Falling Stars Read online

  “But you are quite right regarding my height,” she said. “I did grow another half-inch. How keenly observant you are.”

  Twin sparks lit his eyes. “I did not mean a mere half-inch. I must have confused you with some other girl. There were a great many of them, as I recall.”

  “Ah, well, you mustn’t mind the error,” Christina answered in tones laden with compassion. “Failure of memory is common with advancing age—it cannot be helped.”

  His expression remained cool, but for the muscle that jumped in his jaw, before he answered, “That’s one frailty you obviously don’t suffer. Your memory is keen indeed. You recall not only how old you were, but your exact height.”

  She wanted very much to fling the teapot at his smug face. Instead she smiled. “Not long after Penny’s wedding, I was measured for my own bridal gown. I can’t imagine any woman forgetting what size and age she was when she was wed.”

  She felt his withdrawal an instant before his long legs pulled back and his posture straightened. “Yes, of course,” he said tightly. “I had altogether forgotten.”

  ***

  Christina had started it, Marcus told himself as he jammed the diamond stickpin into his neckcloth. She had sat upon the sofa looking cool and detached and superior, listening to Penny speak of him as though he were an ill-mannered child. But Christina had also finished it, he admitted as he turned from the looking glass.

  He had only wanted to fluster her, make her blush, obtain some hint that she remembered something, anything. Instead, she had found and pierced a tender spot that shouldn’t have existed: a mere three months after tossing him aside, she’d wed; it had taken Marcus three times as many months to recover. The reminder had hurt. It shouldn’t have, but it had.

  A great deal was happening that shouldn’t.

  He had spent more than an hour dressing for dinner, when it should have taken a quarter of that time. He’d just spent a full twenty minutes choosing the stickpin—as though she cared a straw what he wore, as though he gave a damn whether or not he met her standards of elegance.

  Giving his cuffs an unnecessary tug, he headed for the door, then paused, his fingers inches from the handle, when he heard Christina’s and Penny’s voices in the hall outside.

  He didn’t emerge from his room until the voices faded. Then he headed for his nephews’ room, and spent a quarter hour there telling riddles and jokes, instead of offering his customary “good night” from the threshold.

  He owed them the attention, he told himself as he left the room. He’d focused too much on the twins all day, and children were sensitive to such unintentional slights—as the girls’ behavior in the playroom had demonstrated.

  He was positive he’d done nothing—certainly not deliberately—to win the girls’ affection, let alone lure them to him in the playroom. They’d simply come... as their mama had done once, long ago.

  Then, he had believed that she, too, felt the current between them, and the sense of inevitability as their gazes locked. Gad, what a moonstruck young fool he’d been. Obviously all that had drawn her was curiosity or vanity. He had kept away, when other men couldn’t; naturally, this had intrigued her.

  What her children saw in him was even less significant. Children took likings and aversions for reasons adults could rarely fathom. Delia liked him as she liked pink and blue dragons; Livy, as she liked starch in her smocks. This sensible adult reflection brought a twinge of sadness.

  Marcus paused at the head of the stairs. He really should bid the girls good night as well. One must be even-handed, after all, though they were the children of a stranger.

  He was heading toward the guest wing even as he thought it. Halfway down the hall, he felt misgivings, and his steps slowed. But soft light streamed into the hall from their open door, beckoning his reluctant feet on.

  He reached the door and looked in. Though a candle was lit, they were buried under the bed-clothes.

  He felt the stab of sadness again, and quarreled with it, for the two little girls were simply asleep, as they should be. He spoke anyway, his voice just a whisper: “Good night, my dears.”

  Two flaxen heads popped up from the bed-clothes.

  “Oh, you have come,” Delia exclaimed. “I told you,” she chided her sister.

  “You did not,” said Livy. “You said maybe. I said maybe, too.”

  He shouldn’t feel so very gratified, but he did, and all the adult common sense in the world couldn’t keep Marcus from entering the room and savoring their quarrelsome welcome.

  “I hope you didn’t stay awake on my account,” he said, though he rather hoped they had.

  Their blonde heads bobbed up and down.

  “Oh, dear,” he said. “That will never do. Next time, I shall have to dress more quickly. It took me much longer than it should have, I’m afraid.”

  “Mama takes hours,” Delia said. “There’s all the things for underneath, and then the things on top of them.”

  “Yes,” said Livy. “There’s the chemise, and the corset, and the stockings and the petticoat and—”

  “Ladies’ garments can be very complicated,” Marcus hastily interjected while he tried to banish the seductive vision Livy had evoked. “Though a gentleman’s are much simpler, he must contend with his neckcloth, which is not very easy to tie properly.”

  Livy gravely considered the neckcloth. “You have a star,” she said. “I like stars.”

  She meant the diamond stickpin. It was too gaudy, he decided, too demanding of attention. Someone might think he was trying to impress... someone.

  ‘It’s not a star,” Delia told her sister. “It’s a diamond.”

  “A star,” said Livy.

  “A diamond.” Delia drove her elbow into Livy’s arm.

  “Do you know what I think?” Marcus put in before the disagreement could escalate into violence. “Maybe stars are diamonds with which angels adorn the heavens. Maybe sometimes they drop them, and they fall all the way to the earth.”

  Twin blue gazes swung abruptly back to him.

  “Oh, yes,” said Delia. “The ones in the sky do fall sometimes. We saw it, didn’t we?” she asked her sister. “Last night we saw one fall.”

  “You promised not to tell,” Livy reproached.

  “He won’t tell Mama.”

  They lifted pleading countenances to him.

  “You won’t tell, will you?” Delia asked. “It was very late, and we went to the window.”

  “When you were supposed to be sleeping?” he whispered conspiratorially.

  They nodded guiltily.

  Marcus crossed the room to the window and looked out. “It’s very pretty, isn’t it? Dark and quiet and magical. When I was a little boy, sometimes I woke very late in the night, and couldn’t fall asleep again right away. I would climb onto the window seat and look at the stars, and imagine things. If I tell on you, I suppose I must tell on me, too. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair, would it?”

  The blonde heads shook back and forth.

  “Well, I can’t possibly bear to tell on myself. It’s a special secret.”

  The sisters looked at each other.

  “It was very, very late,” Delia said.

  “I counted twelve chimes,” said Livy.

  ‘Then we saw the star fall, over there.” Delia’s small finger pointed eastward.

  Marcus felt a tingle at the back of his neck.

  That was the direction he’d come last night. At the stroke of midnight, he had left the comforts of Marlborough’s Castle Inn and climbed back onto his carriage, to continue the remaining thirty-odd miles to Greymarch. He couldn’t explain that sudden decision any more than he could the one that had driven him from London in the first place. There seemed to be a great deal lately that he couldn’t explain. A long, long time ago, he would have believed the falling star explained everything.

  As a child, he had truly believed angels looked after the stars, and after him as well; and when they dropped a star, it was to
send him a special message. Even as a young man—for he’d been a dreamer, as idealists generally are—he’d half-believed still.

  During the fortnight preceding Julius’s wedding, the clear night skies had been filled with star showers. On one such night, a week after Christina’s arrival, she had slipped out to the garden to meet him. She was warm, flushed with dancing, and one corn silk tendril had slipped from its pin to dangle at her ear. He’d brushed it back with his thumb, and she’d shivered. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he’d caught the flash of a star, tom from its moorings, taking fire as it plummeted to earth. The fiery journey would consume it, he knew—as love would consume him.

  If it was a warning, it came too late. He was already bending close to brush his mouth against her ear, and trembling at his own daring. She trembled, too, but that was all. She didn’t push him away as he’d feared. And so he took courage and wrapped his arms about her and, whispering love, touched his lips to her silken cheek. Then he breathed her name, and brought his mouth to hers... and died of happiness and lived of it, in that first sweet, stolen kiss.

  The chime of the hall clock yanked him back to the present, and to the pair of fair-haired angels gazing innocently at him. “I’d better say good night,” he said, “or I shall be very late for dinner.”

  ***

  Christina wore the diamond pendant Arthur had given her on their first anniversary, and wished she hadn’t. The cold stone burnt her flesh. There were moments when she could almost believe this was because it had caught fire from the one flashing opposite in Marcus’s neckcloth. There were other moments when she suspected the heat came from elsewhere: the smoldering gaze that slid from time to time to the pendant dangling between her breasts, and seemed to brand her deeper each time.

  It was the gown, she told herself. It was too risque. Yet it wasn’t, either, for countless other gowns were cut as low or lower, and thoroughly respectable women wore them. Fashionable gowns were part of her new-won freedom, part of the pact she’d made with herself during the last months of mourning. She’d kept that pact and assumed control of her life, extricating her children, her home, her activities, and her wardrobe from the suffocating grasp of her sisters-in-law.

  The struggle had been long and painful. She was entitled to enjoy her victory and her freedom.

  She wished she’d worn a shawl.

  She wished she were not so conscious of the man opposite. Every time he looked her way—as he must, when they conversed—the vast dining room grew correspondingly smaller and hotter, while her throat constricted and her muscles tensed another degree. By the time dessert was served, she was taut as an over-wound watch spring, ticking off the seconds until she and Penny could withdraw and leave the men to their port.

  When Penny finally did signal that it was time to leave, Christina sprang up from her chair like a jack-in-the-box.

  She had just stepped over the threshold and was drawing a breath of relief when she heard Marcus’s voice behind her: “You are not going to make me sit and swill that awful stuff, Julius. I never could abide port, any more than I could the tiresome rite of exchanging the same bawdy stories our ancestors told each other six centuries ago.”

  “What you could never abide,” said Julius, “was keeping away from the ladies.”

  “Which is only logical,” came the light answer, very close behind Christina now. “They’re infinitely more aesthetic than a room full of drunken men.”

  He’d moved quietly, and far more quickly than she, Christina discovered, because he was at her side even as he uttered the last words.

  “What enigmatic name, I wonder, have the modistes given the color of your gown?” he asked, dropping his voice. “I should call it russet, but that isn’t fanciful enough. Terre d’Inde, perhaps.”

  “I believe she called it brick red,” Christina said.

  “I remember you always in white,” he said. “White muslin. Silk makes... a different sound.” His voice dropped lower still. “Another sort of... whisper.”

  As slowly and reluctantly as he uttered the words, her gaze moved up to his. Their eyes caught and held a heartbeat too long, while the corridor grew darker and hazier, thick with shades of the past.

  They broke free in the same instant, turning from each other and instinctively quickening their pace. As if they both sensed that some dangerous abyss had opened in the hallway, they hastened for the safety of the drawing room.

  ***

  Two cornsilk braids formed a thick coronet about Christina’s head, the severe style softened by a few wavy tendrils framing her pale countenance. No plumes or lace, ribbons, or jewels adorned the simple coiffure, only the shimmering threads of gold fire where the candlelight played. It lit the silver dust in her eyes as well.

  The rest was fire and ice: the graceful arch of her neck, the snowy smoothness of slender shoulders, and the swelling curves, blindingly white against the vivid russet of her silk gown. A diamond pendant shot fire sparks, as though the flesh it touched set it aflame. Marcus dragged his gaze away for what must be the thousandth time this night, and tried to attend to the story Christina was reading aloud. Of all books, she’d chosen Frankenstein, as though this day had not been gothic enough.

  Whenever Marcus came near her, the memories rose like ghosts, palpable as her scent. When she moved, the whispering silk beckoned him nearer, and he was mortified to find that it was as hard to keep away now as it had been ten years ago.

  Then, he’d almost envied the men he generally despised, because they, unlike the black sheep of the Greyson family, might woo her openly. He, on the other hand, hardly dared look at her, because to look was to long for, and he hadn’t yet developed the skill of disguising his feelings. If anyone guessed those feelings, they would snatch her up and take her away, far from his corrupting influence.

  Ten years ago, he’d been hemmed in by others’ disapproval of his character. At present, he had to hem himself in, because he didn’t approve of what he felt. He shouldn’t be so obsessed with her.

  He was too tired to cope with this, Marcus decided. He should just go to bed. Now. Christina was turning the page, and he was just opening his mouth to excuse himself when a servant entered and, with an apologetic bow to the company, hastened to Penny.

  The footman said something in a low voice. Penny put down her knitting and rose.

  “Well, this is not convenient,” she said, “but tomorrow would be less so, and one must be grateful for that, at least. Julius, you must order the carriage brought round. Sally Turnbull’s first has decided to make his debut this night,” she explained, “and the midwife cannot be found.”

  Her husband frowned. “For heaven’s sake, Penny, there are scores of women in the village—”

  “She is young and frightened, and she’s asked for me.”

  “You can’t go in your condition, especially on such a cold night—”

  “My condition, indeed. Your mother was eight months gone with Marcus when she helped a neighbor in a similar case.” Penny moved to the door. “I’ll fetch what I need, and I’ll expect to find the carriage waiting when I’m ready to leave.”

  Christina put down the book. “I’d better come with you,” she said as she stood up.

  “Certainly not,” Penny said. “What if one of the children wakes with a nightmare? You won’t wish to leave Marcus alone to tend to a frightened child. He became distraught over a smock, recollect.”

  She left, and a grumbling Julius after her.

  Christina sank back onto the sofa.

  The room grew oppressively still. Marcus took up a poker and stirred up the fire.

  “I wonder who—or what—has made off with the midwife,” he said into the taut silence. “Frankenstein’s monster, undoubtedly. Poor, confused fellow. He probably mistook old Mrs. Hobbes for his mama.”

  “I didn’t realize you knew the story,” she said. “You should have said so, Mr. Greyson. I could have read something else. How bored you must have been.”

>   “I wasn’t bored.” He turned to her. “You have a most expressive reading voice. Because I was familiar with the tale, even the most harmless passages became fraught with foreboding, and gave me gooseflesh.”

  “Delia and Livy have ghoulish tastes, I’m afraid. They like nothing better than stories that frighten them out of their wits. And Mama must tell the tale in a creepy, bloodcurdling voice, of course.”

  “Ghosts and goblins?” Marcus’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe it of those delicate little girls.”

  “I believe it is a rebellion of sorts,” she said. “Their activities were strictly circumscribed by others. There was a great deal not permitted. These last two years we seem to be making up for it.”

  She looked up then. “At present, the twins’ manners aren’t all they should be, as you saw in the playroom. On the other hand, two years ago they were so timid they wouldn’t have dared speak to you. I did not want to undo their progress. I had rather they be a bit overbold than... stifled.”

  “Certainly,” he said, stifling his own surprise. “Children aren’t adults in miniature. As to manners—ah, well, I’m no judge, for mine were always dreadful, deliberately so, and still are, though I’ve polished the roughest edges. I saw nothing objectionable in your daughters’ behavior.” He managed a smile. “On the contrary, it swelled my vanity to be fought over.”

  She picked up the book again, and straightened the marker. “I assumed you were capable of expressing your disapproval—or simply leaving—if they annoyed you. I thought they must deal with the consequences of their behavior, for Mama will not always be there to make everything as they wish it.”

  “A life lesson,” he said.

  “Perhaps.” The corners of her soft mouth turned up a very little bit. “Although their aunts would be appalled at what would appear to be a lesson in vying for a gentleman’s attention.”

  “Oh, yes. Aunts.” He moved a step closer. “Travers had four unwed elder sisters, I recollect. I suppose you were a great comfort to one another after... after your loss. I was sorry to hear of Travers’s passing,” he said dutifully. “It must have been a great shock to you. You’d known each other from childhood, hadn’t you?”