17. Chapter 17
It took several minutes of fumbling in the dark for her to work out how to adjust the telescope, but finally she managed.
At first, pressing her eye to the sight, she saw nothing but darkness.
She shifted this way and that and fiddled with a dial of some sort, and all at once, a small corner of the heavens came into sharp focus as it had last night.
She giggled in delight, the sound of her own laughter alien after the long moments of hearing nothing but scouring wind, and lost the focus.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she murmured, determined to get another glimpse at the majesty.
“It’s quite something, isn’t it?”
She shrieked and leapt backward, heart thumping in her chest, turning to see . the large, shadowed figure of Lord Randall, not two feet from her.
“Lord Randall, you startled me.”
“You don’t say,” he drawled.
Her brief jubilance faded. Had he come to chase her from the roof? To rebuke her for touching his apparatus without his express permission? To further call into question everything she thought she knew about the world and her place in it?
If so, she’d as soon depart. She’d had quite enough of his judgment for one night.
“I did not expect you,” she told him, stiffly.
“And I thought we were meant to dine together,” he replied in a low rumble.
His comment took her aback, mainly because he almost sounded conciliatory. Of a certainty, he did not sound annoyed.
Without another word, he lit an oil lamp, which hung several feet from the telescope—by design, she assumed, so as not to interfere with the scope’s use. Afterward, steps unhurried, he moved in close to her. The dim backlighting revealed he palmed a snifter in one gloved hand.
“I suppose you wish to be alone to enjoy your drink and play with your apparatus?”
“My…er…It’s called a telescope. And…no.”
Her heart began to thump heard against her ribs. “No?”
A moment later, she gasped when he crooked his fingers under her chin guided her face upward.
She reached for her hood, but not quickly enough, and it fell back.
He leaned in close. Though she could not see his expression clearly, she understood what he was doing. Scrutinizing her.
Humiliation thrummed through her. No doubt her eyes, puffy and red-rimmed, told him exactly what she’d come up here to do. “I do not know what it is you think you are doing, sir,” she snapped. But she did, and she braced for whatever scathing comment came next.
None came. Instead, he dropped his hand and more gently than she could ever have anticipated, replaced her hood.
“It appeared you figured out how to work the telescope. Were you able to see anything up there?”
“Indeed. I hope—” she swallowed, risking her pride should he fire back—“you do not mind. I did not ask permission.”
“I do not mind, Annabelle. I’m impressed, actually. You managed the business in the dark. You’re quite clever.”
Suspicion lanced through her. He sounded sincere, but she’d been fooled before. Tonight, for instance. And Gaston was expert at setting her up for a fall, particularly when she’d displeased him.
“It was not so difficult,” she said carefully. “Last night, I noticed you adjusting the knobs before I…” Her words cut off in an instant.
Fool. Idiot. Bringing up the kiss she’d pressed on him. Perhaps that had been his goal—and now, he could remind her not to attempt such a thing again.
“My grandfather taught me.” He leaned against the parapets, obsidian eyes locked on her. “He loved viewing the stars, taught me the constellations, how to chart them, when and where to spot them.”
She nodded slowly, afraid to speak for fear he’d remember he didn’t like her.
“Is it really true that overhearing that one conversation—one which centered more on your brother’s annoyance with me for not promoting him for membership at White’s—is how you worked out my location?”
“Of course.”
“Then, with nothing else to go on, you traveled across the country to an unknown land, braved robbers at gunpoint while managing an unfamiliar horse in blizzard conditions, and somehow mesmerized Babette into utter devotion to you without even trying.
“Not to mention bending me to your not insurmountable will.” His white teeth flashed, reflecting the moonlight.
Warmth unfurled inside her despite the wintry conditions. “I did nothing of the sort.”
“No? Did you not return to Stoneford as my guest? Did I not pay for your telegram?”
Telegrams, she silently corrected, and bit back a smile.
“You are not as I expected, Lady Annabelle.”
“What? Am I not a spoilt, pretentious debutante, Lord Randall?” she asked, quoting a few of the choice words he’d used to describe her when first they met. But her tone carried no heat, and he laughed softly.
“Not everything I expected,” he amended.
The warmth in her chest spread, concentrating first in her heart, then low in her belly, where it pulsed and thrummed in a most distracting manner.
“What were you able to see? Anything in particular?”
“Stars. Bright, shiny, twinkling stars that I could practically touch.”
He straightened and moved to stand behind her, the heat from his body like a lovely cocoon. “Hold this, if you please.”
His arms came around her, effectively bracketing her in as one of his hands grasped the telescope while the other pressed the snifter toward her.
She took the glass with both hands and held it to her chest. Breathing the smoky, sweet fumes tickled her belly in an oddly pleasurable way.
Behind her, he bent, lowering his head to her right shoulder, then drew the sight of the scope to his eye.
Slowly, so as not to alert him, she turned her head. His face, his mouth, was so close. Close enough, his exhale tickled the fine hairs on her cheek.
Drawing a full breath became nigh on impossible. She held herself still—as still as her rapid pulse would allow. Yearning to twine her arms around his neck, to draw his mouth to hers as she had last night, left her almost dizzy. Her entire body trembled with the force of her desire.
“Do you know the constellations?”
“More or less,” she replied.
His focus slipped, then, as if he’d just realized she was staring at him. He turned his face toward hers.
Her breath froze in her lungs as a desperate wish took hold of her that he would kiss her, as she had kissed him last night.
A timeless moment ticked by, where she would almost swear his gaze locked on her mouth. Then, he exhaled heavily and resumed fiddling with the telescope.
She faced forward, pinching her eyes closed.
“After my grandfather taught me all the constellations, along with their mythology, he brought me here, where, thanks to the absence of smog and city lights which abound in London, one can study the stars. Ah, there you are,” he drawled.
Without warning, he pulled the snifter, half forgotten, from her grasp and touched the cold crystal to her lips. The gloved fingers of his other hand cradled her jaw, tilting her head back slightly, silently urging her to sip.
She did. The brandy--only her second time drinking the spirit--burned a path to her belly.
In the next instant, he removed the glass, crouching to set it aside. Then he grasped one of her shoulders, guiding her to stand just so. “Take a look,” he said, lifting her hand to the telescope. “You won’t dislodge it. I’ve locked it in place.”
The low rumble of his voice in her ear curled through her like smoke. She bit her lip to stifle the whimper trying to emerge from her throat as everything in her went hot and weak in the most wonderful way.
Then she gazed through the sight—and beheld a wondrous scene. “It looks like…Orion?”
“The hunter, yes,” he agreed, a smile evident in his voice. “Do you see his belt?”
“The three stars? I do,” she said, not bothering to hide her excitement.
“What about his sword?”
“That misty patch? I see it,” she practically squeaked.
“According to Greek mythology, Orion was a boastful hunter whom the gods placed in the sky after his death, forever to pursue the seven sisters across the sky. I’ll show them to you another night.”
Another night. Tears leaked from her eyes—this time, born of exquisite joy and the kindness he showed her, which she did not deserve. “Thank you,” she choked.
He gripped her shoulders, squeezing gently in silent acknowledgment. A moment later, his hands fell away, and the heat from his body dissipated.
He’d moved away from her. Even so, she waited several seconds before turning to face him.
He stood a good two arm’s lengths from her. The light from the lamp barely illuminated him. Certainly, she could not make out his expression. But his stillness, his rigid posture, his hands fisted at his sides evidenced his strain.
Was it that he feared she’d throw herself at him again?
No. Not that. He feared his own attraction to her. She knew it, like she knew her own name. Oddly, the triumph she would have reveled in as recently as this morning did not materialize.
Instead, she felt chagrin. Because all his earlier grumbling about how she’d put him in an untenable situation by showing up here without a chaperone had been entirely merited.
Oh, she’d had no thought of entrapping him when she’d set out with Lucy, her pretend chaperone. Nor had she worried overmuch if her plan went askew, which it had, thanks to her reckless insistence to forge on at any cost.
It had never occurred to her to consider the repercussions of her actions to him—or had it? A man like Lord Randall, imbued with honor and duty, would not shirk his responsibilities just because no one was looking.
Was that what she’d been banking on?
Suddenly, nothing was clear—not even her own justification for being here.
Except…that was not true. Some things were clear. Lord Randall had not killed Gaston. He was not capable of something so vile and calculated. And she should never have come here.
Her stomach, empty save for a few sips of wine followed by brandy, heaved. “Goodnight.” She forced the lone word from her lips and all but fled toward the stair tower—and escape.
“Annabelle.”
A brief glance in his direction told her he followed fast on her heel, his long legs eating up the distance.
He was upon her by the time she reached the door.
“I wanted to say, earlier, I spoke harshly. I…” He broke off with a low curse. “Annabelle, look at me, please.”
His softly uttered plea tore at her insides, but she did not turn around. “Do not trouble yourself, my lord. You were not overly harsh.”
“Please.”
A shiver went through her at the raw edge in his tone. Sinking her teeth into her lower lip until it hurt, she shifted around to face him.
His tall, broad-shouldered frame blotted out all the lamplight. He stood entirely too close—and yet, not close enough.
He grasped her shoulders. “I do not know what to make of you. You are, on the one hand, exactly who and what I expected. And on the other…” A disbelieving huff of laughter spilled from his lips.
Anticipation burned through her as she hung on his every word.
“There’s a sweetness about you. An innocence. A guilelessness I’d never have foreseen—and beneath it all, something…more.” His hand flexed on her. “Something that tangles my thoughts and twists my insides. And none of this excuses my atrocious behavior.”
Before he could say anything else, she reached up and pressed two fingers to his firm lips, shushing him as, inside her, guilt and longing and something indefinable clashed.
She desired nothing more than to burrow into him and lose herself in his innate strength and the exquisite feelings running roughshod through her.
But nothing good could come from doing so. Not for him, at any rate.
“Say no more. I am exactly who you discerned me to be when first we met—not to mention the woman who came here accusing you of malfeasance in her brother’s death. You do not owe me an apology. If anything…if anything…” It was no use.
Before she changed her mind, she turned and fumbled with the door lever, unable to grasp it thanks to her shaking hands.
Without a word, he reached past her, brushed her hands aside, and opened the door.
She crossed into the manse and fled down the stairs without a backward glance.
***
Sterling waited for her footsteps to recede, then allowed the door to close.
He stared at it for a long moment, utterly befuddled.
How had it happened that this slip of a woman, this uppity debutante, had shown up at his house and in a matter of days overturned not only his impression of her, but his common sense and self-control?
He no longer knew what he wanted—aside from her in his bed, which obviously could not happen.
Shaking his head, he went to retrieve the brandy he’d set at his feet when positioning her before the telescope. Glass in hand, he paced the rooftop, eyes drifting over the snow-capped grasslands surrounding the castle, though in truth he could see next to nothing.
When she’d arrived, he’d wanted answers, and he’d wanted her gone. Barring that, he’d wanted to thwart any devious scheme on her part. He had not doubted for a second she meant to entrap him into either a murder confession or a marriage born of scandal or both.
Since then, however, other aspects of Annabelle had revealed themselves to him, in the way of a flower opening, one petal at a time.
She was brave, tenacious, and witty. She was inquisitive, intelligent, and unexpectedly kind.
She was sensual. She was innocent. She was bold.
She was so many things. And when he’d confronted her with that, what was her response?
To claim to be exactly the sort of conniving, superficial woman he’d first accused her of being.
He should believe her. Who would know the woman better than herself?
From now on, he should treat her as the sort of woman she’d just confessed to being—something that would be a lot easier to do if he hadn’t gained the distinct impression she had spoken tonight with his best interest in mind.
With a toss of his head, he emptied the snifter, and stalked inside.