Falling Stars (8 page)

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.

She was no longer uncomfortable with him. She shared her own observations and gossip and jokes, and her face lit up with glee when they launched into an argument. Twice when she’d been busy at some task and the twins had repeatedly interrupted with their squabbles, Christina had distractedly waved them away and told them to go bother Mr. Greyson.

Most encouraging of all was a minor episode the night before Christmas Eve, when they were preparing to leave for a musicale at the Nichol’s. The clasp of her pearl necklace came undone as Marcus was helping her with her wrap. Though Penny stood only a few feet away, Christina turned to Marcus to refasten the pearls.

She was beginning to take him for granted, he reflected happily the next morning when he came down to breakfast. She wasn’t simply getting used to his being there; she was beginning to count on it.

His pleased grin faded when he discovered only Julius at the breakfast table.

“Where is—where are the ladies?” Marcus asked.

“Where do you think? It’s Christmas Eve day. They’re locked in the sitting room amid a heap of silver tissue and ribbons. They’re wrapping gifts this morning because there won’t be time this afternoon,” Julius elucidated. “We’re taking the children to play with another thousand little beasts at Alistair House.”

“No one mentioned Alistair House to me,” said Marcus, moving to the sideboard.

“They’ll probably spring it on you at the last minute. But you needn’t come. It’s meant mainly for the children, and very exciting it is, too: a fir tree in the hall, lit with candles, with a lot of gaudy trinkets and ribbons hanging in the boughs. I suppose we’ll have to do it next year. The Duchess of York’s German customs appear to have taken permanent hold. I wonder how many houses will burn down before we adopt a less hazardous foreign custom.”

“I think it’s an excellent custom,” said Marcus. Next Christmas he would have a tree lit with candles, he decided. There would be a silver star at the top, and a lot of shiny geegaws hanging from the boughs. And angels. Three golden-haired angels in the tree. He had seen some in a shop in Paris. They had tiny golden halos and gossamer silk wings and gold threads in their snow white robes.

He brought his plate to the table and sat down. “I’ll have to be excused from Alistair House,” he said. “I’ve something to do in Bath.”

“Something,” Julius repeated expressionlessly. “You are too confiding, Marcus. You must try for more self-restraint. Though I am your brother, you really needn’t tell me everything.”

“I beg your pardon, Julius. I shall try to contain myself in future.” Grinning, Marcus took up his knife and fork.

***

By eleven o’clock that night, they gave up waiting for Marcus and prepared to go to church.

The twins were beside themselves. They had been looking for him and asking for him since they’d returned from Alistair House. They had refused to nap because he hadn’t come to wish them happy dreams—which meant, according to Delia, that they would have horrid ones. Because they hadn’t napped, they were contrary and petulant.

After a lengthy struggle, Christina got them into their coats, mittens, and bonnets.

“But we can’t go now, Mama,” Delia wailed as Christina led them to the door.

Livy tugged at her mother’s coat. “Can’t we wait a little more? Can’t I wait for him?”

“No, I’ll wait,” said Delia. “You go to church with Mama and I’ll come later with Mr. Greyson.”

“No one will wait,” said Christina. “Mr. Greyson is perfectly capable of getting to midnight services by himself, if he wishes to. Come along. The others are already in the carriage, and Kit and Robin’s papa is waiting in the cold.”

“It isn’t fair, Mama.”

“Mr. Greyson will be all by himself. Maybe he won’t know where we are.”

“He’ll be sad, Mama.”

“He might be lost. Maybe we should look for him.”

Christina knew it was no use trying to reason with them. If she was going to get them to midnight services, she must be an utterly heartless mama. She hustled them to the carriage and ordered them in. As they sulkily obeyed, she turned to apologize to Julius for keeping him waiting.

“I was happy to wait,” he said gallantly. “It gave me an opportunity to gaze at the heavens and be properly awed.”

Christina looked up. It had snowed off and on during the day, but the sky was rapidly clearing, the last wispy clouds chased by a brisk wind. It was an awe-inspiring sight, as Julius said. The heavens stretched out like a robe of blue-black velvet set with countless winking diamonds.

“The angels are putting the stars back,” she murmured. “How busy they must be, and yet so careful. There is Orion, precisely as he always is, with three stars in his belt, and there—”

She caught her breath as a star shot past the astral hunter and down, to disappear behind the fir trees.

“A falling star,” she said softly. “Isn’t that—”

“There’s another,” Julius said.

There was another and another, a shower of falling stars, all dropping behind the fir trees that surrounded the old gatehouse. But of course they hadn’t. It only looked that way.

All the same, her flesh prickled. She thought of angels dropping stars that turned into diamonds. She took a step away from the carriage, then another. She looked at Julius.

“I can’t go to church,” she said. “I have something to do.”

“Something,” he repeated. “Yes, of course. Some of us have something to do and some of us haven’t. I beg you will not tell me what it is. I had much rather die of suspense.” He made an elegant bow. “Good night, my dear. I shall see you... eventually, I trust.”

“You’re very understanding, Julius.”