Remembering her lady’s maid’s comment along those very lines, Angelica sighed. “But wouldn’t there be a... a cross?”
George seemed to think on the query for a moment before he allowed a nod. “Yes.” When he didn’t elaborate, Angelica drained her glass of wine, frustrated by his lack of alarm. A footman was quick to refill the glass.
“Considering this building has only been constructed since we were last in London, it stands to reason it’s not yet finished,” he murmured. “It could be a greenhouse, or a guest house, or—”
“An observatory.”
Angelica and George turned to stare at Winston. The butler had apparently overheard their conversation whilst in the butler’s pantry. Although Worthington House’s former butler, Bernard, never would have spoken unless asked a question, Winston wasn’t nearly as rigid when it came to the rules.
“Ah,” George said with a nod before continuing to eat.
“For looking at stars?” Angelica asked, her interest piqued. She had seen a telescope before—there was a telescope in her father’s study at Torrington Park—but she had only ever used it to look at a bird once.
The butler nodded. “And planets and comets,” he added.
Angelica allowed a sigh. “Well, as long as he doesn’t use it to peer into my bedchamber, then I suppose I have no complaints,” she murmured. How often did she look out her window, after all? Another few weeks, and she wouldn’t even notice its presence.
George frowned. “I rather doubt it’s so high up that it can be aimed in the direction of your bedchamber,” he reasoned.
About to counter that it was indeed as high as her window, Angelica was prevented from saying so when Muffin suddenly lifted himself from the dining room floor and barked.
The potato at the end of George’s fork was suddenly propelled toward the ceiling, and Angelica’s knife clattered to the floor. Unflappable, Winston merely furrowed his brows.
“What the...?” George started to yell, and then stopped when he remembered his sister was present.
Muffin quickly scarfed up the boiled potato and then angled his head at his master’s look of alarm.
“He never barks,” Angelica remarked, giving a footman a nod when he surreptitiously placed a new knife next to her plate.
“Unless something is amiss,” George countered, his gaze going to Winston.
“I’ll check the doors, my lord.”
Angelica stared at Muffin. “What is it?” she asked as the dog lumbered over to sit next to her chair. A slight whine was the creature’s only response. “He must have heard something,” she murmured.
“Perhaps,” George agreed, before returning to his dinner.
When Winston returned claiming there was no one at either the front or back door, the twins regarded the dog with curious glances but resumed eating in relative silence.
“I’ve some more correspondence to see to this evening,” George remarked once he finished his dessert.
Angelica thought of writing letters, but the combination of the long day of travel and the huge dinner had her eyelids drooping. “I’m off to bed,” she said, rising from the table when a footman helped with her chair. “Good night.”
George watched her go, rather surprised Muffin didn’t follow in her footsteps. Instead, the beast settled at his feet as George drank his port and enjoyed a cheroot.
Chapter 8
A Night with Venus
Fifteen minutes later
“Should I be calling you Fitzhugh now?” Angelica asked as she sat at her dressing table, watching Mary’s reflection as the lady’s maid brushed her hair. Angelica had already shed her dinner gown in favor of her night rail and robe, and her warmest bedtime slippers adorned her feet.
Mary paused in her task and regarded Angelica’s reflection in the looking glass. A smile lit her face. “You can, of course. But I will still answer to Banks.” She was about to lift the brush when movement caught her eye. Turning to her right, she gave a start. “Oh!” she let out.
Angelica followed her lady’s maid’s gaze and quickly stood up. “Oh, indeed,” she breathed. She rushed to the southeast facing window. Although it was dark beyond the partially-frosted glass, a light had appeared where one had never been before—a red glow in the shape of a slightly distorted rectangle. “What is that?” she asked before she turned around. “Turn down the lamps as far as they will go,” she instructed.
Frowning at the odd request, Mary hurried to do as she was told, and soon the bedchamber’s only light came from the flames in the fireplace. Angelica cupped her hands around her face and stared out the window again, her breath fogging the cold glass. She could make out movement beyond the rectangle and inhaled sharply when she realized what she was seeing—a round glass silhouetted in the dim red, and beyond that, a man’s face.
The face disappeared a moment, something changed, and Angelica quickly stepped away from the window. “The nerve!” she breathed.
“What is it, my lady?” Mary asked in alarm.
“The dome now has an opening,” she remarked. “That’s a ... that’s a telescope, and it’s aimed directly at this window,” she claimed. “At me!”
Mary hurried over and quickly closed the sheers and then the drapes. “You think the new neighbor a Peeping Tom?” she asked in a whisper.
Angelica blinked. How much of her could have been seen before the drapes were closed? She glanced at her dressing screen. Given its location, she wasn’t in danger of being seen by the lens of the scope whilst dressing, but she was whilst sitting at her dressing table.
Her dinner gown had been far more revealing than the chaste night rail and winter dressing robe she now wore, but the idea she was being spied on by the new neighbor had her incensed.
“Fitzhugh, I think it’s time you join your new husband this evening,” Angelica said with a curt nod.
It was Mary’s turn to blink. “But I have twenty strokes to go on your hair,” she argued.
“We’ll do twenty extra in the morning,” Angelica countered.
“Yes, my lady,” Mary replied before giving a curtsy.
Once her lady’s maid was gone, Angelica parted the drapes and stared over at the dome.
Perhaps the angle at which the telescope was aimed wouldn’t have allowed it to see her at her dressing table exactly, but surely it could see her when she was standing in front of it. It could see her right now, in fact.
She studied just how the building was positioned in the neighbor’s garden, the free-standing structure showing no visible means of access from this angle. There must be a door on the other side, she reasoned.
With a huff, Angelica marched out of her bedchamber, hurried down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor, and then to the back of the house. In her growing anger, she ignored the blast of cold that greeted her as she made her way out of the house, across the frost-covered garden and to the back gate. A few steps later, she found the neighbor’s back gate and opened it without a thought about trespassing.
There was a decided chill in the air, but she ignored the white clouds that puffed around her face with every breath she took.
Angelica halted once the gate was shut behind her.
Even in the dark, she could make out the looming brick building before her—it took up nearly all of what had been a garden only the spring before—and her gaze went up. From this angle, she couldn’t see the opening in the dome, but there was a recently paved path that led around the base of the structure. She followed it until she found the door.
Wrapping her robe more tightly around her body, she paused before pushing down on the handle. The door opened easily. Stepping through, she paused after quickly closing the door, unaware someone else was approaching the door from a different direction. Although the strange building was warmer inside than out, it was by no means comfortable.
She gazed upward and realized the red light was merely a lantern with red glass, where clear glass would usually surround the flame. Ha
nging near the top of a set of spiral stairs that lined the interior, the lamp made the opening to the floor above evident. It also provided enough light for her to see her way to the steps. She quickly made her way up, her padded footfalls quiet while her pulse pounded in her ears.
“Ah, Peters. I was beginning to wonder if you had forgotten about me,” a tenor voice called out from above.
Angelica stopped on the stairs. Peters? She rolled her eyes when she remembered the neighboring house was run by a butler named Peters. He had stayed with the property when it was sold to the new owner.
The Peeping Tom, Angelica reminded herself, once again climbing the stairs with some haste.
Once she reached the top and stood within the domed space, ready to confront the owner of the voice, she instead inhaled and simply stared.
Bathed in the dim red light from the lantern, the telescope sat mounted in a most unusual contraption and was aimed at something beyond the rectangular opening in the dome. A gentleman, dressed in a black greatcoat, was seated before it, his attention on an eyepiece. An easel directly to the right of the man’s chair held a blank sheet of paper.
“You can just put it on the desk over there,” he murmured, one gloved hand waving to a small escritoire.
Angelica’s gaze went to where he indicated. Scattered with papers and an ink pot, the desk was one of only three pieces of furniture. The others were the chair in which the man was seated and a long cot. A neatly folded blanket lie atop the cot. Given that the opening from the stairs took up nearly a quarter of the round floorspace, there wasn’t room for anything else.
“She looks amazing,” the man murmured in appreciation. “What a golden beauty. A bit blurry, but that’s to be expect...”
Angelica boggled. “How dare you spy on me,” she scolded, newly incensed that he had apparently moved his telescope to gaze into another young woman’s bedchamber.
The startled man whirled around as he struggled to come to his feet, his chair toppling over backwards as a result.
“Good God! You nearly frightened me to death,” he said as he regarded his intruder.
Angelica raised her chin in defiance as her hands fisted and settled on her hips. “A suitable punishment, I should think,” she replied. “I should have you arrested for being a Peeping Tom,” she added, her bravura slowly ebbing as she regarded her neighbor.
She wasn’t sure what she had expected. Or rather, whom. Certainly not a man as handsome as this one. He was younger than she expected a Peeping Tom to be, too. Thirty. Maybe five-and-thirty. Given the red light, she couldn’t make out the color of his hair but thought it a dark shade. Dressed in the black greatcoat and wearing black breeches and boots, he might have been a coach driver or a highwayman. He even wore black gloves.
A shiver passed through Angelica, and not just because it was chilly in the domed building. For the first time that night, she considered what she had just done—left her house in nothing but her night clothes and confronted a man she didn’t know.
On his property.
She didn’t even have Muffin McDuff Paddlepaws with her.
Oh, what have I done?
Chapter 9
When the Moon Hits Your Eye
Ben Fuller regarded his intruder with a combination of shock and awe. Despite the lack of the small hat worn at a rakish angle and the golden blonde hair that was no longer piled atop her head, Lady Angelica was still recognizable. It wasn’t until a half-moment later that Ben realized she was wearing bedclothes rather than the lovely blue carriage gown he had seen her in earlier. “I... I was not spying on you, my lady. Or anyone else for that matter,” he stammered, once he had his wits about him.
Mental wits, at least. His body was just then catching up to the fact that a woman stood not five feet away, dressed only in a night rail and a dressing gown.
Angelica gave a huff. “She looks amazing,” she challenged, repeating the words she had heard him saying just before she interrupted him. “Golden beauty?”
Ben stiffened and then rolled his eyes, finally understanding her meaning. “I was looking at Venus,” he replied, doing his damnedest not to stare at Angelica. She was living up to her name given how she was dressed, her white bell-sleeved dressing gown barely covering a white night rail trimmed with row upon row of delicate lace. Her blonde hair was long and loose, the fine hairs that surrounded her face backlit by the lantern to form a sort of halo around her soft features. Even her fur slippers, the toes topped with white cottontails, made her feet appear angelic.
In the red glow of the observatory’s only light and given her expression of anger, she was a beauty threatening to become a beast. Or a delectable devil.
Ben couldn’t decide which.
“I’m not aware of anyone nearby with the name Venus,” she countered, wondering if there might be yet another house in Park Lane that had changed occupants during her brief stay in Northumberland. She had only been gone from Worthington House for two months!
Blinking, Ben dared a glance behind him and then turned his attention back to Angelica, just then understanding her accusation. “Venus is the closest planet to earth,” he clarified. And then, because he was positive she was Lady Angelica, he asked, “Might you be my neighbor?”
Angelica’s attention went to the telescope. From this angle, she could tell it wasn’t aimed at her window, but just to the right and beyond. “Venus?” she repeated.
He nodded before glancing around. Where the hell was Peters? Not that the servant would see to the introductions, but he was supposed to be bringing tea. At the moment, he really wanted tea. Or brandy. Brandy would be better. “Since there is no one to do the honors, allow me to introduce myself. I am Ben Fuller.” He gave a deep bow.
“Lady Angelica,” she replied with a curtsy, mentally working through relationships in an effort to remember if she had met the man. “My father is the Earl of Torrington, and yours...?”
“Is dead,” he replied with a curt nod. He never liked admitting who his father was, and he wasn’t about to start now.
Angelica blinked. “I’m so sorry.”
“I am not.” He gave his head a quick shake, realizing he was acting no better than his father ever did. “I apologize. I didn’t mean it like that.” He grimaced. “I did, but—”
“I understand,” Angelica replied as she dipped her head. “I apologize for having barged in here like this. You must think me—”
“Brave,” he interrupted. “I shouldn’t want to ever anger you. Or dare look at you through my telescope, even if you would be more lovely to look at than Venus.” He blinked suddenly, alarmed that he had actually said the words out loud.
Just then remembering she wore night clothes, Angelica grasped the edges of her dressing gown together and wrapped an arm in front of her body. “Why, thank you,” she replied, her curt nod meant to convey she knew she had been right with her assertion that he could have been gazing at her through his telescope. Given his comment, she found she couldn’t be too terribly angry with him. No other man had ever compared her to Venus.
Her brother had called her Medusa on a number of occasions, but it was usually when they’d been fighting and her coiffure had come undone in a dozen different directions.
Ben blinked and then did his damnedest to keep a straight face. “Would you like to look at her?” He waved a hand at the eyepiece he had been looking through when Angelica interrupted him.
Angelica inhaled softly. “May I? I’ve never had the opportunity to look through this type of telescope before.”
“Of course,” Ben replied, as he returned the chair to its upright position. “You’ve looked through a refracting scope before?” he guessed.
Not sure what type of telescope was set up in her father’s study, she replied, “My father has one. He let me use it to look at a bird once.” She decided not to add that she had surreptitiously spied on her brother and one of his friends when they were swimming one summer. It was her first and only look at a ma
n’s bare chest. Unimpressed, she hadn’t repeated the endeavor.
“Here. Let me get it back into alignment,” Ben murmured as he peered through a set of opera glasses. They had been secured to the steel tube with twine.
Ben moved a few dials. “Now, just, um...” He stepped out of the way and indicated she should sit where he had been perched.
Angelica took his place and then gazed up at him. “Are those opera glasses?” she whispered.
“They are,” he acknowledged. “I have a finder scope on order—a smaller version of a telescope that assists with positioning the larger scope—but until it arrives, these do in a pinch.” He leaned down so his cheek was nearly touching hers. “You’ll want to look right here,” he said as he pointed to a small lens.
“I never thought to look at the skies with opera glasses,” she murmured, realizing she had only ever used a pair when attending the theatre.
She leaned forward and aimed her attention where he had just been pointing.
“Close your eye,” Ben instructed. “Ah, the other one,” he added when he saw she had closed the one that should have been looking through the lens. “Very good. Now, do you—?”
“Oh!” Angelica let out, the breathy exclamation in perfect harmony with how he imagined she might react if they had been somewhere else. Doing something else.
“You see her?”
“It’s pale yellow, and a bit... blurry,” she whispered. “It is supposed to look like citrine?” She lifted her head from the lens and added, “I certainly hope so, because I really don’t want to have to wear spectacles at this point in my life—”
“She is supposed to be like that, yes,” he reassured her, deciding he could allow a grin at hearing her concern about having to wear spectacles. They wouldn’t lessen her beauty one whit. “She’s a very cloudy planet, you see, so there’s no way to see the actual ground beneath all those clouds.” He reached over and turned another dial.
Once Upon a Christmas Wedding Page 140