Magic in the Stars (14 page)

“Is your father a general?” he asked, leading her down the
stairs. “Really, the army missed an opportunity in not recruiting you.”

“My grandfather was a general in India. His service earned
him an earldom. My father grew up in India, explored various continents, then
became a professor in Edinburgh. You must meet my mother sometime,” she said with
a smile that made him wary—

And thoroughly excited him. He was officially a lunatic.

“What do you want with the conservatory?” He kept his tone
rude so as not to let her think they were friends. “It’s food for the minions
we need now, and you can’t cook plants.”

“Well, yes, one can, if they are the right plants. But I am
more concerned with the puppies. If you want your cook back, you must find a
better home for the dogs. I assume they require warmth in winter and that is
why they end up in the kitchen, even though the weather is perfectly fine now.”

“Will crossbreeds rare varieties of creatures. The hounds
are bred for their extremely sensitive noses, and he trains them to find
people. The spaniels are water dogs, capable of dragging drowning victims from
ponds and canals. His work is more important than the damned cook,” he said
irascibly, itching to haul her down the stairs so she needn’t hurt herself. But
he was attempting to pretend he possessed decorum.

“Yes, but the cook is responsible for his workers, and
tripping and pouring boiling soup over a spaniel’s head is probably not good
for dogs or servants. Is the conservatory in good repair?”

“The last I looked,” Theo said grudgingly, trying to recall
the ancient glass room. “One of the greats had it built to his specification
with two layers of glass and windows that can be held open on warm days.
There’s a coal grate, if someone remembers to stoke it.”

“If Will wants to keep his puppies warm, then he needs to
learn to stoke it, and to open windows on warm days,” she said dryly.

“If Will were here two days out of ten, that might work,”
Theo agreed. “But he trains animals all across the kingdom and cannot be in two
places at once. Whereas there’s always someone in the kitchen to feed the
hounds and fire the grate.”

Theo opened the door into the desolate glass room that
smelled of ripe earth. With the delicious Lady Azenor inside the privacy of the
conservatory without a chaperone, temptation raised its ugly head. Dirt blotted
the windows, preventing anyone from seeing inside. Instead of broken-down,
barren tables, there ought to be orchids dancing above her sunset curls. From
the way her face lit with an irresistibly delectable delight at the emptiness,
he could almost believe parrots had flown out of a jungle to land on her
shoulder.

Did she not see the filth?

Well, if he meant to woo her and make an enemy of her at the
same time, he couldn’t find a better place to start.

Aster smiled in delight at the lovely glass room that
would be filled with sun even in winter. She could almost see the dangling
purple orchids and green bananas that belonged in here. A flowering lemon tree
would smell heavenly. She longed to start cleaning the filth—but there was too
much to be done to indulge her need for order.

She turned to speak to Lord Theo, but she nearly bumped her
nose on his linen when she did. Before she knew what he was about, he had
hauled her from the ground again, enveloping her in his strong embrace.

Instead of beating him with her stick, she dropped it in
surprise.

“Wha . . .” The rest of her words were swallowed as his mouth
descended on hers.

Oh my.

She had been kissed before. One did not reach the ripe old
age of twenty-five and escape male mauling. But all prior efforts were not
kisses
compared to this.

Lord Theo consumed her. His mouth was gentle and forceful at
once, reassuring, warming, seductive . . . and
demanding
.
She gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck and let herself be seduced by
his need as much as she had been seduced by his wonderful conservatory. He
engulfed her in the earthy scents of the jungle she imagined. His arms
tightened, and she felt them as a shelter, not a danger. She parted her lips
beneath his insistence.

Oh my,
again.

Eyes closed, Azenor gave herself up to the bliss of a
possession that roused hungers she could not name. Her formidable brain shut
down, and she surrendered to the pleasure of pure sensation. She so seldom had
the opportunity to indulge all her senses in such an exciting manner . . ..

This was better than the paradise of his bathing room. In
fact, if she could combine the two . . .

His lordship’s tongue swept across hers, stealing her breath
and creating very physical longings she didn’t know how to satisfy. Her breasts
ached
. She dug her fingers deeper
into his masculine shoulders, and he crushed her against his chest, which
stirred wicked sensations much lower than her breasts.

For a lean man, the astronomer was amazingly strong. Without
removing his mouth from hers, he set her on the edge of a table, shoving aside empty
pots. In her current state, it seemed the most amazing feat of magic to be consumed
and carried at once. She craved more of whatever enticing nectar he was feeding
her.

And then his big, competent hands lifted her breasts, and
the spell was broken by a spike of desire so strong, it generated an explosion
of alarm.

She
wanted
that touch
too much, and she knew better. Fear shoved him away.

Hiding her heated cheeks, she righted her bodice, then
pushed at Lord Theo’s encroaching presence when he did not immediately release
her. This was
not at all
how she’d
planned this visit to go. “No, no—stop. Stop this instant. We cannot
do
this.”

Amazingly, he did as told. “Why not?” he asked, brushing
kisses to her hair that made her shiver with desire. “We both like it.”

“Is
Why not
? your
answer to everything?” As if she could think when he stood over her like a
conquering god.
No
seemed like a good
and simple answer. “If the king told you to jump off a cliff, would the answer
be
Why not
?”

He looked amused instead of offended. “Quite possibly, if I
was allowed to design wings that might lower me safely.”

Argghhhh
!
Men
! She struggled to find better words.

“I cannot become attached to you,” she protested
desperately, knowing how weak that sounded. “It will not suit at all. Now help
me down, please. This is most inappropriate. I had no idea . . .”

She knew she was chattering mindlessly, but she was too
shaken to find a coherent argument a man of science would accept.

***

Having just touched those heavenly plump breasts, Theo was
in no condition to be rational. He could no more hide his arousal than Lady
Azenor could hide her red curls and blushing cheeks. He stepped closer to where
she sat, wrapped his arms around her waist, buried his face in her hair, and
his lower half in her skirts, dangerously near his goal. “I can make you hate
me,” he said helpfully. “What if I make you hate my house as well?”

The fluffy witch battered his upper arms with her useless
fists. “Just put me down. Put me down,
now
.”

Steeling himself, he lifted his irate guest from the table
and set her down in front of him so that she faced the door and not him. He
still kept one arm around her waist, because once one touched a heavenly body,
it would be insane to let go. He was quite confident that she would drive him
mad with lust before her irrationality overtook him and he lost his mind
completely. “Look at all the trouble we’d save ourselves if we found each other
compatible,” he whispered in her ear.

She didn’t lean into him as he’d hoped, but broke free. She
bent over to retrieve her stick, and limped for the door. “That is not
happening with disaster hanging over us. You need a helpmate, not a
general
.” She added this last with
distaste.

So, he’d succeeded in irritating her with that reference.
Fine. He’d keep irritating her—and seducing her. She kissed like a choir of
angels. Probably a stupid metaphor but he was an astronomer, not a poet. He
wasn’t about to give her up.

“You haven’t proved to me that you aren’t in my chart,” he
insisted, taking her arm to irk her more. “I don’t want to have to kiss every
woman you introduce to me if I’m perfectly happy with the way you kiss.”

“Marriage isn’t about
kissing,
”
she said, jerking open the door to return to the house. “It’s about
compatibility and responsibility and helping each other and . . .”

“Making babies,” he said with a leer she couldn’t see since
she was marching ahead of him—like a general off to war. “Kissing leads to
making babies, and that’s uppermost on my mind these days.”

She hissed in alarm before replying furiously, “Any young
female can make babies.” She thumped her stick against the floor. “Don’t be
ridiculous. Go find a new star or moon. I must see if there is anything edible
in your kitchen or you will have rebellion on your hands.”

For the first time in his memory, Theo had no interest in
finding a new star—because he’d found one right here on earth. He was amazed at
how this shimmering creature could fascinate him as much as Saturn’s moons. Could
he be the gravitational pull to make her orbit him? How?

“I’ll have to show you where the kitchen is,” he said,
looking for more ways to vex her. “There are more stairs involved, and I think
I should carry you.”

***

Agitated, Aster attempted to escape Lord Theo’s
overwhelming proximity. After what had just happened, the simple awareness of
his presence threatened to set her aflame. The mention of
babies
had her nerves on fire.

With the danger signs in her chart, she daren’t have
babies—the thought would make her cry if she let it. Just holding a baby had
killed one already—and she had
known
the danger and ignored it. Never again.

She preferred to keep busy rather than dwell on what she
couldn’t have. “Don’t you have stewards to interview? Brothers to berate? Go
away and leave me alone. If this should happen again, I shall have to leave.”

“Stewards to interview arriving tomorrow,” he said, with a
cold formality unlike his earlier warm flattery.

Perhaps she’d finally convinced him to retreat from his pursuit.
Stupidly, she was rather disappointed that he gave up so easily.
Babies
, she reminded herself. He wanted
babies.

“Call for your minions if you cannot be trusted with me,” he
continued with what sounded like arrogance. “I’ll not have you falling down the
kitchen stairs. Or expiring of horror once you’re there.”

That was better. Anger and disdain, she could handle. “Fine,
then. I shall sit in the salon while you summon servants so I might inquire
into the kitchen’s needs. What time do you generally dine?”

“Whenever we’re hungry.” He led her to the front of the
house. “Cook usually leaves cold platters on the buffet. I’m assuming whoever
he left in charge will do the same. You had no need to dress for dinner.”

“If I am to set an example, I most certainly do.” Still
uneasy after her shocking surrender to temptation, Aster shook off his attempt
to hold her arm. “Order does not emerge from chaos overnight.”

“If only people operated on the same gravitational
principles as the moons and planets, we might orbit each other in a more
organized fashion,” he retorted.

Aster cast him a look of disbelief, but Lord Theo actually
seemed to be considering this theory.
Orbiting
people
, indeed! But while he worked out his philosophical notion, he didn’t
argue or attempt to distract her. She chose a dog-hair-covered sofa in the
dusty salon and propped her injured foot on a battered stool.

“Orbit elsewhere,” she told him crossly when he paced,
looking tall and more scrumptious than any gentleman should in wrinkled linen.

Being attracted to the lanky scientist would be a serious
complication if she decided she should marry his brother.

Would his brother want babies? It would be safer if he would
settle for a general.

“The universe would appear to be a riot of erratic objects,”
Lord Theo expounded with the wave of an ink-stained hand. “But gravitational
forces prevent the earth and moon from bouncing off other objects like billiard
balls.”

“I don’t believe mathematics or gravity will separate your
brothers from my friends and family,” she said dryly, hearing masculine voices
and feminine laughter on the stairs. “If you will be so kind as to fetch them,
we can descend on the kitchen and terrify the inhabitants into producing
dinner.”

“Better yet, let Lady Briana and Miss Deirdre go to the
kitchen while you sit here and rest your ankle. I believe
you
were the one who suggested we share duties,” he said with
condescension.

Lord Theo marched off in a huff of brown-gold locks and
rumpled broadcloth, leaving Azenor to sink into the cushions with weariness.
Her ankle throbbed, but . . . not as much as her lips and heart
ached, one from desire and the other from loneliness.

She so much wanted a family of her own.

For years, she had kept hoping her chart would open up and
free her to love again. She had only just recently resigned herself to the
shelf. She didn’t need a bossy astronomer knocking all her vows cock-a-hoop
simply because he was too lazy to court anyone else.

Bree and Dee fluttered in, exuding excitement and trailing
three males. The blond one Aster knew as Jacques. He was accompanied by an
unfamiliar Ives gentleman in rough country clothes, and a young boy who was no
doubt an Ives as well, although he had yet to grow into his ears and nose.

“Tell us what we are to do in our expedition to the
kitchen,” Bree said cheerfully. “Lord Theo said we are to terrify the
occupants, but I’d rather scare up food. I’m famished.”