Chase didn’t understand much of what passed between Alexandra and the astronomer’s assistant. But that didn’t matter. What captivated him was the excitement on her face and the passion in her voice as she spoke with someone who fully understood her discovery. He felt a bit jealous that he couldn’t be, would never be that person—but then, he’d helped her make it here tonight, and that was important, too.
Though he was dying of curiosity, he tried not to interrupt with questions. Only as they walked away a few hours later did he finally break down. “So . . . ? What’s happened?”
“He’s almost certain it’s a comet.”
“That’s good.”
“And it’s not one he’d personally observed before.”
“That’s even better.”
“But it will take time to see if anyone else has observed and named it already. Corresponding with other observatories, scanning for notices in the journals.”
“How long will that take?”
“Weeks, at least. Perhaps months.”
“Months?” He grimaced.
“It’s a good thing,” she said. “It gives me time. Will you help me find a patron who’ll pay to name it?”
He pulled to a halt. “Hell, no.”
“Chase, I don’t have your connections. If I’m going to find a buyer for it, I need help.”
“You shouldn’t sell it.”
“I need to sell it.”
“Fine. Then I’m going to buy it and give it straight back to you.”
She turned to him. “I never wanted that. I don’t need it.”
“Well, I need you to have it. Because you found it. Because your name should be on it. Because it’s damned tiresome being the one person alive who understands how truly remarkable you are.” He cupped her face in his hands, and not tenderly. “I won’t help you hide that from yourself, or from the world. Not anymore.”
Alex could not believe what she was hearing.
“You,” she said, falling back from his touch, “are the most shameless hypocrite. You would accuse me of hiding from myself? I’d thank you to go make that speech into a mirror, Chase Reynaud, because you’ve been hiding so long you’ve forgotten how it feels to breathe fresh air. You deserve things, too. Things like closeness and family and the forgiveness you’ve foolishly denied yourself, and it’s downright exasperating to be the only one who understands it. Plus, I’ve been doing it far longer.”
“You have not,” he said. “I understood you first.”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I knew your true nature the first time I held your hand and watched you eulogize a consumptive doll. That’s ten whole weeks.”
“Ten weeks is nothing. It’s been ten months for me.”
Alex was stunned. “What?”
“We collided in Hatchard’s bookshop in November of last year,” he said. “But perhaps you don’t recall.”
“Of course I recall.” Not only did Alex recall, but she’d thought about it every day since. “You’re the one who’d forgotten it.”
He shook his head. “The memory’s clear as day.”
“Then why did you pretend you didn’t know me?”
He shrugged. “You made an utter cake of yourself when it happened. It didn’t seem kind to bring it up.”
Oh, this man.
“But I recalled our meeting,” he went on. “How could I forget? It’s not every day a man collides with a woman who prefers sky smudges to fairy stories.” Smiling a bit, he caught a stray wisp of her hair and wound it about his finger. “Miss Alexandra Mountbatten, with midnight-black hair and a fetching figure, and who responded to flirtation with an immensely gratifying blush.”
He gave her cheek a teasing caress, and Alex felt the pink rising on her face all over again.
“Miss Alexandra Mountbatten, who possessed the most captivating, terrifying eyes I’d ever beheld. Or more to the point, that had ever beheld me. Eyes that were not only beautiful—but bold, clever, fearless. Unafraid to search the darkness, trusting that something, somewhere will glimmer back.” His voice deepened, weighted down with emotion. “I couldn’t forget you, Alex. And I won’t allow anyone else to forget you, either. Not the Royal Observatory, not the world. Not the universe, for that matter.”
Curse him, he was so good at this. He had her toes melting into the evening dew. Her knees felt close to dissolving, too. Soon she’d be reduced to ten thousand drops of Alexandra scattered across the green, desperately clinging to ten thousand blades of grass.
Now she’d completely lost her edge in their argument. It wasn’t fair. How could she compete with his years upon years of transforming women into quivering shimmers of condensation?
By being herself, she supposed. Straightforward, honest, practical.
“I love you,” she said. “Take that.”
No.
No, Chase would not take that.
He couldn’t take that. Not the impossible words, or the expectant look in her eyes. Not the sharp blade of joy she’d thrust into his heart, or the way it twisted with his every breath.
He couldn’t take any of it. In his desperation, his mind seized on what seemed his only recourse.
He would take her.
Take her into his embrace.
Take her lips with his.
And, by God, take her breath away. Leave her dizzy and gasping, and completely unable to speak another devastating word.
That endless grassy slope he’d cursed on their way up to the observatory? He blessed it now. He shook off his coat and spread it on the grass, then laid her down atop it. The world was a darkened, private room with a ceiling of stars.
And somewhere between the kissing and caressing and unbuttoning, a sense of inevitability descended on them both.
They both knew what was going to happen. What must happen.
“Alex .
