Magic in the Stars (41 page)

Her family research had simply prompted the notion of
inheriting the bad strains of prior generations. Just because Uncle Sylvester
had persuaded hundreds of thousands of pounds out of the hands of wealthy
investors didn’t mean Erran had inherited his relation’s deceitful streak. He
was a man of education and science, not a superstitious peasant—or a thief.

But with judges unwilling to take his cases, he was an
unemployed man of education.

“How will we get the house back for Father if we can’t move out
the tenants?” Hartley inquired anxiously. Hartley was the worrier of Ashford’s
illegitimate twins. The catastrophic summer had turned the boy’s usual cheerful
smile upside-down as the weeks passed and it became evident his father would
never be the same. “We’ll never persuade him into town otherwise.”

Erran had his doubts that they’d persuade the marquess to
town even if they gained the townhouse, but the family home was the only
suggestion his newly-blind brother had shown an interest in. It should have
been a simple task to find the tenants new accommodations and help them to move
out. Unfortunately, the tenants had been remarkably unavailable for moving.

Legally and morally, he could do nothing to evict them. The
tenants had a proper, paid contract and no obligation to open their doors to
him. He had been hoping to persuade them by offering a better house in
recompense. He might have more success battering down doors, but that would
make him as evil as the landlord he’d taken to court.

These days, he was working hard to stick to a moral, as well
as a legal, path, in hopes he would one day be employable again.

“It’s time to make more inquiries,” Erran concluded,
steering his nephew toward the tavern now occupying the former stable.

In this street just off St. James Square, the once
formidable stone and granite mansions built in the prior century were showing
signs of deterioration. Many had been subdivided and turned into shops and
taverns or bachelor flats. The Ives town house, however, remained a solid
square occupying the entire space between the street and the mews.

“Hunt down those ruffians and find out why they’re throwing
stones at our tenants’ servants,” Erran ordered. “I’ll be in the tavern making
inquiries. Don’t take too long. We have to return for dinner at Theo’s.”

Obediently, Hartley ran off to find the neighbor lads. That
there were vast differences in their stations didn’t occur to the son of an
actress and a marquess. Well, for all Erran knew, the ragged ruffians could
have been the bastard sons of dukes. The Crown owned half the property around
here.

He entered the smoke-filled dark room to put his lawyerly
skills to work—praying he would have no use for the dangerous Courtroom Voice
that had caused him to lose his profession and question his sanity.

***

Celeste Malcolm Rochester removed her muddied cloak with a
trembling hand and hung it on a hook by the back door. She’d had enough
experience at these misadventures lately that she no longer collapsed beside
the door, shaking and crying. She’d learned to take deep breaths and go on.

But the gentleman—he was a new development, and he’d rattled
her badly. She hurried up the stairs to find a window overlooking the mews.
Rubbing her elbows, trying to calm herself, she peered through a gap in the
drapery.

The formidable gentleman who had followed her wore a
fashionable gray frock coat, the kind with a redingote collar. He’d topped it
with a handsome black muffler and an expensive tall hat. He was no ruffian,
although she questioned the origin of the child to whom he was speaking. Were
they the instigators of these episodes?

The boy ran off while the gentleman studied the windows
where she stood. Dark curls and slight sideburns framed an arrogantly square
jaw and high cheekbones, before he slammed the hat back on his head and
retreated to the tavern, out of her sight.

“Why do they hate us?” she asked, attempting to expel her
fear and despair. “We have harmed no one.”

“People fear what they do not know,” her African nanny said
prosaically, glancing up to verify Celeste was unharmed, then returning to
pedaling the machine they’d brought with them.

Nana Delphinia had been with them for as long as Celeste
could remember. The older woman had loyally accompanied them to London, leaving
behind her own grown children in the process. Therein lay the true tragedy of
their lives, and another reason Celeste spent her sleepless nights in tears.

Their faithful servant’s hair was turning gray, and lines of
worry marred her face, but Nana had lost none of her strength of character.
“What happened this time?”

“They’ve escalated to mud flinging. I’ll have to scrape my
cloak once it dries. I’m not certain what the gentleman had to do with the
attack, if anything.” Celeste dropped the old velvet panel back in place. “If he’s
a solicitor, he’s more elegant than the others they’ve sent. I may actually
have to talk to him.”

Celeste’s younger sister hurried to look and frowned at
seeing only the empty alley.

Her younger brother glanced up from his schoolbook with
alarm. “Unless we’ve miraculously found the coin to hire a solicitor of our
own, talking to him isn’t wise,” Trevor counseled. At seventeen, he was the
image of his great-grandfather in the portraits their great-grandmother had
painted—tall, dark-haired, brown-skinned, and handsome, now that he was growing
into his bones.

“The lease is ours,” Celeste assured him, trying to convince
herself. If they lost the roof over their heads along with everything else, she
didn’t know what she would do. “They can’t take away our home. We’ll have a
solicitor of our own soon enough. I have a new order for shirts. Sewing in the
pleat has proved popular. Young gentlemen lack servants who can wield crimping
irons.”

“Popular, but tedious,” Sylvia complained, returning to her
chair and her hand sewing. Unlike her older siblings, Sylvia was blond and
petite, more like their mother than their father. “I was so hoping for grand
parties and elegant gowns and . . .” She let her voice drop off at Celeste’s pointed
glare.

“We’re in mourning, and you’re still too young.” And Celeste
was too old and too unsuitable, but their father had cheerfully refused to
acknowledge that. He had paid for his foolishness with his life and quite
possibly the lives of others, but that couldn’t have been predicted at the time.
“Your time will come, but first we must earn the funds to find a good lawyer.
Be grateful for what we have.” Celeste hunted for her sewing basket.

“Be grateful for a cousin who has usurped our inheritance?”
Trevor asked bitterly. “Or for a half-sister who won’t acknowledge our
existence? Or for our father’s unfortunate demise on a miserable ship that
nearly took our lives?”

“For being alive with an excellent situation and food in our
bellies,” Nana scolded. “You have seen how those back home fare. It will be
your duty to help them one of these days. Now study.”

It would be Trev’s duty to save the servants—like Nana’s
family—from their cousin’s greed was the admonishment they all heard. Trev
paled and dipped his head back to the schoolbook.

Celeste swallowed back tears and picked up her own sewing.
If only she’d been born a boy . . . But it would be four more years before Trevor
would be of a legal age and could assume their father’s estate. Four years in
which their father’s cousin, the Earl of Lansdowne, could sell off all their
father’s assets, along with the people who had served their family for decades.
Free
people, not slaves—although
without access to their father’s papers, no one could prove that.

Celeste couldn’t imagine any English court of law giving a
woman the right to take care of her family, not any more than she could imagine
them giving Nana her freedom if the Earl of Lansdowne chose to challenge it. A
solicitor was just one small weapon in their puny arsenal.

Hiding for the next four years didn’t seem like a brilliant
plan, either, but it was the best she had. It wasn’t
all
she had, but anything else was built on fairy dust and magic.

***

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