The Angel of an Astronomer Page 6

  “When did that happen?” she asked. Angelica knew of Peters, although she had never actually met the man.

  “A month ago, at least. Nearly two. The workmen just left yesterday.”

  Workmen? Goodness, had the baron left the house in such poor shape that it had to be renovated to accommodate its new occupants?

  “I left your correspondence in your salon, my lady,” Winston said then, interrupting her reverie.

  “Thank you. I’ll take my tea there.”

  With that, Angelica made her way up to the first floor and the letters that awaited her.

  Chapter 7

  A Ride in Park Lane

  A bit earlier, in Curzon Street

  “The barouche has been brought around and is ready, my lord,” Barclay, the Trenton House butler, said from the parlor threshold. “May I suggest to the driver that he raise the hood?”

  Trenton regarded first his daughter and then Gabe. “What say you two?”

  “Leave it down,” Gabe said on a sigh. “Anne wishes to be seen, and it will make it easier to see out.”

  “Barclay, you may not,” Trenton called over to the butler. He set down his teacup and moved to kiss Sarah on the cheek again. “We won’t be long. Have a maid put a hot brick in your bed and try to warm up your feet,” he murmured. “I will do my best to see to the rest when I return.”

  His eyebrows danced while he said the last, and Sarah allowed a demure smile. “You will have to do it quickly if we’re to have dinner at seven,” she replied in a whisper.

  “Or we can have our dinner delivered to your bedchamber,” he countered with a grin.

  “When you two are finished flirting with one another, I will be ready and waiting at the front door,” Anne announced as she stood up. She made her way out of the parlor.

  Gabe rolled his eyes and gave his parents an apologetic glance. “I do not believe I have ever known a young lady so desperate to marry,” he complained. “But then I see you two together and realize you have raised us so that we will have the very highest of expectations when it comes to our marriages.”

  “Does that frighten you?” Sarah asked, understanding her oldest son’s comment. She desperately hoped he might one day find a wife who would love him despite his lack of a title, and not because he was worth a fortune.

  “Truth be told, you have set standards for a happy marriage quite high, Mother,” he replied. “But I also know that if I do not find love with the daughter of an aristocrat, I may very well do so with a commoner, so I thank you for that.”

  Trenton moved to place a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I will give you my blessing no matter your wife’s birth,” he said, and then quickly added, “Well, except if she’s a serving wench—”

  “Gabriel!” Sarah exclaimed as she gave him a quelling glance. “I cannot believe you said that!”

  But her husband was displaying a huge grin. “And especially if she runs a coaching inn.” With that, he hurried out of the parlor before Sarah could scold him some more.

  A few minutes later

  Bundled into a redingote, fur hat, and muff, Anne allowed Gabe to help her up and into the barouche. When her father stepped up, he took the seat next to her, riding in the direction of travel, while Gabe took the seat opposite.

  “We can make room for you on this side,” Anne suggested as the driver set the horses in motion.

  “I don’t mind riding like this,” Gabe replied with a shake of his head. “It’s a nice change from how I travel to Bloomsbury.” He usually drove his father’s phaeton to the museum, but on days it rained, he opted for a hackney.

  They passed by rows of four-story townhouses on their way to Park Lane, some obviously shuttered for the winter while others were lit from within. After the turn onto Park Lane, traffic increased despite the gray skies.

  “It smells as if it will snow,” Gabe remarked, his gaze going to the park.

  “All I can smell is coal smoke,” Anne replied, her attention on a hackney just ahead of them. From the trunks loaded on the back, it looked as if its occupants had just come from a coaching inn or the train station. When it pulled over and halted in front of Worthington House, she inhaled sharply. “Have the Torringtons returned?” she asked.

  Her father’s attention went to the front door of the mansion, where a butler was standing. “It would seem so,” he replied. “I’ve never known Torrington to be in London for the holiday, though. He’s usually in Northumberland.”

  “There’s that building I told you about,” Gabe said, angling his head in the direction of a tall, cylindrical-shaped structure that stood off to one side and behind Bradford Hall, right next door to Worthington House. “It was built of brick,” he remarked. “I suppose it will eventually be covered with a layer of stucco to match the house. And there’s a dome atop it now,” he said in wonder.

  “Ah. The new owner must be an astronomer,” Trenton commented as he stared at the building.

  When Anne didn’t say anything, he turned to find her staring at the hackney that had pulled up in front of Worthington House. Several people were climbing out, and he immediately recognized George Grandby, Viscount Hexham, as the first to set foot on the pavement. “It appears our newest addition to Parliament has come home for Christmas,” he murmured. “With his twin sister and... their servants.” When no one else emerged from the equipage, he made a sound in his throat that indicated he was surprised.

  “Perhaps Torrington is coming in a different coach,” Gabe suggested, his attention going from Bradford Hall to the four people making their way up to Worthington House. He had to angle his head over his shoulder to see them, but he quickly turned around when he thought one of them might have seen him gawking. “What do you mean by ‘newest addition to Parliament?’ Did Torrington... die?” he asked, sotto voce.

  His father shook his head. “Hexham has accepted a writ of acceleration. With the Chartist movement, word is Torrington may not attend sessions of Parliament any longer. This gives his son a chance to learn the ropes before he inherits,” Trenton explained. After a moment, he added, “I rather wish I’d had the same opportunity.”

  “Oh?”

  “Made a damned fool of myself during my first sessions,” his father replied. “Took the wrong side on several issues. Dressed like a peacock. I was not well-received.”

  Gabe frowned, trying to imagine his father in the manner he was describing. Then he noted how Anne continued to stare in the direction of Worthington House. He waved a hand in front of her face, and she let out a sound of complaint before she turned her gaze on him. “It’s just Hexham and Lady Angelica. I recognize her lady’s maid, so I believe the other young man must be... oh!”

  The exclamation had Gabe once again turning around to see that the other young man had offered his arm to the lady’s maid, and she had not only taken it, but was bussing him on the cheek as she did so. “Oh,” he said, just before his face lit up with a huge smile. “It seems Lady Angelica’s maid has made a match,” he said in a quiet voice, as if he feared being overheard. “I guess that means she won’t be marrying me,” he added in jest.

  His words trailed off, though, when he noticed a coach-and-four pulling up to Bradford Hall.

  Trenton allowed a grin. “I wonder if her husband knows he has married into the family that owns Banks Textiles?”

  Although Mary Banks’ father, Alonyius, could have had a role in the family business in Darlington, he had instead opted to work in service as a valet to the Earl of Torrington. He had married Lady Torrington’s lady’s maid, Alice, one Christmas, and Mary, their daughter, was now Lady Angelica’s lady’s maid. He only knew all this because Sarah had regaled him with the story after she spent an afternoon in Lady Torrington’s parlor.

  Isn’t it romantic? Sarah had asked when she finished telling him the tale.

  He remembered wondering if she thought so because the couple had grown close as a result of being stranded at a coaching inn due to snow.

  He
certainly understood how it was possible. If it hadn’t been for The Spread Eagle Inn, he never would have met Sarah Cumberbatch. He wouldn’t have fathered Gabe, or later married Sarah, and she wouldn’t have given birth to their other two children.

  The oddest sense of wonder gripped Trenton just then, followed by a thought of how different his life would be if he had never stepped foot in the coaching inn.

  Would he still be as arrogant and self-obsessed as he was back then? Still dressing like a peacock? Employing not one, but three mistresses?

  He shuddered at the thought. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to hurry home to Sarah, to kiss her as she had taught him how to kiss and to hold her as tightly as possible.

  Trenton was pulled from his reverie when the objects of their attention disappeared into Worthington House and Anne allowed a long sigh. “Do you suppose Hexham will wait until he’s in his forties before he marries?”

  Gabe and his father exchanged glances filled with amusement. “Is he one of the men you would like to be marriage-minded?” Gabe teased, even as his attention went back to the coach-and-four in front of Bradford Hall. “And I wonder who that man is that just went up to Bradford Hall,” he added, not expecting his sister to answer.

  Although he had heard Bradford Hall was now a property of the Wadsworth earldom—the baron’s vowels had apparently been purchased by Benedict, Earl of Wadsworth—Gabe was sure the man who disappeared into the house was not the Earl of Wadsworth.

  At hearing her brother’s teasing query, Anne stared at him. Didn’t he remember that day, not long ago in Hyde Park? When she had spotted Viscount Hexham atop a majestic horse while she rode in their father’s curricle? Lady Angelica had been there, too, although Anne could hardly tear her eyes from George Grandby as they conversed.

  She hadn’t even noticed the thunder, thinking it was the sound of her beating heart. The air had seemed charged with anticipation. Excitement crackled. The roots of her hair seemed to lift from her head, threatening to dislodge the dainty hat she had chosen to wear at a jaunty angle. Deep down, something tickled. Her breasts tightened. She felt damp and only then noticed it had begun to rain.

  Both Hexham and his twin sister had held their horses steady as she and Gabe had said their farewells. Anne remembered watching as the twins rode away, urging their horses in the direction of Worthington House. She watched in wonder as she slowly deployed her parasol, knowing the accessory would do little to keep the rain off of her.

  She found she didn’t care.

  Even now, the memory of seeing George Grandby mounted as he was had her body responding as it had that day.

  “So... that’s a yes then,” Gabe said in response to his own query as to whether or not she wished Hexham were one of the marriage-minded men. He was well aware his sister’s attentions were on her mind’s eye.

  Gabe dared a glance at his father, and found him staring at Anne before his gaze went heavenward. Following suit, Gabe’s face screwed into confusion. “What is it, Father?” he asked.

  “You were right,” Trenton said before he sniffed. “It smells like snow.” But his mind wasn’t on the impending snowfall. He had paid witness to how Anne stared at George Grandby, and he wondered about the young viscount.

  A few flakes of snow danced around their heads before he gave the driver instructions to head to Lily’s house.

  Chapter 8

  A Back Garden Beckons

  A few minutes later, at Bradford Hall

  “Do be careful,” Ben pleaded, watching as the footmen undid the leather straps holding his crated telescope to the back of the ancient town coach.

  “Where would you like it, sir?” one of the footmen asked. The two had the crate suspended between them as a groom saw to the coach.

  “In the observatory. On the top floor,” he replied, hoping they would be able to negotiate the curved staircase that lined the interior of the building while carrying the crated scope.

  He had thought to simply have a one-story dome built, but adding the height of a second and third story meant his telescope would be level with the tops of most of the nearby houses. The fewer obstacles around it, the more sky his telescope would be able to see.

  Engineering the rotating dome had been left to the welder. He claimed he could build a track atop the building’s round wall in which several wheels, attached to the inside of the dome, could ride.

  As for how the dome would move? “You will have to provide the manpower, sir,” the welder replied, adding that he would see to installing several handles to help in the matter as well as a grease that would make the wheels turn more easily.

  Giving the dome an open window through which his scope could see had been the last challenge. The craftsman who built the dome cut out the necessary slice of metal, but the portion he removed was then too small to use as a covering when the scope wasn’t in use.

  He had planned to meet with another member of the Royal Society to determine how that gentleman had addressed the issue in the observatory behind his estate in Richmond. The next meeting wasn’t for another fortnight, however.

  Tempted to pay a call on Elias Pershing, Ben instead penned a letter to the earl, asking if he might take a tour of his observatory. He later learned, when the footmen who had been tasked with delivering the letter returned to Bradford Hall, that the gentleman was on the Continent and would not return to London until Easter.

  Not to be deterred, Ben had paid a call at the estate in Richmond just the week before and asked the butler if he might be allowed access to Pershing’s observatory.

  He should have known from the butler’s look of surprise that the observatory was by no means a proper example of a scientific workplace. The interior looked as if it hadn’t seen the services of a maid since the day it was built. “Mr. Pershing doesn’t allow any servants to enter,” the butler said as Ben swept a cobweb from in front of the stairs.

  Once he reached the level upon which an ancient telescope was precariously mounted between two vertical iron fences—Ben was sure they were the same as any of the green fences that fronted most modern homes—Ben determined the observatory probably hadn’t been used in over a decade.

  “How can this be?” he asked, not intending for the butler to overhear him.

  “Because he can no longer climb the stairs, my lord,” came the simple answer. “That, and loss of interest. He has taken an interest in other... other natural sciences.”

  “Oh?” Ben had queried in response, thinking Elias Pershing had turned his attentions to geology or chemistry.

  The butler appeared for a moment to experience gastric distress before he murmured, “One involving milky white globes.” When the knight continued to stare at him, the butler added, “For the first time in his life, Mr. Pershing has taken a mistress. As a result, he has lost interest in everything but her.”

  Ben’s eyes darted to the left and then to the right. Was the butler implying Mr. Pershing had never bedded a woman before he employed said mistress?

  Before he could ask, the butler gave a nod. “He is new to the experience of spending time in a woman’s company. When his mistress insisted on a trip to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, he did not argue.”

  Thinking he probably wouldn’t argue if he’d had a mistress who likewise insisted on such a trip—Ben had never been to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but thought it an excursion he might take if he ever took a wife—Ben gave an understanding nod.

  At least he’d had an opportunity to review how the observatory was constructed. Learned immediately that, although the dome did not easily rotate, there was a sort of sliding square that traveled along a track to reveal a very small portion of the night sky. And even more cobwebs as well as a hornets’ nest that came to life quite suddenly when the door was opened.

  Ben shut the door before any of the buzzing insects could make their way into the observatory.

  Not bothering to disturb the thick layer of dust that had settled on the telescope, Ben h
ad simply taken his leave of the observatory and returned to Bradford Hall knowing he had a much better arrangement than Elias Pershing.

  Well, except for the mistress. And maybe the door over the hole in the dome.

  Ben’s door was a sliding curved rectangle, secured below and above in tracks welded to the dome. A long pole allowed him to snag the door’s handle so he could open and close it without having to climb a ladder. Which was rather fortuitous, since there was simply no room for a ladder on the floor that housed his telescope mount, a chair, an old desk, and a small cot.

  Once his footmen had the crate up the spiral stairs and had removed the crate’s lid, Ben began unpacking his treasure. To his relief, a metal cover had protected the large lens. Smaller pieces—various lenses and tools—were tucked inside a smaller pasteboard box in one corner of the crate.

  A footman helped him lift the telescope from its bed of packing and place the mount atop the stand he’d had the carpenters construct. A metal plate provided the base for the forked array in which the tube of the telescope was mounted. A bit of finagling, and soon he had the base of the mount lined up with the metal plate.

  He was in the process of threading large screws through the matching holes of both when he noticed how the footman watched his every move.

  “What is it?” he asked, sure the servant was frowning.

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” the footman whispered. “But what’s to keep the whole thing from falling over?”

  Ben’s attention went to the floor, where wooden braces had been installed on all four sides of the base. He tested the strength of the assembly with an attempt at jiggling the base, relieved when it gave no quarter. “Lots of wood and screws,” he replied with relief.

  The footman nodded. “Ah, well, that’s good, since I wouldn’t want this to fall off and roll down all them stairs.”