A Properly Conducted Sham (Most Imprudent Matches #5)

Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

BENNET HALL, SURREY - JUNE 13, 1816

LEE

She was still upset at supper. Not cross, but there was something resigned in her countenance and the silent way she pushed the food around her plate.

A few of the pickled dishes received a secondary bite. Nothing else did. I knew little about women in her condition, and I reminded myself to investigate in the library tonight. The cloud cover wasn’t ideal for stargazing. Also, the damned cat had claimed the observatory for her domain. This afternoon she bit my ankle repeatedly until I abandoned the place to her rule.

“Is the menu not to your liking?” I asked, desperately hoping for some sort of conversation.

“Oh, no. It’s lovely.” She took an enthusiastic bite of the roast duck. But then she chewed, and chewed, and chewed. I saw the moment the prospect of swallowing crossed her mind and precisely how unappealing that thought was.

“Oh, Lord. Spit it out.” She shook her head, choking it down with a revolted expression. Automatically, my hand dipped into my pocket, and I grasped a handful of peppermints, shoving them in her direction.

She assessed them warily before plucking one, unwrapping it, and popping it into her mouth. Her shoulders fell and she sank farther back into the chair.

“Charlotte, you needn’t eat things that are not agreeable to you merely because they are on your plate. Chef can adjust the offerings until your constitution is less delicate.”

“That would be rude.”

“So?”

“So! I’m sure his skills are unmatched. I would not wish to offend him.” Her expression was one of genuine horror.

“Offend him all you like. I do. He can and does grumble all day long to the scullery maids.”

“But he will find other employment!” The tone of her protest was filled with distressed abhorrence.

“That is unlikely. I pay him well to cook for one—now two. And if he does… there are other cooks in the world.”

“But you will be dreadfully bored. I can tolerate little with any flavor.”

“Perhaps. But it is preferable to watching you waste away.”

“I am hardly wasting away.” She gestured vaguely toward her torso, where her child grew.

I caught the sleeve of her gown, too loose, between two fingers, and lifted her wrist in the process. The soft cotton of her gown ripped from my grasp as she yanked her hand free.

Yet another misstep. “Charlotte…”

“I am aware you find me unappealing,” she snapped. “You needn't comment on it as I can hardly change it.”

“I do not find you unappealing,” I blurted. The response escaped me without thought, but as I parsed the words, there was no lie in them. Far from unappealing. She was too appealing, and that was the entirety of the problem. Because I could not do anything about it.

A half-snorted scoff was the only response I was to receive.

“I do not. You are beautiful—you know that, of course. But in your condition... I just worry.”

She considered me with downturned eyes. I hadn’t the slightest idea what she was searching for in my expression, but she merely shook her head and took another bite of pickled cauliflower. She made a face, but I suspected that was due more to the unholy combination of peppermint and vegetable than the actual dish.

A thought needled its way into my head, hovering there and refusing to leave.

“Charlotte?”

“Yes?”

“Is-Is that why you were cross this morning? Because you believe I am—that I do not—that I did not come to you?”

“I was not cross,” she insisted, not glancing up from her plate.

The bites of my meal turned to lead in my stomach. “Because if you were cross—and that was why—I should like to apologize. Well, I’d like to apologize regardless of the reason, in truth. I had thought—perhaps I was overly familiar when I walked you to your rooms, and when I showed you the house. But that is not entirely congruent with your earlier comments.”

Her fork clanged against the plate as she brought the napkin up to dab her lips. “I merely misunderstood the nature of our arrangement. Now that you have clarified, there will be no confusion going forward.” Never once in the entire speech did her eyes meet mine.

“Oh… That is good.” My voice was hollow for reasons I could not explain.

“Indeed.”

“Did you—did you wish for a different agreement?” My heart twisted at the thought, even as I voiced it. “Because I suppose a discrete arrangement here in the country would not?—”

“No! That—no, that is not what I was—no.” Her eyes finally met mine, beseeching me to leave the subject.

“Right.” The skin of the right side of my face was tight and angry with the flush of embarrassment creeping up along my cheeks.

Charlotte, too, was flushed but hers was a becoming dusky winter rose shade as she turned back to her napkin and folded it into a neat little triangle. When she finished her task, she stared at it with interest.

Following her lead, I pushed aside my plate and folded my own napkin. My attempt at a triangle was something of a disaster in my discomfited state and I gave up and dropped it in a lumpy pile on the table.

Finally, my wife broke the silence, turning back to me. “So, what is it that you hope to learn in your observatory?”

Desperate to take her unspoken offer of a less fraught conversation, I seized on the topic. “A little of everything.” At her not entirely disinterested nod, I continued. “They found a comet perhaps five years ago. I did not even have the telescope yet, but you could see it with the naked eye. Perhaps you recall—though you would have been quite young—the Great Comet?”

“Not so young, I was nineteen. But I do not remember it.”

“That is to be expected. It became an obsession then, I suppose. It was visible the summer after my wife died, during my recovery. It was something else to focus on. Before that, my interest was more… measured.”

I was not entirely certain if she would press me for details of the accident. And I was less certain if I wanted her to. It was the first time I had mentioned it outright.

If I felt more relief or disappointment when she did not press me, was anyone’s guess.

“So you had an observatory built?”

“First, I bought books, a lot of them. Then a smaller telescope—not the one you saw today. Much of the other equipment preceded the actual observatory.”

“A gradual descent into madness then?” Her brow lifted, teasing.

“Oh, I was mad well before the comet.” That comment earned me a laugh, relief flooding my chest at the musical sound. Perhaps that signaled the end of the palpable tension that had settled over this marriage like a thick, inky fog.

Charlotte

There was an eagerness about him when he discussed the comet and the stars and his equipment. A delighted pride he wore like a cloak.

It was… charming. As was his proclivity for peppermints. They seemed to be the only thing that settled my stomach with any consistency. That he always had them on hand and that he retained their scent was a pleasant surprise.

This was almost nice. Perhaps we would not be husband and wife in any real way, but friendship could be attainable. If I was honest, I was in need of a friend or two. There was no rule that one’s convenient, platonic husband could not be a companion and confidant.

“Do you—would you wish to see it?” Lee asked. It seemed asking about his observatory was the proper course of action with my husband. Far from horses, gaming tables, and his estate, his interests lay with the heavens.

I did not particularly care about the stars, planets, or comets. But in the interest of marital harmony, I could feign enthusiasm.

Today had been no less exhausting than the day before, but I ended this day as I meant to go forward, amicably. After all, when I had dried my tears that afternoon, I vowed once more to act as the sensible woman I knew I could be.

“That would be nice.” If he could read my fib, he made no mention of it. Instead, he turned back to his plate with eagerness.

And so it was, as the clock struck ten, that I followed him out of the house and down the well-loved footpath to the observatory, trailing after the lamp in his grasp.

The night was brisk. Gooseflesh rose up my arms and the back of my neck. Fortunately, the trip was a short one and we reached the observatory before I could regret every one of my choices.

Lee ushered me inside and placed the lamp on the desk before making for the nearby candles. He lit only a few, leaving us cast in shadow. By the time he had finished his task, it became apparent that this room was not significantly warmer than the walk over had been. Probably owing to the large hole in the ceiling.

“I close it up in case of inclement weather,” Lee said, answering my question before I gave it voice. “There are shutters.”

I merely nodded, no closer to understanding his fascination than when I arrived earlier this morning.

Without a word, he nodded to the telescope. It was an impressive beast, far larger than any I could have imagined. He tipped it down, then bent his knees to look through it and moved it across the night sky.

He stepped back and gestured me to the device. It took a moment to understand, he had adjusted it for me. My husband was a tall man, quite the tallest of my acquaintance, but he had successfully set the scope for my eyes. I peered through the lens.

“What do you see?”

“A star. I think a star?”

“Altair. You can see that one easily with your naked eye. May I?” I broke away while he maneuvered the metal tube again. He brought it lower, closer to the horizon. The effort required him to bend even farther and crouch slightly.

For such a large man, my husband was quite graceful. By sheer size, he should have been clumsy and awkward, but those were words I’d never once thought in relation to him. The sheer effort required to orient the telescope for my use was astonishing.

“Here,” he said, backing away again.

The image in the scope looked almost exactly like the star, perhaps less bright and more distinctly round.

“What am I looking at?”

“Jupiter.”

Shocked, I pulled away and met his gaze. At my surely astounded expression, he merely nodded.

I turned back and peered at the object again. “I am looking at the planet Jupiter?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s so clear.”

“You don’t even need the telescope.” He backed me away, pointing to the open ceiling. “Here, in Virgo.”

“I don’t know where that is.”

“There, the brightest star right there, Spica. Those nine stars make up the constellation. And right—there—is Jupiter.”

He pointed at a speck, perhaps the slightest bit brighter than the other specks, parted between great fluffy clouds. When I offered no comment, he made to grab my hand only to freeze an inch or so from it.

“May I?”

I felt my brow furrow in confusion until he tipped his head toward my hand.

“Oh, yes,” I replied even before understanding dawned. “I—you were not—have not been overly familiar, Lee. I promise.”

His nod was relieved and a tension I hadn’t noticed lifted from his shoulders. He wrapped his oversize hand around mine and adjusted my fingers to a point. His knees bent to line him up to my height, and his soft, peppermint-scented breath brushed against a curl. The warmth of him finally breaking through the chill of the room.

“How do they know it’s the planet? And not another star?”

“The way it moves throughout the sky is very different.”

I nodded as though that explanation made sense. His free hand had found my hip, holding me steady. Not that I was unsteady. At least, I was not before he decided to manhandle me.

He pulled my hand up, up, up, until I was pointing directly to the heavens. “Do you know what this constellation is?”

“I do not know what any of them are.”

“Cassiopeia, the one your dearest friend is named after.”

I pulled away from him with a laugh. “Your cat is a menace.”

“She is.”

Free from his grasp, I was surer, more at ease. But I was cold again.

Lee must have read my shiver because he shucked his coat without a word and draped it over my shoulders before adjusting the telescope once more.

The wool was thick and warm and smelled of peppermint and something undefinable, woody and more subtle. It was huge. The fabric drowned me, hitting my calves. When I slipped my arms in the sleeves, I had several inches left to scrunch over my wrists.

“How do you know all of this? I’ve never understood the constellations. They do not look like what they are named.”

He huffed a laugh, still tilting and turning the tube. “No, I suppose you’re right. There are maps. If you spend enough time with them… you memorize them I suppose.”

Seemingly satisfied with the positioning, he wandered over to the desk and flipped through the charts. He shifted one to the top, then beckoned me over.

And there it was, the heavens made paper. He had drawn little lines between dots with labels. Virgo—as he’d mentioned, Cassiopeia, Hercules, Ursas major and minor, Draco, Lyra. Some I had heard of and some were completely new to me.

Tentatively, I lifted the paper and took it over to the open windows. I held it up, trying to match Virgo as he showed me with the chart. “Virgo.” I pointed when I found it, turning for approval. He leaned back against the desk but nodded encouragingly. When I looked again at the sky, the stars all swirled into indistinguishable dots. Eventually, nearly straight up, I found one I recognized. “Ursa Minor.”

“Yes.”

“Most of them still look like random dots, even with the chart,” I commented, returning to his side.

Lee laughed out another, “yes,” before taking the map and setting it back on the desk. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, leaving bare, muscular forearms dusted with light brown hair. The veins there were prominent. Those were masculine forearms. It was an inane thought, but it was true, there was nothing delicate about his arms.

“What do you hope to learn with all of this?” I repeated, gesturing to the entirety of the observatory.

“I doubt I’ll discover anything new, if that’s what you’re asking. There are more powerful telescopes out there and people far smarter and far more dedicated than me. I just… it makes me feel small. And makes the world feel less… random.”

“Really? It seems quite chaotic out there to me.”

“I know, but it is not. They rise and set in a predictable pattern. It changes throughout the year and the night, but if you know where to look… they will always be there.” He found a journal and flipped to a page, then directed my attention to it. In neat script were detailed notes of what he saw, what he expected to see in the coming days.

“Ordered chaos then.”

“Indeed. Thank you.” His tone was tentative, soft.

“For what?”

“Indulging me. I can be a little… enthusiastic about all of this.”

“Yes.” He huffed a quiet chuckle in response to my honesty. “But that is not to say it is not worthy of being enthusiastic about.”

I turned back to him from his notes. He was closer than I’d expected, less than a foot. Lee’s eyes found mine, catching there and holding. His irises were dark in the dim lighting, a shade lighter than the inky sky he was so interested in.

My breath had escaped me on finding him so close. It was hooked, caught in my throat waiting for…. something.

Midnight eyes flicked to my lips and back to meet my gaze. I had seen that look before, from men.

Before I could decide how I felt about that possibility, Lee shook himself free from our moment and stepped back. My breath returned in a disappointed rush.

“You—” He broke off and cleared his throat. “You must be tired. I’ll see you back to the house.”

“No need. I know the way.” I lit a spare lantern he had near the door, then I stepped outside before he could protest.

It wasn’t until I found myself shutting the door to my chambers that I realized I was still wrapped in his oversize, peppermint-scented coat. When I stripped it off, I was left even colder than before, and no number of logs added to the fire could match that warmth.