Him?
“Does Chaswick know—” He’d barely uttered the question before realizing that, of course, her brother didn’t know. There was no way in hell her brother would allow such a visit. Greys pinched between his eyes. Once again, losing the ability to think clearly around her.
This was why he’d wanted to marry for practical reasons. He was a man who followed his head, not his heart.
Fighting the desire to reacquaint himself with the taste of her lips, he unfastened the remaining buttons and drew the cape off her shoulders.
The gown she wore beneath it was a simple one, light and fresh, and it suited her very much.
Over the course of a single day, he hadmissedher. But not in the way one missed a friend. He missed her like he’d miss an arm or a leg.
He swallowed hard.
“Would you care for something to drink?” Watching her, he draped the heavy garment over the back of a chair.
“Normally, I would decline, but in this instance, I wouldn’t mind a sip of brandy.” She shivered and then laughed softly at herself.
Nervously.
Why had she come?
The possibilities were tantalizing, none of them proper or forgivable if she was ever found out.
Greys lifted the decanter he kept handy and poured them each a glass. Handing her one, he gestured for her to sit on the small settee and then lowered himself beside her.
“Have you had brandy before?”
She nodded and then raised the snifter to appreciate the bouquet. “It’s delightful.”
This woman somehow appreciated those things in life that brought the greatest enjoyment. The trouble was, she was apt to embrace them without first contemplating the ramifications of doing so.
“How was the musicale?” He wanted to know why she’d come here, but he also just wanted to enjoy having her here, in the place where he retreated to find the truth—that which was pure and undiluted by wealth and birth and norms.
She laughed. “It was pleasant until one of the violin strings broke. They stopped to repair it but nothing was in tune afterward. I have bruises on my side from Bethany poking me with her elbow, trying to keep me from laughing. But how could I stop when even Chaswick could barely contain himself?”
“I wish I’d been there to see that.” It was the truth, too. He sat listening to her uniquely unvarnished descriptions of the audience’s response to an out-of-tune performance. He laughed out loud a few times, but mostly he just enjoyed… her.
She swallowed the last of her brandy and then glanced across the room at his telescope. “What do you use it for?”
“To document the night sky.” Greys kept his answer as simple as possible since most people weren’t genuinely interested in his hobby.
Diana tilted her head and then rose to cross the room. “Why?”
It was an interesting question, which also happened to be one of his favorites when it came to astronomy, philosophy, and mathematics.
“Because.” He pushed himself off the settee and followed her to the spot where he spent many nights alone, looking through the eye-piece and making his notes and drawings. “The more one documents, the more one can study movement and change and then apply a theory. With that theory in mind, the astronomer documents, and studies again, in search of an even greater understanding.”
“I thought only sailors found studying the night particularly useful. What does a Marquess in the middle of London need to understand about the stars?”
“True, the original purpose of studying the stars was for sailors to determine their location and direction based on the position of various celestial objects. But by learning the points of light, the stars, planets, and asteroids as they exist together, we stand to learn who we are, as a world relative to the entire universe.
“Can I look?”
“Of course.” Placing his hand on her back, Greys assisted her into the chair. Only a few moments earlier, he’d been sitting there, lacking the usual enthusiasm he felt for his very personal endeavor.
This minx steps into his observatory, and he is suddenly bursting at the seams to share it with someone. Not just someone—with her.
“Close this eye,” he grazed a finger over one delicate brow and then explained what she was seeing and how mirrors captured and magnified the images.
