Dr. Joseph began putting the tools of his trade back in a satchel. “I was. How did you know?”
“Capricorn. Stubborn, serious, and cautious. Probably Cancer rising, so you’re also empathic and a caretaker. Around the fifteenth, perhaps?”
He smiled gently, patted her knee, then stood up. “January 15, 1799, to be precise. Theo explained your predilection for astrology. You would do better to create a better almanac than to predict human behavior.”
“But I was right, wasn’t I? I have a peculiar ability for interpreting what others cannot.” Which might be the reason others could not duplicate her results, she realized uneasily. Her Malcolm gift gave her an extra advantage. “You are still unmarried?”
“I am. I have been too busy studying and building my practice to dally with the ladies.”
“Exactly,” she said in satisfaction. “Ambitious and hardworking.”
He regarded her with amusement. “Will you find a match for me too?”
“Not if you continue to look upon me as some sort of fanciful child,” she retorted, taking his hand to stand up. “But if you’ll listen instead of judging, then you are invited to our tea party the day of the village fete. You should find the company agreeable.”
“I would be delighted to join the company,” he said, offering his arm to help her from the room. “I am not as certain I am delighted to eat anything served unless you have found another cook.”
Aster muttered an improper word under her breath. “They have no cook either?”
“The last one booted the dogs out of the kitchen, and Will booted out the cook in retaliation. The tale is all over the village.”
“Aside from his dislike of howling animals underfoot, was this cook worth keeping?” she asked warily.
“Probably the best in the county,” Dr. Joseph said, watching her with curiosity. “He can’t find another place that pays as well around here, so he is looking in London, although he claims to hate the city.”
“Will you carry a message from me to this cook?” At the physician’s expression of interest, Aster continued, “Tell him the dogs will be removed to a more appropriate area, and I will give him my mother’s secret to a perfect soufflé if he will return.”
The physician’s lips curled in appreciation. “I will do that, my lady. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.”
“Likewise, I’m sure.” She nodded and waited for him to take the stairs down.
Then, with determination, she limped in the direction of the Marquess of Ashford’s chambers. She could not operate without his express permission. And she needed to be certain a man with so many astrological knives hanging over his head wasn’t a danger to her friends and family.
And then . . . She might consider one of her more audacious plans, one she dare not admit even to herself, not until she had at least met the elusive marquess.
She could hear vile profanities emanating from behind the door before she even knocked. Crunching china was followed by loathsome bampot and a loud slam of an object against a wall. She supposed she ought to come back when the marquess was in a better humor, but she had a suspicion that would be after he was dead and buried in his grave.
She’d rather prevent that.
She knocked. More curses greeted her.
“I shall come in at the count of ten,” she admonished. “And if you lock the door, I will tell the housekeeper you have killed yourself and ask for the key.”
“She won’t know where it is,” a deep voice grumbled. “Come in. Theo said you’d be here.”
Pleased that his lordship was so perceptive, Aster waded into a wonderfully spacious chamber that appeared to have been struck by two hurricanes and a cyclone. Heavy green velvet draperies hung crookedly over any evidence of sunlight. Tilted glass wall sconces gleamed dully on the walls, even though it was five in the afternoon of a reasonably sunny summer day. The usual threadbare carpet adorned the wide-planked floor, ripped in places where booted feet had caught on the threads and yanked the holes wider.
Papers, books, broken china, clothes, boots, and various items of sporting equipment were strewn everywhere she looked—on floors, tables, chairs, and desk. The broad, towering marquess with his waistcoat badly buttoned and his cravat undone resembled a bear standing in the center of chaos. His dark hair looked as if it hadn’t been cut since the accident, and his thick beard hadn’t been shaved in weeks, at best.
Neither long hair nor thick beard disguised the jagged healing scar disfiguring his handsome visage from partially-shaved scalp to jutting cheekbone. Ashford’s stature alone was intimidating. He made two of her at the very least. The raw wound would scare small children into tears.
Azenor approved. Her newly hatched scheme took on momentum.
The marquess desperately needed a wife to take him in hand and direct him to do his parliamentary duty. She had resigned herself to never marrying, because she could not accept endangering a man she loved. However—she could never love a growling bear of a man like this. But with a little experience, she could manage him.
She needed more time to compare their charts. It was possible this scheme was the disaster hanging over the heads of both their families. She hated having to balance all possibilities. Life would be easier if she could simply do what her head said was best.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” she asked with interest as he stumbled over a tea cart that should never have been placed where he could run into it.
“What do you want?” he asked in a surly tone. “If you just want to stare, get the hell out.”
“I can find more attractive views if staring was my goal. I want to know that I have your permission to change your company rooms in anticipation of the tea party during the fete.” Unable to tolerate the untidiness, she shoved the cart against the wall and began gathering papers.
“What are you doing?” he asked in suspicion. “I didn’t ask for your help.”
“I am the family Librarian. I am compulsively tidy. If these papers have been placed here in some kind of order, I shall happily return them to their original state. Otherwise, I see no reason not to pick them up before you trip and break your neck.”
“Breaking my neck would solve a great deal,” he agreed. “But I’d rather wait until Theo is wed and his wife bedded. He has a habit of losing women before he makes it to the altar.”
“As you lose servants? Have you tried a smaller household?” she asked acerbically.
“Marry them all off!” he roared. “Find them all good homes, along with the damned hounds.”
One of the maligned creatures crept out from beneath the bed, tail wagging.
“If you’ll give me permission to make changes . . . ?” she asked again.
“Burn the place down, I don’t care. It’s not as if I’ll see what you’ve done.” He swiped his foot at a broken teapot and stumbled his way back to the bed, limping far worse than she.
“May I also make some changes in here?” she asked daringly. “That carpet really needs to go. I don’t know how you’ve tolerated it this long.”
“My great-great uncle brought it back from China. It’s rare and valuable.” He dropped to the unmade bed, sending another puppy scrambling from beneath the mattress.
“It was rare and valuable,” she asserted. “It is now ready for the dustbin. There is utterly no way of repairing it. Perhaps a good weaver could cut out the solid portions and bind it for a wall hanging.”
“Fine. Then the damned dogs can wet on the bare floor. That will be easier to clean.” He unerringly lifted an adoring puppy from the floor and stroked its head.
“You have no valet?” Azenor sought through her mental files for the last footman she’d trained. She couldn’t train a valet, but a good servant could learn.
“What do I need a valet for? I sent mine to Theo so he can learn to make himself presentable.”
“Ah, that explains his buttoned waistcoat. I am grateful for your thoughtfulness. It would be most difficu
lt to find him a wife if he continued about in shirtsleeves. Thank you for this opportunity to allow me to train a few more servants and introduce my friends to your household. It should be an enlightening experience,” she said primly, bobbing a curtsy even though he couldn’t see it.
“I still don’t believe in planets charting fates,” he growled. “For all I know, you sent someone to scare my horse that night just to prove your predictions were right and worm your way into my household.”
“Oh, very good, my lord. Stay on your toes and be wary. I shall send the stewards up to you for interviews, shall I? Would you like your valet back?”
“That’s enough impertinence! Get the hell out and get Theo married or leave!” Ashford roared—just like an injured bear. Even the puppy in his lap ran for the covers.
“I shall not introduce you to his potential candidates,” she said thoughtfully. “But I do wish to discuss my Aunt Gwenna and Uncle Harry’s labor bill at another time. Good evening to you, sir.”
Satisfied that she’d done her duty as she’d been taught, Aster limped toward the stairs. Her ankle did feel much better now that it had been soaked and bound. She had too many tasks to carry out to laze about like an invalid. A household without a cook was a disaster. As she knew from her own very large family, food was the glue that bonded disparate personalities into working together.
Although food hadn’t bound these quarrelsome Ives together, it seemed.
“What the devil are you about now?” Lord Theo demanded, coming up the stairs with books and a walking stick in his hand.
“Asking your brother’s permission to do as I please,” she said haughtily, raising her nose in the air at his tone. “You said you have a conservatory, correct?”
***
What the hell did the conservatory have to do with Duncan? Theo glanced cautiously in the direction of his brother’s chamber. When he heard no lion roar of fury, he glanced back at the demure miss in . . .
His heart nearly stopped in his chest as he thoroughly absorbed the lady’s evening attire. She was wearing another of those iridescent gowns that shimmered with blues and greens and grays, but it was the décolletage that held his eye and nearly caused another tongue-swallowing episode. There was nothing demure about the display of ripe, full curves pushing against the frailest wisp of silk, without a ruffle in sight. But it was the heart-shaped freckle nearly hidden in her cleavage that had his brain spinning in his skull and all his blood rushing southward.
He gulped and lost track of her question. Stupidly, he held out the walking stick he’d uncovered in the debris of the study. “Use this to keep your weight off your foot. Not that you have any weight . . .” He sighed and returned his gaze to her narrowed eyes so he could think again.
“Thank you, I think. Perhaps you should offer the stick to the marquess?”
“He had one. He used it to smash everything on his washstand the first time we offered it. Fearing he would use it to smash our heads, we hid it.” Theo refrained from offering his arm as she tested the cane. He had to quit looking at her . . . and touching.
Not looking or touching made for difficulty in wooing, but he’d already faced that challenge. How did one woo a woman who had to hate him before she would marry him? A conundrum he meant to conquer. Could he make her hate him by touching her? Experimentation was required.
She swung the stick and used it to limp down the stairs. “Try imagining being unable to look at the stars,” she said, thankfully following her own train of thought and not his. “Then perhaps you can appreciate the level of your brother’s frustration. For a Scorpio, particularly, it will take an enormous will to re-learn manipulating his surroundings.”
Theo skipped the weird bit and concentrated on imagining life without stars. An emptiness gaped inside him, followed by unreasoning panic and a need to do something to prevent such a catastrophe. And knowing it was impossible to prevent what one couldn’t foresee, he grasped some of his brother’s fury.
He muttered a bloody oath. “No wonder he says he’d rather be dead.”
“Exactly so. So you must find things he can do until he has found a role that suits him. Interviewing stewards will be a start. Prying him out of that cave so he might mingle with others is probably too much to ask right now, but a goal for the future. The conservatory?” she asked imperiously.
“Is your father a general?” he asked, leading her down the stairs. “Really, the army missed an opportunity in not recruiting you.”
“My grandfather was a general in India. His service earned him an earldom. My father grew up in India, explored various continents, then became a professor in Edinburgh. You must meet my mother sometime,” she said with a smile that made him wary—
And thoroughly excited him. He was officially a lunatic.
“What do you want with the conservatory?” He kept his tone rude so as not to let her think they were friends. “It’s food for the minions we need now, and you can’t cook plants.”
“Well, yes, one can, if they are the right plants. But I am more concerned with the puppies. If you want your cook back, you must find a better home for the dogs. I assume they require warmth in winter and that is why they end up in the kitchen, even though the weather is perfectly fine now.”
“Will crossbreeds rare varieties of creatures. The hounds are bred for their extremely sensitive noses, and he trains them to find people. The spaniels are water dogs, capable of dragging drowning victims from ponds and canals. His work is more important than the damned cook,” he said irascibly, itching to haul her down the stairs so she needn’t hurt herself. But he was attempting to pretend he possessed decorum.
“Yes, but the cook is responsible for his workers, and tripping and pouring boiling soup over a spaniel’s head is probably not good for dogs or servants. Is the conservatory in good repair?”
“The last I looked,” Theo said grudgingly, trying to recall the ancient glass room. “One of the greats had it built to his specification with two layers of glass and windows that can be held open on warm days. There’s a coal grate, if someone remembers to stoke it.”
“If Will wants to keep his puppies warm, then he needs to learn to stoke it, and to open windows on warm days,” she said dryly.
“If Will were here two days out of ten, that might work,” Theo agreed. “But he trains animals all across the kingdom and cannot be in two places at once. Whereas there’s always someone in the kitchen to feed the hounds and fire the grate.”
Theo opened the door into the desolate glass room that smelled of ripe earth. With the delicious Lady Azenor inside the privacy of the conservatory without a chaperone, temptation raised its ugly head. Dirt blotted the windows, preventing anyone from seeing inside. Instead of broken-down, barren tables, there ought to be orchids dancing above her sunset curls. From the way her face lit with an irresistibly delectable delight at the emptiness, he could almost believe parrots had flown out of a jungle to land on her shoulder.
Did she not see the filth?
Well, if he meant to woo her and make an enemy of her at the same time, he couldn’t find a better place to start.
Twelve
Aster smiled in delight at the lovely glass room that would be filled with sun even in winter. She could almost see the dangling purple orchids and green bananas that belonged in here. A flowering lemon tree would smell heavenly. She longed to start cleaning the filth—but there was too much to be done to indulge her need for order.
She turned to speak to Lord Theo, but she nearly bumped her nose on his linen when she did. Before she knew what he was about, he had hauled her from the ground again, enveloping her in his strong embrace.
Instead of beating him with her stick, she dropped it in surprise.
“Wha . . .” The rest of her words were swallowed as his mouth descended on hers.
Oh my.
She had been kissed before. One did not reach the ripe old age of twenty-five and escape male mauling. But all prior efforts were not
kisses compared to this.
Lord Theo consumed her. His mouth was gentle and forceful at once, reassuring, warming, seductive . . . and demanding. She gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck and let herself be seduced by his need as much as she had been seduced by his wonderful conservatory. He engulfed her in the earthy scents of the jungle she imagined. His arms tightened, and she felt them as a shelter, not a danger. She parted her lips beneath his insistence.
Oh my, again.
Eyes closed, Azenor gave herself up to the bliss of a possession that roused hungers she could not name. Her formidable brain shut down, and she surrendered to the pleasure of pure sensation. She so seldom had the opportunity to indulge all her senses in such an exciting manner . . ..
This was better than the paradise of his bathing room. In fact, if she could combine the two . . .
His lordship’s tongue swept across hers, stealing her breath and creating very physical longings she didn’t know how to satisfy. Her breasts ached. She dug her fingers deeper into his masculine shoulders, and he crushed her against his chest, which stirred wicked sensations much lower than her breasts.
For a lean man, the astronomer was amazingly strong. Without removing his mouth from hers, he set her on the edge of a table, shoving aside empty pots. In her current state, it seemed the most amazing feat of magic to be consumed and carried at once. She craved more of whatever enticing nectar he was feeding her.
And then his big, competent hands lifted her breasts, and the spell was broken by a spike of desire so strong, it generated an explosion of alarm.
She wanted that touch too much, and she knew better. Fear shoved him away.
Hiding her heated cheeks, she righted her bodice, then pushed at Lord Theo’s encroaching presence when he did not immediately release her. This was not at all how she’d planned this visit to go. “No, no—stop. Stop this instant. We cannot do this.”
Amazingly, he did as told. “Why not?” he asked, brushing kisses to her hair that made her shiver with desire. “We both like it.”
“Is Why not? your answer to everything?” As if she could think when he stood over her like a conquering god. No seemed like a good and simple answer. “If the king told you to jump off a cliff, would the answer be Why not?”
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