by Mia Marlowe
“I didn’t touch that either,” she said defensively. “And even if I had, how could I harm it, whatever it is?”
“It is an astrolabe and if you don’t know what it is, how can you be sure you won’t break it?”
“Very well. Instruct me.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “What does an astrolabe do?”
“Nothing. Unless one knows how to use it.”
“No one is born knowing how to use such a thing, are they?” she said testily. Meg was terribly travel-worn and he was terribly arrogant about his superior knowledge. “Perhaps I was hasty in assigning you Prince Charming status.”
Again, that amused smile. She wished she could swipe it off his smugly handsome face.
“My apologies,” he said. “Here.” He held the device closer so she could examine it. The brass glinted brightly as she squinted at the markings. She’d hoped to be able to show him she could read, but she could make no sense of the indecipherable squiggles here and there.
“There’s not a smidge of English on it,” she finally said.
“No, it’s Persian.”
“And I suppose you can read Persian.” If he claimed he could, she had no way to prove him wrong, but the only language Lords Stanstead and Westfall ever complained about having to learn during their school years was Latin.
“I don’t read it well enough to appreciate their poetry, but I’m sufficiently fluent to use this instrument.” Lord Badewyn turned the lever and the smaller circle glided around the larger one, as she had suspected it would. “An astrolabe gives us a way to solve problems relating to time and the movement of the heavens.”
“I see.” She almost did. When she was younger, she’d slept under an open sky often enough to know the stars wheeled in a great circle. If she ignored the Persian squiggles, she recognized a few of the constellations gouged into the brass. “You use this to predict where certain heavenly bodies will be at certain times.”
“Yes,” he said, clearly pleased that she’d grasped that much. Then he replaced it into its niche with something akin to reverence.
“If it’s so useful, why do you keep it here?”
“Where else should I keep it?”
“Close to where you use it, of course.” Sometimes, the most educated of folk hadn’t a lick of common sense.
“I never use this one. I have another astrolabe for my work,” he said. Now his tone was a little testy.
“So this one is just for show?”
“I wouldn’t say that. It’s fully functional,” he explained. “It’s simply too dear for constant use.”
“Do you mean to say you own something that’s too good for you?”
“No, but—”
“Oh! I think I understand. You must have a son you wish to leave this fine instrument to.”
His face darkened like a storm brooding over Mount Snowdon. She had no idea how she’d offended him. It seemed a perfectly natural conclusion that he might be saving the dear astrolabe for his heir. But her words had clearly upset him and if she could have stuffed them back into her mouth, she’d have gobbled them up posthaste.
“Is that your artless way of trying to discover whether or not I’m married?” Samuel knew it wasn’t the polite thing to say, but he wasn’t accustomed to polite discourse. Miss Anthony would simply have to deal with his plain-spoken ways.
Of course, he had a few things to deal with as well. Miss Anthony wasn’t at all what he’d expected when he’d seen flickering images in his scrying basin about the Duke of Camden sending his ward to Faencaern. For one thing, she wasn’t as young as he’d predicted. This lady was closer to twenty than fifteen. For another, her manner was off. If she were attached to the duke’s household, she ought to show a bit more restraint, more refinement.
And where had she come by that singularly plain traveling ensemble? A duke’s ward ought to be wearing his station a good bit more than this miss was.
“No, of course I’m not trying to discover if you’re married,” she protested. “It doesn’t matter a smidge to me if you are or not. You might have half a dozen wives stashed in a place as remote as this and it wouldn’t signify in the slightest.”
“I’d have to be Persian myself to do that.” Samuel snorted at the unlikely scenario of having multiple wives. He was doing his best to avoid having one. “Besides, I believe followers of the Prophet are only allowed four wives, not half a dozen.”
“Well, even if you had a full dozen, it would make no difference to me,” she said. At first sight, he’d thought her as plain as her dark blue gown, but when she colored up, the blush rendered her pretty in a windswept sort of way. “I’m only here because…the Duke of Camden sent me to escape…an unpleasant situation.”
“Ah,” he said with sudden understanding. “You have become embroiled in a scandal.”
“Where would I be able to get into one of those? Lady Easton and I only go out to make calls on her friends. They’re all forty if they’re a day and far too old for scandals. Or else we visit museums or go shopping. Trust me, there is nothing the least scandalous about staring at Egyptian mummies or buying Brussels lace.”
She rolled her eyes at him. He couldn’t tell if they were blue or green. Hazel, he decided.
“I’ve actually not been presented, you see, so I’ve been to no balls or attended dinner parties or done any of the usual things one expects in a London Season,” she explained. “The chance of getting myself embroiled in anything as interesting as a scandal is slim to none.”
He could almost hear her silently added, More’s the pity. Perhaps having Miss Anthony around was going to be less trouble than he thought. She had a quick mind. She was amusing without intending to be, and more to the point, she wasn’t the breathtakingly attractive sort Grigori usually favored.
“But back to your beautiful astrolabe,” she said. “I’ll never understand why people have fine things if they don’t allow themselves the pleasure of using them. We none of us know how many days we have on this earth. What are we saving things for? Why eat off pewter if there’s china in your cupboard?”
“I take your point.” Evidently, the duke’s ward had a healthy respect for herself, despite her pedestrian wardrobe. “I shall tell Malachai to use the best settings for supper this evening in your honor.”
“No, I didn’t mean for me,” she said, exasperation fairly leaking out her ears. “I meant for you.”
Actually, Samuel rarely bothered with the dining hall. He didn’t need the fuss of a formal meal in that echoing chamber. It was simpler to take a tray in his room. But before he could explain that his household was a small one and not accustomed to extravagant dining, she was wandering back over to the tapestry again. This time, she stopped near the corner where the lone woman stood.
“She doesn’t seem to be afraid like the others, does she?” Miss Anthony said.
“She’s not.” Though she should have been.
“Why not? Seems to me that watching an angel fall would be a pretty terrifying thing. Who is she?”
Samuel shifted uncomfortably. He was wrong. Having Miss Anthony in residence was going to be difficult after all. She was the inquisitive sort, which made her high class trouble in work-a-day boots. “Have you never read that Augustine believed that before God created the heavens, He fashioned hell for the curious?”
She cut her gaze quickly to him, clearly aghast. “No, and I don’t want to read anything of the sort. What a horrid thing to think. If God didn’t want us to be curious, He’d have given us pudding where our brains should be.”
She stared at the woman in the tapestry again as if she might divine her identity with her concentrated gaze. Samuel wished he’d asked Grigori if Camden’s ward was also one of his Extraordinaires.
“But since you brought up reading,” Miss Anthony said, “have you a library here?”
“Yes. However I doubt we have anything you’d enjoy.”
“Why? Is it all by that Augustine chap?”
Samuel snorted. He doubted anyone had ever referred to the saint as “that Augustine chap” before. “No.”
“Then I’m sure I’ll find something better than his stuff. And now, will you kindly ring for someone to show me to my room?” she said with a sigh. “I’ve been traveling a good long while and I’m in desperate need of a bath.”
Miss Anthony’s hand flew to her mouth. Evidently, speaking her mind before she fully considered her words was her main vice.
Samuel’s was a vivid imagination. It coursed into ramming speed as an image of Miss Anthony in a copper hipbath filled with bubbles bloomed in his mind. She might be wearing the most unfortunate traveling gown ever, but despite the stiff bombazine, he saw signs of pleasing curves beneath it.
“I beg your pardon, my lord,” she said. “I didn’t mean…that is to say…I apologize for being indelicate.”
“No need. If an apology is in order, it should come from me for keeping you from your chamber after such a long journey.” Samuel tugged at a nearby bell pull.
He really ought to be thanking her. Usually, he subjugated his body and all its urges, but imagining Miss Anthony in the tub wearing nothing but her blushing skin reminded him how pleasantly male he could feel. How empowered.
He just hoped the cut of his trousers disguised how very empowered he was at the moment.
Fortunately, the maid arrived just then, though for the life of him, he couldn’t recall her name. All the help looked alike to him.
“Afternoon, miss.” The girl executed a flurry of bobbing curtseys and launched into a running stream of idle chatter about the vagaries of travel and how lovely Miss Anthony must find it to finally stop moving. She collected Miss Anthony’s valise by the door and urged Samuel’s guest to “Follow me, Miss, if it so please you.”
Miss Anthony trailed her to the winding stairs in the far corner, but stopped when she reached the foot of them. She turned back to look at him.
“Will there be a dressing gong?”
“A what?”
“The signal that we have only an hour before dinner,” Miss Anthony said with a puzzled frown. “So we’ll know when it’s time to change for the evening meal.”
Samuel hadn’t followed that sort of rigid schedule since his last tutor had been dismissed years ago. Once he dressed each morning, with very little assistance from his valet, he wore the same clothing until he retired for the night. When he became hungry, he rang for food which always appeared with near miraculous speed. If he wanted to ride, he had a horse saddled and rode. If he wanted to read, he spent the whole day in the library. If he wished to observe a celestial event that kept him on the roof all night and left him sleeping the next day away, he did so with no compunction. The lack of regular order in his life hadn’t troubled him one jot.
Until now.
“The gong will ring at seven,” Samuel assured her. He hoped the servants could scare one up in the lumber room. “We dine at eight.”
At least they would this evening.
She flashed a smile at him then. The expression made her eyes sparkle and lit up her face, rendering her surprisingly lovely. Her smile revealed her soul and it was exquisite—curious, open and trusting. Miss Anthony was a beauty, after all.
Why had he thought her plain?
Samuel watched until she disappeared up the staircase. His scalp prickled and he knew, without knowing how, that Grigori was behind him. He’d probably been eavesdropping on the entire conversation from around the corner.
“Not a pattern sort of debutante, is she?” Samuel said. He was glad of it. Grigori lived for the biddable ones he could seduce with a smile and a few sweet words.
“No, but then you’re not a typical lord, either.”
Samuel needed no reminder.
“So, we’re dining at eight, are we?” Grigori said.
“Miss Anthony and I are, yes.”
“I believe I’ll join you.”
“Why?” This was a departure from the plan. Grigori had made no bones about the fact that since Samuel had no interest in choosing a wife for himself, he considered Miss Anthony a prime candidate for the role of Lady Badewyn. But Grigori had also told him he didn’t intend to meet the woman Samuel wed until well after the vows had been spoken.
“Let us just say that even I feel time nipping at my heels on occasion. I want to help,” Grigori said laconically.
“I don’t need help.”
“From what I was able to overhear, you certainly do. The girl is right. Charm doesn’t seem to be in your repertoire. It would be a pity to lose this one because of your boorish behavior. Your Miss Anthony seems like a rippingly unconventional find.”
“She is not my Miss Anthony.”
“Maybe not yet, but she will be.”
Samuel’s gut churned. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Least of all the young woman he’d just met. Miss Anthony had come to Faencaern Castle for sanctuary from some unnamed danger. She had no idea she’d stumbled into a situation fraught with far more peril than she was likely to encounter among the ton of London.
So long as Samuel didn’t become involved with her, she’d be safe until the Duke of Camden recalled her. But when Grigori made pronouncements about the future, he was usually right.
My Miss Anthony.
He’d found her surprisingly attractive and he’d enjoyed talking with her more than he could have imagined. Her ideas were fresh, not the canned, careful conversation a debutante learned to make at finishing school. But Samuel would have to be careful. He’d have to steel himself against her, to be polite and nothing more. Hands awash in innocent blood never came clean.
My Dear Lady Easton,
As you know, I’ve never written a letter before but Mr. Bernard seems to want something to deliver to you, so I’ll give it my best effort. I won’t tell you we arrived safely because it’s obvious we must have since I’m writing to you. Dear me, my words are chasing their own tails, aren’t they?
Faencaern Castle isn’t at all what I expected and neither is Lord Badewyn. I know His Grace thought I’d be safer here, but in truth, my belly hasn’t stopped jittering since we arrived. If only I could poke about a bit I might discover what’s afoot here, but no, I promised His Grace I wouldn’t Find without his say-so. I understand that the duke wants to protect me, but the thing is, don’t all the Extraordinaires run into danger when they serve the Order sometimes?
Why should I be different?
Yours ever so truly,
Meg
~a letter to Lady Easton from Miss Meg Anthony
Chapter Four
Meg knew perfectly well why she was different. She was His Grace’s pet project, his proving ground for the idea that the upper class held no monopoly on psychic powers. He so wanted her to succeed, to rise above her humble beginnings, and if she was to be useful to the Order she needed to be able to move in aristocratic circles as one of them. So far, she’d been a dismal failure in that department.
Meg cleaned off the quill and replaced it in the small escritoire. There had been just enough light from the setting sun streaming through the arrow loop that served as a window in her chamber. It was growing too dim to write even if she had anything else to say.
“Oh, Miss, this gown is ever so smart.” The maid shook out Meg’s blue satin and held it up to admire it further. Her given name was Bronwen, Meg had learned, but as a lady’s maid she was entitled to be called by her surname, which was a mouthful—Cadwallader. The girl hadn’t stopped talking since she’d drawn Meg’s bath. Now that Meg was clean and dressed in her softly draping afternoon gown, Cadwallader was busy as a sparrow, unpacking Meg’s valise and stowing her few things in the large oak wardrobe. “Is this what they’re wearin’ in London these days?”
Cadwallader held the pale blue gown before herself and glanced in the nearby mirror, a not-so-subtle way of trying it on without actually slipping into it. Lady Easton had deemed the gown worthy of a dinner party, once Meg herself was worthy of attending one.
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Worthy or not, I’m wearing it tonight.
“They wouldn’t be wearing it in London ‘these days.’ That gown isn’t for day wear. The fabric and the ornamentation are too fine. It’s only for evening,” Meg explained, pleased. She thought she sounded very like Lady Easton at her instructive best.
“’Struth, that’s what it is to be a lady, I warrant. Even your clothes have curfews. Oh, my stars, would you look at these stockings!” The girl went on to exclaim over every scrap of lace or cunning embroidery on the undergarments Meg had brought. This was only the smallest part of Meg’s wardrobe. Once the rest of her things arrived, Cadwallader would likely have an apoplectic fit over the column dresses with their matching pelisses and the sweet little slippers that went with each outfit. She’d probably faint dead away over Meg’s collection of bonnets, caps, and hats. The duke hadn’t stinted a bit in seeing her tricked out like a proper lady.
“Oh, dear, I don’t see a corset here among your things,” the maid said.
“I don’t wear one. Just short stays.”
“Oh, well, I suppose with the way your gown is nipped in just below your breasts and doesn’t show your waist, you wouldn’t need a corset then, would you?” Cadwallader spread the blue satin on the bed and smoothed out the wrinkles with her hand. “Well, just you wait. All the women in the castle will get one look at your lovely things and out will come the shears and thread. We’ll be remaking our clothes to the new fashions right enough. We may be out of the way here in Faencaern, but we take to new things whenever we can, just like ducks to water, indeed we do.”
Judging from Cadwallader’s attire, no new female clothing had been seen in the castle in several decades. The maid wore a snug bodice that cinched in her waist over a long sleeved shirt. It probably concealed a heavy whalebone corset since she’d asked about one. Her skirt was full with multiple petticoats under it and a long white apron over it. Her carrot red hair was tucked untidily under a mobcap.