Her head fell back as she gazed up at the sky. “What about them?”
“Do you see the brightest star up there?”
“That one?” She pointed to the wrong flickering glow in the distance.
“No, this one.” He stepped forward, so their shoulders were next to one another. As he indicated the glowing white star, he caught her tantalizing fragrance and discreetly breathed her in, savoring her perfume and the warm nearness of her at his side.
“I see it,” she said eagerly.
“Do you know what it’s called?”
She looked up at him, her face only inches from his. Her mouth was so damn close to his that he had to force his eyes from that full bottom lip and how very much he should like to run his tongue along it as he kissed her.
“No, I don’t know what the star is called.” Her soft voice broke the spell. “Do you?”
He cleared his throat and looked up once more. “Sirius. You can tell which one it is because Orion’s Belt seems to point to it.”
“Sirius.” She tilted her head to study the sky once more and her curled hair brushed against his shoulder. “What a curious name.”
It was all he could do to keep from reaching out and letting his fingers stroke the coppery coils of her hair. “It’s Greek for scorching since it glows so fervently in the night sky.”
“Fascinating,” she breathed. “And what is O’Bryan’s Belt?”
“Orion,” he gently corrected. “Do you see those three stars there, just above and to the right of Sirius, that appear to be stacked in a neat row with one another?”
She exhaled with a laugh of excitement. “I see it. Is Orion Greek as well?”
“He is,” Lucien replied.
Hannah glanced up at him, her gaze somewhat coquettish. “But why his belt?”
“He was a hunter, one immortalized by the Gods to hold a place in the night sky.”
“Why?” Hannah asked as she regarded the night sky, thoroughly fascinated in a way that delighted Lucien.
His fears of boring her had been groundless.
“Orion was son to a king’s daughter and the sea god, Poseidon,” Lucien continued. “Orion was purported to be immensely handsome and a great hunter, but he made the mistake of claiming he would kill all the animals on earth, and so Gaia, the mother of earth, created a scorpion, which stung him and killed him.”
Hannah gasped. “That’s terrible.”
“Then you may not like the ending of the story.”
She turned her wide blue eyes from the stars and toward him once more. “Do tell.”
“There is another constellation you cannot see when Orion’s Belt is visible, and that is Scorpius.”
“The scorpion,” she guessed.
Lucien nodded, unable to pull his gaze from the way the light caressed her smooth skin. “For all eternity, Orion will stalk the scorpion in the winter and run away in fear in the summer. It is said Zeus elevated them into the sky to remind mortals not to be too proud.”
Her lashes cast in long shadows over her cheeks, her lips gently parted. “That’s awful,” she whispered.
But neither of them were looking at the stars anymore. They were both fixed on one another as if there were no sky overhead or ground at their feet. As if the ball behind them did not exist, and neither did any excuse not to touch her. Kiss her. His heart thundered like a drum against his ribs.
“Terrible,” he agreed in a low murmur.
Her chin notched slightly higher as she closed her eyes. He reached for her, touching her cheek with his hands, loathing the gloves he wore.
But it was not merely his touch on her bare skin that he wanted. He lowered his head to hers and let their lips touch. Though her chin was as cold as the surrounding air, her mouth was hot and plush, the whisper of lemonade on her lips and something else…
Brandy?
He swept the tip of his tongue over the fullness of her bottom lip, and her mouth opened, yielding to him. A rush of heat suffused his body, and a sudden urgency claimed him, desperate to grab her to him, to crush her sweet curves against the hardness swelling at his loins.
While he managed to quell such temptation, he couldn’t stop himself from brushing his tongue against hers. She gasped softly, and he knew he had gone too far. He immediately drew away, stepping back and putting a fair amount of distance between them even as he glanced to the doors to ensure no one had seen them.
“Forgive me, Miss Bexley. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you in such a manner.” His apology came out at the same time she said, “I shouldn’t have…I’m so…”
They laughed, and she ducked her head down with a sudden shyness that left him wanting to pull her to him again.
“Please, call me Hannah,” she said. “But I ought to return inside. Before I’m missed. My mother…” She rolled her eyes, letting the gesture speak for her.
“If you’ll call me Lucien.” He came forward. “Shall I escort you inside?”
She stopped him with the shake of her head. “It might be best to go in alone, given how long we’ve been out here.” She pressed her lips together as though savoring the reminder of their kiss.
Or perhaps he was hoping she was, the same as him.
He nodded. “Yes, of course. Good evening, Hannah.”
“Good evening…Lucien.” With that, she departed the terrace, her slippers silent on the cold stone as she left him alone beneath a canopy of stars. He hesitated there a moment, unable to stifle his lack of enthusiasm to return indoors where ladies would crowd him in the hopes of a dance.
Already he was tired of it all: the attention, the dancing and the dull conversations. He wanted to spend the rest of his evening with Hannah if he could free himself for a moment to do so.
In the end, it was the hope of seeing her that lured him back into the ballroom with its gilded candlelight and far too many single women. But it was to his great disappointment that he realized that Hannah was nowhere to be found.
She had left the ball.
8
A blank sheet of paper sat before Hannah, her quill at the ready in an inkwell her father had given her on her twentieth birthday.
The dinner party at her house would be that evening with Lord and Lady Whimbly, Lord and Lady Hasselton, and, of course, Lord Brightstone.
Lucien.
He had not responded to the invite until two days’ ago, citing the envelope had been misplaced. Hannah did not have to guess who the cause of the lost post might be.
She could far too easily recall the look on his mother’s face that night of the ball at Elizabeth’s home, as surely as she could remember the kiss she’d shared with Lucien.
A shuddered exhale escaped her lips and made the paper flutter lightly on the table’s polished surface.
All at once, she was drawn back on the terrace beneath a starlit sky with Lord Brightstone standing close to her, the rumble of his voice in his chest seeming to vibrate against the back of her arm. His voice was a rich timbre in her ear as he regaled her with the stories of the constellations and pointed out their locations.
It had all been fascinating and somehow strangely intimate.
And exceedingly romantic.
Heavens, now she sounded like her mother. But truly, it had been.