Page 70 of The Luckiest Lady in London

Impulsively, she gripped his shoulder as she passed him.

He glanced at her as if startled.

Their eyes remained locked for several seconds before she, a bit awkwardly, let go of him to see what he had found for her.

* * *

Before the eyepiece she gave a trembling, almost orgasmic sigh. “Is it—my goodness—it is Neptune? It really is blue, like the ocean.”

Her pleasure was bittersweet in Felix’s chest. He watched her. He had been watching her ever since they met and he suspected that he would go on watching her for the foreseeable future.

When she had admired Neptune as much as her heart desired, they went outside the observatory. It was a magnificent, moonless night, the stars a million gems carelessly strewn across a swath of black velvet, with the hazy stream of the Milky Way flowing from north to south.

She tilted her head back; the Swan and the Lyre dominated the zenith of the sky.

“Deneb, Vega, Altair.” She whispered the names of the stars that made up the Summer Triangle.

The strand of pearls twined into her hair glowed, tiny stars in their own right against the rich darkness of her hair. The soft blue lisse of her skirts billowed in the night breeze, a nimbus of captured starlight. Her sleeves, made of translucent gauze, were rings of fairy dust pooled around her upper arm.

“Thuban. Polaris. Capella.” He joined her in the naming of old friends, faithful companions of his nocturnal life.

She took his hand in hers. Next came something even more amazing: She rested her head on his shoulder.

He reciprocated by putting his arm around her waist, the chaos in his chest expanding to the size of the universe.

A sensation of agony, almost.

He could no longer deny it: He was hopelessly in love with her.

* * *

Louisa fought against the words that kept rising to the tip of her tongue.

This is the most perfect night of my life. You are the most beguiling man I have ever met. And I have this most terrifying urge to tell you that I love you. That I have loved you all along.

“Do you have a favorite star?” he murmured.

She was thankful to give an answer that had nothing to do with the impulses of her heart. “Algol.”

“The Demon Star?”

The star’s luminosity varied every few days, which fascinated her. “Yes. What about you?”

“The North Star, always.”

How odd that he should prefer something constant and stalwart, while she was drawn to the mysterious and ever shifting.

In the case of Algol, there was a scientific reason for its inconstancy: The star was most likely a binary system, the weaker star of which periodically passed before the brighter star, reducing its luminosity as seen from Earth.

But what was his reason for being unpredictable? When would his thoughtfulness and consideration again be eclipsed by an inexplicable onset of distance and coldness?

Keep your secret a little longer—it is something that cannot be unsaid.

* * *

“Thank you for a memorable evening,” she said, as they entered her bedroom.

“Is it?” Felix searched her face, hoping for something that would make him feel less desolate.