Magic in the Stars (8 page)

“As an astronomer, you should be able to duplicate Lady
Azenor’s charts mathematically,” Miss Jenkins said in a voice deeper than
Theo’s own. “I have done so, although I cannot deduce more than when the
planets are aligned with the sun.”

“You are a mathematician?” he asked, more aware of the
interesting mop of copper curls at his side than the Juno he faced.

“I enjoy numbers and equations but find little use for them
in dealing with my younger sisters. Do you find astronomy useful?”

“Miss Jenkins is raising her sisters after their mother’s
death,” Lady Azenor whispered. “You might marry off all your younger brothers
as they come of age.”

“That will happen when the moon is discovered to be made of
green cheese,” Theo murmured in his hostess’s ear. The dainty Lady Aster
pinched his arm in retaliation.

He forced a smile for Juno. “Perhaps Lady Azenor should
teach a class in astrology so others could learn to do what she does.”

“An excellent idea,” the lady in lavender said. “Those of us
of a mathematical persuasion could form a society.”

“We need the findings of the Astronomical Society to keep
our charts updated,” his hostess said with an emphasis aimed at him.

“Teach your class to repeat your findings on their own and
build a case for astrology as a science,” Theo suggested, more or less
facetiously. Lady Azenor did not seem to require simpering blandishments, so he
felt comfortable speaking to her as one of his brothers. “Are all the ladies
here of a mathematical sort or are some familiar with agriculture or other
pursuits?”

Lady Azenor smiled frostily at this reminder of his needs
and squeezed his arm to steer him. “If you’ll excuse us, Miss Jenkins, I should
introduce his lordship to the baroness.”

“A baroness in her own right? If it means she owns land,
that sounds promising,” Theo said, studying the parlor filled with milling
females and fighting an urge to flee for his life. There weren’t sufficient
chairs for sitting, so the women sipped tea from dainty cups and circulated in
eddies, much as leaves did in a stream. He couldn’t distinguish one from another
any more than he could identify leaves.

“Could I really catch the attention of the Society if I
taught others to duplicate my charts?” she asked in a low voice that mirrored
her doubt.

“Only if they all read the same results into them as you do.
If every one of them could have predicted the king’s death and Duncan’s
accident, the Society would have to listen.” Theo doubted the Society would
care
, but then, he doubted her
predictions could be duplicated any more than his mother’s vague prophecies
could be proved.

Inductive reasoning
,
his foot and eye. Marriage must rot a man’s brain if Herschel’s new theory was
any example.

“I would love to have the information and understanding of
the planets’ movements that astronomers possess. Do you produce periodicals I
can peruse?” She didn’t wait for an answer but brought him to a lady of average
stature, whose nondescript coloring wasn’t enhanced by the swathes of beige
draped over her less-than-prepossessing figure. Judging from the wrinkles in
the corners of her eyes and the slight sag of her jaw, the lady was older than
Theo. Not entirely a bad thing if it meant she had the experience he required.

Theo wondered if he could interview prospective wives in the
same manner he would interview a steward. Not that he knew how to interview a
steward either.

“Lady Wilkins, Lord Theophilus is the gentleman of whom I
spoke. My lord, the baroness owns lands in the Lake District. She is familiar
with sheep. I will leave you two to talk. I wish to see if there is any
interest in an astrology class.”

Lady Azenor abandoned Theo to his own devices.

“You need help with sheep?” the baroness asked in a guttural
accent that revealed her foreign origins.

“My brother does. His estate is extensive, and his managers
aren’t doing the job they should.” Theo wasn’t good at fabricating, but Duncan
wasn’t ready to reveal his blindness to the world. “We need a good steward,” he
added.

“There are no good stewards,” the lady said harshly. “You
must know your herd personally. I go out with the stock each spring and take
note of all the lambs. It is the only way,” she insisted.

Theo damned well wasn’t counting sheep, even in his sleep,
but if the lady wanted to . . . He had to keep an open mind.
Perhaps Duncan would be interested in her.

Swallowing his pride and an entire humble pie, he circulated
the room. Lady Azenor had provided a wide variety of females to choose from, he
had to admit. Unfortunately, they all blurred together after a while, and he
couldn’t remember if the one with buck teeth knew how to play chess or if the
one with the mole on her upper lip was the one who kept ledgers.

The image of his lovely, serene ex-fiancée having a
hysterical, weeping fit over his household’s ramshackle behavior stood out
starkly in Theo’s memory. He didn’t wish to reduce any of these pleasant ladies
to similar seizures or himself or his family to the ensuing unpleasantness.

He shuddered in memory of screaming hysterics requiring sal
volatile, physicians, and the shame of racing for the neighbor ladies for aid.
The scolding afterward had been endless.
No
more fainting ladies on his doorstep
, he decided. If he must marry, he
would be firm on this point.

He worked his way back to Azenor. He had been aware of her
presence at every instant, even though almost everyone in the room was taller
than she. The ladies seemed to circulate around her as planets did around the
sun. Understandable, he supposed, since Azenor was brighter—or at least more
colorful—than any of them.

“This won’t work,” he murmured for her ears alone. “I must
introduce them to Iveston.”

Her eyes widened, as if in shock at his suggestion. Then she
vehemently shook her bouncy curls. “No, no, and
no
.”

“Why not?” he asked, prepared to insist.

“That is a recipe for disaster,” she exclaimed in horror. “If
my visit to your home discovered its usual condition, you would do better to
marry and make Iveston a
fait accompli
.”

“I don’t want to have to chain a wife to a wall to keep
her,” he argued. “She needs to know what she faces.”

“I’m a librarian, not a matchmaker,” she grumbled in return.

“You are a naysayer,” he said. “Every time I make a
suggestion, your response is
why
?”

“And every time I tell you no, your response is
why not
?” she retorted. “I am not being
unreasonable. These are busy women. Most don’t have time for jaunts into the
country. And if my recollection of your home is correct, you aren’t prepared
for house guests.”

“Perspicacious,” he muttered. But his relentless brain had
found a new angle and hope surged. “Help me hire servants to prepare the house.
Surrey is not far and the road is good. The ladies could attend the village
fete and sit down to tea with us before returning to town.”

“
Hire servants
 . . .
I am not a lion tamer either!” she protested angrily. Then she narrowed her
eyes as if a new thought had occurred to her.

Theo feared he ought to be wary, but he was too desperate.
“Once we have a woman in the household, we can hire regular servants. I ought
to present Iveston as it
could
be.”

“That will take planning,” she said, the wheels visibly
turning behind her bright eyes. “I trust you’re not in a hurry.”

He wanted this done yesterday. He might be the selfish lout Celia
had called him, but he’d learned his lesson. He couldn’t ask a wife to be a
sacrificial lamb to his brother’s melancholia. Or his family’s anarchy. He
bowed. “I must prepare a paper for the Society and hire a steward. That should
give you time to find a few maids and footmen who can spruce the place up a
little. The fete is two weeks from today.”

“You will provide me with the latest material from the
Society so I may update my charts?” she demanded.

“I will find copies of every report the Society’s members
have produced and the articles that have been written this past year,” he
vowed.

“All right, then. Each to their own expertise. That seems
fair,” she acknowledged with a dip of her copper curls.

Theo walked back to his uncle’s house with no memory of any
of the women he’d just met but feeling lighter than air because he’d tricked
the managing Lady Azenor into straightening out the madhouse he called home.

“Think on it, Emilia!” Aster insisted, pacing her parlor
the day after Lord Theo’s visit. “The
Marquess
of Ashford
—the nominal head of the Ives family. He has wealth and power to
spare! You could build a laboratory on his property and never worry about
funding again. He won’t require anything else of you except to give him an
heir. We could hire all your mother’s displaced widows and Aunt Gwenna’s
orphans!”

Even a day later, she was still a trifle shaken from Lord
Theo’s masculine presence in her feminine household, so much so that she’d
actually dared ask her cousin to visit again. Aster took deep breaths and tried
to cleanse her mind, but the sensation of his lordship’s muscular arm beneath
her hand wouldn’t go away. Nor did the way he leaned in to murmur outrageous
comments in her ear.
Why not
, indeed.
She shivered at just the memory.

She forced herself to focus on Aunt Gwenna’s plea for the
maimed children. If Emilia married the blind marquess . . . The
entire family would have access to his powerful connections. They could accomplish
a great deal of good—

If she wasn’t bringing them into imminent danger. Her Libra
mind danced back and forth between opportunities and caution.

“I won’t need a husband’s funds if I marry,” Emilia pointed
out, piercing Azenor’s bubble of hope. “I’ll have my own. And it sounds as if
he needs someone who can act as his secretary and helpmate. That isn’t I.”

Aster sighed and straightened the mask on the wall. She wished
she knew if Lord Theo had been admiring her decor or laughing at it. She would
like to believe he did not consider her completely laughable.

“You are so narrow-minded! Not in a bad way,” Aster added
hastily. “I understand that you must focus on your projects. But you would have land for your herb
gardens. You could expand your
Pharmacopoeia
,
build your own hospital, carry out experiments . . .”

“Do
you think your Lord Theophilus could help build a better microscope?” Emilia
asked wistfully.

“I’m
sure he could,” Azenor agreed, not having any idea how a microscope compared
with a telescope, but determined to help both his lordship and Emilia. “But Lord
Theo needs help with the estate that you can’t give, and the marquess’s chart
is a better match for yours. If you were the marchioness, you could
hire
the secretaries he needed. And I
could train orphans as servants in the household without becoming too involved
with anyone. Iveston Hall could use an army of help!”

“It
would be better if
you
could marry
Lord Theo,” Emilia said. “Besides, you said the marquess isn’t looking
for a wife.”

“
Yet
. He might be
persuaded in time.” There was the other fly in her grandiose hopes. Aunt Daphne
needed help for her widows immediately, as did Aunt Gwenna’s orphans. Could
they wait until the marquess was ready to face Parliament again?

Perhaps she was getting ahead of herself. “All right, if we
must concentrate on Lord Theo, we really should offer choices from our family
first. I’m convinced we have the most to offer.” Except for that conjunction
with Mars, she corrected mentally. It was just so
unlikely
for such distant families to affect one another that she
thought surely she had read her charts wrong. “We need to organize his
household so we might introduce him to our family.”

“We don’t have time to bring in any of our unmarried
relations,” Emilia pointed out. “Only Briana and Deidre are in London right
now, and Deirdre is already affianced.”

Their younger sisters had their own pursuits and weren’t any
more inclined toward household duties than Emilia, Aster knew. Sometimes this
planning business put her mind in a whirl. She changed direction again. “I’m
not certain our sisters are safe going to Iveston, even if I didn’t go with
them. And they know nothing of organizing households on their own.”

“They’re the only ones old enough and available. We don’t
want any chance of matching an Ives to the younger girls! So I think that lets
our family out of the equation.” Emilia set down her teacup firmly.

Aster sighed. “This sounded like a good idea at first. Iveston
really could use a raft of your mother’s workhouse women and perhaps even some
of Gwenna’s disabled children. And the chance to influence a powerful marquess
is priceless.”

“I’m not averse to considering one of the younger brothers
as a husband, even if it is not Lord Theo,” Emilia admitted. “But if you intend
to hold a formal tea at Iveston for your friends, you will need help. Is it safe
to take Bree and Dee with you?”

“If they’ll consent to help, I’ll try to stay out of their
way as much as possible,” Aster reluctantly agreed, pondering how this might be
done without her presence endangering her family. She was hoping the older
girls knew to stay out of
her
way as
much as she knew to stay away from them.

Could she actually
prevent
the danger she saw in her charts if she was at Iveston? It didn’t seem
likely, but . . .

Normally, she wouldn’t even consider being in the same house
as her family. But so many things rested on taking this chance! She needed to
marry off Emilia, find positions for her aunt’s impoverished women, somehow
obtain Ashford’s help for Gwenna’s legislation, and obtain Lord Theo’s
astronomical aid to improve her charts.