Chapter 23
The thought left an unexpected hollowness in its wake. Darcy deserved better than to become another pleasant memory he carried for a time and eventually forgot. And then there was Red. He would have to end their affair as well, a prospect that felt equally impossible.
Irritation stirred within Sebastian at the realization.
Why the devil had these two women become so thoroughly entangled in his thoughts?
He did not indulge in romantic nonsense.
Never had. His lovers entered his life with clear expectations and departed with equal clarity.
They sought pleasure. So did he. No promises.
No lingering sentiment. No needless complication.
It had always been enough. Why, then, was it no longer enough?
As though summoned by the question, Red rose unbidden in his mind.
The memory of her husky voice, the hidden smile beneath her mask, and the forbidden heat that flared whenever she looked at him sent a sharp pulse of longing through him.
Sebastian nearly laughed. In all his eight-and-twenty years, despite having several lovers, he had never found himself captivated by two women at once. He missed Red and desired Darcy, and for perhaps the first time in his life, Sebastian confronted a problem for which logic offered no solution.
“They are beautiful,” Darcy whispered, still peering through the telescope. “It is impossible to look upon them and not feel both very small and wonderfully curious. What lies beyond all we can see? I wish to know so much.” She slowly lifted her head. “There is something humbling in it.”
She laughed softly, the sound carrying lightly through the open air. “Is it not captivating, my lord?”
Sebastian looked not at the heavens, but at the woman standing before them. “Yes,” he said quietly.
Darcy smiled, believing they spoke of the stars. “I am quite content to watch them the entire night. Those clouds in the distance, however, appear equally determined to end our delightful excursion.”
The faint rumble of thunder had begun some time ago, rolling across the distant horizon, yet neither had made any move to return.
Darcy straightened, reluctantly relinquishing the telescope to him. “I noticed you had three telescopes in your library.”
“You did?”
A shoulder rose in an elegant shrug. “I notice a great many things.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Clearly.”
He rested a hand upon the polished brass tube. “There are several kinds of telescopes, each designed with a different purpose in mind. This one is an achromatic refractor.”
She regarded the instrument with renewed interest. “Achromatic?”
“The earliest refracting telescopes relied upon a single lens. They brought distant objects closer, but surrounded bright stars with colored fringes of blue and crimson.”
“How disappointing.”
“Quite. John Dollond corrected much of the difficulty by combining lenses made from different kinds of glass, producing a sharper and clearer image.” He gave the brass tube an affectionate pat. “This instrument came from Dollond’s ingenuity and hard work.”
“So I owe Mr. Dollond my gratitude for introducing me to the heavens properly.”
How pretty you are when you smile. The thought came with such unguarded tenderness that it unsettled him more than the desire steadily cutting through his self-command. “I suspect Mr. Dollond would have been delighted to hear it.”
She glanced toward the manor. “And the others?”
“One is a reflecting telescope. Rather than gathering light with lenses, it employs a polished mirror. They are excellent instruments and reveal remarkable detail, though they demand rather more patience to maintain.”
“That sounds troublesome.”
“It can be. Mirrors require frequent adjustment, and I confess I lack the temperament to fuss over one every time I wish to observe the sky.”
She laughed, the sound warm in the cool night air.
“The third is a smaller spyglass,” he continued. “It travels with me. It is useful for surveying the countryside, watching a hunt, or admiring a distant church steeple, but it cannot compare to this for observing the stars.”
Darcy’s fingertips drifted lightly over the cool brass before she looked back at the heavens. “You speak of them as though they are old friends. I can feel your passion.”
Sebastian’s gaze followed hers. “Once, sitting here beneath the sky was my greatest adventure. My father introduced me to the stars when I was little older than Sarah. Whenever the night was clear, he brought me outside and insisted there was no finer ceiling than one fashioned by God Himself. Later, when I felt lonely and bereft, the stars kept me company. There was comfort in looking upward and knowing they remained unchanged.”
“You were lonely here?” Darcy asked softly.
He looked at her then. “At times.”
“I cannot imagine anyone looking at you and believing you might require companionship.”
“Most people see only what rank permits them to see.”
Her expression softened. “I think that must be a very lonely thing in itself.”
It was an observation too perceptive for his comfort. “I have few complaints in life.”
“Did… did you ever ask your father why you were not permitted to form friendships as a child?”
Sebastian stared at her, almost bemused by the gentle curiosity gleaming in her eyes.
He could not recall ever speaking of his childhood to a friend, much less to a woman.
He had always existed firmly within the present.
What purpose was served by lingering upon the past or dreaming of a future that might never arrive?
Still, it pleased him that she wished to know. Far more than it ought.
“He encouraged me to form connections with young lords who were properly devoted to their duties,” Sebastian said.
“But playing merely for the pleasure of it was, in his estimation, an indulgence better suited to boys of the lower classes. A part of me understood his reasoning. Though I was often lonely, I do not recall resenting him for it. I eventually formed friendships at Eton and university.”
She tucked a wisp of hair behind her ears. “Your father always encouraged us to play, even when my mother believed we should always conduct ourselves more like young ladies.”
A tense sensation passed through Sebastian’s chest. He had wondered more than once what his father had been like with the family he had kept hidden, but he had always thrust the question aside before it could take shape. “He had different expectations for me.”
“Of course,” she said softly. “You were his heir.”
Though she attempted to sound brisk and unaffected, Sebastian heard the ache beneath the words.
“What was it like,” he asked, “having him in your life?”
Her eyes widened. “I… I scarcely recall a time when he was not part of it. Your father made my mother happy. She smiled whenever he entered a room.” Darcy swallowed, her expression softening beneath the weight of memory.
“And he loved me. I can say that with certainty because I felt it. When I escaped into the fields to catch frogs or butterflies, he would sit beneath a tree with a book and watch over me from the shade. He never complained or ordered me back to the house. He was always so very patient.”
Her eyes shimmered with raw emotion. “He was the only father I ever knew, and he never treated me differently from Sarah, Jane, or Emelia.”
“With Caroline and me, he possessed a sterner nature,” Sebastian said.
“Gentlemanly and ladylike conduct were expected of us at all times. Yet he was not entirely without whimsy. He took us onto the lake on many Sunday afternoons. He taught me to hunt and climb trees. When Caroline was old enough to follow me everywhere, I insisted she accompany us, and he allowed it, though she frightened the life from him more than once.”
A tender smile curved Darcy’s mouth. “He was a good father.”
Silence settled between them, and Sebastian made no effort to disturb it.
“I am sorry,” she said after a moment. “I never told you how deeply I regret arriving in your life without considering what the truth might do to you. It must have hurt terribly.”
That damnable wrenching sensation scythed through his heart once more.
“You need not apologize,” he said gruffly. “I know that a good man may still possess grave faults. I cannot condemn my father entirely or allow this secret to destroy every memory I have of him. He gave me too much kindness, too much guidance, for me to resent him without measure.”
The emotion in her gaze told him what she did not say. She hoped his mother and Caroline might one day prove equally accepting. “They will never know,” he said flatly.
A soft sound escaped her, and she turned away, looking over the countryside now silvered by the light of the half-moon.
“Would you raise your own children in the same manner?” she asked, making an obvious attempt to guide their conversation elsewhere.
“I have given very little thought to imaginary children.”
“Does that mean you possess no desire to marry and have a family, my lord?”
“Eventually, of course. I know my duty.”
“Duty?”
“Surely you, of all people, understand duty, Miss Whitley.”
She regarded him as though she wished to reach beneath the cool facade he presented to the world and uncover every carefully guarded truth.
“I understand that, as an earl, you have obligations to your tenants, your family, and the realm. But I do not believe one should marry solely for the sake of duty. What joy or contentment could ever be found in such a union?”
“Ah. So you are one of those incurable romantics.”
Darcy laughed. She was loveliness itself.
By God, beneath the pale light of the moon, she seemed almost fashioned from it.
That soft, persistent desire unfurled inside him once more, and Sebastian tensed against it.
Would there ever come a time when he could look at her without wanting to touch her?
Without wondering how her mouth might feel beneath his?