Bradley angled her head to one side as she regarded the mass of curls she had quickly arranged atop Anne’s head. “One of the Worthington House maids mentioned the twins would be in town early. Apparently the younger lordship is going into Parliament ’afore his father is even dead. But I can’t say as to when they will come to town.” She placed a few more pins into Anne’s hair. “I suppose you’re expectin’ to renew your acquaintance with Lady Angelica?”
Anne allowed a prim grin. “Yes, of course. I adore her,” she replied. “Father says Hexham has accepted a writ of acceleration,” she added, “which is why he will be attending sessions of Parliament when they resume in the spring.”
But before then? Why was he back in London? Would the Torringtons be joining him and their daughter?
Lady Angelica would know, and Anne thought of calling on her in a day or so.
She noticed the butler’s reflection in the mirror and turned around. He was standing just beyond the open door of her bedchamber. “What is it, Barclay?” she asked.
“Dinner is served, my lady.”
“I’ll be right down,” she replied. Turning her attention to her lady’s maid, she asked, “Have you finished?”
Bradley nodded and stepped aside. “Will you be needing me later?”
“Thank you, but no. I can manage.” She took her leave of her bedchamber and was joined by Gabe near the top of the stairs. “Eighteen, did I hear you say?” he asked as he offered his arm. Although he had only changed his waistcoat to one featuring more elaborate embroidery, he looked every bit as handsome as any other young buck in the ton.
“Indeed,” Anne replied, giving him a quelling glance when she realized he had been eavesdropping on her conversation with her maid. “And I meant what I said earlier. I really do wish to be married as soon as possible.”
Pausing on the first floor landing, which forced Anne to stop alongside him, Gabe regarded her a moment. “Is there a reason for your desire to wed so quickly,” he asked, suspicion evident in his voice.
Anne shook her head, but said, “I really wish to have a baby. A husband and a house of my own.” And then realized why he asked. “No, I am not with child,” she whispered. “I haven’t a secret lover, and I’ve not been ruined, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
She knew as a bastard he had every right to suspect such a thing, but it bothered her that he would jump to such a conclusion given her wish to wed. “But I really do want a husband and a baby. My own house to oversee,” she reiterated.
“And not just because of our visit to Aunt Lily’s house?” he asked, still curious as to her motives. Although he had gone into the nursery with both Anne and their father to see his newest nephew, he hadn’t been as overcome as Anne had been. She had nearly wept with joy as she held the babe, and would probably still be holding it now if their father hadn’t pried the bundle from her arms and given it back to a beaming Aunt Lily.
Gabe had been glad to see Lily so happy, though. Of all the family members, he identified most with her simply because she, too, was illegitimate.
Lily’s mother, Beatrice, had at one time been a housemaid at Trenton House. When her affair with Graydon Wellingham, the late Earl of Trenton, was discovered and her pregnancy became apparent, Charity Fitzsimmons Wellingham, Countess of Trenton, took immediate action in an effort to deter gossip. She terminated Beatrice’s employment at the townhouse and then arranged for her to work for Charity’s brother, Matthew, Viscount Chamberlain, at his manor house.
Fitzsimmons Manor had been Lily’s home from the time she was born until Gabriel, the current Earl of Trenton, found her and claimed her as his sister.
Anne angled her head. “I have wanted to be married since that day in Hyde Park, when you were driving Father’s curricle, and it started to storm,” she said in a quiet voice.
Gabe furrowed a brow. “When we met Lord Hexham and Lady Angelica?” he guessed. At her nod, his eyes darted to one side. “Then you have set your cap on Lord Hexham?”
She took a deep breath. “I have,” she replied, hoping he wouldn’t tease her or claim it was simply a crush. “How could I not? He’s gorgeous.”
Dipping his head as he cleared his throat, Gabe wondered what to say. “Is his being gorgeous the only reason you wish to marry him?”
Anne rolled her eyes. “Of course not! His sister has told me much about him, both good and bad,” she replied. “He’s responsible to a fault. Anxious to do his duty. He’ll be an earl some day, and he will inherit Worthington House. I could not ask for a better match, especially of those who are of an age to marry.”
Gabe rolled his eyes. “Are you forgetting Everly’s heir?”
“Too clever,” she replied.
“You’re educated,” Gabe argued.
“Not in the natural sciences,” she countered. “I would have to be satisfied with simply staring at him over my coddled eggs and toast in the morning, which might be enough for most women, because he is the most handsome man in all of London, but... not me.”
Gabe cleared his throat, not having heard such an assessment of one of his best friends. “It’s the Greek in him, I suppose,” he murmured, wondering if he should see to having a marble statue commissioned of Alexander Tennison. It could be displayed in his wing of the British Museum as an example of the perfect Greek male. “What about one of the Bostwick heirs?” he suggested.
“David is sweet on one of the Grandby girls, and Daniel is younger than me.”
Furrowing a brow, Gabe was about to suggest one of the Grandby boys, but Anne was quick with her response. “Thomas is too old and Father would never allow me to marry a commoner.”
“Viscount Breckinridge’s eldest,” Gabe offered.
“Claims he will not wed until he is at least eight-and-twenty,” Anne countered. “And then only to a young lady he discovers on the corner of Jermyn and St. James Streets,” she added.
Gabe furrowed a brow. “Near White’s?”
She nodded. “It’s where his parents met. His father kissed his mother there in broad daylight,” she explained.
Blinking, Gabe was about to ask for more details. Kissing a woman in broad daylight was certainly one way to ensure a betrothal. But then he noticed his parents had passed them on their way down the stairs and would be waiting for them outside the dining room.
“Please say you’ll help me.”
Startled by her response, Gabe boggled. “Help you? How? I barely know Hexham. He was several years behind me at Eton,” he argued.
She pushed out her lower lip. “Oh,” she sighed. Then she brightened as if his news had been good after all. “Are you looking for a wife?”
Gabe resumed his descent down the stairs. “Not as yet. I have my position at the museum, and I’ve only been a member at White’s for a few months. I think it best I wait until after you and William are settled before I consider marriage.”
Nodding her understanding, Anne followed her parents into the dining room. Just before she moved to sit down, though, she turned and asked, “When will you next go to White’s?”
Curious as to why she might ask such a question, Gabe said, “Tonight, actually.” He had to delay the rest of his answer when the first course of dinner was served. “Pray tell, why do you ask?”
Anne allowed a shrug. “No reason.”
Gabe couldn’t help but notice his sister’s happy countenance throughout the entire meal.
And his parents’ good moods, too. He knew the reason for their happy dispositions—upon their return from Lily’s house, his father had hugged his mother so hard, she squeaked. Then he had kissed her in front of them, the butler, and two footmen before he lifted her into his arms and carried her up the stairs.
But Gabe was left wondering about his sister’s happy disposition.
Just what was she up to?
Chapter 12
Discussing a Dome Over Dinner
A half-hour later
“Are you quite sure?” George asked,
his expression indicating disbelief. “It’s dark. How could you even see such a thing?”
Angelica gave him a quelling glance and set her fork down on her plate. “It wasn’t dark when I noticed it,” she argued. “It has a domed roof, and it’s... it’s round.”
“Most domes are,” George remarked.
If she hadn’t been dressed in one of her very best dinner gowns, and if she hadn’t been a lady, Angelica would have picked up one of the boiled potatoes from her plate and hurled it at her brother. “The building is round,” she said from between clenched teeth.
That seemed to get George’s attention. “Like a ball?”
He didn’t duck quickly enough, for a boiled potato sailed directly into his cravat. “Angel!” he scolded as he moved to capture the offending food between a thumb and forefinger and pluck it from the silk. He held it up before tossing it to Muffin McDuff Paddlepaws. Despite his apparent lack of eyes, the Olde English sheepdog caught the root vegetable in his mouth and swallowed it whole.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Angelica remarked.
“Oh, I shouldn’t have done that?” George half-questioned.
“Now you’ll have to let him sleep in your room.”
George frowned. “Whatever are you talking about?”
“He’ll be windy all night,” she whispered hoarsely. “So I don’t want him in my bedchamber.” Usually she welcomed having the huge dog sleep at the end of her bed, if only because he kept her feet warm on cold winter nights.
Rolling his eyes, George turned his attention back to his plate, his fork stabbing a boiled potato. He had half a mind to throw it at his sister, but she was wearing one of her very best dinner gowns, and her lady’s maid would be forced to clean the silk. The newlywed probably wouldn’t mind, but it wouldn’t be fair to her. “Is the dome blue?”
Angelica angled her head to one side. “I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”
Her brother shrugged. “Our new neighbors could be Greek Orthodox and simply built their own church on the grounds of their house. It’s very common in Greece.”
Remembering her lady’s maid’s comment along those very lines, Angelica sighed. “But wouldn’t there be a... a cross on top?”
George seemed to think on the query for a moment before he allowed a nod. “Yes.” When he didn’t elaborate, Angelica drained her glass of wine, frustrated by his lack of alarm. A footman was quick to refill the glass.
“Considering this building has only been constructed since we were last in London, it stands to reason it’s not yet finished,” he murmured. “It could be a greenhouse, or a guest house, or—”
“An observatory.”
Angelica and George turned to stare at Winston. The butler had apparently been in the butler’s pantry and overheard their conversation. Although Worthington House’s former butler, Bernard, never would have spoken unless asked a question, Winston wasn’t nearly as rigid when it came to the rules.
“Ah,” George said with a nod before continuing to eat.
“For looking at stars?” Angelica asked, her interest piqued. She had used a telescope before—there were refracting telescopes in her father’s study here at Worthington House as well as at Torrington Park—but she had only ever used them to look at birds.
The butler nodded. “And planets and comets and such,” he added.
Angelica allowed a sigh. “Well, as long as he doesn’t use it to peer into my bedchamber, then I suppose I have no complaints,” she murmured. How often did she look out her window, after all? Another few weeks, and she wouldn’t even notice its presence.
George frowned. “I rather doubt it’s so high up that the telescope can be aimed in the direction of your bedchamber,” he reasoned.
About to counter that it was indeed as high as her window, Angelica was prevented from saying so when Muffin suddenly lifted himself from the dining room floor and barked.
The potato at the end of George’s fork was suddenly propelled toward the ceiling and Angelica’s knife clattered to the floor. Unflappable, Winston merely furrowed his brows.
“What the...?” George started to yell, and then stopped when he remembered his sister was present.
Muffin quickly scarfed up the boiled potato and then angled his head at his master’s look of alarm.
“He never barks,” Angelica remarked, giving a footman a nod when he surreptitiously placed a new knife at her place setting.
“Unless something is amiss,” George countered, his gaze going to Winston.
“I’ll check the doors, my lord,” the butler said, before taking his leave of the dining room.
Angelica stared at Muffin. “What is it?” she asked as the dog lumbered over to sit next to her chair. A slight whine was the creature’s only response. “He must have heard something,” she murmured.
“Perhaps,” George agreed, before returning to his dinner.
When Winston reappeared claiming there was no one at either the front or back door, the twins regarded the dog with curious glances but resumed eating in relative silence.
“I’ll be heading to White’s this evening,” George remarked once he finished his dessert. “I had a note from Cousin Thomas that he wished to see me this evening.”
Angelica thought of writing letters, but the combination of the long day of travel and the huge dinner had her eyelids drooping. “Give him my love,” she murmured. “I’m off to bed,” she added, rising from the table when a footman helped with her chair. “Good night.”
George watched her go, rather surprised Muffin didn’t follow in her footsteps. Instead, the beast settled at his feet as George drank his port.
Noting the time, he called for the town coach.
Chapter 13
A Night with Venus
Fifteen minutes later
“Should I be calling you Fitzhugh now?” Angelica asked as she sat at her dressing table, watching Mary’s reflection as the lady’s maid brushed her hair. Angelica had already shed her dinner gown in favor of her night rail and robe, and her warmest bedtime slippers adorned her feet.
Mary paused in her task and regarded Angelica’s reflection in the looking glass. A smile lit her face. “You can, of course. But I will still answer to Banks.” She was about to lift the brush when a movement caught her eye. Turning to her right, she gave a start. “Oh!” she let out, nearly dropping the hairbrush.
Angelica followed her lady’s maid’s gaze and quickly stood up. “Oh, indeed,” she breathed. She rushed to the southeast facing window. Although it was dark beyond the partially-frosted glass, a light had appeared where one had never been before—a red glow in the shape of a slightly distorted rectangle. “What is that?” she asked before she turned around. “Turn down the lamps as far as they will go,” she instructed.
Frowning at the odd request, Mary hurried to do as she was told, and soon the bedchamber’s only light came from the flames in the fireplace.
Angelica placed her hands around her face and stared out the window again, her breath fogging the cold glass. She could make out movement beyond the rectangle and inhaled sharply when she realized what she was seeing—a round glass silhouetted in the dim red, and beyond that, a man’s face.
The face disappeared a moment, something changed, and Angelica quickly stepped away from the window. “The nerve!” she breathed.
“What is it, my lady?” Mary asked in alarm.
“The dome now has an opening,” she remarked. “That’s a ... that’s a telescope, and it’s aimed directly at this window,” she claimed. “At me!”
Mary hurried over and quickly closed the sheers and then the drapes. “You think the new neighbor a Peeping Tom?” she asked in a whisper.
Angelica blinked. How much of her could have been seen before the drapes were closed? She glanced back to the corner, to her dressing screen. Given its location, she wasn’t in danger of being seen by the lens of the telescope whilst dressing, but she was whilst sitting at her dressing table.
> Her dinner gown had been far more revealing than the chaste night rail and dressing robe she now wore—a thick winter robe—but the idea she was being spied on by the new neighbor had her incensed.
“Fitzhugh, I think it’s time you join your new husband this evening,” Angelica said with a curt nod.
It was Mary’s turn to blink. “But I have twenty strokes to go on your hair,” she argued.
“We’ll do twenty extra in the morning,” Angelica countered.
“Yes, my lady,” Mary replied before giving a curtsy.
Once her lady’s maid was gone, Angelica parted the drapes and stared over at the dome.
Perhaps the angle at which the telescope was aimed wouldn’t have allowed it to see her at her dressing table exactly, but surely it could see her when she was standing. It could see her right now, in fact.
She studied just how the building was positioned in the neighbor’s back garden, the free-standing structure showed no visible means of access from this angle. There must be a door on the other side, she reasoned.
With a huff, Angelica marched out of her bedchamber, hurried down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor, and then to the back of the house. In her growing anger, she ignored the blast of cold that greeted her as she made her way out of the house, across the frost-covered garden and to the back gate. A few steps later, she found the neighbor’s back gate and opened it without a thought about trespassing.
There was a decided chill in the air, but she ignored the white clouds that puffed around her face with every breath she took.
Angelica halted once the gate was shut behind her.
Even in the dark, she could make out the looming brick building before her—it took up nearly all of what had been a garden only the spring before—and her gaze went up. From this angle, she couldn’t see the opening in the dome, but there was a recently paved path that led around the base of the structure. She followed it until she found the door.
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