Night of a Thousand Stars

Father’s look to me was kindly. “Because she went to the trouble to find out my address some weeks back. I’m sorry, child, but your Aunt Portia has never been particularly good at keeping secrets. She told me you asked for my address, and I hoped you would come to me if you needed me.”

“Thank you, Father,” I said, almost inaudibly.

“Now, I know you want to abuse her further, Araminta, and I won’t say she hasn’t acted quite badly. I’m sure you, Mr. Hammond, are out quite a few of your American dollars on this wedding that almost was,” Father said.

Reginald looked uncomfortable as he always did where money was concerned. “Well, if it made her happy,” he said, trailing off.

“Yes, well, I think we can all agree it did not make her happy. In fact, I daresay the child doesn’t know what will. But she needs rest and time to discover that.”

Mother gathered up her resolve and opened her mouth, but Father lifted his hand again.

“No, Minty. I will give you full credit for raising a lovely girl. She’s audacious and brave and passably clever, I’d say, and, like all Americans, beautifully groomed. But she’s also limp with exhaustion, and a scene with you is the last thing she needs. Leave her here with me. For one month. At the end of that time, I will deliver her to London myself to face the consequences of her actions.”

The fight seemed suddenly to go out of Mother and I stared, rapt. I had never known anyone, not even Reginald, to handle her so deftly. I could see him paying close attention—I only hoped he was taking notes. Mother sniffled a little, capitulating under Father’s masterful handling. “I don’t know what to do with her, Plum. I never did. She’s exhausting, always asking questions and never satisfied just to be. There’s always something new she wants to do, some new scheme to try. Cookery classes and psychology courses and driving lessons, and none of them ever finished. It’s one mad idea after another and so much...she’s just so...so March.”

Father smiled thinly. “Blood will out, dear Minty. Now, go back to London with your appallingly healthy and boisterous brood of Americans and let me sort this out. Perhaps you could send down some clothes for her if you think about it. She can’t totter about like Miss Havisham in her wedding finery.”

Mother rose. “Naturally, I’ve already thought of that. Her trousseau trunk is in the car.” She turned to my maid. “Masterman, we cannot expect you to continue in service with Miss Hammond after today’s debacle. We will naturally give you an excellent reference, a month’s wages, and a ride back to London. It was good of you to come this far.”

Masterman stirred. “On the contrary, madam, I should like to remain with Miss Hammond.”

Mother blinked. “Whatever for?”

Masterman’s expression did not change, but I had the strangest feeling Mother might have more easily shifted the Pyramids than moved Masterman from her decision. “Because it suits me, madam,” she replied quietly.

Mother shrugged. “Very well, but do not be surprised if you find you can’t stick it after all. Miss Hammond can be extremely trying to one’s nerves.” Mother turned and gave me a long look. “One month, Penelope. You have one month to figure out what it is that you want. This is the last time I will clear up a mess you’ve left behind.”

She turned on her heel and swept from the room. Reginald stepped forward, putting a kindly hand on my shoulder as I stared after her in dismay.

“Don’t fret, honey. I’ll settle her down. You just rest and don’t worry about anything. And I’ll put some money into your account,” he added softly. Dear Reginald, always solving everyone’s problems by throwing cash at them.

I summoned a smile and rose on tiptoe to press a kiss to his smoothly shaven cheek. “You really are a very nice man, Reginald.”

He ducked his head and shook hands with Father before following Mother out the door. Father sat back in his chair with an air of satisfaction.

“That man ought to be sainted,” he mused. “For miraculous fortitude.”

“Mother isn’t so bad,” I began automatically.

“She’s a nightmare,” Sebastian observed in a dry voice.

“Dear God, I almost forgot you were still here,” Father said, perking up. “It’s grown late. I suppose we shall have to offer you a place to sleep tonight. George can show you over to the inn. They’ve always a room in reserve for one of my guests, and they’ll be happy to accommodate you. As for you—Masterman, was it? There is an extra bed in the guest room upstairs. Help your mistress, there’s a good girl. I think Poppy is half-asleep on her feet.”

I started to protest that I could very easily make my own way upstairs, but Masterman had taken charge of the situation. I didn’t know if she was more put out at having to share a room or Father calling her a girl, but she pushed me firmly up the stairs and put me to bed with ruthless efficiency. I gave myself up to it, letting her bully me a little since it suited us both. She turned out the light and undressed swiftly, settling herself into the narrow extra bed.

“You didn’t have to stay on,” I told her sulkily. There had been a certain guilty glee in ridding myself of Gerald, but it was a little blunted with Masterman still there to make certain I didn’t do anything interesting.

“Yes, I did,” she said, her voice almost fierce in the darkness.

“But why?”

“My reasons belong to me, miss. Now go to sleep or you’ll look a fright in the morning,” she said.

So I did.

Three

The next morning Masterman busied herself unpacking my trunk while I found Father at breakfast. I murmured a greeting and slid into a chair, smiling widely at a glowering George who banged a pot of tea on the table in front of me and trudged off for a fresh rack of toast.

“Poor soul,” I said quietly. “I imagine he was in the war. Is it shell shock?”

Father lowered his newspaper and gave me a thoughtful look. “You mean his foul moods? No, no. George is a flat-footed Quaker, entirely unsuited to the soldiering life. He’s just churlish. But he is an excellent cook and I’ve never had whiter linen,” he finished. He went on looking at me intently.

“I behaved very badly, didn’t I? It all seemed so remote yesterday, as though it were happening to a stranger, but today...” I trailed off.

“Today it is news,” Father said, passing the newspaper.

There it was, in black and white for all to see. Viscount’s Heir Jilted By American Society Girl. I shook my head. “How awful it sounds. And I’m not really American,” I protested.

Father smiled. “Thank God for small mercies. At least you sound like one of us. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve seen you. You have a look of the Marches about you. Puts me quite in mind of your Aunt Julia when she was your age, although your hair is fairer.”

“If it weren’t for my aunts, I wouldn’t be in this frightful mess,” I said darkly.

Father raised his brows inquiringly, and before I knew quite what I was saying, the entire story tumbled out, starting with Aunt Portia’s gift of Married Love. I paused only while George brought in the toast, but as soon as he returned to the kitchen, I carried on.

“And that’s it, minus the gruesome details,” I added. I alluded to a fundamental incompatibility with Gerald, but there had been no actual mention of sex-tides. Some things a girl cannot share with even the most liberal of fathers. I gave him a smile. “You’ve been truly marvellous, and I know it can’t have been easy, not with Mother descending like all the plagues of Egypt yesterday.”

Father smiled again. “I can cope with Araminta. And I must say, I’m very glad you felt you could come to me. I know I’m little more than a stranger to you really.”

“But you aren’t,” I protested. “I had your letters. At least Mother let us correspond. And I always think letters are terribly intimate, don’t you? I mean, you can tell the page things you can’t ever say to a person’s face.”

“Heart’s blood in place of ink?” he asked, his eyes bright.

“Precisely. Although I seem to be doing a rather good job of telling you what I’m thinking now. I probably shouldn’t have told you any of it, but it seems that once I told it all to Mr. Cantrip yesterday, I can’t stop talking about it. Very freeing, I find.” I plucked a fresh piece of toast from the rack and buttered it liberally. “Of course, now I have to decide what to do with myself.”

“Surely that won’t be difficult.”

“Not for a person like you,” I said, nodding to the exquisite framed landscapes on the walls. “You’ve always had your painting. I’m simply hopeless. I was expensively educated to be decorative and charming and precious little else. Mother was right, you know. I never stick with anything because I don’t seem to be good at anything.”

“What have you tried?”

I shrugged. “All the usual nonsense they make you do at school, at least at schools for young ladies. Flower arranging, painting, music.”

“And none of those suit you?”

“My flower arrangements look like compost heaps, my paintings all look like bogs, and as for music, I have the keenest appreciation for it and no ability whatsoever to understand it. I think it’s because of the maths.”

“Maths?”

“Music is all mathematical, at least that’s what our music master told us. And I was frightful at maths, as well.”

“Rather a good thing your Uncle Lysander isn’t alive to hear you say it. He was a gifted composer, you know. You would have crushed him thoroughly.”

I gave him a sympathetic look. “I know I wrote at the time, but I really am quite sorry. I should have liked to have known him. Perhaps I can meet Aunt Violante and the children whilst I’m here.”

Father stared into the depths of his teacup as if looking for answers. He said nothing, and I moved on, my tone deliberately bright. “In any event, I’m hopeless at all the usual female things. All I seem to be good at is poking around into people’s lives. Headmistress used to say I could take a First in Gossip if it were on offer at Oxford.”

A ghost of a smile touched Father’s lips. “Your Aunt Julia is precisely the same. I sometimes wonder if Mr. Kipling met her somewhere and used her as the basis for his inquisitive mongoose. ‘Go and find out’ will be etched on her gravestone. But she has ended up doing well enough for herself.”

I rolled my eyes. “I should say. It is rather grand having a duchess in the family since I threw away my chance at being a peeress.”

“Believe me, child, being a duchess is the least of her accomplishments, and it was entirely unexpected. If it weren’t for peculiar Scottish peerage laws and half a dozen young men getting blown up in the war, her husband would never have succeeded to the dukedom. No, I wasn’t thinking of her rank, child. I was thinking of her work. She struggled with many of the same feelings you have. She found purpose in joining her husband’s work. I know it’s practically revolutionary to suggest it, but I don’t think idleness is good for young people—particularly not young people with money. It grinds away at the character until there’s nothing left.”

I tipped my head, thoughtful. “You think I ought to take a job? Like something in a shop?”

He smiled again. “I doubt a shopkeeper would want you if you’re hopeless at maths. I was thinking of something that excited you, stirred your sense of adventure. You need to be challenged, child. You need to see something of the world, and from some vantage point other than your stepfather’s yacht. Oh, I’ve seen the society columns,” he went on. “I know what it means to be the stepdaughter of a man like Reginald Hammond. You think you’ve seen the world because you’ve been to New York and Paris and Biarritz, but what have you really seen other than a pack of useless people exactly the same as the ones you left behind? Same old faces, same old places,” he pronounced.

I nodded. “You’re right, of course. There are times I want to simply scream with boredom. But I wouldn’t even know where to start to look for something useful to do.” My glance fell to the newspaper, and I grinned as I pointed to an article. “How about this? Apparently the famous aviatrix Evangeline Starke has disappeared in the Syrian desert. Perhaps I should give flying lessons a bash,” I added.

Father lifted an elegant brow. “I was thinking of something a trifle less life-threatening.”

I was about to suggest rally-car driving when George appeared in the doorway. “It’s that Mr. Cantrip,” he said darkly.

Father smoothed his turquoise waistcoat. “Very well. Send him through, George.”

I was still immersed in the article about Evangeline Merryweather Starke when Sebastian entered and Father greeted him coolly.

“Good morning, Mr. Cantrip. I trust you had a good night’s sleep at the inn?”

“Very good, thanks. Good morning, Miss March.” The name took me aback for a moment then I grinned to myself. I had played at being Miss Hammond for too long. It was time to reclaim my own name once and for all.

I looked up and flashed him a quick smile. “Good morning.” My face fell as I took a closer look at him. A spectacular bruise was blossoming on his jaw, and I jumped to my feet.

“Oh, heavens! It’s worse than I thought last night. I still can’t quite believe Gerald did that to you. He’s always seemed so mild-mannered.”

Sebastian touched his jaw ruefully. “Yes, well, apparently still waters run deep in his case.” He glanced down at the newspaper on the table. “I see you’ve the morning edition there. I suppose they’ve been rude about you?”

I pulled a face. “Brutal. As expected. One doesn’t just jilt a peer’s son with impunity,” I said with an attempt at lightness. “But I’m far more interested in this story about the aviatrix who’s gone missing in Syria.”

I handed the newspaper to Sebastian, who skimmed the article quickly. He gave it back without a word and I looked at him curiously. “Are you quite all right, Mr. Cantrip? You’ve gone very white under that bruise.”

Sebastian summoned a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Have I? I suppose it’s just the delayed effects of yesterday’s dramatics. Shock and all that. I’ll be right as rain in a bit.”

“Won’t you have some breakfast?” Father asked him, his expression thoughtful.

“No, sir, thank you. They fed me quite heartily at the inn. I merely wanted to pay my respects on my way back to London.”

“You’re going back? Already?” I masked the pang I felt with a quick smile. “Of course you are. You have a parish there, and I’ve managed to drag you away from it and through the muck. Shall I see you out?”

He followed me to the front door of the cottage.

“I know what you’re worried about,” I said, pitching my voice low. “But you aren’t named in the newspaper piece,” I assured him. “They haven’t any idea how I got away, and I won’t tell a soul. I ought to have realised what awful trouble you could get into by helping me, and I won’t forget it. Really, I owe you most dreadfully and I never forget a debt.”

He shook his head, his expression dazed. “You are a unique young woman, Miss March.” He hesitated on the doorstep. “I wish I didn’t have to dash away.”

“So do I,” I told him. “I feel as if I’ve just imposed on you horribly and haven’t had the chance to make it up to you.”

For an instant the buccaneer flash was back in his eyes, and I wondered just how hard he found it to be a properly behaved member of the clergy. “Would you like to make it up to me?”

I felt a thrill at his audacity, but I primmed my mouth, remembering propriety for once.

“Thank you. For everything.” I put out my hand, but he ignored it. Instead he settled both of his hands on my shoulders, leaning down to brush a quick kiss to my cheek. He hadn’t shaved, and his whiskers rasped a little against my skin. Before I could respond, he was gone, out the door and out of my life as quickly as he’d come.

I closed the door behind him feeling a little deflated and oddly nostalgic. He had been a perfect companion in my little adventure, and I could never have managed my escape without him. After months of Gerald’s chilly affections, being around Sebastian had been like basking in summer sunshine. It was absurd, I told myself firmly. I had only just met him. One couldn’t get homesick for a person.

When I returned to the breakfast table, Father was looking thoughtfully at the newspaper I’d left behind.

“Everything all right, Father?”

He gave me a bland smile. “Quite, my dear. Now, finish your breakfast and perhaps you and Masterman would like to take a nice walk and get acquainted with the village. This will be your home for as long as you like.”

* * *

It took fewer than twenty minutes to walk completely around the village, and by the time I finished I had a pebble in my shoe and had counted precisely seventeen front curtains twitch as we walked past.

“It seems the entire village has already heard about our arrival,” I told Masterman.

She pursed her lips. “People are the same wherever you go, miss—interested in gossip and scandal, and you’ve given them meat enough to feed on for a year.”

We had just come to the pond on the village green and I stopped. I had been considering how to approach her ever since she had told Mother she would stay with me. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Masterman, not exactly. But she was my last tie to Gerald’s family and my near-miss as the future Viscountess Madderley. The sooner I severed that connection, the better. Besides, there was something uncanny about her, a quiet watchfulness I didn’t entirely understand.

I cleared my throat. “It’s really very good of you to stay on, all things considered.” I chose my words carefully. “After all, working for me won’t exactly count in your favour when you apply for a new position.”

She said nothing as we walked on, and I decided to push just a little further. “I mean, you won’t want to go on working for me forever. I don’t even know what my plans will be.”

“I am certain you will figure it out,” she said mildly.

I suppressed a sigh. She was going to be difficult to dislodge, I decided. And the only solution was a more direct approach.

“See here, Masterman—”

She turned to look at me, her hazel eyes placid. There was a slightly greenish cast to them, like a mossy stone on a riverbed. “I am not leaving, miss.”

I gaped at her. “How on earth did you know that’s what I was about to suggest?”

She shrugged. “It’s only logical. Mrs. Hammond suggested it last night and you lit up like Bonfire Night.”

I ducked my head. “That wasn’t very kind of me. I apologise, Masterman. And it isn’t that I don’t like you. You mustn’t think that.”

“I don’t,” she replied with that same unflappable calm.

“Oh, well, good. Because I do,” I assured her with a fatuous smile. “It’s just that—”

“I make you uncomfortable,” she supplied.

“That’s not at all what I meant to say,” I said, feeling my cheeks flush warmly.

“But it is what you feel,” she said. There was no malice in her voice and her gaze was calm and level. I heaved a sigh.

“Very well. Yes. You make me uncomfortable. I’m afraid you’ll always be a reminder of how badly I behaved.”

“But I don’t think you did behave badly,” she told me.

I stared at her a long moment. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“It happens to be true,” she said. She began to walk and I hurried after, suddenly eager to talk to her. There was something curiously topsy-turvy about the mistress chasing after the maid, and I grinned as I caught up to her.

“You don’t think I ought to have married Gerald?”

“Absolutely not. Miss March, what do you think a servant’s chief responsibility is?”

I thought of the endless round of brushing clothes and whipping hems and pinning hair and shrugged.

“It’s to be watchful—to see all and understand what we see. I watched you with Mr. Madderley, and I could tell from the first moment I saw you together you were entirely unsuited.”

“You might have told me,” I said, kicking a pebble.

“You did not ask,” she returned mildly.

I grinned again. “All right, Masterman. I’ll give you that. And you can stay on if you like.”

She gave me a brisk nod to indicate her acceptance. We walked on in silence for a little while, taking a turn around the pond. A few apathetic ducks bobbed on the glassy surface and a limp lily floated along. There was no one else on the village green, and even the smoke coming from the chimneys drifted in lazy circles.

“Masterman, with your gift for watchfulness what do you make of our present circumstances?”

She looked around the village, taking in the quiet shops and tranquil, sleepy air of the place.

“I think, miss, we are in very great danger of being bored.”

* * *

She was not wrong. After that, our days settled into a pattern. Masterman and I went for long walks each morning, and after luncheon Father painted in his studio while I tried to make friends with George, although he remained stubbornly unmoved by my charms. I asked him to teach me to make his clever little soufflés or roast a duck or let me polish the silver, but each attempt was met with a firm rebuff. “That’s your side of the cottage,” he would state flatly, pushing me out of the kitchen and back into the hall. It was too bad really, because I was bored senseless and genuinely interested in acquiring a few new skills. It might come in handy to be able to roast a duck, I thought, but George was unwilling to oblige.

So I occupied myself with brooding. I wrote no letters and received only one—a curt message from Mother stating that she had returned the wedding gifts but that I had been remiss in returning my engagement ring to Gerald. It was an enormous pigeon’s blood ruby, a relic from the days of the first King George and worn by every Madderley bride. The viscountess had been particularly resentful at giving it up, and I was abashed I hadn’t thought to give it back to Gerald when he left the cottage. I made a note to take it with me when I went up to London next; I couldn’t possibly trust such a valuable jewel to the post. But London held no charms for me in my present mood. I had given up reading the Town newspapers after the second day. They were vitriolic on the subject of my almost-marriage, and going up would mean facing people who had decided I was only slightly less awful than Messalina.

So I buried myself in books, raiding Father’s library for anything that looked promising. There were a handful of Scarlet Pimpernel books and an assortment of detective stories, but beyond that nothing but weighty tomes on art history. I had almost resigned myself to reading one of them when I discovered a set of books high on a shelf, bound in scarlet morocco. They were privately printed, that much was obvious, and I gave a little gasp when I saw the author’s name: Lady Julia Brisbane. She was Father’s youngest sister, and the most notorious of our eccentric family. After a particularly awful first marriage, she had taken as her second husband a Scot who was half-Gypsy and rumoured to have the second sight. The fact that he was distantly related to the Duke of Aberdour hadn’t counted for much, I seemed to recall. There had been scandal and outrage that a peer’s daughter had married a man in trade. Nicholas Brisbane was a private inquiry agent, and Aunt Julia had joined him in his work. Ending up a duchess must have been particularly sweet for her, I decided. Father had talked about them my first morning at the cottage, and as near as I could guess, these books were her memoirs.

I turned the first over in my hands. Silent in the Grave was incised in gilt letters and a slender piece of striped silk served as a bookmark. I opened to the first page and read the first line. “To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.” I slipped down to sit on the carpet, the books tumbled in my lap, and began to read.