by Dare, Tessa
From there, the race was on.
Chase scrambled to his feet and followed her into the house.
She turned to him. “Where do you think I could find a hackney at this time of night?”
“A hackney? Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll order the carriage. Go and change into something warmer, and I’ll meet you in front.”
“You’re coming with me?”
“I’m sure as hell not letting you go alone. All the way to Greenwich in the middle of the night?”
“What about the girls?”
“I’ll let Mrs. Greeley know we’ve gone out. She’ll watch them. We’ll be home before they wake tomorrow morning.” He took her by the shoulders. “Go upstairs. Fetch your boots and your wrap. Leave the rest to me.”
She nodded. “All right.”
“I’ll go down and tell the coachman we’re for Greenwich.”
“Wait,” she said decisively. The fog around her mind appeared to have lifted. “Tell him we’re going to Billingsgate docks.”
“Billingsgate docks?”
“Yes.” She drew a breath. “We must take a boat.”
“Are you mad? I’m not putting you on a boat. Not after what you told me about the shipwreck, and losing your father, and drifting about the ocean alone with no food and water for days.”
“I know what I told you, Chase. This is not the time to rattle through the horrid details. The roads are too dark at night to travel swiftly by carriage. Taking a boat is the fastest way. If we don’t arrive in Greenwich before the comet dips below the horizon, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow night to have it verified. If we wait, it might be raining or foggy. Some other observer might claim it first. I don’t want to take the risk.”
“Very well. If you’re certain.”
She nodded. “I think I can do it.” Her eyes briefly closed, and her hands clenched in fists. “No, I know I can do it. So long as you’re with me.”
Oh, I’ll be with you. Just you try to get away. “You’ll be safe, Alex. I’d say you have my word on it, but as little as that’s worth, it scarcely feels worth offering.” He stared solemnly into her eyes. “I’d part with my life before I let you go.”
I can do this, Alex told herself. I can, I can, I can.
It had been easier to believe that at the house. Now that she stood on the dock, it was proving more difficult to actually go through with the decision. The last time she’d stood on these docks, she’d fallen into the Thames, and her livelihood had slipped from her grasp.
But if that hadn’t happened, she wouldn’t be here with Chase tonight.
Chase joined her, having finished making arrangements with whichever boatman he’d roused from his sleep. “We’ll be under way in a trice. He’s just readying the skiff.”
“You hired a skiff?” She’d been expecting a wherry.
“There’s a breeze tonight. Sails are faster than oars.”
Yes, but oars felt a great deal safer.
She looked down at the river. The Thames flowed like a river of ink beneath them, dark and silent. Ominous.
“You can still change your mind,” he said.
She shook her head. “You sent the carriage on without us.”
“So I can hire another.”
“No. We’ll take the skiff.”
This night, this journey—it was what she’d been working toward all this time. She wasn’t going to allow irrational fears to stand between her and that goal.
Chase boarded the craft first, then extended a hand to help her do the same. The closer she inched toward the edge of the dock, the more furiously her heart thrashed about her chest. Her tongue felt coated in sand.
“Don’t look at the water, Alex. Look at me.”
She obeyed. What with the darkness, the black of his pupils had swallowed up all of the dazzling green. There was no charm in his gaze; only sincerity.
“Take my hand,” he said, “and I promise I won’t let go.”
She reached out to him. His hand took hers, and the clasp felt natural, easy. After all, they’d been holding hands every morning for weeks.
His other hand gripped her forearm, and he helped her into the boat. She made an ungainly landing in the craft, and the skiff rocked to and fro. Panic fluttered in her chest, but it didn’t have the chance to grow proper wings. Chase caught her by the waist and tugged her down onto the bench. His arm slid around her back, drawing her close.
The boatman pushed away from the pier.
And then they were drifting. Bobbing on the waves, unmoored.
“I have you,” Chase murmured in her ear.
“I know.” Her dry throat worked to swallow. “I know.” She twisted her hands together in her lap. “I shouldn’t get my hopes up. There are so many observers not only in England, but on the Continent. Really, what are the chances I spotted it first?”
“Slim, I’d imagine.”
“And that’s if it’s a comet at all. I could be wrong.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Exactly. So this will probably come to nothing anyway.”
He nodded. “You’re probably right.”
She looked askance at him. He wasn’t supposed to be agreeing with her.
“I mean, what kind of career plan is comet hunting?” he scoffed. “Not a very realistic one.”
She stiffened. “It is a realistic one, even if it’s uncommon.”
“Oh, truly. Name one woman who actually makes her living as an astronomer.”
“Miss Caroline Herschel.”
“Fine. Name two women who make their living as astronomers.”
“Miss Caroline Herschel and Mrs. Margaret Bryan. And if you require three, Mrs. Mary Somerville, by way of mathematics,” she replied hotly. “That’s only in Britain. Gottfried Kirch in Germany had three sisters and a wife, all of whom were astronomers. In France, you have Marie-Jeanne de Lalande, and Louise du Pierry taught astronomy at the Sorbonne. Shall I continue?”
“Please do,” he said. “Twenty more, and perhaps I’ll be convinced.”
Alex bit off her reply. The amused gleam in his eyes gave him away. “You’re doing this on purpose. Starting an argument to distract me.”
He didn’t deny it. “It seems to be working.”
A wave lifted the boat, and then dropped it just as suddenly.
Alex’s stomach pitched and rolled. She turned to bury her face in his chest, but her forehead plunked against something solid.
“Sorry. I’d forgotten that was there.” He reached into his coat and withdrew a flask—a significantly larger one than he usually carried. He offered it to her. “Here, it’s for you.”
“That’s kind of you, but I don’t think I could stomach any brandy right now.”
“No, no. It’s water. Thought you might need it.” He pressed the flask into her hands. Keeping one arm lashed about her waist, he used his free hand to unscrew the silver cap before tucking it away in his pocket. “There. Take a good draught.”
She stared at the glimmering silver, too overwhelmed to speak.
For thirteen years, she’d avoided boats. She’d taken the long way around so many times, spending countless hours and precious shillings to quiet her fears. She’d confined herself to England, making her home in an unfamiliar country rather than returning to the homeland of her father or her mother. Insurmountable terror had made her its captive.
Now, at long last, she’d faced the fear and embarked on this most terrifying of journeys . . . only to find the purest, most perfect safety she’d ever known.
Oh, how she loved this man.
Alex wasn’t thirsty any longer, but she held on to his flask for the remainder of their short voyage, keeping both hands wrapped about the cool silver. She traced the monogram with her fingertip over and over, following the dips and loops of the engraved scrollwork R.
When they reached Greenwich, she handed it back. “Thank you.”
He capped the flask and tucked it away. “You’re even br
aver than you are beautiful.” He kissed her on the forehead. “And though I’ve no right to be, I’m excessively proud.”
Then he picked her up by the waist, sweeping her off her feet and lifting her onto solid ground.
Alex was dizzied, in many, many ways.
“Now,” he said, turning away from the river. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“The observatory, of course.”
Oh. Oh, yes. That was the reason they’d come, wasn’t it?
“Up,” she replied. “It’s up.”
“When you said ‘up,’” Chase said between panting breaths, “you truly meant up.”
Good God. From the riverbank, there were stairs leading up to a green. The green became a gentle, grassy slope. Which turned into a miserably steep grassy slope. And then there were yet more stairs.
“It’s an astronomical observatory.” She held her skirts gathered as she trudged uphill, to avoid tripping on the hem. “Naturally it’s on the highest ground.”
When at last they reached the observatory doors, however, Alexandra hesitated.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’m afraid to knock. What if they’re sleeping?”
“I should think an astronomical observatory is one place where you can arrive at midnight and not be concerned about waking the occupants.”
“Then what if they’re busy?”
Chase could have reached out and knocked on the door himself, but he held off. “You belong here, Alex. Discoveries like yours are precisely why a Royal Observatory exists, and a passion for those discoveries is why the royal astronomer does his work.” He swept a lock of hair behind her ear. “There is no place you belong more than right here, right now.”
She nodded, then knocked at the door.
Chapter Thirty
Chase didn’t understand much of what passed between Alexandra and the astronomer’s assistant. But that didn’t matter. What captivated him was the excitement on her face and the passion in her voice as she spoke with someone who fully understood her discovery. He felt a bit jealous that he couldn’t be, would never be that person—but then, he’d helped her make it here tonight, and that was important, too.
Though he was dying of curiosity, he tried not to interrupt with questions. Only as they walked away a few hours later did he finally break down. “So . . . ? What’s happened?”
“He’s almost certain it’s a comet.”
“That’s good.”
“And it’s not one he’d personally observed before.”
“That’s even better.”
“But it will take time to see if anyone else has observed and named it already. Corresponding with other observatories, scanning for notices in the journals.”
“How long will that take?”
“Weeks, at least. Perhaps months.”
“Months?” He grimaced.
“It’s a good thing,” she said. “It gives me time. Will you help me find a patron who’ll pay to name it?”
He pulled to a halt. “Hell, no.”
“Chase, I don’t have your connections. If I’m going to find a buyer for it, I need help.”
“You shouldn’t sell it.”
“I need to sell it.”
“Fine. Then I’m going to buy it and give it straight back to you.”
She turned to him. “I never wanted that. I don’t need it.”
“Well, I need you to have it. Because you found it. Because your name should be on it. Because it’s damned tiresome being the one person alive who understands how truly remarkable you are.” He cupped her face in his hands, and not tenderly. “I won’t help you hide that from yourself, or from the world. Not anymore.”
Alex could not believe what she was hearing.
“You,” she said, falling back from his touch, “are the most shameless hypocrite. You would accuse me of hiding from myself? I’d thank you to go make that speech into a mirror, Chase Reynaud, because you’ve been hiding so long you’ve forgotten how it feels to breathe fresh air. You deserve things, too. Things like closeness and family and the forgiveness you’ve foolishly denied yourself, and it’s downright exasperating to be the only one who understands it. Plus, I’ve been doing it far longer.”
“You have not,” he said. “I understood you first.”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I knew your true nature the first time I held your hand and watched you eulogize a consumptive doll. That’s ten whole weeks.”
“Ten weeks is nothing. It’s been ten months for me.”
Alex was stunned. “What?”
“We collided in Hatchard’s bookshop in November of last year,” he said. “But perhaps you don’t recall.”
“Of course I recall.” Not only did Alex recall, but she’d thought about it every day since. “You’re the one who’d forgotten it.”
He shook his head. “The memory’s clear as day.”
“Then why did you pretend you didn’t know me?”
He shrugged. “You made an utter cake of yourself when it happened. It didn’t seem kind to bring it up.”
Oh, this man.
“But I recalled our meeting,” he went on. “How could I forget? It’s not every day a man collides with a woman who prefers sky smudges to fairy stories.” Smiling a bit, he caught a stray wisp of her hair and wound it about his finger. “Miss Alexandra Mountbatten, with midnight-black hair and a fetching figure, and who responded to flirtation with an immensely gratifying blush.”
He gave her cheek a teasing caress, and Alex felt the pink rising on her face all over again.
“Miss Alexandra Mountbatten, who possessed the most captivating, terrifying eyes I’d ever beheld. Or more to the point, that had ever beheld me. Eyes that were not only beautiful—but bold, clever, fearless. Unafraid to search the darkness, trusting that something, somewhere will glimmer back.” His voice deepened, weighted down with emotion. “I couldn’t forget you, Alex. And I won’t allow anyone else to forget you, either. Not the Royal Observatory, not the world. Not the universe, for that matter.”
Curse him, he was so good at this. He had her toes melting into the evening dew. Her knees felt close to dissolving, too. Soon she’d be reduced to ten thousand drops of Alexandra scattered across the green, desperately clinging to ten thousand blades of grass.
Now she’d completely lost her edge in their argument. It wasn’t fair. How could she compete with his years upon years of transforming women into quivering shimmers of condensation?
By being herself, she supposed. Straightforward, honest, practical.
“I love you,” she said. “Take that.”
Chapter Thirty-One
No.
No, Chase would not take that.
He couldn’t take that. Not the impossible words, or the expectant look in her eyes. Not the sharp blade of joy she’d thrust into his heart, or the way it twisted with his every breath.
He couldn’t take any of it. In his desperation, his mind seized on what seemed his only recourse.
He would take her.
Take her into his embrace.
Take her lips with his.
And, by God, take her breath away. Leave her dizzy and gasping, and completely unable to speak another devastating word.
That endless grassy slope he’d cursed on their way up to the observatory? He blessed it now. He shook off his coat and spread it on the grass, then laid her down atop it. The world was a darkened, private room with a ceiling of stars.
And somewhere between the kissing and caressing and unbuttoning, a sense of inevitability descended on them both.
They both knew what was going to happen. What must happen.
“Alex . . . You know I don’t do this with everyone. In fact, I’ve not done this particular act with anyone in quite some time. Much as it pains my pride to say it, this might not be a virtuoso performance.”
“I wouldn’t know the difference.”
“A fair point. That is some comfo
rt.” He settled himself between her thighs. “You don’t want me to stop so you can count out sugar lumps or something?”
She laughed a little. “No sugar lumps required.”
“Alexandra.” He set aside teasing and spoke in an earnest tone. “If I take you this way, I mean to keep you always. Do you understand, love?”
She nodded.
“When I ask a question, I need an answer.” He stared into her eyes. “Tell me you want this.”
“I want this.” Her hands slid to his neck. “I want you.”
Chase hoped to hell she meant it, because he’d emptied his reserve of gentlemanly restraint. Nothing remained to him but fierce, mindless wanting. Blood-searing desire. The single-minded need to be in her, and of her. To face down anything that held them apart and shatter it with crude, primal thrusts.
He reached between them, taking his cock in hand and positioning himself at her entrance. The head of his cock slipped into her wet cleft, and that single inch of possession had him shuddering with pleasure.
He braced himself on his arms, gritted his teeth, and pushed into the hot, tight silk of her body. “God.”
Her fingers clutched his shoulders. He heard her sharp intake of breath.
“Are you hurting?” Even as he asked, he dug his hips to steal another inch. Bastard. “Can you bear it?”
She nodded. “I . . . I’m fine.”
Thank heaven.
He kissed her in gratitude. With each advance, he sensed her wince beneath him and felt like a monster for causing her pain.
All his rakish technique had been forgotten. He wanted to be gentle, patient. But it had been forever since he’d been inside a woman this way, and this wasn’t just any woman.
This was Alexandra.
His Alexandra. His always. His only.
Just a bit more, he promised himself. He wasn’t a selfish lover. He could be patient. He’d take this at a leisurely pace, allow her plenty of time to adjust.
But first, just a bit more.
A bit more. And a bit more. And oh, God, more. Until he’d taken everything she had to give. Sheathed to the hilt, his hips welded to her thighs, her body surrounding his.
He’d never known such bliss.