Chapter Five #2
Stop mooning over him, you ninny! You don’t need to make him smile; you need to win his respect.
To distract myself, I turned to page 101 and read, my finger tracing the written words as I did.
“ ‘For Instance, a Telescope of sixty-four Feet in length, with an Aperture of two and two-thirds Inches, magnifies about one hundred and twenty times, with as much distinctness as one of a Foot in length, with one-third of an Inch aperture, magnifies fifteen times.’ ”
“I gather you enjoy astronomy,” St. Clair remarked.
I peered up at him. “I do. The idea that there is this whole universe beyond us—that we are simply one speck in the entirety of the cosmos—is fascinating to me.”
“I happen to agree,” he said, surprising me. “We are but a minuscule part. When I look up at the stars at night, there’s nothing like it to make a person feel inconsequential.”
“Exactly!” I nodded with renewed eagerness, thrilled to find we had that in common. “That’s why I hope to build a telescope of my own like Newton did. I want to study what is out there. Perhaps even find something yet undiscovered by others.”
“Do you?” he asked, surprise flashing. “That’s ambitious.”
Self-consciously, I gnawed on the corner of my lower lip and released it the moment his eyes tracked the movement, a glimmer of confusion flickering in their depths.
Botheration!
I had to be more careful. Gentlemen did not nibble upon their lips. No, they scrubbed their chins or their heads or the bridges of their noses, and sometimes excavated their noses like the odious Duke of Renton, though I could not possibly bring myself to do the last.
I lifted a hand to my jawline and patted the facial scruff there while pretending to be deep in thought.
“Perhaps so, but I hope to try. Sir William Herschel improved Newton’s reflecting telescope by grinding and polishing the mirrors into a parabolic shape instead of a spherical one,” I said.
“I’m planning to use a similar design to build my own. ”
St. Clair canted his head. “Herschel discovered Uranus, if I recall from my historical studies, originally named Georgium Sidus, George’s Star, after the king. It was the first planet to be discovered in a thousand years. Wasn’t his sister a renowned astronomer in her own right? Charlotte? Cora?”
“Caroline,” I replied, impressed that he would mention her.
Normally, men hardly ever credited any women who made scientific observations.
Caroline Herschel was, in fact, one of my personal heroes.
“It was actually her discovery of a periodic comet as well as five hundred and sixty missing stars, which she presented to the Royal Society in an index to John Flamsteed’s observations, that first seeded my interest in astronomy.
” I sighed in wonder. “Did you know the king made her the first official professional female astronomer and paid her fifty pounds annually to assist her brother with his experiments? She was thought to be the first woman to receive a wage for her scientific efforts.”
“I had heard that,” St. Clair said. “Sir William was offered four thousand pounds to build the Great Forty-Foot telescope, and I believe his sister was the one who recorded all his notes and findings. Brilliant family.”
“He also came up with the idea that clusters of stars occurred because they were attracted to each other over time,” I added.
“It’s incredibly romantic, as if those celestial bodies were on some similar course, destined to find each other in the infinite space of the universe.
” I suddenly became aware of his stare and realized what I’d said, along with the warm, wistful tone of my voice.
I cleared my throat. “Romantic in a purely analytical sense, of course. Gravity is quite scientific.” My cheeks felt like they were on fire, and I ducked my chin to hide them. “Poets love whimsical things.”
When I forced my eyes back up, St. Clair’s expression was languid, a hint of a smile playing about his mouth. “Did you know Herschel also cataloged eight hundred and forty-eight double stars? They were known as stars that orbited around one another.”
“Binary pairs,” I said softly.
“Yes.”
We stared at each for a long moment in congenial silence, our heads bent over the open copy of Opticks, before jerking apart. St. Clair ran a hand through his hair, mussing the carefully combed waves, and leaned back into his chair, his usual unreadable expression taking over.
“Never would have taken you for a stargazer, Lord Ansel.”
I shrugged. “I told you. You don’t know me, Mr. St. Clair. People change. Perhaps the gentleman you knew before isn’t same person you see before you now.”
“I suppose I shall have to give you the benefit of the doubt, then,” he said, and rose, stretching his arms over his head and rounding his spine.
Goodness, I forgot how tall and lanky he was.
I stared, hypnotized by his graceful, sinuous movements.
Flushing, I tried not to notice how much the muscles of his abdomen bunched beneath his shirt as he reached for the coat hung neatly over the back of his chair as well as his outer gown.
“Have we finished, sir?” I asked.
“Considering it’s well past luncheon, yes.
Moving forward, we can focus your studies on observational astronomy and celestial mechanics as well as understanding historical context, since those seem to be your primary areas of interest.” He leaned over to collect his books strewn across the tabletop and pack them neatly into his satchel.
He pushed one over with the tip of his finger toward me.
“Let’s meet in the Wren Library three days hence. ”
I pulled the new tome toward me and frowned at the title. “Principia?”
“Have you read this, too?” he asked.
“A while ago, but—”
Based on the look of challenge on his face, I didn’t need to finish my sentence. “Good, prepare to be thoroughly tested on the laws of motion and gravitational properties next Thursday. Shall we say early afternoon, at two o’clock, directly following luncheon?”
“Wait. Tested?”
St. Clair glanced over his shoulder. “You didn’t think transferring here was going to be easy for you, did you, Lord Ansel?
We’re mathematicians, scientists, and physicists continually pushing the boundaries of what we know and everything else that’s waiting to be proven.
If you’re committed to your education, then I’m here to offer the instruction and support you require.
If not, tell me now, and I’ll focus my efforts and energy elsewhere.
We can have another more appropriate tutor assigned to you.
Sir James Lowry, perhaps? I saw you taking meals with him. ”
The thought of not being able to pick this boy’s unique brain left me cold.
I’d never met anyone else like him—his wisdom sparkled, and I wanted to learn everything I could about the way he saw the world, about the way he thought and how that erudite mind worked.
Even with his princely good looks, St. Clair’s brain was by far his greatest asset.
I shook my head and stood, gathering the book to my chest and then lifting my chin. “No, sir. I’m up for the challenge.”
The corner of his lip curled. “Excellent.”
I waited until he left before slumping back down into the chair.
I released a belabored groan at my complete inability to think rationally around him because, by everything holy, I should have asked for at least a week, not a scant handful of days.
Refamiliarizing myself with Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica was a more daunting task than the last.
Though displaying my acumen and going toe-to-toe with someone like St. Clair was something for me to look forward to. Newton’s proofs had been argued and discussed enough over the past century and a half, so our discussion would not be groundbreaking, but at least I would be able to hold my own.
Tapping the book, I let out a laugh as I remembered the many gentlemen over past seasons whom I’d interrogated with my little aptitude tests—one of them, an arrogant marquess, had insisted that gravity was a supernatural force with no basis in science or mathematical law and that I was a heretic for even considering it.
That had been eye-opening. He’d delivered me back to my mother with a disdainful sniff, saying that he could never marry an agnostic.
Mama had been horrified at first, but after I’d explained that we’d spoken about gravity, whereupon he’d insisted that such a phenomenon was God’s work, she’d been promptly reassured that I’d narrowly escaped from being hitched to an utter dunce.
My mother might urgently want my future secured, but she herself was no slouch in the academic department.
Before she married Papa, she’d been a brilliant amateur astronomer.
In fact, I inherited my love of the stars from her when she used to tell me fantastical stories as a child of the ancient Greek constellations and the gods behind them, like Orion the mighty hunter and Andromeda, who was chained to a rock to be sacrificed to a monster.
Or the myth behind the Great Bear, where the goddess Hera transformed Callisto, who was coveted by Hera’s husband, Zeus, into a bear so she would not be so beautiful.
It saddened me that Mama had abandoned her passion after she became the Duchess of Delmont, instead becoming focused on raising a family and shoring up the Delmont name in influential social circles.
When I was fourteen, I’d discovered one of her old journals, tracking stars and comets she’d discovered using an old telescope, the same one I’d used to satisfy my own burgeoning curiosity for the starry night sky.
Later on, Mama had never discouraged me from following my interests, but she had always been clear after my initial season that my duty as a duke’s daughter would always come first. Like her, my primary goal was to make an advantageous match…not to chase uncharted stars.
I increasingly resented the pressure to wed as each season passed…especially when my perfect match seemed more and more out of reach.
“Roz!”
I jolted at the sound of my nickname.
“We’ve been looking everywhere for you! Where have you been?”
I stared at Will’s flushed face when he poked his head in the doorway. James appeared beside him, shaking with unbridled excitement. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“The twins are racing on the River Cam!” Will cried. “Some other students dared them to do it, and those two clodheads agreed.”
My eyes rounded. “Swimming?”
“Rowing,” Will said.
I blinked—though it was unseasonably warm for late spring, the river would be ice-cold. Not that they would be going into the water, but boats could capsize.
Good heavens, what were Klaus and Kristof thinking?
I felt a grin split my face anyway—I always used to be so envious of the antics Ansel got up to with his set, and though I’d heard rumors of Zia running wild with a few of her schoolmates, leading a group called the Lady Knights, who raced on Rotten Row at midnight and fenced in underground gaming clubs, I didn’t have daring friends like that.
I didn’t truly have many friends at all, only acquaintances.
And those were all proper, demure ladies of the ton, and the most daring thing they did was try a new brand of tea.
Well, I supposed Ela and Zia were different, but they’d come into my life much more recently, when I’d already been hammered and polished into a dutiful young lady.
The only thing I’d ever rebelled over was marriage to someone I could not abide.
And now this—impersonating Ansel because I craved one grand adventure before resigning myself to my inevitable future.
Grinning at my—Roz’s—friends, I scrambled up, gathering my things, and raced upstairs to dump them in my quarters before joining the others as we headed toward the Backs.
It was a scenic garden area on the western side of the college that bordered the river, though I hadn’t had much time to explore it.
A crowd was gathered when we arrived, and many wagers were already changing hands.
“Roz!” Klaus said, seeing me. “Fancy rowing with us? We’re in need of a fourth.”
My jaw slackened as I glanced from him over to the wooden four-rower gig boat to the murky churning waters of the River Cam. Kristof shot me a maniacal grin, and poor Harold, who presumably was their third, had a nauseated look on his face.
Could I? Should I?
The water was likely freezing and contaminated with all kinds of vermin and filth, much like the Thames in London, but my blood pounded through my veins in exhilaration at the prospect of doing something so unbelievably bold. So thrilling!
When would I have a chance like this again?
When would Lady Rosalin be able to do something so dreadfully unconventional and audacious?
The answer was never. Roz, however, was more than up for the challenge.
I’d never rowed in a race before, other than on the Serpentine during leisurely summer garden parties, but how hard could it be?
I shucked off the top later of my academic gown and handed it to a gaping Will before making my way down the bank. “Sure do!”
“You are the man!” Kristof crowed.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up my throat—yes, I was.