He shook his head, but with a smile. “Show me. Do we go outside?”
“That’s best.” She didn’t want him to laugh at part of her traditions, but she couldn’t deny herself his company.
They went to the great doors, and he swept up someone’s abandoned shawl for her in passing. The solitary footman hurried to open the doors, blankly uncritical of the insanity of venturing outside in the middle of a winter’s night.
As they stepped out onto the terrace at the top of the double curve of stairs, icy air shocked Genova’s skin. But then Ash wrapped the shawl around her shoulders, creating a whole string of pearls with his touch alone.
Here, in the dark beneath the stars, she felt they were truly alone together for the first time.
He looked up, breathing in as if relishing fresh air. It was a still, peaceful night, and not bitterly cold. Genova inhaled, too, searching the brilliantly starry sky. She pointed. “There it is!”
“My dear Genova, that is Jupiter.”
She smiled up at the bright spot. “I know, but tonight it’s the Christmas Star.”
She felt his hand warm and companionable on her back. “The Star of Bethlehem was probably a comet, I’m afraid.”
She turned her back to the stone balustrade, looking at him rather than the planet. “Did you see Halley’s comet in 1758?”
“Of course. Where were you?” Then his mouth twitched up in a smile. “I mean, where in the world? How strange to ask a lady that.”
“Ladies staying safely home in England? Your experience is somewhat limited, sir.”
He touched her cheek. “There aren’t many who would think that.”
Heat uncoiled inside her so that the mist of her breath could almost be steam. “Halifax,” she blurted. “In Nova Scotia. Where were you?”
“London. Or rather, at a house I maintain near Greenwich.”
“Near the observatory?” What a puzzle box he was. Each exchange revealed something new, and she was already addicted to discovery. “You have an interest in stars?”
“You make me sound like a dreamer.”
“You forget that you’re talking to a naval captain’s daughter.”
“Yes, of course. Can you navigate?”
“I know something of the art. My father taught me many things when he had the time.”
Her thoughts slipped to her father, and the sadness of change. Ash brought her back with a touch on her cheek.
“Shall I buy you a ship so you can sail into your dreams?”
“I thought you were hard-pressed for money?”
“Only on the scale of a marquessate. I have an interest in some voyages being planned to record the transit of Venus in 1768. Would you like to go?”
She laughed in perplexity. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, but they’d never take a woman. And no, I’ve done with the oceans. Will you go?”
He looked past her, then, to the horizon and the stars. “It’s not my destiny. Like most of my ancestors, I send others in my place, to adventure and to war.”
She took his hand, offering comfort as he had offered it to her earlier. “I heard a rumor that one of your ancestors was Charles II. He traveled and fought.”
“Unwillingly.” His thumb rubbed gently against her palm. “He’s reputed to have refused to convert to Roman Catholicism because he’d no mind to go wandering again.”
“Ishe your ancestor? I’m quite awed at the thought of royal blood.”
He shrugged. “Family legend says that he was my great-grandfather, but as we’ve established, it’s impossible to ever be certain who fathered whom.”
