“Here,” said Lachlan, patting the space beside him as he folded his legs and lowered himself to the ground. “Ye can see it better when ye’re laying down.”
Slipping out of her wrap, she gave it a quick shake and then placed it on the grass like a blanket before sitting next to Lachlan with her knees drawn to her chest. Their shoulders bumped. Accidentally at first, and then on purpose when he gave her a playful nudge.
“See that?” he said, raising his arm and pointing to a section of sky straight above their heads. “Where the stars come together tae form a line with a spoon at the end. That’s called The Plough. It’s a constellation.”
“A constellation?” she repeated, unfamiliar with the term.
“Aye,” he said, sounding surprised that she didn’t know what it meant. “We’ve a massive telescope at Eton. It has its own room and everything. Havena ye looked through one before?”
Shyly, she shook her head.
Dresses and embroidery. Teapots and dancing. Such silly, useless things when compared to the vast openness of the universe and all of the wisdom it contained. While she was learning how to be a perfect wife, Lachlan was looking through telescopes.
She knew that young girls weren’t meant to be curious.
But all Brynne had were questions.
“Can you teach me?” she asked. “About the constellations.”
Resting her head on Lachlan’s shoulder, she followed the direction of his finger as it swerved from one cluster of twinkling stars to another.
“There’s Aquarius. The first I ever found. And that one, there. The zig-zag? That’s Cassiopeia. Over here we should have…aye, there it is. Leo. It’s my favorite because it looks like a–”
“A horse,” she said, her eyes shining as she traced invisible lines between the cluster of stars.
Lachlan grinned. “I was going tae say lion.”
“Who named them all?”
“Greek astronomers, for the most part.”
“Is that what you hope to be one day? An astronomer?”
His shoulder lifted her head ever-so-slightly as he gave a small shrug. “I like tae look at the stars, but I’m meant for other things. My dreams are here, on the ground. What about ye, Bry? Where are yer dreams?”
“Everywhere. And nowhere.” Her lips twisting in a rueful smile, she sat up straight and hugged her legs more closely to her chest. “My future is already planned out for me. Next year, I’ll attend Cheltenham, and then make my debut in London Society. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be engaged before Christmas and married in the spring. Children will follow after that. Two boys, preferably.”
“And is that what ye want?” Lachlan asked, studying her closely.
No one had ever asked her that before.
Whatshewanted.
Not even Weston.
Perhaps because there was no point.
What elsecouldshe want from her life, other than what was already planned for her?
Were she a man in possession of her own fortune, she might have been an astronomer. Or a doctor. Or a philosopher. Even a detective. Or nothing at all. Instead, as a girl on the brink of womanhood, her path was clearly marked. She was to become a wife and then a mother. With no way to make her own fortune (even her dowry wasn’t her own), there weren’t any other avenues available to her. No other achievements to be made. No other dreams to pursue.
Oh, she might always choose to be a spinster. Live alone in a cottage on the sea with her knitting and her cats. Except even then, she’d be relying upon the generosity of her father and brother. They’d never go so far to turn her out into the cold. But she would live with the knowledge that she was a disappointment to them, and that she hadn’t done as she was meant to.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly, scratching her fingernail at a spot of mud on her skirt. “I should think that I would like to be a wife, someday. Maybe. I guess. And a mother after that. But is that what I want because I’ve beentoldthat is what I should want? Or do I want it because it is something I really do desire?”
Lachlan frowned. “Ye should never do something just because it’s expected of ye.”
“No, I suppose not.” She was quiet for a moment. “I’d like to travel. I’ve never seen much of the world. London, and Bath, and Sussex. A bit of Scotland. But I’d like to see Paris and Brussels. New York and Boston. Egypt and Mumbai.”
