Light of My Heart

by Elizabeth St. Michel

  Joseph Banks. Anthony grabbed a glass of wine from a tray from a passing servant. The president of the Royal Society was in attendance and she had him eating out of her hand?

  “And I am not the least bit fascinating,” Rachel said, and gave Anthony a quick wink. “Lord Rutland is coming up with something that will be revolutionary. Aren’t you?”

  “What is it?” Joseph Banks coaxed.

  Anthony choked on his drink.

  “He cannot tell. Cannot give one hint of his work,” she dared to answer for him. “At least, not yet.”

  Anthony narrowed his eyes. Wait until I get you home so I can wring your neck.

  “But his discovery will gain him entrance into the Royal Society.” She pressed Joseph Banks.

  “If his revelation is as sensational as you have mentioned, Miss Thorne, then his entrance is with certainty.”

  Anthony could not believe his ears. A compliment from the world’s most famous botanist?

  When he bowed and left, Anthony turned on her. “There you go again, making promises that I may never meet. Don’t you know that an entry is voted on by subcommittees of fellow scientists, not demanded by a Colonial? All of England will be laughing at me.”

  “Don’t worry. I have full confidence in your ability.”

  Anthony growled. “How will that happen, attending tea parties and soirees?”

  “Now that we are on that subject. Aren’t you glad you came? You have met so many illustrious people.”

  “Besides you, Joseph Banks, Captain Johnson and Aunt Margaret?” Anthony scanned the room. “The rest were born at the top of the stupid tree and have fallen, hitting every branch on the way down.”

  She gave him a pained smilemore of a wince. “Being one of the smartest men in the entire kingdom can be a lonely affair. One can imagine when you’re constantly surrounded by dimwits, dullards andworsethose who think they’re clever.”

  “Am I the only one not given to bullbaiting and cockfighting?”

  She pealed out her laughter and everyone looked. He widened his smile, thoroughly enjoying himself, a feat up until now, he’d thought impossible.

  Three young gentlemen stopped in front of Rachel, heels together and bending at the waist. “May I have the honor of this dance, Miss Thorne?” The gentleman to the left elbowed in front of the others, yet shied from Anthony’s glare. Rachel smothered a giggle.

  “Of course, she will,” Aunt Margaret intervened. “But one at a time.”

  “Sir Jenkins, I would be honored to have this dance.” Rachel extended her hand to the handsome young man with the trim build, and then gave Anthony a look of laughing exasperation. I can’t help it. She swirled to the music. Honey scent drifted through the air, the room ablaze with hundreds of beeswax candles in a row of chandeliers that fired hundreds of crystal pendants in a sparkling prismatic display.

  She enjoyed a good laugh as much as anyone, and made an effort to bring laughter to others. She could be outspoken, but she also had a teasing nature and a gift for lightening someone’s mood, no matter how sour their character.

  Sir Davies, her next partner possessed such a disposition. The imperturbability of excess and vanity hung on him like melted wax. Similar to other male acquaintances in England, they lacked goals in life to make a difference in the world and floundered in a sea of indolence.

  So unlike Jacob, Ethan and…Anthony Rutland.

  Sir Davies smacked his lips. “I have a secret passion, Miss Thorne.”

  “Passion?”

  “May I escort you to a tea with my mother and my aunts’ tomorrow? There will be a stimulating discourse on…samplers…my secret passion. Did you know that the tent stitch and cross stitch are the predominant choice in embroidery?”

  Sir Davies embroidered? “I-I had no idea.” Her skills with the needle were making canvas sails when General Washington needed ships straightaway. Never did she hold the patience for the fine embroidery other women performed and never had she known a man who employed the pastime.

  Rachel sighed. Abby had hoped she would find a husband in England. But the men were…not men. If anyone of them had any conflict or confronted any terror, they would run to their snuffboxes or their mamas in outpourings of hysteria.

  Viscount Randall took her hand before Sir Davies had released her. Dressed impeccably, he had a magnificent bleached wig, and charming face decorated with an extraordinary powdered white beard, reminiscent of an ancient sea god. He was not very firm on his legs, his dancing had a shambling, wandering quality and he stepped on her toes more than once.

  From over Randall’s shoulder, Anthony lounged cynically against the wall, scorn for the couple dancing together. As her new partner turned her, Anthony caught her eye, and she saw his amusement at her discomposure. His eyes flicked from her to Randall and he raised his glass in a mocking toast, as if to wish her well on her husband hunt.

  Earlier in the day, she had been disappointed when Anthony had refused to accompany her to the social this evening. But, oh, so joyful when she clapped eyes on him, and for one second, she imagined he came because of her. Remembering his reaction to her new emerald gown, hot torrid heat curled inside her.

  Why her dress practically melted off her under his gaze. How he made her feel like a woman, vanishing the girl.

  Did Sir Randall say something to her?

  “I just came back from Bath. The cure waters are wonderful for consumption,” said Randall.

  The wasting disease? She widened her eyes in horror.

  Davies corrected himself. “I meant to ward off consumption, in case…one was exposed to the lung ailment. Do you do jigsaw puzzles?” He referred to the new pastime of aristocrats putting together cut map pictures of the earth. “I know all about the world.”

  “Your scholarship astounds me, Sir Randall.”

  He beamed like an idiot and shook his head as if it were no great feat, and then coughed. Did he have consumption? The powder from his wig fell in an asphyxiating cloud about his face. How she disliked the fashion. Might he die from inhalation of Cyprus powder?

  “I would like to call on you in the near future, Miss Thorne.”

  “Of course,” she said, desiring to get away so she could breathe again. The crush was intolerable. So many people in this strange new world, like swimming in a pond and not being able to put your feet down on a stable bottom and getting caught in the muck.

  At the end of the waltz, Rachel curtsied. Viscount Randall refused to let her go. She opened her mouth to complain. Many guests watched and she blushed at Randall’s offense.

  Anthony drew abreast, his face of such dark menace that she shuddered. He jerked his elbow up, grazing Randall’s bearded chin and offered his arm. Rachel tugged her fingers away, scathing Randall with an angry glare.

  Anthony guided her to the center of the floor for the next dance. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be so charming.”

  She stiffened. “I was not flirtatious.”

  “I could hold Poseidon’s beard and challenge him to a duel.”

  Rachel huffed, goaded by the mocking amusement in his eyes. “I worried that you’d break his kneecap.”

  “What would make you think that, Miss Thorne?”

  “The fact that Sir Bonneville has been glowering daggers in your backside ever since you arrived, and is sitting with his leg in a splint, propped up on a chair.”

  “I can’t help if Bonneville is clumsy.”

  Rachel slanted him a knowing look. “You are irredeemable.”

  “So how is the husband hunt going?”

  Rachel started, then shrugged, trying to appear unconcerned when she was not. “Not very well, I’m afraid.”

  He taunted her with a dubious expression. “I find that difficult to believe when you have so many admirers.”

  Was he jealous? No. Anthony’s concern was steeped in a brotherly nature. “Many have handsome countenances. Baron Jenkins quoted the current price of gold to the ounce. Sir Davies greatest inspiration was havi
ng tea with his mother and auntsand he shared his passion with me.”

  “Passion?”

  “He embroiders.”

  “Confirms his birth at the top of the stupid tree.”

  “And Poseidon…” she giggled at Anthony’s appropriate reference of Viscount Randall, “…dazzled me with his knowledge of geography, working jigsaw puzzles, informing me, America is to the leftof England.”

  “Aunt Margaret will have to try harder finding a suitable husband.” He whirled her around, his movements, deliberate, with an animal grace.

  Rachel’s shoulders drooped. She swallowed and looked away, her spirit deflated. “It is folly to believe that I would find someone. I will return to Boston and live as a maid. That is my fate.” Never had she really intended to marry anyone in England. She had come only to please Abby and to have a change of scenery. Any idea of marrying anyone of high nobility was impossible. Never would she bring her shame on anyone.

  “You will not return until you have helped me with what you promised, Thomas Banks,” Anthony said.

  Her brain scrambled to find a logical excuse to protest his arrogant demand. But when she raised her face, she was caught in the spell of those compelling blue eyes and clamped down on a sudden temptation to run her fingers over his wide shoulders and muscular arms. The boom of music and clatter of voices disappeared as she forced down those forbidden reactions.

  “You have to help me find my unicorn.”

  In his gruff, growly and roundabout way, he was making up for her disappointment by offering to be part of his discovery. Oh, Anthony, it is as if I’ve known you all my life, and when I’m with you, I don’t have to pretend to be anyone or anything.

  She knew Anthony Rutland.

  Because she knew herself.

  Pushed behind a wall of painful emotions, trapped in the swirling waters of his subconscious, existed a fear of feeling…and being vulnerable.

  Her heart ached for the highly intelligent man who was unable to see how his life paralleled the reclusive Captain Elijah Johnson, the deceased sea captain, making himself into an island…untouched and…isolated. Wasn’t Anthony’s endless days spent in his laboratory, taking on seemingly impossible challenges, undeterred by failure or setbacks tantamount to the sea captain’s hoarding? Preferring to be locked in a sphere of anguish, convincing himself that life proceeds on, undisturbed, for the rest of time?

  “You should marry again, Lord Anthony,” she blurted, her voice shaking with more emotion than it should.

  The dance ended and walking arm in arm, his muscles flexed, a glimmering of wanted touch. Anthony Rutland did not fool her. He wanted to break free of that prison, thirsted for human contact. Teaching him to dip his toe from time to time into humanity’s maelstrom was good for him no matter how many times he told her it was illogical.

  No doubt he was more entertained than annoyed by what she said.

  “Yes, I should. Perhaps you can help me decide whom I should marry.”

  She winced at his abrupt suggestion. Not at all was she prepared to help him select a wife. But he was offering Rachel trust. She could see it in the warmth of his eyes; hear it in the gentleness of his deep baritone voice. How could she refuse, despite his entreaty cutting her like a knife. Shameful or not, she could not say no and nodded her head, a gesture of sincerity and honesty, she was far from feeling.

  Shoved to the side, Rachel looked down on a young woman who had wedged herself between them. Imogene Brougham, the darling of the evening, surrounded by a bevy of female friends and gentlemanly admirers. Rachel pasted on a smile.

  Imogene hung onto Anthony and beamed coquettishly. “Do you like the latest French fashion?” She fanned her brocade skirts, “Marie Antoinette’s new rage.”

  An unfamiliar pang of jealousy surfaced. Why? Hadn’t she told Lord Anthony they were…like brother and sister? Didn’t he own the right to have feminine pursuits and hadn’t she just told him he should marry?

  With his older brother, the heir, missing and presumed dead, Anthony was fair game. As the prospective next Duke of Rutland, he was a hare before the hounds, a veritable feast for status seeking females on the hunt.

  “Do you play the pianoforte, Miss Thorne?” Imogene shrilled, and then looked adoringly to Anthony, one of her hands resting in the region of her heart as though to keep that organ from leaping through the silk of her gown.

  Through her lowered lashes, Rachel stole a glance at Anthony’s grim expression as he engaged in conversation with the gentleman beside him. She hoped Anthony would marry well. Someone who appreciated him for his talents. Someone to love him. Her eyes clouded. She needed him like the very air she needed to breathe, but to dream of a life with Anthony was impossible. He walked a different path than hers.

  He would be the next Duke of Rutland. As a duke he would need a match of comparable status. They were an ocean apart.

  More young girls circled. Scavengers ready to feed on their prey. He looked incredibly handsome in his black evening attire that fit his tall, muscular frame to perfection. No doubt many of the women yearned to have him at their side, to bask in the aura of restrained power and masculine vitality that emanated from him, and to know the fascination of those bold blue eyes capturing and holding theirs.

  All her musings scattered. Festering occurrences of the past tore open old wounds. She was alien, did not belong, a Colonial. “I am not accomplished in that area,” Rachel admitted.

  “Watercolors? Embroidery? Too bad that you are not refined in the arts.” Imogene answered for her. “What can you do?”

  “I-I-” Blood drained from her face. What could she say? That she could climb to the top of a mast in thirty seconds, tie sailor’s knots so tight, a ship in a hurricane couldn’t breach, discuss hydraulics? None of which were important to the British social whirl and definitely frowned upon. She lifted her chin. “I’m afraid I do not have any of the refinements you speak of.”

  To go back to her room at the Rutland’s and crawl under the covers. Jacob, Ethan, Abby, her home in Boston…anything to distract.

  The girls covered their mouths with their hands in a silent, condemning “no,” darting haughty glances to one another. Imogene snorted her disgust and tightened her grip on Lord Anthony. “An English Lord desires an accomplished lady.” She conveyed a remote and unapproachable majesty, pouting her perfect lips. Her companions tittered, nodding their heads in undeniable agreement, launching an attack that would have made Cromwell proud, and with Anthony in their sights.

  Rachel’s world tilted. If Anthony was to be the next duke, Imogene’s foregone intimation was valid. Never could Rachel fill that role. He needed someone with a pedigree.

  Would Imogene be his wife? Her belly knotted. He deserved so much more. In the past few weeks of working together, they had cemented a friendship, and as a friend, she could not allow Imogene to be that woman. But how?

  “Mother, is going to buy me a Shiatsu or should I get a poodle?” Imogene said with all the charm and amiability she could muster. With tactical precision, she squeezed herself between Anthony and the gentleman he was conversing with. Anthony glared. Undeterred, Imogene fluttered her eyelashes as if she had just written and offered him the Magna Carta.

  Anthony leaned toward Rachel, brushing her shoulder, his sandalwood drifting through the air. “What do you think about piling our capacitors?

  “Is it a kind of cat?” Imogene gushed like water sluicing from a bilge, battling to be in the conversation.

  Anthony groaned.

  “I’m going to sing tonight, Lord Anthony. Would you be my escort?” Imogene didn’t wait for an answer, commandeering Anthony’s arm, and all but whisking him away. He stood firm. Imogen jerked back into place. Her eyes protruded. Refusal was not one of her strong points.

  Identical to serendipity, a scientific thought occurred to Rachel, bubbling up and popping a champagne cork. “Did you ever think we could use Newton’s law to calculate the magnitude of electrical force arising
between two charged bodies?”

  “Do you sing, Miss Thorne?” Imogene trilled her coup de grace. Her companions raised their eyebrows, expectant of another failed response from Rachel.

  “She hums,” Anthony answered for her.

  To kick him had merit, but in his eyes, Rachel saw a glint of humor, then the amused twitch of his mouth. He was inclined to play games with Imogene.

  “Hums? That is not a quality in a well-bred lady,” Imogene scoffed.

  Anthony scratched his neck. “Rachel, do you remember our conversation about Reverend Pott’s wife? Do you recall how she was abated by your singular aim?”

  Rachel smiled, abject gratitude from his sardonic sense of humor flooded her. She was scorned by his peers, and he had championed her in a swarm of scavengers.

  Imogene glared at them, and then marched off. Her companions raised their noses, pivoted and trailed after their queen.

  “A compelling touch of the civilized and the barbaric, don’t you think, Miss Thorne?”

  “You have managed to be courtly, perfectly mannered and at the same time carry a ducal arrogance that women find irresistible.”

  “Including you, Miss Thorne?”

  There was something in his tone that touched a place inside her. Rachel met his steady gaze, then quickly glanced away before he saw the havoc wreaked on her soul. Was he making another jest?

  She couldn’t afford to care or indulge herself in emotions that would lead to no end. Keep the relationship on an impersonal level. That was the best way to deal with matters. To put a bit of distance between them had value. A day apart would be best for both of them. Suitors were coming to call, and she’d promised to visit Lord Banfield and Humphrey. How they had championed her the night when Lord and Lady Ward, and then, Sir Bonneville had accosted her. She looked forward to visiting them. There had been a long history between the Duke and her cousin, Jacob that touched her heart.

  A day apart would be best for both of them.

  Rachel bit her lip. How she hated to disappoint him when he’d been so gallant, but disappoint him she must, and the sooner she spoke the better. With certainty, she was putting too much worry into the situation. Of course, Anthony would be very understanding. “I cannot work in the laboratory tomorrow.”