Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Once more, however, it was overcast, and I wasn’t in the mood to do anything.
Zia and Ela, on the other hand, were insistent that I could not stay at home and pretend to emulate a sloth.
There was apparently some secret soiree that a select few had been invited to and that I simply had to attend.
However, I didn’t see the need to socialize and impress any gentlemen in the ton, now that my father had relented on his threat of marrying me off.
There was only one gentleman I wanted.
And just as I suspected, Tarik had categorically impressed the very hard-to-sway Duke of Delmont with his final proposal.
So while the former was off trying to finalize a property lease for his new space with the duke as well as my cousin, Blake, Keston, and Rafi, all of whom he’d become quite close with, I’d hoped to spend a cozy evening reading the latest treatise on celestial mechanics by Pierre-Simon Laplace in bed. Bliss.
“This is the event of the season,” Zia coaxed, reminding me that she was still there.
“I don’t care about the season,” I said with a shrug. “What on earth is a secret soiree anyway? People will do anything for attention. Are we honestly yielding to this?”
Ela pouted, making me narrow my eyes, because she wasn’t one for theatrics. That was usually Zia’s job. “This one is special. We can make it a girls’ evening, just the three of us, spending time together like we used to before boys.”
They weren’t going to let this one go, I realized. “Fine. What is the dress required?”
Zia and Ela exchanged a nonplussed look that made me frown again.
They were behaving rather peculiarly. Anna was more helpful when she cleared her throat and politely interjected, “Nice but warm, my lady, so perhaps a pelisse will be warranted. I gather you may be outside for part of the soiree. And the address is a few miles east of London proper.”
“Outdoors in the evening?” I asked, surprised. “Have I seen that invitation? I don’t recall anything so specific.”
“It’s with the others, my lady,” Anna said.
Zia threw an arm wide. “You know how these eccentric aristocrats are. There might be garden games and whatnot.”
“You and Ela are acting very strangely.”
Ela smiled, showing all her teeth, an expression that made me release a horrified giggle. “No stranger than normal. Very well, we will be back here in two hours to collect you.”
“Why does that sound ominous?” I asked.
Zia rolled her eyes and waggled her fingers as my friends swept from the foyer in a flash of muslin. “Because we are secretly abducting you?”
I shook my head at her, not sure if she was joking. Zia had a quirky sense of humor, and considering she and her little band of lady knights had robbed her brother and his friends once upon a time to save an orphanage, I wouldn’t put it past her to kidnap anyone.
I was hoping to hear from Tarik by the time I finished getting ready, but there were no messages. I quelled my disappointment. He’d been very busy over the last two weeks, setting up various contracts and agreements with Papa’s solicitor to get his business idea off the ground.
Having the enthusiastic backing of the Duke of Delmont opened many doors in London, including those of other aristocrats who wanted to be part of such an intriguing concept.
Though there were still many who snubbed their noses at the inclusion of women, not just as members but as bona fide academic colleagues.
We didn’t need them; we only needed a few.
I loved that Tarik was trying to be the change the world needed.
Anna put the finishing touches on my coiffure, which was a new style.
Half of my hair was pinned up and the other half left to fall like a curtain of black silk around my shoulders.
It was a pity that Tarik would not be attending tonight’s soiree—he was obsessed with my hair.
I made a mental note to request this style more often.
The dress Anna had chosen was one I hadn’t worn before…
or seen before, come to think of it. It was an elegant dark silver silk ensemble with a sash of seed-pearl beading settled under the bust and delicate embroidery of tiny stars and phoenixes over the bodice and hemline. The stitching was exquisite.
“Where did this come from?” I asked. “I don’t recall ordering it.”
Anna lifted one shoulder. “It was delivered with the rest of your things, my lady. Perhaps the duchess commissioned it? The phoenix is a symbol of harmony and prosperity in your family’s customs, no?”
It was. The fenghuang bestowed harmonious blessings on the kind and honorable. Perhaps my mother had commissioned it, though the symbolism was mostly used for bridal wear in Chinese culture. I supposed I was grateful it wasn’t pineapples.
In the foyer, Anna deftly fastened a plain but gorgeously made charcoal pelisse with wide sleeves over my shoulders and then threw her cloak over her own shoulders. Her eyes sparkled with an unusual amount of cheerfulness. “There. You are a vision, my lady.”
“Is it too much for the soiree?” I asked. “I feel overdressed for a garden event.”
She shook her head and ushered me out the door to where Ela’s carriage was waiting. The girls were already inside. Since Ela didn’t require a chaperone, as she was married, she could technically be a chaperone for Zia. I still required Anna to accompany me.
“Where are we going?”
Zia wrinkled her nose. “Settle in for a bit. It’s near Windsor Castle.”
“The king’s residence?” I asked with a gasp. “My gown is lovely, but it’s not a court dress.”
“No,” Ela said noncommittally. “A bit north of there.”
Something felt decidedly odd. The girls lapsed into chatter about the remarkably clear weather, the end of the season, and plans for Zia’s upcoming nuptials.
Contrary to everyone’s expectations, and also typically Zia, she was having an intimate summer wedding at her father’s ancestral seat in Berkshire.
Her residence was a few miles farther east than Windsor.
When the coach started to slow, it was in front of a large brick house with wide windows.
“Here we are. You and Anna, go on in. Ela and I will be there shortly,” Zia said with a distressed sound that sounded quite theatrical. “I need assistance with a tear in my gown.”
I blinked. “Anna can help.”
Ela shook her head, shooing us off. “I’ll take care of it.”
Again, decidedly odd.
As we descended the carriage steps, the house windows were lit from within, but there didn’t seem to be any other carriages in the drive. Were we at the right address? Approaching the door, I knocked tentatively when Anna pointed explicitly at the entrance. When the door opened, my jaw slackened.
“Tarik! What are you doing here?” I blurted, noticing his elegant ensemble. “Did you come for the soiree as well?”
He took my hand and drew me inside. “You take my breath away, mon coeur, every time I see you,” he said, kissing my knuckles. I blushed at the husky endearment. I loved when he called me his heart. “I want to introduce you to someone. This is Miss Caroline Herschel.”
I blinked. And blinked again. Had I heard him correctly? But then the tiny older lady, who was barely a few inches over four feet, smiled. “Lady Rosalin, it’s a pleasure to meet a fellow lover of astronomy and, of course, my dear friend Susu’s daughter.”
It was the hunter of comets herself.
I sucked in a wild breath that didn’t come close to reaching my lungs and swayed on my feet, only to be bolstered by a grinning Tarik.
“Miss Herschel, I am a devoted admirer of yours,” my voice emerged as a squeak. “The eight comets you have discovered, the catalogue of stars…I…I…”
She patted my arm fondly. “There’ll be plenty of time for us to chat later. I believe your young man planned this surprise very carefully.”
I was shocked to say the least, but my stare swung to a smug Tarik. “There’s no soiree, is there?” My question was rhetorical. “How did you know—?”
“Your mother arranged it, but this isn’t all of the surprise. Come on.” He took my arm and led my numb body to the back garden of the Herschel home.
Oh, my giddy stars…
All the blood felt like it was leaving my body in a rush as I stared up and up and up at the largest telescope in the world, built by Miss Herschel’s brother, William, and commissioned by the late king for over four thousand pounds.
The tube was forty feet long and surrounded by conical-shaped wooden scaffolding.
The mirror alone was forty-eight inches in diameter.
I openly gaped, not even caring that my mouth was hanging open.
Tarik tugged gently, and I followed in a daze. “Are we going up there?” I asked in a breathy voice, staring at the viewing platform near the upper end.
“Of course we are.”
I was even more breathless by the time we stood on the platform, the sky above us littered with stars, the moon just rising to the east. I was about to look through the personal telescope built by the man who discovered the first new planet since ancient times.
The moment was surreal. “What is it pointed at?” I murmured.
“Look,” Tarik said.
I put my eye to the finder and gasped at what appeared to be an indistinct smear on the velvet background of stars.
“Is that…a comet?” I tuned the focus and stared in rapt delight at the hazy nucleus with a glowing tail that reached out behind it, almost like a bluish plume.
It was the most glorious thing I had ever seen. “Which one is that? What’s it called?”
“It doesn’t have a name yet. I was cataloguing celestial bodies to have a few for you to look at with your telescope when I detected a faint luminescence that seemed to have a noticeable motion near Cassiopeia, unlike the fixed stars around it.
I spoke to Mr. Pond at the Royal Observatory, and it is indeed a comet.
I observed and tracked it for a while, but I wanted the discovery to be ours.
I was thinking we could use your middle name to identify it. ”