A Star Shall Fall (29 page)

They ambled along the paths, here touching a bloom, there bending to sniff one, and if there was any mercy in the world, Galen thought, then eight people were
not
watching their progress from the drawing room windows above.

Perhaps Miss Northwood was thinking the same, for she said, “This arbor is a pleasant place to sit, if you would like to rest.”

It also happened to feature a green, leafy roof that would shield them from prying eyes. The sun was low enough now that its light blazed across the bench upon which Miss Northwood had seated herself, making the space quite warm, but if she did not mind then Galen did not either.

He couldn’t sit. Galen took a deep breath, considered her upturned face, and let the air out in one swift gust. “You know why we’re out here.”

That wasn’t what he’d intended to say, but the intelligent regard in her eyes, free of all the coquetry and feigned innocence that might have attended this moment, prodded him to discard his more carefully crafted opening. Miss Northwood said, “Quite by ourselves. It isn’t hard to guess.”

“I will be honest with you,” Galen told her, interlacing his fingers behind his back. “Which may not be advisable, not if I wish to meet with success on the other side of it—but my conscience will not permit me to do otherwise. You are aware, Miss Northwood, of my family’s situation.”

She nodded, and when he still hesitated, laid it out plainly. “A good name, but not the income to support it. Due, if you will forgive me saying it, to your father’s financial imprudence.”

He could hardly wince at
her
blunt honesty, given what he had said, and what he intended to say. And her assessment was perhaps to be expected from a young woman with both a banker father and a brain. “Indeed. I also have three sisters in need of a future. Because of these things, my father has pressed me not only to marry, but to marry well. Which is to say, richly.”

Miss Northwood cast her gaze down with a resigned half smile. “I’ve always been aware that my marriage portion is the better part of my appeal to suitors.”

Galen had to swallow before he could go on. This might have been easier indoors, where he could have a glass of wine to wet his throat. But then he might drink too much, and people would be listening at keyholes besides. “I am a romantic, Miss Northwood. I wish with all my heart that I were on my knee before you now, pouring out a declaration of love that would do a poet proud. Unfortunately, it would be false. I . . . I do not love you.”

Her eyes were still downcast, making her thoughts hard to read. Galen hurried on. “I mean no insult to you. The truth is that, did care for my sisters not compel me, I wouldn’t be looking to marry at all. But I must consider them, and their happiness, and so I vowed that although money might be my father’s foremost concern, it would not be mine. Love might be too much to hope for, but I would not propose marriage to any woman I did not respect.”

“Respect.” It came out an unsteady laugh. “Do you find that in short supply, where women are concerned?”

“I don’t mean the respect any gentleman must have for a decent young woman,” Galen answered her. “I mean the sort of respect I have for Mrs. Vesey, or Mrs. Montagu, or Mrs. Carter. Respect of the mind, Miss Northwood.”

In the rosy light, he could not tell if she colored, but the sudden, embarrassed tuck of her chin suggested it.

Galen went on with quiet determination. “But while I may have resigned myself to an unromantic future, Miss Northwood, I won’t ask you to do the same. Tell me now, and honestly: is there another man for whom you entertain such feelings? I would not be the cause of your permanent separation from the one you love, if such a one exists—or if you prefer to seek love, instead of settling for me.”

She snapped her fan open for a few rapid beats, then snapped it shut again and rose to pace a few steps away. “There is no such man, Mr. St. Clair. Whether there would ever be one . . . who can say?”

When she turned to face him, her mouth had settled into a startlingly hard line. Dread curled in Galen’s stomach, bringing with it a sour taste familiar from his disastrous walk with Dr. Andrews. Had he stepped so wrong again?

Miss Northwood said, “You aren’t the only young man to show interest in my hand. You know that, of course—but do you know which one my father favors the most?”

Galen shook his head, mute.

“William Beckford’s illegitimate son,” she said, biting each syllable off with her teeth.

He was dumbstruck. Miss Northwood nodded, a tight, stiff motion. “Indeed. He would prefer Mr. Beckford himself, except that Maria Hamilton got there two years ago; and any children they have will take far too long to grow up.”

“But—” Words were still slow to come. “I thought your father wanted respectability.”

“He does, very ardently. On the other hand, he might forgo a gentleman for me, when plantation wealth could buy Temperance a duke.” Miss Northwood’s hands balled into fists, fan swinging free from her wrist. “If Mr. Beckford persuades the Prime Minister to attack the French at Martinique, as I know he wishes to, then no doubt my prospective husband would be the happy recipient of a new plantation himself. And I? Would be a slaveholder’s wife.”

Mrs. Northwood kept a Negro page, in imitation of those fashionable ladies who also had the wealth for such an exotic touch. Galen wondered how Miss Northwood felt about that. “I needn’t ask your opinion on this prospect,” he said slowly, choosing his words with care. “Do you mean then that you would choose me to escape it?”

The fight went out of her hands, and her shoulders slumped. “I would shame to use you in such fashion—but you’ve been honest with me, Mr. St. Clair. I thought it only fair to do the same.”

Now he did sit, and pull out a handkerchief to blot the sweat from his face. The warm scent of roses surrounded him like a too close embrace. “I—” God, how desperately he wished for something to wet his throat. “I suppose I’m flattered, that I am preferred to the bastard son of a Jamaican plantation owner.”

She was at his side, in a rush of silk. “Oh, Mr. St. Clair—I didn’t mean it that way. Rather to let you understand what you would be taking me away from. Not a secret love, but a match I would avoid at any cost.” Miss Northwood hesitated, then settled herself on the bench across from him, smoothing her skirts over her knees with uncertain fingers. “But before—when you spoke of resigning yourself to an unromantic future—the look in your eyes . . . Mr. St. Clair, is there one
you
love?”

The handkerchief twisted in his hands. Ladies had an advantage, with their fans they could hide behind. “Yes,” he admitted, in little more than a whisper. “That honesty, too, I think I owe you. But I will never—
can
never—be with the lady in question.”

“Your father won’t permit it?”

Galen laughed at the mere thought. “He wouldn’t, if he knew . . . but no, Miss Northwood. The reasons go far deeper than a father’s disapproval. Nor is it a question of wealth, or any other such thing. If you imagine me in the position of a young fool in love with the moon, you’ll have a fair sense of just how hopeless my situation is.

“Given that, there is nothing to be gained by delaying my choice. I promise you that, whatever sentiments repose in my heart, you shall have no cause to reproach me for my behavior. It is all I shall ever be able to offer any woman.”

He busied himself tucking away the handkerchief, to regain a modicum of his composure. The task done, he found Miss Northwood sitting with her hands folded, and a look in her eyes that said she was preparing to accept, despite—as he had said at the beginning—the reasons his honesty had given her for refusal.

Before she could answer, he spoke again.

“I suppose there is one thing more I can offer. Should you come under my roof, you will never again have reason to conceal your purpose at Mrs. Vesey’s. We shall have a library, and you shall buy what books you like for it; you may attend what lectures will admit ladies, learn what languages your talents suit you for, and if your mind inclines to it, you may write.” He thought he would have to force a smile past the lump in his throat, but it came with surprising ease. “I may detest Dr. Johnson on many counts, but in this matter, he and I have no disagreement at all: an educated woman is an ornament not only to her family, but to the nation that bore her. I shall do everything in my power to aid you.”

Her lips parted during the speech, and remained open in a small, astonished
O
; when he finished, she sat without speaking for quite a few moments—and then she answered him, in a strangely breathless voice. “Oh, Mr. St. Clair. I was all prepared to say that unlike you, I am not a romantic, and would willingly accept an offer of stability, respect, and friendship, even were my alternative not so terrible. But then you said those words, and I discovered that some part of me is a romantic after all.”

Her voice wavered on the last words, but the waver turned out to be a smile. Galen rose without thinking and crossed to her, then knelt and took her hands. “If talk of books and writing is your notion of romance, Miss Northwood, then we are happily matched indeed. If you will consent to be my wife, then I will go this minute and beg your father for your hand.”

The setting sun gave her a halo of fiery splendor. “You will not have to beg hard, Mr. St. Clair. I do consent.”

The Onyx Hall, London: July 8, 1758

“Betrothed?”
Irrith said in disbelief. “The Dragon will be here in a matter of months. Is this the best time to be talking marriage?”

Galen collapsed into a chair, sighing. “Likely not. But if I waited longer, I might have lost Miss Northwood to another—and besides, I promised my father I would find a wife before the end of the Season, which is upon us now.”

Irrith hardly cared about that. True, the quality would be departing soon for their country homes; they were the
beau monde,
the folk Carline liked best. Irrith preferred the ordinary Londoners, who stayed in the city all year. “You’ll be so busy, though, with the wedding, and setting up away from your father, and all the rest of it.”

“As it happens, no.” Galen’s smile was equal parts amusement and smugness. “Drawing up a marriage settlement can take time, and Miss Northwood and I have both made it clear to our families that we are perfectly content to be wed in the spring. Which gives her time to reconsider.”

“Maybe I’m misunderstanding your mortal customs, but I thought the lady reconsidering was considered a
bad
thing.”

He shrugged. “Usually. But I want Miss Northwood to be certain she’s happy with her choice. If her mind changes before spring—if, for example, she falls in love elsewhere—she’s welcome to cry off. I have told her so.”

Love. Irrith raised an eyebrow. “What does the Queen say?”

It was a cruel blow, but one he would have taken sooner or later. Galen’s qualified happiness faded visibly. “I haven’t told her yet.”

“You
are
aware that she keeps spies, yes?” Including, Irrith suspected, Edward Thorne, who was currently in an adjoining room, attempting to remove the dirt Galen had pressed into his stockings when he knelt to propose to Miss Delphia Northwood.

Galen sat forward in his chair and put his head in his hands. After a moment, he pulled off his wig, giving his scalp a good scratch. The sight reminded Irrith of the last time she’d seen his head bare—and Galen soon recalled it, too, for he blushed and hastily pulled the wig back on. “Dame Irrith—”

So they were back to titles. “Yes, Lord Galen?” she inquired, too sweetly.

It was so easy to call anguish up in his expressive face. “We cannot—I am promised to another, now.”

He never ceased to enchant her, the way different parts of him could say different things, all at the same time. His eyes told a much less certain story than his mouth. It wasn’t the manipulative artifice of someone like Valentin Aspell, either; Galen
felt
all these things, honestly and completely, even when they contradicted each other. However did he manage it?

She would not surrender the game, not so long as his eyes were still playing. “Promised, Galen. Not married.”

“But her Grace—”

“I thought we dealt with
that
matter already.”

“I cannot give myself to three women at once!”

The adjoining room was
far
too silent. Irrith hoped Edward Thorne was entertained. “You aren’t giving all of yourself—just pieces. Lune has your love. Miss Northwood has your promise. I don’t ask for either of those things; your body is enough for me.”

He turned
very
red, and shot up out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box. “You would treat me like some kind of male prostitute?”

Where had this anger come from? Irrith rose to her own feet, letting her own hurt show. “Did I say that? Did I imply it? What have I paid you, that gives you the right to accuse me like that? I’m only acting on what I saw in you. When you look at me, you see something you wish you could be: a person who doesn’t care what’s proper, who does what she likes and smiles at it all, a person without any chains. And it attracts you. But you’re too scared, too worried about what Lune thinks, and your father, and everyone else, to do what
you
want, and so I did it for you. How is that wrong?”

All the anger had gone out of him while she worked herself up to a shout. He wasn’t really mad, she realized—not at her. At himself, yes, for letting his father sell him in marriage, and for wanting what he thought he shouldn’t. Irrith had listened to farmers in Berkshire complain about the bad behavior of the so-called polite folk, keeping mistresses under the same roof as their wives, and had thought it common; and maybe it was, but not with Galen.

At least, he didn’t
want
it to be.

He’d retreated behind his chair; now she followed him, standing so close their buttons touched. “I’ll go away when you marry,” Irrith whispered, realizing only after it came out that for the first time in her timeless life, she was willing to let go of a mortal before she tired of him, for
his
sake. Because otherwise it would hurt him too much. “Let me enjoy this now, Galen. You love the Queen, and you want to hold faith with Miss Northwood, and you want to honor your father and help your sisters and learn great things and save the Onyx Hall—you want
so much
, and so intensely, and there’s nothing like that for us, don’t you understand? Nothing except you.”