Magic in the Stars (10 page)

Aster took the rear-facing seat across from her sister and cousin
and fretted at her gloves while glancing out the window at Lord Theo guiding
the team’s horses into a busy intersection. His riding breeches pulled tight
across muscled thighs, and she swallowed hard and dragged her gaze back to the
girls.

“I fear Iveston will be the exact opposite of dull. You may
wish to run screaming for the safety of town before the first day is over. I am
counting on you to be brave and patient and help me make order of anarchy.”

Both girls were foolish enough to look intrigued. Aster
sighed and regaled them with the tale of her arrival at the marquess’s derelict
estate.

“A billiard table in the foyer?” Briana asked with laughter
when Aster was done. “Really, they had no servants at all?”

“If they have them, they were in hiding. You must understand
that this is an all-male household. The last Lady Ashford died over twenty-five
years ago. If the company rooms are any evidence, not a thing has been changed
in a quarter century or more. All those years of dogs and boots will take their
toll on the best of carpets and floors. We cannot possibly wreak miracles. We
must concentrate on emphasizing possibilities.”

“We need Moira,” Deirdre said with a sigh, referring to
another of their cousins. “She can simply look at a room and know exactly what
needs to be done to make it presentable. Her bedchamber is fit for a princess.”

“We haven’t time for pretty. We must settle for tidy and
not-so-frayed, and we must do that with untrained staff. This is not a house
party.”

“But we get first glimpse of the amazing Ives who never circulate
in society,” Briana reminded her in satisfaction. “I’m so glad I’m not in
Edinburgh this summer.”

Aster frowned at this foolishness and dug through her valise
to present her list of plans. “This is only a quick sketch of priorities. We’ll
know more once we arrive.”

Briana glanced out the window at their escort. “If there are
more of him there, I cannot promise my mind will be on clean windows.”

Aster suffered a twinge of jealousy at her sister’s freedom
to choose a husband—or to admire the choices available. She had accepted long
ago that she would never be able to do so.

“Lord Theophilus is in search of a
useful
wife,” she reminded Briana. “Prove you can handle his
household, and he may overlook the fact that you’ve never lived outside a city
and that your grasp of mathematics is appalling.”

Briana brightened. “But I like dogs. We should go on quite
swimmingly.”

Aster sniffed. As if a love of dogs was a basis for
marriage! “Perhaps I should work harder at discovering the romantic parts of
our charts,” was all she said in acknowledgment.

As the high-sprung berlin rolled over the newly improved
highway toward Iveston, Aster began to relax and enjoy the journey. She wasn’t
much of a rural sort and couldn’t identify the trees or crops that they passed,
but the fresh air and sunshine improved her spirits. The countryside looked
much more cheerful in sunshine than in a downpour.

An hour later, they were well outside of the city, and were
traveling a rural lane. She recognized a milestone and knew they weren’t far
from the manor. She wondered if any of the fields they passed belonged to the
marquess. They seemed orderly enough.

The wide berlin slowed to traverse a narrow curve. She
glanced out to see what Lord Theo was doing but couldn’t find him. The hedge
was too close for him to ride next to them, she supposed. Or perhaps he rode
ahead to warn the household of their arrival.

She peered out the window to the road behind and noticed a
cloud of dust. A moment later, the dust parted to reveal a phaeton drawn by a
team of two chest-heaving, galloping bays racing up behind them.

Nervously, she heard their coachman cursing as he hauled on
the reins. Remembering another day and another disastrous carriage accident, she
turned and strained to see the road ahead. A slow-moving farm wagon eased to
the far side of the lane into a small opening in the hedgerow made for a stile.

“The phaeton driver is quite mad!” Briana exclaimed, looking
out the window. “He means to race between us . . . .”

Always primed for danger, Azenor flung aside her papers.
“Hold the straps and brace your feet,” she shouted, grabbing the leather holds
with both hands. Making certain the others obeyed her order and were holding on
for dear life, she closed her eyes and prayed frantically.

Pulled as far to the edge of the road as possible, the berlin
lurched when one tall wheel slid off the road. The phaeton barreled past in a
billowing cloud of dust and pebbles. Aster’s heart lodged in her throat at
seeing the brink of the ditch out the far window. One slip to the left and . . .

The rear wheel hit a stone, bounced, and struck the gulley.
Briana and Deidre screamed and clung to their straps as the entire high-slung berlin
tilted.

Cursing herself as much as the phaeton, Aster leaned her
weight toward the road. She prayed that with enough leverage, the driver could
right the vehicle before they hit the farm wagon.

Instead, the horses screamed their panic and picked up speed.
Aster watched in horror as another sideways bounce tossed the swearing driver
into the hedgerow. Shrieking their terror, the berlin’s team broke into a run,
dragging the driver until he was forced to release the leathers.

With a loud crack, one of the slender wheels broke and the unbalanced
berlin toppled on its side, half-dragged by the frantic animals.

In a tumble of skirts and petticoats, Aster crashed into a
tangle with her sister and cousin on the carriage’s door, bumping with every
rock the splintering wood hit.

***

Having ridden ahead to let his family know the ladies were
arriving, Theo panicked at the scream of frantic horses. Seeing a phaeton
flying past as if the hounds of hell were on its tail, Theo kicked his gelding
into his racing stride.

The sight of the driverless berlin overturned in the ditch conjured
visions of hysterical bloodied females. Theo’s panic escalated to outright
terror. With the horses straining against their traces, dragging their hapless
burden, he had to act quickly. He shoved his deepest fears into a dark hole and
bolted the lid.

Reaching the stalled farm wagon, Theo threw his gelding’s
reins to the helpless farmer clinging to his own frightened cattle. Searching
for the team’s leathers in the tangle of frantic animals, he leaped off his
horse and ran for the carriage traces.

Theo didn’t know the two younger women well enough to
distinguish one’s screams from the other’s, but he recognized Lady Azenor’s
curt commands over the crash of the carriage against rocks. He prayed that
meant they hadn’t all broken their necks yet.

With the overturned carriage a dead weight and its giant
wheels dragging the ditch, the team couldn’t escape. They had just reached the frightened
rearing stage when Theo dodged between their hooves to cut the traces. “Jack,
where are you?” He shouted for his driver.

“Over here, milord,” he heard Jack call. “M’leg seems out of
order, but throw me them reins.”

“The beasts know where to run. I’ll let them loose,” Theo
called back. “Don’t move until we find someone to look at you.” He cut the last
unbroken strap and set the team free. The berlin finally stopped bouncing.
Thank all the heavens the ditch wasn’t deep. The roof of the carriage rested
against the hedge.

“Lady Azenor!” he called, trying not to imagine the
condition of the ladies inside but fearing every disaster his overactive brain
could summon. “Have everyone hold still. I don’t think I can right the
carriage. I’ll have to lift you out.”

He took his gelding’s reins from the farmer and motioned the
cart on. “No point in blocking the road,” he said. “We’ll have help shortly.”

Even as the wagon rumbled away, the berlin’s wheel shifted
deeper into the ditch. “Don’t move!” he shouted again. “I need to prop it or
you’ll just tumble more.”

“I believe it’s quite firmly wedged now,” the intrepid Lady Azenor
called. “We need help opening the door.”

Theo could hear the faint panic behind her calm assertions.
This was disaster beyond skinny-dipping and goat-racing. He could have
killed
all three ladies! If they were
still in one piece, they’d be demanding to be returned to the safe environs of
the city, and all hope would be lost. Once again, Iveston would be abandoned.

Wondering if he could take them as captives, Theo stoically
climbed up on the wheel to open the door. The berlin was a wide-bodied vehicle.
Petite Lady Azenor’s head just brushed the side he was sitting on. She was
standing on the far side of the carriage, near the front seat, leaving more
room for her stunned relations to right themselves.

She’d lost her hat, and her glorious copper curls sprang
from her pins in a sunset halo. She turned midnight eyes glazed with fear up to
him, but without a word, she bent to help the blond lady to rise.

“The driver?” she asked in a low voice of concern—far better
than the hysterics he’d expected.

“Thrown into the hedge. We’ll pry you out of here and see to
him next.” Theo frowned and tried to work out the dynamics of hauling three
ladies out a door that was now a ceiling. “Any broken bones here?”

The two young women were dabbing at their eyes with
handkerchiefs and sniffing, but they shook their heads in reply. Still no
hysterics. Maybe they were saving them until he’d hauled them out.

“Deirdre is the tallest of us and might climb out with a
little help,” Lady Azenor said, studying the situation. “Briana and I will need
something to stand on. Deirdre, take Lord Theo’s hand and see if you can lift
yourself out.”

The lady’s voice was shaky, but she persuaded her companions
into moving. The brunette caught the edge of the seat she should have been
sitting on and pulled herself upright. She brushed off her skirts and righted
her hat. She glanced dubiously at Theo’s gloved hands.

To hell with propriety. Theo dropped into the center of the
broken vehicle and was engulfed in sweet scents, petticoats, and other feminine
frippery. Grabbing the tallest one first, he used brute force to lift her. She
squealed in surprise, but scrambled to sit on the edge of the doorway and work
her way down.

He kept waiting for the wailing to explode. His next victim
grabbed her skirts so they did not rise as he swung her out. To his relief, she
did not faint and roll off the side of the carriage into the muddy ditch but
slid decorously down to the road. That left him with the ominously silent Lady
Azenor.

The baggage wagon finally rolled up, much to Theo’s mixed
relief and despair. The maids starting crying in horror at sight of the
overturned berlin, but the cart driver and two burly footmen leaped down to
help.

The lady accepted the hands of the footmen, but muttered
impolite imprecations when Theo caught her rump in his hands and lifted her
from below. Having the meticulous lady at his mercy for that brief moment was
almost
worth his panic. Had he not been
fretting about abandonment, he’d be laughing.

In minutes, the ladies were on their feet, and the
housekeeper they’d brought with them was tending to Jack the Coachman. Theo
waited stoically for demands to be returned to the city.

Instead, Azenor pointed her companions to the cart. “You
must ride up to the house and fetch help. I’ll be along shortly.”

“I can ride for help,” Theo corrected her. “You need to ride
with the others. There’s no need for you to linger on the road.”

The other two women sensibly climbed into the cart, making
room for her.

Lady Azenor merely lifted her deep blue eyes in stubborn
refusal. “You have seen the disaster I can bring to my family. I will not
repeat this mistake again.”

She limped over to the stile and lifted her skirt to climb
it.

Limped
. The bedeviled female was injured and still prepared to walk
all the way to the manor?

There was the hysteria he was
expecting.
Damn.

A strong arm caught Aster’s waist and hauled her from the
stile. She shrieked in surprise, then pummeled the muscular limb imprisoning
her. “Put me down, you oaf! You cannot keep manhandling me like this!”

The man had already had his hand on . . . on
her
bottom
. That had been the outside
of enough but—

His lordship swung her sideways into the saddle of his
massive horse. Forgetting her outrage over his crude handling, Aster screamed
her fear. It was a terrifyingly long way down, and the animal did not stand
still. She had only Lord Theo’s encroaching hold preventing her from a nasty
tumble—and she really didn’t need more bruises.

“I do not ride, sir! I’m not attired for this! Put me down
at once.”

Instead of listening, he stuck his boot in the stirrup and
swung up behind her. His big hand nearly enveloped her abdomen. The strong
thighs she’d admired earlier brushed her skirts—and her hip. She stiffened but
she could not pull away without risking a fall.

“We will ride together to fetch help,” he said in a
tight-lipped command.

The horse jolted into motion with the urging of his knees.
Azenor grabbed for its mane and tried not to sound like a hysterical female.
“I’d rather walk. Put me down,
now.
”

“No.” He kneed the stallion into a canter, holding her in
place although she was quite convinced she would slide off at any moment.

“Do you not think I’m bruised enough?” she asked, attempting
to fight fear and maintain decorum at the same time. His hand just below her
breasts created an unwanted agitation that she fought equally hard. “This is an
unseemly familiarity, sir!”

When the uncivilized oaf didn’t reply, she attempted to
elbow him, but that meant releasing the mane. She did it anyway, and
encountered a solid wall of muscle that hurt her elbow more than him,
apparently. At least anger was starting to replace fear.