Viola followed the earl to the doors at the back of the hall. In the summer they often stood open, presenting a beautiful vista over the gardens, bowling green, and the ancient oaks that lined the road to the stables. Tonight all those sights were covered in piles of snow, and the raw air made her eyes water as they stepped out. She clasped her arms around herself and stayed close to the door, sheltered from the wind.
“It’s a bit cold,” said the earl sympathetically, looking unaffected by the temperature himself. “But look.” He raised his arm and swept one hand across the skies.
She put back her head and gasped. It had been snowing heavily all evening, but now it almost looked like a hole had opened in the sky. Clouds still ringed the horizon and hovered over the tops of the trees, but directly above them was a jeweled canopy of stars, sparkling against the black velvet of the night.
“There is Polaris,” said the earl, pointing. “And there is Sirius.” He pointed toward the far left horizon.
“Goodness,” breathed Viola. “You can see everything! There—look—the Cork Nebula lies there!” In excitement she pointed as well.
Winterton looked at her in amazement. “The Cork Nebula! How do you know that?”
“My brother is studying mathematics and astronomy at Cambridge,” she said, still gazing raptly at the stars. “The Cork Nebula is at the heart of Perseus. There is Pegasus, and Lyra, and—oh—such a beautiful view of Vega!”
The earl’s eyes moved back to the sky. “I have no idea which stars are in Pegasus,” he said after a moment. “I only know a few points of navigation.”
“That’s not even one star in a thousand,” said Viola with a laugh.
“What else do you see?” He stepped closer, until their shoulders were touching. Viola felt the warmth of him beside her like a roaring fire.
Stars. She focused on the sky and pointed east. “There is Pollux.” It was easy to find, nice and bright. “And there south of it is the belt of Orion. The Spanish call them Las Tres Marias. The ones in asterisms are easier to find.”
“Marvelous,” murmured the earl, his head tipped back, giving her a perfect view of his profile.
“Stephen would have spent every night outside, pointing them out to me. Our mother made him come inside, and he would sleep under an open window, even in the dead of winter.” She smiled in memory.
“Mathematics and astronomy. How impressive.”
She nodded. “Stephen’s brilliant. I wouldn’t be at all astonished if his name is as famous as Mr. Herschel’s some day.”
The earl was staring at her. “I’d no idea you had a brother, Mrs. Cavendish.”
“Only one, younger.” She raised her brows in fun. “Ought you to know all my family?”
He laughed ruefully. “Forgive me. Of course not. I have inflicted my family on you, and that really should be enough.”
“Inflicted! Lord Newton is hardly that bad . . .” She paused at his expression. “Perhaps writing a painful death for you as king was a bit much.”
He snorted. “What is your brother like?”
“Brilliantly clever,” she said at once. “We knew from the time he was six that he should go to Cambridge. My father was a sea captain, and he taught Stephen how to navigate by the stars.”
“A sea captain! And you never had the desire to go away?” The earl clasped his hands behind him and studied her with interest.
She smiled wistfully. “I never had the chance! Females, I was told, are not very welcome on ships . . . But Stephen went on a few journeys with him, where he noticed nothing but the stars overhead. Once my father showed him how to use the sextant—well! My brother barely pays attention to anything on earth now when an idea seizes him. His passions are stars and nebulae and planets, how they move and how they change appearance, and how he might possibly improve his telescope so that he can see them better. When he’s working on a calculation, he forgets to speak to anyone, to eat, even to sleep.”
Winterton shook his head in amazement. “I always admired those fellows at university.”
“I can’t even imagine an entire college of them,” she said honestly. “Stephen alone amazes me.”
Winterton chuckled. “I doubt one chap in ten at Cambridge works that hard at his studies as all that. But here—you’re shivering.”
Viola realized she was. “We’d better go back inside.”
He opened the door and touched her back lightly as she went back in. Viola felt that touch through all the layers of cloth between them. Do not make anything of it, she told herself. “Thank you,” she told the earl as he bolted the door behind them. “For showing me the sky.”
“It may be snowing again by morning.”
“I know.” Viola smiled. “But it was beautiful for that moment.”
His blue gaze felt like a caress on her face. “Yes. Very beautiful.” She flushed with pleasure, as if he’d paid her a great compliment. He reached up and gently brushed a few flakes of melting snow from her hair. “Like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright . . .”
Kiss me, she thought, feeling herself falling into his mesmerizing eyes. Viola stopped breathing as the force of the thought hit her. “Marlowe?” she asked breathlessly, trying to jolt herself out of it.
“Byron, I believe.” He fingered a loose curl of her hair, studying it for a moment before smoothing it behind her ear. “We could check, in the library.”
The library would be dark and deserted and private now. Anything might happen there, just between the two of them. She should go back to the charades, remember her duty, and not let poetry and starlight go to her head. Slowly she nodded. “Yes. Yes, we could.”
Something shifted in
