Falling Stars

by Loretta Chase

  “I plead guilty to the charge of mussing,” he said. “But you did cooperate.”

  “You seem to have a certain skill in eliciting cooperation,” she said. “But then, you had it ten years ago. Evidently, my powers of resistance remain some years behind your powers of persuasion.”

  “You never even tried to resist, then or now,” he said, bridling. “On the contrary, you deliberately sought me out, both times, and led me on.”

  “Very well, I led you on,” she said. “You’re a helpless victim of my irresistible wiles once again, though you’re a successful, powerful man of four- and-thirty. And because I don’t care to be seduced on your brother’s back stairs—just as I didn’t care to run off with you and be ruined—I’m a heartless tease.” She glanced down at his hands. “Perhaps it’s time I released you from my wicked clutches.”

  For one furious instant, he wanted to hurl her aside, out of his sight, out of his thoughts, out of existence.

  He caught his breath and looked down at his rigid hands... then at her. As he searched her hurt, angry eyes, his own rage washed away, leaving him chilled.

  “Dear God, is that what you thought?” he asked. “That I only wanted to seduce you?”

  He took his hands away. She didn’t move.

  “I wanted to marry you, Christina,” he said. “I told you so, again and again.”

  “You told me a great many things,” she said tightly. “All lies.”

  He felt a surge of anger, instantly swamped by a flood of grief. Old grief. He drew a shaky breath. “You’re wrong,” he said softly. “I think we need to talk, but not here.” He held out his hand.

  He wouldn’t have blamed her if she hadn’t taken it, but she did—and that was a start, he thought, a proper beginning. He wasn’t sure he could make a proper finish, but something, obviously, must be done. They must lay the ghosts to rest, regardless how painful the process might be. Otherwise, the past would taint everything he and she felt for and wanted from each other.

  He led her down the back stairs, down another hall, and into a small, quiet parlor at the rear of the house.

  He closed the door, firmly shutting out the rest of the world. She slid her hand from his and moved to the window.

  “It’s started to snow,” she said.

  He joined her, and looked out into the darkness at the fat snowflakes lazily drifting down. “I did love you,” he said. “I did want to marry you. Did you believe nothing I told you?”

  “I believed everything you told me,” she said. “Every word you said to make me fall in love with you, then, every word you wrote later, showing me what a fool I’d been. You wrote that I needn’t worry that you’d trouble me again. You thanked me for making an otherwise dull fortnight tolerably amusing.” Bitterness edged her voice. “You said I mustn’t mind my lack of sophistication, because I was pretty, and the world requires no more in a female. According to you, my future husband would be content merely to look at me. My heart untouched by any base human emotion, I should provide him the same tranquil pleasure a lovely painting or statue offers. There was more, all put very cleverly. You described everything that was wrong with me in words I might take for flattery— if I were the empty-headed miss you thought I was.”

  His face burned with shame. “It was a childish letter. I was... very angry.”

  “You had spent two whole weeks weakening my mind and morals. But in the end, I wouldn’t run away with you and be ruined. Certainly you were angry. You had gone to so much trouble for nothing.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” he said. “That may be what everyone else would believe, but not you. You understood me, trusted me, I thought.”

  “I loved you,” she said. She spoke quietly, not trying to convince, merely stating a simple fact. He believed her.

  “In other words,” he said, “I had your love—then killed it with my letter.”

  She nodded.

  He had been a fool. A proud, hotheaded fool.

  “The letter was all lies,” he said. “It was—” He searched his heart for the truth. “I was unacceptable,” he said. “I knew that. All the world knew it. You saw how the chaperons watched me. You, like the rest of the young misses, must have been warned to keep away from me.”

  “Yes, I was warned,” she said.

  “I was warned as well. Before you came, Julius told me about your strict parents and about Arthur Travers and his spotless reputation and his forty thousand a year. Julius asked me not to flirt with you, because if your parents heard of it, they’d have you sent home, and Penny would be heartbroken. I promised both Julius and myself that I’d have nothing to do with you. Then I spent two weeks pretending, sneaking about, snatching stolen moments—and hating myself and all the world because I couldn’t court you openly.”

  “My conscience wasn’t easy, either,” she said softly.

  “And all the while, time was ticking away,” he went on. “I knew your parents would arrive the day of the wedding—and that would be the end, because they’d take you away and I’d never be allowed within twenty miles of you. I knew—perhaps you did, too—that I hadn’t a prayer of winning their approval. Ever.”

  “I... knew.”

  “I was terrified of losing you, Christina. That’s why I plagued you to elope with me. That night before Julius’s wedding was our last and only chance. I was so sure you’d meet me, as you promised, at the gatehouse. Everything was ready. The carriage was packed, waiting. I waited, hours, and you didn’t come. And when at last I gave up and returned to the house, I found your note in my room, and I... I just wrote out all my rage and hurt in a letter I should have burnt, not sent.”

  She turned to him. “I couldn’t do it, Marcus. I couldn’t break my parents’ hearts. I couldn’t subject Arthur to public humiliation.”

  “I know,” he said. And he did, at last. He understood now what he’d been too heartsick to recognize then. “If you had, you would have been the flighty, unfeeling creature I claimed you were in that letter.” He turned his gaze back to the night. “The whole situation was hopeless, wasn’t it? I should have faced it and accepted it, like a man. Instead I lashed out at you, like a spiteful child. That was... unforgivable.”

  She shook her head. “I think now that it was better you wrote as you did. Otherwise, I might have grieved for what might have been for—well, a long time. Instead, I was able to pick up the pieces of my broken heart, telling myself I’d had a lucky escape, and go back to Arthur, and be a good wife to him.”

  Arthur’s wife, when she should have been his, Marcus thought bleakly. Arthur’s children, when they should have been his. She had gone back to Arthur, while Marcus had gone on, heartsick, for... oh, months only, though it had felt like years. But he’d picked up his broken bits of heart, too, and gone on to build his empire. He’d been too busy to be lonely. And there had been other women. He had fallen in and out of love half a dozen times at least.

  But never so deeply. Never again had he loved, body and soul, as he had loved one eighteen-year-old girl. He had taken many risks since then, but never fully, with all his heart. Never had he been tempted to do so. Until now.

  His gaze slid back to her. He hadn’t even wanted to like her again, but he couldn’t help it. She’d grown not only more beautiful and desirable but cleverer, bolder, infinitely more... exciting. If he let himself fall in love again, he had no doubt he’d fall harder. And then...

  How would it end—if he let it begin—this time?

  “It sounds as though we forgive each other,” he said cautiously.

  Smiling, she moved away from the window. “Yes. How mature we’ve managed to be, despite an unpromising beginning. Perhaps we might even manage to stop bickering.”

  “I don’t mind bickering with you. It’s—”

  “Stimulating.” She pushed a lock of hair away from her face. “However, I’d rather not return to the company looking quite so stimulated. I had better go to my room and put myself to rights.” She headed to
ward the door. “If you’re in a mood to be chivalrous, perhaps you’ll explain to Julius and Penny that you accidentally stepped on the hem of my gown and tore it. That may, just barely, explain my overlong disappearance.”

  She hurried through the door before he could answer.

  ***

  She would have to leave Greymarch, Christina told herself several hours later while she lay awake, staring at the ceiling. She had finally put her life together as she wanted it and was at last becoming the woman she wanted to be. She couldn’t let Marcus Greyson turn everything upside down again. She’d spent only two days under the same roof with him, and already the world was tilting dangerously askew.

  He had played havoc with her morals ten years ago. He said tonight that his intentions had been honorable, and she believed him. Then, however, wasn’t now. This night, the instant he’d taken her into his arms, her morals had disintegrated completely.

  He hadn’t taken any outrageous liberties. His hands hadn’t wandered where they shouldn’t. He hadn’t unfastened a single fastening. Nonetheless, in a few simmering minutes, without so much as taking off his gloves, Marcus Greyson had done to her what her adoring husband had never come close to doing in seven years of conjugal intimacy.

  She was all too hotly aware of what Marcus might do to her if he took off his gloves.

  She had thought the tension between them was because of the past, and even the physical attraction must somehow be part of it, because it was too feverishly intense. He was an attractive man, admittedly. All the same, he shouldn’t make her feel so... desperate.

  Yet even after they’d laid the past to rest and forgiven each other, the desperate feelings remained. She had fled the room to keep from hurling herself right back into his arms.

  She closed her eyes. Heaven help her. Two days in his company and she had turned into a besotted schoolgirl... if not something worse.

  ***

  Despite a restless night, Christina rose in time to go with Penny and the children to church. The men were still abed when they returned, and only Julius came down to luncheon. After that, Christina took the children outdoors. It had snowed throughout the night, leaving a thick blanket, the perfect consistency for sledding.

  Aware that Kit could be trusted to take his brother down the small hill safely, Christina could give most of her attention to her own and her daughters’ entertainment, which she did with gusto. She had two years’ practice to give her confidence and two thrill-seeking seven-year-olds to encourage daring. They raced the boys, beat them twice, and were beaten twice.

  It was during the fifth race that her skirt caught on a runner. The sled went out of control, veering toward a tree. She was aware of shouts above, then of flying through the air, Delia clasped in her arms, before she landed hard, a few feet from the tree.

  Delia rolled free, shrieking with laughter, while Christina lay stunned and breathless, blinking at the vivid blue sky. In the next instant, she was staring into the very white, rigid countenance of Marcus Greyson.

  Before she could utter a syllable, he caught her in his arms and pulled her tight against him. His chest heaved as though he’d been running for his life. She could have told him she was quite uninjured, and the only damage she was like to suffer was if he crushed her ribs. But she held her tongue. She wasn’t in any hurry to be released.

  “Me, too,” Delia demanded.

  Marcus’s ferocious grip relaxed. He gave Delia a hug, then helped Christina to her feet. “That was well done,” he said in a muffled voice. “I was... congratulating your mama on her fine handling of the sled.”

  He briskly brushed snow from the back of Christina’s coat. “Why don’t you go to the house and change into something dry?” he said. His voice was not altogether steady. “I’ll look after the children.”

  “I’m all right,” she said. “A little snow won’t hurt me.”

  “You’re soaked to the skin,” he whispered fiercely. “You nearly broke your neck. In another moment, I shall shake you until your teeth rattle. Go away, Christina.”

  She turned away, her eyes widening in astonishment. He was very agitated, more than she’d guessed. Very likely he would shake her.

  She straightened her bonnet and walked back to the house, her heart thrumming with hope.

  ***

  Marcus was well aware that he’d just made a complete fool of himself. He had rushed down the slope in blind panic—doubtless alarming the children—and clutched Christina to him in a perfectly demented manner. He had all but wept with relief to find she was still breathing. Then, to cap the performance, he’d threatened to shake her.

  After a half hour of brisk exercise with the children, he still hadn’t recovered.

  He had behaved like an idiot, but he wasn’t one. He knew perfectly well what the trouble was. What he’d felt in that chilling moment when he’d thought he’d lost her told him all he needed to know. Somehow, in less than three days, he had stumbled out of his senses and fallen in love with her.

  He looked down at the little girls trotting alongside him, confidently holding his hands. He loved them, too. That, too, in only three days. And in less than three weeks they’d be gone. Unless he could manage a miracle.

  ***

  Christina didn’t see Marcus again until shortly before dinner. She had just settled down to tell the twins a bedtime story when he appeared in the doorway.

  “I just wanted to say good night to the young ladies,” he said. He made a courtly bow. “Good night, Miss Delia, Miss Livy. Happy dreams.”

  Two childish countenances fell.

  “What has happened to your manners?” Christina asked them. “Say good night to Mr. Greyson.”

  Delia’s lower lip jutted out. “He’s too far away. Livy can’t kiss him.”

  Livy kicked her twin under the bedclothes. “You can’t, either.”

  Christina looked at Marcus, her eyebrows raised.

  He hesitated briefly, then entered and advanced to the bed. “I beg your pardon,” he told the twins. “My mind was addled. I forgot the rules.” He bent and politely accepted a kiss and a hug from each girl. The pouts vanished and he was bid smiling good nights.

  Without another word, he left.

  Christina turned back to her children.

  “Mr. Greyson is very nice, isn’t he, Mama?” Delia whispered.

  “Yes. Very nice.”

  “He likes us, doesn’t he?” Livy asked, gazing hopefully at her mother.

  “I believe he does.”

  The girls glanced at each other.

  “Do you like him, Mama?” Delia asked.

  Christina bit back a smile. “Certainly. Didn’t I just agree that he was very nice?”

  “He has gold speckles in his eyes,” Delia told her. “He said the fairies did it.”

  “Us, too,” said Livy. “He told Delia she had silver fairy dust, and me, too, and you, too, Mama.”

  “And he said the angels dropped the stars and they turned into diamonds,” Delia said.

  Christina remembered nights long ago when the heavens were alight with shooting stars. “They’re diamonds,” he’d whispered as they watched. “We’ll travel the world, and I’ll find them for you. I’ll shower you with diamonds. I can do it, love. Believe in me and I will. I’ll give you the world.”

  “Is it true, Mama?” Livy asked.

  Christina came back to the present. “It very well may be,” she said.

  ***

  That night, Marcus remained in the drawing room after the others went up to bed. He touched the book Christina had held and thought of her gloved hands curled about his neck when he’d kissed her. He thought about her low, foggy voice. He thought about her soft, welcoming mouth and her sweet curves melting against him. He thought about tumbled coiffures and rumpled sheets and silken skin.

  He thought he had better stop thinking about it and do something.

  At breakfast the next day, he tried to start an argument with her about the Corn Laws.
She couldn’t debate that topic, she said defensively, because she knew little about political economy. Immediately after breakfast, he drove to Bath and found a copy of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, which he gave her that afternoon. Then he offered to show her a more challenging hill for sledding.

  He took her and the children sledding that day and skating the next. The next day he took them on a tour of Bath, which he conducted in French, so that the girls could practice for their trip abroad. The following night they attended a ball. Though he danced with her only twice— for propriety’s sake—he didn’t keep entirely away the rest of the time. He had a campaign to conduct.

  And so he wandered back to her side from time to time to share an amusing observation or a bit of gossip or a joke. He couldn’t keep the other men away—not without committing violence—but he could make sure she didn’t forget he was there. She would have to get used to having him about, after all, and learn that this wouldn’t be a bad thing.

  With this goal in mind, Marcus exerted himself in the following days to display all his good points. Rather like a horse offered at auction, he thought wryly.

  At a concert in Bath, he made up his own ludicrous lyrics to the music, which he sang softly off-key in her ear during the interval until she was breathless with laughter. He taught the three Travers ladies Italian folk songs. He bribed his brother’s cook, and spent an afternoon in the kitchen teaching Christina how to make Greek pastries while the fascinated twins looked on. He argued with her about education, religion, and art, and spent hours with her, poring over maps while they debated international politics.

  Not once during this time did he make anything that might be construed as an improper advance. It wasn’t easy. Nothing he’d done in the last ten years, in fact, had been so difficult. Never in that decade, however, had so very much been at stake. If he succeeded, Marcus reminded himself, he would have a lifetime for lovemaking. He could certainly endure another week or so. Besides, all the signs were promising. After ten days’ steady campaigning, he felt sure he was making progress.