Falling Stars (3 page)

Delia shook her head. “It isn’t. Mine is horrid.”

“Since you have promoted Mr. Greyson to chief artist, we shall let him judge.” There was an edge to the mama’s voice and a flush on her countenance as she held up Delia’s painting for Marcus’s perusal. He wondered whether she was vexed, and with whom.

“It is very fine,” said Marcus, his gaze moving from the painting to the mama. He remembered that delicate tint: a whisper of pink upon alabaster. The first time he’d dared to take her hand in his, she’d colored like this, but she hadn’t pulled away. He’d held her small, gloved hand as carefully as though it had been the most fragile of eggshells, and died of happiness during that too-brief moment. Then they’d heard the others coming, and he’d had to break away and pretend he’d only just that instant accidently encountered Christina in the garden.

She wore no gloves now. Her hands were slim and elegant, smooth and white and soft.

He wrenched his mind elsewhere, to Delia, who tugged at his coat sleeve, asking him to make a kink for her.

“Perhaps Mama would be so kind as to pass Delia’s painting this way,” he said tightly.

She rose instead, and brought it to him, then lingered to watch while he gave Delia’s dragon strange and mysterious pink and blue claws in lieu of a kinky tail.

He wanted to get away.

He found the little girls adorable and their fondness for him touching. He didn’t mind their negligible weight or the tiny kid shoes absently kicking at his shins. It wasn’t on their account he wanted to bolt, or even entirely on account of their mother, standing a few inches from his shoulder.

Marcus wanted to get away from himself, to disengage from the flesh-and-blood Marcus, because that flesh and blood was responding quite on its own, as though his body belonged to someone else.

He was painfully aware of Christina’s nearness and of her too-familiar scent and warmth, and of long-buried longings stirring to life.

When he added a whirl of smoke above Delia’s dragon’s head, Christina’s voice with its trace of huskiness came from above his shoulder: “Now you must give Livy smoke, too, Mr. Greyson. Then I would advise you to add no more adornments. Otherwise the rivalry will go on endlessly, I promise you.”

It was a mama’s voice, wise in the ways of her offspring. Yet Marcus could hear its distant echo from long ago:
I promise you, I’ll be there. I promise.

He had waited all those long, miserable hours... and she never came.

He set his jaw, and painted smoke for Livy’s dragon, and promised himself that ghosts or no ghosts, no woman, however beautiful, would make such a fool of him again. That, beyond doubt, had ended a long time ago.

***

At tea, Julius and Marcus argued about Greece, so hotly that Christina was sure they’d come to blows. Her tension must have been evident, because Penny edged closer on the sofa and patted her hand. “They won’t kill each other,” she said. “It’s simply that Marcus doesn’t believe it’s a proper discussion unless everyone loses his temper. In that, you see, he hasn’t changed at all.”

She had to raise her voice to be heard above the men. Even so, the brothers had been so furiously involved in their debate that Christina was startled when Marcus abruptly turned toward the two women.

“I don’t believe it’s a proper discussion,” he said, “when one’s opponent is incapable of comprehending the simplest facts. I’m obliged to raise my voice in hopes of getting some small piece of information into my brother’s thick skull.”

“You won’t persuade me it’s in our government’s interest to support the cause of anarchists,” said Julius. “Only look what came of revolution in France.”

“Only look at the American colonies,” Marcus retorted. “Which is ridiculous to ask of you, since you’ve never ventured farther west than Falmouth.”

“It’s ridiculous to insist that a man can’t make reasonable judgments about any circumstance he hasn’t personally witnessed. Even our foreign ministers—”

“Perceive the world as someone else has told them they must. They believe whatever their teachers told them, or whichever ignorant blockhead has designated himself an authority.”

No, Marcus hadn’t changed in this, Christina thought. It was partly his radical views, but more his tactless, often insulting way of expressing them, that a decade ago had made him unwelcome at most social gatherings and alienated virtually all his peers.

“You’re frowning, Mrs. Travers,” Marcus said. “You take exception to my opinion.”

His expression was mocking. She wondered if he thought a mere female was incapable of possessing an opinion, let alone disagreeing with that of a male. “I certainly don’t agree that the two revolutions arose from the same circumstances, or had the same result,” she said.

“Both chose to overthrow what they perceived as tyranny.”

“That appears to be the only parallel,” she said. “The French beheaded their monarch and most of their aristocracy. The Americans merely severed a relationship. It was England that made a war of it.”

His dark eyebrows lifted. “Indeed. England, in your view, was rather like a lover the Americans had tired of.”

“If I pursue that curious analogy,” she said evenly, “I might say that the Americans found their lover’s demands unreasonable.”

She discerned what might be a flicker of surprise in the gold-glinting eyes, and then, more clearly, a flash of anger. She felt a small, fierce stab of satisfaction. He had started it. If he’d thought he could hurt her with the oblique reference to the past, if he thought she would shrink away and blush, he had another think coming.

“And I might say the mistress was capricious,” he returned.

She met his challenging stare straight on. “You might, but you don’t believe that. Your sympathies are with the Americans. You’re merely playing devil’s advocate, Mr. Greyson. You baited Julius, and now you’re baiting me.”

“Certainly. He baits everyone,” said Julius, moving to the tea table. “There is nothing he likes better than a great, noisy row. Come, Marcus, stop up your mouth with a sandwich, and stop staring at Christina as though she’s sprouted another head.”

Marcus opened his mouth, then shut it, and Christina felt a prickle of annoyance with Julius. The argument had hardly begun, and he had smoothly squelched it. No doubt Julius thought she couldn’t defend herself. He, too, had another think coming.

Marcus silently approached the tea table, but made no move to take anything. He looked at the tea tray, then at her. Look, however, was too passive a word to convey what he did. He had a way of taking possession with a glance and fastening all one’s consciousness on him.

Christina tried to think of something to say to Penny, some excuse to divert her attention elsewhere. But her brain refused to consider anything but the man opposite.

Marcus did not sit up properly in his chair with his feet neatly planted upon the carpet, but leaned back, his long legs bridging the space between them, one boot crossed comfortably over the other just a few inches from her feet. Christina was rivetingly aware of the dark wool stretched taut over his muscular limbs and of the smoke from the fire clinging to his garments. There was also the scent, faint as an elusive memory, of tansy and cloves.

She darted a sharp glance at his politely blank countenance. His eyes, she found, were neither blank nor polite. They were intent, assessing. In this way, she reflected, he must have countless times sized up business rivals, not to mention women. The scrutiny was disquieting—as he meant it to be, she thought crossly. It was as deliberate as the way he manipulated the physical awareness. He enjoyed putting others off-balance. He was obnoxiously good at it, even better than he’d been ten years ago. Practice makes perfect, she thought. She wanted to strike him. He had no business playing this stupid, silent game with her.

“I think you’ve grown... taller since the last time I saw you,” he said reflectively. “That was—when was it?—years ago, anyhow. What were you then— sixteen, seventeen?”

“Eighteen,” she said. “A year younger than Penny.” She turned to Penny for confirmation, and was startled to find that her friend had left the sofa and was on the other side of the room, talking to Julius. Christina calmly turned back to Marcus. He was wearing a faint, amused smile.

“But you are quite right regarding my height,” she said. “I did grow another half-inch. How keenly observant you are.”

Twin sparks lit his eyes. “I did not mean a mere half-inch. I must have confused you with some other girl. There were a great many of them, as I recall.”

“Ah, well, you mustn’t mind the error,” Christina answered in tones laden with compassion. “Failure of memory is common with advancing age—it cannot be helped.”

His expression remained cool, but for the muscle that jumped in his jaw, before he answered, “That’s one frailty you obviously don’t suffer. Your memory is keen indeed. You recall not only how old you were, but your exact height.”

She wanted very much to fling the teapot at his smug face. Instead she smiled. “Not long after Penny’s wedding, I was measured for my own bridal gown. I can’t imagine any woman forgetting what size and age she was when she was wed.”

She felt his withdrawal an instant before his long legs pulled back and his posture straightened. “Yes, of course,” he said tightly. “I had altogether forgotten.”

***

Christina had started it, Marcus told himself as he jammed the diamond stickpin into his neckcloth. She had sat upon the sofa looking cool and detached and superior, listening to Penny speak of him as though he were an ill-mannered child. But Christina had also finished it, he admitted as he turned from the looking glass.

He had only wanted to fluster her, make her blush, obtain some hint that she remembered something, anything. Instead, she had found and pierced a tender spot that shouldn’t have existed: a mere three months after tossing him aside, she’d wed; it had taken Marcus three times as many months to recover. The reminder had hurt. It shouldn’t have, but it had.

A great deal was happening that shouldn’t.

He had spent more than an hour dressing for dinner, when it should have taken a quarter of that time. He’d just spent a full twenty minutes choosing the stickpin—as though she cared a straw what he wore, as though he gave a damn whether or not he met her standards of elegance.

Giving his cuffs an unnecessary tug, he headed for the door, then paused, his fingers inches from the handle, when he heard Christina’s and Penny’s voices in the hall outside.

He didn’t emerge from his room until the voices faded. Then he headed for his nephews’ room, and spent a quarter hour there telling riddles and jokes, instead of offering his customary “good night” from the threshold.

He owed them the attention, he told himself as he left the room. He’d focused too much on the twins all day, and children were sensitive to such unintentional slights—as the girls’ behavior in the playroom had demonstrated.

He was positive he’d done nothing—certainly not deliberately—to win the girls’ affection, let alone lure them to him in the playroom. They’d simply come... as their mama had done once, long ago.

Then, he had believed that she, too, felt the current between them, and the sense of inevitability as their gazes locked. Gad, what a moonstruck young fool he’d been. Obviously all that had drawn her was curiosity or vanity. He had kept away, when other men couldn’t; naturally, this had intrigued her.

What her children saw in him was even less significant. Children took likings and aversions for reasons adults could rarely fathom. Delia liked him as she liked pink and blue dragons; Livy, as she liked starch in her smocks. This sensible adult reflection brought a twinge of sadness.

Marcus paused at the head of the stairs. He really should bid the girls good night as well. One must be even-handed, after all, though they were the children of a stranger.

He was heading toward the guest wing even as he thought it. Halfway down the hall, he felt misgivings, and his steps slowed. But soft light streamed into the hall from their open door, beckoning his reluctant feet on.

He reached the door and looked in. Though a candle was lit, they were buried under the bed-clothes.

He felt the stab of sadness again, and quarreled with it, for the two little girls were simply asleep, as they should be. He spoke anyway, his voice just a whisper: “Good night, my dears.”

Two flaxen heads popped up from the bed-clothes.

“Oh, you have come,” Delia exclaimed. “I told you,” she chided her sister.

“You did not,” said Livy. “You said maybe. I said maybe, too.”

He shouldn’t feel so very gratified, but he did, and all the adult common sense in the world couldn’t keep Marcus from entering the room and savoring their quarrelsome welcome.

“I hope you didn’t stay awake on my account,” he said, though he rather hoped they had.

Their blonde heads bobbed up and down.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “That will never do. Next time, I shall have to dress more quickly. It took me much longer than it should have, I’m afraid.”

“Mama takes hours,” Delia said. “There’s all the things for underneath, and then the things on top of them.”

“Yes,” said Livy. “There’s the chemise, and the corset, and the stockings and the petticoat and—”

“Ladies’ garments can be very complicated,” Marcus hastily interjected while he tried to banish the seductive vision Livy had evoked. “Though a gentleman’s are much simpler, he must contend with his neckcloth, which is not very easy to tie properly.”

Livy gravely considered the neckcloth. “You have a star,” she said. “I like stars.”

She meant the diamond stickpin. It was too gaudy, he decided, too demanding of attention. Someone might think he was trying to impress... someone.

‘It’s not a star,” Delia told her sister. “It’s a diamond.”

“A star,” said Livy.

“A diamond.” Delia drove her elbow into Livy’s arm.

“Do you know what I think?” Marcus put in before the disagreement could escalate into violence. “Maybe stars are diamonds with which angels adorn the heavens. Maybe sometimes they drop them, and they fall all the way to the earth.”