Magic in the Stars (16 page)

“The farmers are setting fire to the shed! Uncle Theo dumped
ale over Mr. Montfort’s head.”

With a more adult swagger than his twin—who was under the
table with the puppies—Hugh snatched a roll from the buffet and shoved cold ham
and cheese between the layers as he talked.

Jacques and William pushed back from the table, and Azenor
tried not to panic.

“Surely that’s only boasting,” she protested. “Why would
they burn sheds?”

“Hartley, run up and check Theo’s telescopes. Tell us where
the fires are,” William ordered the twin beneath the table. “Hugh, sit and eat
and pretend you’re civilized.”

“I want to see the telescopes.” Aster pushed back from the
table without waiting for the new footman to assist her. “Bree, finish
directing Sally and James on how to clear the table. Sally, find a plate for
Hugh.”

“It is nothing to worry yourself over,” Jacques said,
stopping to offer his arm. “There is always tension when Dunc encloses a field
or changes a crop or introduces a machine. Without Ashford riding out to
explain, people become anxious.”

“I brought my family and servants here,” Aster said crisply,
hiding her fear and concern. “Torching a shed is not
nothing
. I will not allow my guests to stay if there is danger. Who
is this Montfort and what does he have to do with this?”

Limping, she followed the two men up the stairs. Hartley had
already raced ahead and disappeared into the upper reaches.

“Montfort is a lazy sot who has naught to do but spend his
allowance and watch corn grow.” Jacques indicated a dark parlor at the head of
the stairs. “There is a telescope in there. Hartley will run up to the roof
where he’ll have a broader perspective.”

Understanding she was holding him back, Aster nodded. “Go,
do what you need to do. Please be careful.”

“Haven’t heard that since my
maman
left for Paris,” Jacques said, lingering after Will’s
departure. “Hartley will show you how to use the glass when he comes down.”

At her nod, Jacques strode off as if eager to attend a
boxing match or horse race. Their neighbor was not the only one bored with
watching corn grow.
Men!
she thought
in frustration, finding her way through the salon with only a candle and the
last rays of evening. They were all overgrown children believing themselves
invincible.

Which meant Lord Theo was doing what? Beating up bullies? Or
threatening mobs? She was far better off never marrying and putting herself
through this.

Hands behind her back, she peered into the glass eyepiece.
It was focused on the stars, of course. She gasped in awe at the wondrous
spread of diamonds across the velvet sky that had been invisible to the naked
eye. No wonder Lord Theo was fascinated. He had the entire universe at his
fingertips.

But hearing the clatter of boots and shouts of men as they
ran down the back stairs to the stable, she reluctantly attempted to focus the
glass on the earth instead of the heavens.

Hartley joined her long after the horses rode out of the
yard. A spaniel trotted happily on his heels and settled across her toe. “The
shed is ashes. There are torches in the lane coming from the north,” the boy
said, adjusting the telescope’s position and fiddling with the dials. “The
hedges are too high to see much. I suppose I should talk to Father.”

Aster prayed she wasn’t the harbinger of doom that had
brought disaster on them. Surely the three or four generations separating them
kept Ives from being close enough to consider them as Family on her chart. She
swallowed her fear and tried to remain unruffled for the boy.

“Why don’t you take your twin with you? Hugh will know more
since he’s been out there. Lord Ashford will need you to be his eyes, so don’t
leave the house unless he tells you to.”

Hartley nodded. “I’ll tell Hugh. He’ll want to be out there
otherwise.”

She really had no business interfering with how the Ives
operated their estate, but her heart went out to these lost boys. Their mother
had essentially abandoned them into the care of a man who had too many problems
to even look after himself. Really, the faster Theo married, the better off
everyone would be.

Unless he married someone like Emilia, who wouldn’t notice
the boys’ existence. Oh dear.

Aster had spread her charts out on a game table in the
upper salon by the time Lord Theo and his brothers returned. After determining
from the telescope that a raging fire wasn’t spreading across the fields and
that she couldn’t see anything else, she had abandoned watching and turned to
the zodiac that spoke to her more clearly. She hadn’t realized how terrified
she’d been until they returned safely, if soot-covered and unhappy—
this time
.

Her charts had not left her optimistic about the dangers on
the horizon—all of them focused on the family sectors of the brothers. It was
akin to seeing large rocks balanced precariously above the path they walked. She
wished she didn’t see these premonitions so clearly.

She glanced up when Lord Theo entered. The others continued
on to their chambers. He carried his coat over his arm and stood there in
waistcoat and shirtsleeves, his discarded neckcloth leaving his shirt open at
the throat. She had to avert her eyes from his exceedingly masculine chest.

“It is late,” he said with a weary growl, wiping grime from
his perspiring brow. “You should be sleeping. Where is your maid?”

“Aunt Nessie kept me company for a while, but I sent her off
to bed.” She didn’t want to admit—even to herself—that she’d stayed up to see
that everyone returned safely. That was what one did for
family
, and these charts were proof enough that joining her disastrous
destiny with that of a family who had dozens of knives hanging over their heads
would be a very bad idea. She ought to have gone to bed—but she wouldn’t have gone
to sleep.

He helped her roll up her charts. “Did you find more doom
and gloom in our futures?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so, but I also see your soul mate on the
horizon,” she said guardedly, trying not to feel the hurt forming around her
heart.

“Really?” He looked interested. “What does she look like?”

“I can’t tell that,” she replied in annoyance. “It would be
far easier if the planets wrote names across your life line, but they don’t.
There is a good chance that one of our guests will become your wife.”

“If I live long enough?” he asked with a trace of irony.
“What disaster do you foresee this time?”

“I do not mean to be a Cassandra.” She knew he had every
right to be skeptical about her prophecies, but it still irritated that he
couldn’t accept her warnings now that she’d proved her accuracy. “I cannot live
with myself if I do not warn you when danger is in your future.”

“Maybe I’ll marry someone who will kill me? Or do you think
your charts will let us know if the Hall is about to burn down?” he asked wearily.

In the lamp light, his tired smile was still able to turn
her lonely heart upside-down. She ought to visit the marquess and have objects
thrown at her to end this tendency toward sentiment.

Aster concentrated on tying her scrolls. “Charts are not
precise. My intuition sees fire and hatred but not targets. I watched through
your telescope to be certain no fields were set ablaze. How did you prevent
that?”

“I invited several of our more substantial tenants to help
interview stewards,” he said, helping her tie the ribbons. “They know I’m
useless for their purposes, and they were worried.”

“Smart of you, stupid of them to underestimate you.”

He halted his ribbon tying and studied her with an interest
that made her squirm. “As you yourself have pointed out, I am an absent-minded
scientist with my head in the stars. I let them burn down a whole damned shed
and half the harvested hay while I was trying to figure out what to do. I have
no idea how to interview stewards. They were
not
underestimating me.”

Aster sent him a scathing look meant to put him in his
place. “You stopped a riot, did you not? Could your brother have done better?”

“Undoubtedly, and before we lost a shed and all its contents.
I did not even know half our tenants’ names. I lack the patience to spend the
rest of my days dealing with troublemakers, so do not make of me something that
I am not.” He sounded almost angry at her compliment.

Accepting that men did not think as she did, she asked,
“What happened to the fire-starters?”

“I told them Montfort was at the tavern, buying ale for
all,” he said, apparently willing to be distracted. “It won’t teach Montfort
not to cause trouble, but it gave the hotheads something better to do.”

“For now.” She gathered the scrolls into her valise,
stepping away from the all-too-tempting scent of raw male. “There are parts of
your chart I cannot properly understand. I need to study your scientific tracts
to see what I am missing in my calculations.”

“I think I shall just pick one of your more efficient maids
and marry her. At least she might organize the household,” he said in
resignation. “We are wasting our time on this tea party when we know none of
your ladies will possibly suit. Half of them will no doubt run in terror once
they meet the hounds and the goats and my brothers.”

“Goats?” she asked faintly. Besides sweat, he smelled of
smoke and ale, but she took his arm to limp down the corridor to her room. His masculine
proximity made her much too aware of what they’d done in the conservatory, and
she wished he’d go away. And despite his interesting dishabille, he was a
gentleman, and she knew he wouldn’t. “What goats?”

“You don’t want to know,” he asserted with unusual coldness.
“And do not think that you’ve seen all my family. The boys are all out of
school for the summer, and after visits with their mothers, will soon fill the
house. We don’t hold on to women, but the boys are permanent.”

“There are a few girls in your charts,” she said with
indignation. “What do you do with them?” As the Malcolm family librarian, she
had become inured to the fact that this branch produced more illegitimate
offspring than legitimate. Given Ives intelligence and ambition, it hadn’t held
them back much in society.

She had deduced that women of low birth chased Ives because
they knew, even if they were dishonored, that with the marquess’s title and
support their positions would be better than before.

She would rather the marquess spent his wealth on providing
education for Daphne’s factory laborers and Gwenna’s orphans than in producing
more bastards.

“What would we do with
girls
around here?” Lord Theo asked in surprise. “We can’t teach them drawing or
etiquette or needlework. They stay with their mothers.”

“Where they belong,” Aster said dryly. “Charming. I suppose
I should be glad that you haven’t installed their mothers in the attic or I
would never persuade a single lady past the portal.”

“Few dare cross the threshold as it is,” he said, grimacing.
“You are a rare specimen. Unless you can find me a woman as intrepid as
yourself, I foresee a future of hysterics, and not the help I need.”

“You do not know the right sorts of women,” she said in scorn,
although her lonely heart cried out for the comfort the gentleman offered and
needed. “My friends and family are not so faint of heart. There is a woman
perfect for you in your chart. But I am thinking the challenge is too great for
any one woman. We need to think about marrying off your brothers as well.”

“And while you’re at it, will you feed the hungry and bring
peace on earth?” he asked, opening her chamber door for her.

She almost laughed at his cynicism. But perhaps that was
just nervousness at his proximity.

“I will see you in the morning,” he continued without
waiting for a reply, “and you can tell me of these Amazons who will run the
household, keep the books, terrify rioters, and produce heirs at the same
time.”

When put like that . . . Aster winced as the
door closed behind her.

She would have to be a magician to produce what his lordship
needed.

***

“I need you there to interview the stewards who have
traveled miles looking for this position!” Theo shouted at his boneheaded older
brother. “I haven’t the faintest clue what to ask.”

“I suggest—
how much do
you expect us to pay you and for what
?” Duncan said grumpily, groping at
his trousers, apparently in search of the placket so he could put them on
straight.

“I’ll send your devilish valet back to you. He’s about to
drive me mad. You’ll look all proper and lordly and the stewards will never
know the difference.” Theo paced up and down his brother’s chamber, kicking
books and papers and china out of his way.

Duncan had thrown out one of Lady Azenor’s maids after she’d
dropped the china this morning. In fairness, Dunc’s roar for her to leave the
damned tray where he could find it had frightened half the household. The maid
didn’t have a chance.

“You need to look decent to woo a wife. Get used to it. It’s
not as if he can shave this ugly scar, or needs to.” Duncan shoved his bandaged
leg into the opening he’d found.

“No, you’d rather prove that you can’t do what you used to
do and bellow the house down. This is an abuse of power, Dunc. You can’t force
all your duties on me. I’ve reached my limits.” Theo kicked one of his
brother’s favorite novels and nearly wept, knowing Dunc would never read it
again.

Lady Azenor had made him painfully aware of the loss his
brother suffered. He wished she hadn’t.

“It’s about time you tested your limits instead of fiddling
your nights away watching the moon. Get out and lock the door behind you.” Duncan
attempted to put both legs in one trouser hole, realized his error, and swore a
mighty oath.