Page 6 of A Lady's Stardust Passion
“Yes, it is.”
“Ah, that makes sense.” His dark eyes gleamed. “I would have remembered you if you had been in the season last year.” He grinned again, and Jane wanted to be ill.
Was this what Margaret meant by all the handsome and eligible gentlemen in the room?
She made it through the dance, but she hardly had time to breathe before the gentlemen came, one by one, to sign her dance card and to whisk her away to the dance floor. This was not exactly what she had expected by attention, but while she’d been annoyed at first, she was glad for the distraction. However, there was just one thing that niggled at her mind.
Where was Lord Balwood to ask her to dance? But she did not see him, and she tried to put him out of her mind. After what felt like hours, Jane made her excuses and escaped out of the ballroom and onto the balcony before her latest admirer could chase after her.
She closed her eyes and pressed her back against the cold stone, listening to the faint sound of music as well as the sound of her own hurried breath.
It will be over soon, and then I can return home to my books and charts and drawings.
With a little smile, she stepped forward and glanced up at the night sky. Stars had always calmed her, ever since she was little.
“It is in the blood,” her mother had told her more years ago than Jane could remember.
Even though logic told her that her mother’s interest in the stars was what spurred Jane on to love them just as much, it did feel sometimes that it was in her blood. There was sort of a warm peace that came over her whenever she stared up at the night sky.
She could see all the constellations like painted objects on a canvas, and sometimes, on a perfectly clear night, she couldalmost see the stars pointing her way towards her future unknown journey.
The journey that may have to wait until someone could be found. Someone who understands.
Her smile fell as looking at the stars made her think of her mother and the keen loss that didn’t seem to get any better. Of course, the edges of grief had dulled over time, but still, the loss felt like an aching chasm inside.
“Might I be of assistance?” A familiar, smooth, low voice startled her, and she turned with a gasp to see none other than the Marquess of Balwood standing before her, looking even more handsome than before.
Chapter 5
Nathaniel’s mother would kill him if she found out that he was out on the balcony trying to hide away from the guests instead of being a proper host for his sister’s coming-out ball. But right then, seeing that Lady Jane was out there as well, just the two of them, made any future scolding worth it. He would not leave that place for anything.
“Oh, no,” she said hurriedly, turning away, and he thought she wiped a tear away with her gloved hand. “I am very well, thank you. I was simply admiring the starry sky and getting a breath of fresh air.”
“Ah,” he said, turning to the balustrade and leaning forward, his elbows on it as he stared at the stars above them too. He took a deep breath. “There is something calming about looking at the stars, isn’t there? As if all the problems in the world are gone with the reminder that you are simply a tiny speck in the universe.”
“My thoughts exactly,” she said brightly. He turned to look at her, and his heart flipped when he saw her smile.
It lit up her eyes. It changed her face in a way so different to when he’d seen her nervously at the front door. She seemed invigorated and even more beautiful, if that was possible. Hewas glad she spoke first, for he wasn’t certain that he would have been able to find his words right then.
“My mother was an astronomer of sorts,” she told him. “She traveled all over with her uncle and saw so many interesting things, marking her findings along the way in her many journals. I too enjoy studying the stars, and so I find them just as comforting. My lord.” She’d added the title hurriedly, as if fearing she was being disrespectful by speaking so heatedly.
He thought she was blushing too, but it was hard to tell in the torchlight. “It seems we have more in common than we might have expected, Lady Jane.” He smiled, his heart drumming away in his chest as he turned his gaze back toward the stars.
“My grandfather travelled widely too, and he also had a love of stars. He was gifted at mapmaking; that was his true passion. But he is lost to me now, although he did leave me a shared passion for the same thing.”
“Maps? Or do you too study the stars?”
“When I can, but it seems that so many things take my time of late.” He glanced towards the open balcony doors and the drifting sound of light music coming through them. He straightened, turning towards her, his one hand still pressing against the balustrade.
He hadn’t intended it, but the motion brought them closer than they were before, and even more so when she turned towards him as well. She looked up at him, her beautiful blue eyes watching him.
He had never seen such eyes before, eyes that threatened his composure, threatened to make him do things he might never have done before. His skin buzzed and tingled with the urge to reach out and grasp her, and it took everything in him to quell that urge and keep his hands at his sides.
“You must miss him. Your grandfather,” she said kindly and softly, her voice tracing along his mind like a soft caress.
He clenched his jaw, wondering how one person could create such heights of lust and desire that made him nearly woozy.
“Yes, I miss him terribly. It sounds as though you too have lost your mother.”
