Strathmere's Bride (6 page)

Tonight he would spend in the sweet air of the garden, reading the stars and trying to convince himself that the path he was on was the right one.

Or maybe he would just lose himself in the wonder of the heavens and leave the rest of it to be contemplated later.

“Y
our grace, may I speak with you?”

Jareth looked up from his ledgers to see Miss Pesserat standing in the doorway, leaning inward in an inquisitive pose. With her hair neatly pulled back off her face, she looked rather…appealing, Jareth noted. Her skin almost glowed, perfect skin with a natural blush to her cheeks that lent her a fresh-faced, innocent quality. Remarkable, he thought as he sat back, surveying her openly. Her dress was even clean and relatively free of wrinkles.

“Come in, Miss Pesserat.” He paused, smiling at his slip. “Miss Chloe, I meant to say.”

“
Merci.
I shall not keep you. I merely wished to ask your permission to take the children on an outing.”

That broadened his smile. This was a good sign. Apparently, he was being quite effective in establishing his authority regarding the activities of his nieces.

Chloe stepped forward and laid a carefully lettered document before him. “See, here I have a schedule prepared for each day of the week. It is important for
children to have exercise regularly, do you not agree?” Before he could even formulate an answer, she made one of those sweeping, fluid gestures that never failed to astonish him with their pure artistry. “When I was a child, we walked everywhere, every day was a different adventure. It builds the lungs. Too much indoors…” She paused, frowning meaningfully at him. The way her bottom lip stuck out was almost adorable. “It stifles the brain. Not enough air.”

Jareth held his hands up as if in surrender. “Your point is taken, Miss Chloe, and though it is at odds with conventional medical wisdom, it happens to coincide with my views, as well. As a child, I too loved the out-of-doors. I would not dream of cheating my nieces out of such enjoyment. Now, let me see here, on Tuesday you have written you would like to take the girls on a walk to the pond. What educational benefit were you planning to achieve with this excursion?”

Chloe looked startled. “Why, to see the ducks.”

“Excellent. A study of nature, the local wildlife in particular.” He took a quill out of its ink pot and made a mark next to that activity. Pen poised over the next item, he lifted his face expectantly. “What is the purpose of Wednesday’s trip?”

“Ah,
pardon,
what was Wednesday’s trip?”

“The walk into the eastern woods.”

“Oh, well…that was…
Mon Dieu,
I cannot quite recall.” At his reaction of displeasure she hurriedly said, “Yes, now I remember. We are to look for small animals and see if we can find where they live.”

Jareth was even more pleased with that activity.
“Wise, Miss Chloe. You challenge the children to think, to see beyond a cute fluffy tail or huge, limpid eyes. They must learn of the living habits of the creatures we share the land with.”

He made another check and perused the rest of the proposed activities. “I think on Thursday, you shall remain indoors. Mother and I are traveling to Rathford Manor again, and I would prefer you not leave the house. Perhaps your planned activity to study the fauna of the area can be postponed.”

Chloe smiled sweetly.
“Certainement.”

She looked positively angelic, and he wasn’t too humble to feel a puff of satisfaction.

Returning the smile, he handed back her schedule. “With that small alteration, I can give my approval.”

“
Merci,
your grace.”

She whirled to take her leave, and if it hadn’t been for the quick curtsy she dropped, he might have never suspected. But when she left, he paused, pen pressed against his bottom lip as he thought over his sudden misgivings.

Dismissing his doubts, he went to work on the documents before him. There wasn’t a need to question her motives just because she had seen sense in the end—she, Miss Chloe, the flibbertigibbet who usually made no sense at all…

Sometime later, he realized how foolish he had been to think it would be so easy. Miss Chloe and the two girls marched across the front lawn, Miss Chloe calling out commands as the children highstepped in time. The last thing he heard was her exclaiming something about a herd of elephants ahead of them, and the trio went screaming down the hill
and disappeared.

Presumably, he thought wearily, to the duck pond.

In the garden that night, the air was wonderfully cool. Jareth liked it thus. He had removed his jacket and turned up his shirtsleeves clear to his elbows.

This garden, this place that had been his nightly refuge as a child and now as a man, brought him the peace of mind he needed so badly.

He fiddled with the calibrations of the large telescope he had dragged out with him. In his youth, when the desire to study star patterns began to become an obsession, he would spend many a night out here, gazing upward and marveling at this particularly magnificent wonder of creation.

Adjusting the angle of the delicate instrument, Jareth bent over and peered in the lens.

A shadow crossed the verdant path, blocking the moonlight.

“Good evening.”

The voice was so unexpected he started, straightening to face this intruder. Chloe smiled at him. He was surprised to note it was a warm smile, full of genuine greeting. A fleeting thought passed through his mind that not even his own mother looked happy to see him anymore. Her features were always strained in lines of concern, and she seemed, whenever in his company, more relieved that he was finally present to air her assorted worries than pleased to be sharing his company.

“Hello, Miss Chloe.”

“What are you doing?” Without waiting for his answer, she sidled around to stand beside him, her eyes never leaving the strange contraption he had set
up before him. “What is this?” she asked in wonder. She touched a black knob.

“Please,” he said, taking her slim fingers in his and guiding them away. He was surprised she didn’t snatch her hand back, at least not right away. Her skin was cool, the contact pleasant. Then he remembered how unseemly it was to have skin-on-skin contact with any woman. He was not, nor was she, wearing any gloves.

He released his grip.

Her heavily lashed lids slid over her eyes and she glanced away. “I am sorry, I am intruding. I shall leave you,” she said, and had already turned to go when Jareth heard somebody say, “Wait.”

It was a heartbeat or two before he realized he had been the one to speak.

She looked at him and blinked those wide, stormyblue eyes at him. “Yes?”

He held out a hand to her in invitation. “I did not mean to frighten you away.”

Ah, she was predictable. Her chin came up and she said, “I am not frightened.”

In a conciliatory tone, he said, “Come and take a look.”

She hesitated a moment—perhaps she
was
a little frightened—before coming to stand before him. “Your grace?”

In the moonlight the gray-blue of her eyes gleamed pale. They were wide with genuine interest and a touch of apprehension.

Pointing to the viewing lens, he said, “Look through there.”

She struggled to focus through the awkward angle. “What is that?” she asked.

“What does it look like to you?”

“A dragon,” she replied.

Puzzled, he said, “What?” She straightened, and he stepped up to have a look for himself.

“How do you see a dragon? That is Piscis Austrinus. The heavens do have a dragon, but Draco is farther north, on the other side of Polaris.”

Turning, he was just in time to catch her shrug. “You asked me what I see. I only can say what it looks like to me. A dragon.”

He let out a sigh. “You do see the strangest things, don’t you, Miss Chloe?”

Her smile was brilliant.
“Merci beaucoup!”

Shaking his head, he chuckled. “And you always mystify me.”

“It is good not to be predictable,
oui?
Surprise makes life fun. But too much, it can disturb. We need to know the same things are always there for us. To depend on. Otherwise we grow anxious and our moods grow poor.”

“This is a side of you I never thought to see. You are quite the philosopher.”

“Do you think so, your grace? They are just my thoughts, you see.” She shot him a mischievous glance. “I do have thoughts.”

“I never doubted it. It is just that they rarely agree with my own.”

“Ah,” she said, nodding wisely. “It is true. But which one of us is in the right? Is it always you? Is it always me? I think neither, though we are both too stubborn to admit any such thing.”

“Why, you amaze me again.”

“And another wonder to speak of is the fact that we have something in common, eh? You come to the
garden to enjoy the night.” She swept her arm skyward like any prima ballerina. “And I, to walk the garden paths. It is where I gather thoughts.”

“So this is where you get all those ridiculous ideas.”

A wry smile and the slightest of giggles were his reward. “Among other sources.”

She tilted her head back to view with her naked eye what his telescope had just given her a glimpse of. “Without the tube it just looks like a blur of light. I think I like it better like this. It leaves more to the imagination,
n’est-ce pas?
One looks at the stars and sees the patterns and dreams of heroes and deeds of magic and bravery and perilous quests, of fortunes and wars and all other manner of glories to be won.”

Jareth angled a glance above him. The majesty of the clear night had always inspired him, and Miss Chloe’s poetic statement caught fire to the tendrils of his imagination, filling him with heady vision. “It is a fabulous stage, upon which countless dramas are played,” he agreed.

“See, there.” Chloe pointed excitedly. “Does that not look like a snake?”

“That is Lacerta.”

“It does not matter what some ancient man named it or what tradition holds it to be, but what your imagination can conjure. I see a snake.”

“Do you always disapprove of tradition?”

“No,” she answered, squinting at the sky. “Do you always adhere to it?”

“No.” Looking upward, he was disturbed to note that the pattern of stars she had indicated did indeed appear to resemble a snake.

“And there,” she cried, pointing in the direction
of Pegasus, “it is a woman leaning over as if working in a garden.”

“Impossible. I see no such thing.”

“Yes, there. The form of her hunched over, the drape of her skirt.”

Jareth angled a look at her skeptically. “You are making this up.”

“Non”!
It is true. It is a story, you see. The woman is working in the garden. She is a poor woman, scratching out a meager life from the earth.”

Jareth looked up at the heavens, his features full of doubt.

Chloe continued, “Her young man is gone, and she is grieving her loss.”

“How can you tell that from the stars?” he demanded. “I don’t even see the woman and you can see all that?”

“Bien sûr,”
she exclaimed. “Do you not see her tears?”

“This is ridiculous,” Jareth murmured.

“And so the snake comes upon her and bites her in her foot and she dies.”

“How utterly morbid.”

“No, it is romantic!”

“You call that romantic?”

“Have you never read the great tragic loves—Arthur and Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde?”

“Horrible stories. But they do teach a good lesson. Guinevere betrayed Arthur, and so she was condemned to death. Likewise, Tristan—”

“Non, non, et non.
Guinevere was saved from the fire by Lancelot”

“Ah, yes, now I remember. But didn’t she go to
a convent and pine the rest of her days for her fatal error in judgment?”

Chloe crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head stubbornly. “No, again. They lived happily.” She steadied her gaze at him meaningfully. “In
France.
”

“Miss Chloe, you contradict yourself. At one moment you are arguing the attraction of doomed lovers, and the next you are saying that they didn’t really find disaster in the end.”

She shrugged a bit sullenly, completely unconcerned that she wasn’t making any sense. “Sometimes the whole romance is the ill-fated aspect. Like Romeo and Juliet.”

“Italians are rash and hotheaded.”

“It teaches a moral,” she corrected patiently. “That to judge another because of their name, or nationality, or social rank, is wrong. Did you never read Capulet’s speech at the end?”

“Kindly explain the moral of your tale of the weeping lady. No, no. Allow me. Never garden without proper shoes.”

Chloe laughed, a loud, gusty, infectious laugh that spread out over the night, a sweet and utterly tangible thing. He smiled. She looked so radiant, her head thrown back, her straight white teeth flashing in the moonlight, and that wide, full-lipped smile stretching her mouth in a way that was captivating.

He laughed, too. He hadn’t meant the comment to be comical. He had—he was not proud to admit in retrospect—intended to be a bit snide, but it really was funny.

“
Eh, bien, monsieur.
I believe we shall leave the mythmaking to Homer and his friends.”

“It would be a relief, I assure you.”

“You did not like my story?” Her mouth puffed into a delectable little
moue.

Jareth felt a tightening low in his gut at the sight of it. “
Mademoiselle,
you have too much imagination. It is pickling your brain.”

“Yes, yes, it is true.” She reached out and touched her fingers to the telescope in a gentle sweep that was almost erotic, more so for its casual innocence. “But you are not so lacking in it yourself as you would wish others to believe, I think.”

He pretended to be offended. “I’ll have you know that astronomy is a science.”

“Science and art, sometimes they are the same.” She turned, then hesitated, twisting her head so that perfectly pointed chin was directly over a slim shoulder. “And any scientist worth anything is a dreamer. If not so, we would make no progress. How is one to have vision if one cannot dream?”

He didn’t answer. She smiled at him and went on her way, leaving him to ponder that thought.

In the silence, he stared at the telescope. He angled a doubtful eye at the heavens and squinted. Did she really see a woman with the soft folds of her skirt outlined in stars?