Chapter 5 #2
She reminded him of a hummingbird. Quick bursts of motion interspersed by floating, ethereal pauses. A creature so tiny and shy she was easy to overlook, but if you were allowed close enough, you discovered feathers and features unmatched in exceptional and vivid beauty.
Lord, if she turned him into a poet, he’d eat his own bullets.
And yet…was it a terrible idea to introduce himself to the woman he was about to marry?
To learn about her, as well?
“Never seen more than a shooting star,” he muttered, shoving his fists in his pockets to hide the evidence of violence as he meandered to the dais.
“Then you’ve observed a meteor,” she explained, her back still to him as she focused on the contraption.
“They’re chunks of rock and metal believed to be broken off large asteroids and burned up in our atmosphere.
So they’re closer to us than even the moon.
Some of them find their way to the earth’s surface and those are called—” Suddenly she straightened as if someone had poked her in the back, whirling to face him.
“Oh dear. Forgive me. It wasn’t my intention to condescend. I—I forget myself sometimes.”
Eli cocked his head. “Forget what?”
“That…” She hesitated, her eyes darting quickly as if searching for the right words. “That men aren’t fond of being instructed by a woman. Of course, you knew about meteors already.”
“I don’t know anything about meteors.” Eyes narrowing, Eli wondered why she looked so pale. So panicky. “I’ve spent most of my life under the ground, picking the earth apart to find her alloys. Never had much use for the sky other than to know the time of day or night or the weather, I guess.”
“Oh, Mr. Wolfe, that’s so sad.”
Where he came from, you punched a man for pitying you. It was something to avoid at all costs. But the look of pure compassion on her face melted some sort of tight, hard tension from his shoulders and tugged at something beneath his ribs.
“Well anyway…” He rested one foot on the step of the dais, leaning on the railing that encapsulated the telescope’s domain. “Most of the useful shi—er—stuff I know, I learned from women. So, I’m not particular about where my information comes from, gender-wise, anyhow.”
She regarded him warily. “Then you are very different from the men in my family, sir.”
“You mean Morley?”
She tugged at the lace cuff of her sleeve, worrying it idly.
“I don’t know Morley terribly well. I—I wasn’t raised with his wife.
He seems to know just about everything there is to know about everything, so I can’t say I’ve ever tried to explain much to him.
I was more referring to my father and…and my uncle who raised us after Mother passed. ”
A prurient curiosity tempted him to ask, “Your father’s death caused quite a scandal, I hear. Bigamy and fraud. Two families kept secret from each other. How many siblings do you have, exactly, and where do you fit into the equation?”
At his query, all that was open and vibrant about her changed. She shuttered the windows and closed the storm doors, her eyes opaque and her features devoid of expression as she stared past him. “I’m the youngest of seven.”
He let out a low whistle, trying to keep it nonchalant. “Always wondered what a big family was like, guess I’m going to learn quickly. Tell me about them. What would we have in common?”
Her mouth fell open. “I’m sorry?”
“One thing I learned in business was that it helps to find familiar ground with people, something to compliment them on and to discuss at events. Marriage is essentially a business contract. A merger of two families. Besides, if they’re all going to be at our wedding, I’ll need something to converse with them about. ”
An adorable crease appeared in her forehead as she seemed to ponder both him and his request with equal fervency.
“Well… The Eldest is Honoria, Nora, we call her, is married to Dr. Titus Conleith, one of the most celebrated surgeons in the world. You should very probably donate to his surgical centre, and all you must do to get Honoria’s favor is compliment their son, William. He’s the light of their lives.”
Eli’s lip quirked. “That I can do, who else?”
“Emmaline is still at Fairhaven at present, looking after animals and interests there, but she’ll be along for the wedding, I’m certain. Her favor is not easily won, but she’s as loyal a person as one can be and is mad for horses, if you know much about them.”
“I guess I know more about them than I do about stars and meteors,” Eli shrugged. “I’ll bet she can teach me something new.”
That earned him a look of cautious approval, which lit some sort of glow deep in his belly.
“You know Pru and Morley,” she continued, wrinkling her nose as she did some calculations in her head. “I don’t suppose there is time for the twins, Felicity and Mercy, to return with their husbands, Gabriel and Raphael Sauvageau.”
“Wait, you’re telling me twins married brothers?”
She nodded, smiling fondly. “Not just brothers, former gangsters and smugglers from Monaco. They’ve retired now, as I understand it, and are happy to lavish their fortunes and their favors on their wives.
Mercy is a strong-willed woman with an enormous heart and a penchant for investigation.
Felicity keeps to herself and her books, though she’s lovely company once she gets to know you. She’s also endlessly generous.”
“I understand she willingly gave up her inheritance to your brother, Emmett,” he mused. “Never heard of anyone doing something like that.”
She shook her head as if still trying to make sense of it. “Nor I.”
“Your brother seemed…” Eli remembered back to when the clan had found him in her bedroom.
The wiry fellow with a pretty shape to his face and with eyes as soft as his sister’s.
Man was a Baron. He ran one of the largest and most profitable shipping companies in the whole of Europe and could barely look anyone in the eye.
“Shy,” was the only word he could come up with.
Rosaline’s expression tightened with a defensiveness he’d not expected.
“He’s studious and brilliant, elegant and soft-spoken and, most importantly, he’s kind.
I very much wish more men were of his ilk.
He’s had to face unimaginable adversity because of what our father did.
The shame he brought…” She looked down, her expression coloring.
“People can be so cruel. I’m sorry you’ll be likewise blighted by our alliance. ”
“Hey.” He stepped up onto the dais and went to her, tucking a finger beneath her chin and lifting her face to his. “I’ve got nothing against shy folks, so your brother and I are going to get along just fine.”
A mysterious moisture turned her eyes luminescent as she valiantly fought it. “I—I hope so.”
“And as for the other thing,” he continued, stronger this time.
“No wife of mine is going to look down in shame, you got that? I realize scandal is a powerful tool in this country, but you’re under my protection now.
I’m tough enough to take whatever the gossip mill spews out, and I’ll rip out the tongue that speaks against you. ”
It seemed to astonish her just as much as it did himself how fervently he spoke the words.
How ardently he meant them.
“I-I hope that won’t be necessary, Mr. Wolfe.
” Her throat worked around a swallow before she extricated herself from his fingers and turned to the table upon which the telescope’s logbook sat.
With stiff, efficient motions, she flipped open the pages and became absorbed with some numbers in arrangements he couldn’t begin to identify.
He watched her withdrawal with a pensive regret that bordered on diffidence. Men like her brother wouldn’t say shit like he did. Studious men—elegant, brilliant, soft-spoken…kind. Eli was none of those things.
It wasn’t like he didn’t understand that some women found him appealing, but they were largely frontier women. The hearty kind that judged a man’s desirability on how well he could build a fence rather than turn a waltz.
The rules here were different.
She was different.
As if sensing the intensity of his regard, she glanced aside at him. “Erm…Do you have siblings, Mr. Wolfe?” Her question was a not-so-subtle attempt to break the awkwardness that’d bloomed between them, and he was happy to oblige.
Looking away, he tamped down on a surge of familiar pain.
“Nah.” He leaned his hip against the table, doing his best not to crowd her as he watched her check and recheck the measurements he’d messed up when he’d startled her. “It’s just me in the world.”
“Your upbringing must have been rather lonely, then,” she said distractedly, making a neat notation in a margin.
“It was fuc—I mean—pretty crowded, actually,” he chuckled.
“See, my pa was killed in the Civil War and my ma went west with a wagon company. She died of pneumonia not two years after, which is how I ended up working in a Nevada iron mine at ten years old. I slept in a bunkhouse with twelve other boys and men and never had a moment of goddamn—er—darned peace and quiet.”
Somewhere in his explanation, she’d quit writing, her pencil frozen over the paper. Once he finished, she arched her graceful neck to look at him, her chin touching her shoulder. “I don’t mind if you curse, Mr. Wolfe, if that is your way.”
He had the most ridiculous notion to squirm beneath her direct gaze. “I should watch my mouth around ladies,” he muttered.
Her shoulder lifted, and she tilted her head in a pose most alluring. “Not on my account. I find it sort of…charming.”
A bark of mirth escaped him. “Now I know you’re lyin’.”
“Well, let us say it’s refreshing,” she amended. “We women are so cossetted, left so far outside the realm of men. I often wonder what they talk about in their smoke-filled rooms while swirling their brandy or port. What forbidden words they say to each other.”
Eli pulled a face. “You…probably don’t want to know. You’d either be bored or disgusted.”
“I’m not easily bored,” she informed him.