass that he kept here on its tripod stand, pointed to the heavens.
“It’s not a spyglass,” he said. “It’s a telescope.”
She nodded solemnly, the way she did when she’d learned some new piece of information and was storing it away. Ordinarily it pleased him to see her learn something new like this, but now he winced inwardly, realizing too late that he must be lecturing once again.
“A telescope, then,” she said, looking down at her reflection distorted on the polished brass tube. “What is the difference between the two?”
He barely refrained from a discourse on the variety of lenses, of curvatures and spherical and chromatic aberrations and corrections.
“Spyglasses are used at sea by mariners to plot their voyages and adventures,” he said instead. “Telescopes are employed by astronomers and other learned gentlemen in their studies and observations.”
She glanced up, and smiled wryly. “I need not ask which you are.”
“You might be wrong.” He stepped closer to stand with the telescope between them. “When I am here, Lucia, I can imagine whatever I please, with the stars I see through this as inspiration. My thoughts can take me on adventures that no sailor in his right mind would dare ever choose.”
“Will you show them to me, too?” She gazed up at him, her eyes brighter with excitement than any of the stars above. “The way you promised?”
“Of course.” Quickly he unscrewed the brass dust cap that protected the lens, made several small adjustments, and turned the telescope toward her.
“Place one eye to this place, here, shut the other one,” he said, guiding her to stand behind the eyepiece. “Now with your hand here, slowly turn this and scan the sky until you find a star.”
She did as he’d said, letting the coverlet fall from her shoulders. She shoved her hair impatiently back from her face as she concentrated and peered through the telescope.
“You needn’t hold your breath,” he said. “The sky is filled with—”
“Oh, Rivers, I found one!” she cried. “Oh, and it’s so blessed beautiful I can’t bear it, so pure and white. Look, Rivers, see it there, brighter than a hundred silver spangles all together. No, a thousand spangles!”
She stepped aside for him to look, unable to keep from hopping up and down with excitement. “Can you see it, Rivers? Can you?”
“I couldn’t miss it, could I?” he said, sharing her excitement. “That one’s not really a star, but a planet, one of the brightest in the entire sky. Most appropriately, it’s the planet Venus.”
“Venus?” she repeated, smiling, and clearly not sure whether to believe him or not.
“Venus,” he said firmly. “I would not toy with the heavens.”
“Let me see it again,” she begged, squeezing in between him and the telescope. It was natural enough for him to put his arms around her waist, and natural, too, to pull her close against his chest, her body fitting neatly against his.
“Can you see it now?” he asked, his lips close to her ear.
“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice dropping to a husky whisper. “That star’s so beautiful, Rivers. I know it’s still so far, far away from us, yet looking at it this way, I feel as if I could reach up and pluck it from the sky.”
“If I could do that, Lucia, then I would,” he said. She was so small and feminine in his arms, and he felt the warmth of her skin through the red silk, felt the vibrancy that was always in her. “I’d claim that star for you to have so you’d never forget this night.”
Swiftly she turned around to face him, still within the circle of his arms.
“But I won’t forget it, star or not,” she said wistfully. “Because I won’t forget you, Rivers, not ever.”
“Lucia,” he said softly, brushing those tossing curls away from her face. He could have lost himself in those luminous dark eyes, even before he’d had a chance to kiss her again. Instead all he did was lose what he’d meant to say next, and in his muddle he fell back on more lines from the play—lines that were nearly appropriate, because they’d been said by Hamlet to Ophelia, but not quite, since they were being repeated as a mark of the Danish prince’s careless seduction.
“Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.”
There, he’d said that he loved her, even if it came by way of Hamlet. And he did love her, loved her in a way that he’d never loved any other woman.
She caught her breath, drawing back. “Do not taunt me like that, Rivers. I—I cannot bear it, not from you.”
“It wasn’t intended as taunting,” he said, surprised by her reaction. “Not at all.”
A Reckless Desire Page 18
