I Thee Wed (3 page)

Sir Geoffrey recovered next. “Champing at the bit, eh? Rightly so! It is good to see a young man who can keep his mind on the job at hand! On with it, then.” He waved his hands negligently at the staff as he passed through them. “I'll meet you in the laboratory before dinner, Worthington!”

Orion took distant note of Judith's social dexterity even as he admired her efficient command of the staff. He followed the footmen as they hefted his trunk and bags and marched up the stairs in a military fashion. He did not look at Miss Francesca Penrose again. He had always had a superior level of self-control.

Ignoring the small dark beauty took every bit of his strength of will.

W
ITH a frown, Francesca watched the handsome newcomer climb the stairs. He was as attractive going away as he was coming forward.

He had behaved as if she did not even exist. The moment she had stepped forward, his eyes had glazed over and he'd gone quite slack-jawed. Boredom? Distaste, assuredly.

She turned to her cousin. “Do I have flour on my nose?” She was admittedly a bit of a mess. Perhaps he'd supposed himself being introduced to a servant?

Judith dutifully checked the aforementioned nose. “You are entirely free of flour or flourlike debris,” she said in utter seriousness. Factual as a textbook, that Judith.

Francesca sighed, her shoulders drooping dramatically for half a moment. She'd hoped Uncle Geoffrey's new assistant would provide some distraction or even some intellectual stimulation. Judith limited her conversation to stated facts, and Uncle Geoffrey did not discuss science with anyone unluckily burdened by breasts. Judith's suitors, their only visitors, were an insipid lot who preferred poetry and minuets.
Francesca's fights—er, debates—with Blayne House's vociferous cook provided her with more interesting conversation than did that spineless lot.

At least Mr. Worthington was a treat to the eye. Goodness, he was tall, dark, and toothsome! As lean as the wolf he'd brought to mind, he moved up the steps with a physical fluidity that spoke more of fencing or pugilism than a life of puttering about in a laboratory. He was, in short, absolutely, divinely delicious.

He was also cold and unbearable, despite the way he made her toes curl up in her slippers. No matter. That was merely the biological imperative at work. Well-formed, virile, highly intelligent males were bound to set off a few nerve endings.

Pity there were no other examples present on whom to test her theory.

Francesca's mood shifted swiftly—as her moods so oft tended to do—and she gazed at Judith indignantly. “Handsome is as handsome does!”

Judith blinked. “Your use of idiom does you no service in pursuit of true knowledge. Colorful speech indicates an untidy—”

Francesca threw up her hands in Gallic frustration. “An untidy mind! Yes, I believe Uncle Geoffrey has made his views most clear on that topic!”

Judith glanced up the stairs. “I must see that our newest addition is comfortable. If you will excuse me, Cousin?”

Francesca wondered, as she sometimes did, what her endlessly placid cousin would do if Francesca suddenly threw her head back and cursed loudly and fluently in Italian. Not that she was much inclined to vulgarity, really. It was only that she was so very frustrated!

All her life, she'd dreamed of traveling to her father's birthplace of England. According to her Italian mother's extended family, she was entirely too English for her own good. Francesca's lovely mother had reassured her that she was as Italian
as any of them, but even as a child, Francesca had known that wasn't true. Although she knew she was loved, she did not fit in among the large Veratti clan. In the four years since Mama had passed, it had only become more apparent.

They were a very intellectual band, the Verattis. Nearly all of them were involved in scientific pursuits. Real science, they reminded her often. Physics, chemistry, botany, and biology. They did not cook, or garden, or dance, unless it was at some university function. Even then they would rather analyze the patterns in the music than simply enjoy it.

Francesca loved science, too, but mostly she loved life! No matter how fascinating the research, no matter how interesting the professor, she had found herself thinking about the first buttercups of spring, or the last mushrooms of autumn, or of dishes she had made, or longed to make.

Giocosa
, they had called her.
Apatica
. Playful. Lackadaisical.

That wasn't entirely true. She studied hard and she earned her place as a biologist, but did that mean she could not have any fun?

She was too English, they told her. Just like her father.

When Francesca had suggested that she take an extended journey to England to meet her father's family at last, her aunts and uncles had been disturbingly quick to agree with the notion.

So she had written to her father's half brother, Sir Geoffrey Blayne, esteemed British biologist-inventor, to secure an invitation. One had not been immediately forthcoming. It had taken several letters, each laden with increasingly obvious hints, to prod Uncle Geoffrey into extending a grudging summons.

Francesca had been on the next coach from Bologna to the seaport of Livorno. She'd been so excited during the crossing, she could scarcely eat. It was all she could do to choke down a mere three meals a day instead of five! At last, she would
be understood and accepted. She was so very English, after all. She would be allowed to pursue knowledge in her own way—nay, she would be encouraged to do so!

Sir Geoffrey's first words after “Welcome to London” had been “Women have no place in the laboratory.”

*   *   *

A
S
O
RION CLIMBED
the stairs behind the Blayne House footmen, he mentally calculated the air volume of the trunk versus the time elapsed since it left the Worthington residence, factoring in the probable remaining contents.

No, it was no good. He lacked vital information, such as precisely when the substitution had taken place and, more important, the resting respiration rate of little sisters.

The footmen deposited Orion's belongings in an admirably careful manner, which normally he would not care one whit over, and asked if he required assistance in unpacking.

When he waved his hand at them abruptly, they bowed and left, unperturbed by his rudeness.

The latch of the shabby trunk was stuck fast. Numbers ran through Orion's head, probabilities of relative humidity, rusting rates, years—decades!—since the forging of said latch, even as he swiftly searched the chamber for a lever of some sort.

The bedchamber hearth provided a finely wrought poker, which Orion applied vigorously to the recalcitrant latch without regard to the possibility of marring either the poker or the trunk.

The latch gave, as he'd known it eventually would. The only fact that remained unknown was if it would give in time. He kicked the heavy lid up with more applied force than was probably necessary. It nearly swung shut again. He caught it and lifted it again with his hands.

Then he stood and glared down into the trunk, sick with relief. “That was poorly calculated. You nearly ran out of air.”

Pale, scrawny limbs unfolded from the depths of the trunk.
A figure sat up and pushed back a mussed mop of auburn locks. Freckled, green-eyed little Atalanta Worthington looked nothing like dark-haired, blue-eyed Orion, except when it came to the intensely analytical gaze they shared.

She took a deep breath, apparently unalarmed by her brush with suffocation. “You're right. I forgot that Other People waste so much time blathering in foyers. I shall be sure to factor that in next time.” She wrinkled her nose. “Or drill an air hole.”

Orion shook his head. “That is not a dependable alternative. Baggage is often stacked. Your airway could easily be covered up.” He stuck out his hand.

A smaller, sticky one slid into his. It shook ever so slightly in his grip as he pulled his youngest, most brilliant sibling to her feet. She'd been a little frightened after all, which of course she would admit only under penalty of death—and perhaps not even then.

She stepped from the trunk and began to peruse the chamber with her hands clasped behind her back. “Someone painted fat babies on the ceiling.”

“It is a frieze. The pigment is worked right into the plaster. Those are cherubs.” She knew all of that, of course. Orion knew she read widely, if erratically.

Her brows wrinkled scornfully as she gazed up. “Why?”

Orion thought for a moment. “This chamber is called the ‘blue room.' Other People sometimes apply imaginative decorations. Blue is the color of sky. Sky reminds some of heaven. Heaven supposedly contains cherubim. Cherubim are traditionally portrayed as obese infants.” He always answered Attie's questions as fully as he was able—at least until she walked away. He understood his little sister in ways that no one else did. Her high intelligence, like his, was accompanied by a certain lack of comprehension of the activities of Other People, as she called them. Orion, once he had realized that his scientific ambitions would be aided by a higher degree of social skills, had made a study of human facial expressions
and the emotions they represented. Attie would need this information as well, someday. Both his other sisters, Calliope and Elektra, opined that Attie would grow into a Great Beauty, the likes of which Society rarely saw and subsequently placed far too much importance upon.

Since Callie and Ellie were generally considered to be very attractive themselves, one must assume that they held some expertise on this topic of relative beauty—which interested Orion not at all other than with respect to its effect upon Attie's future.

Unbidden, his thoughts slid back to the arresting features of the woman downstairs. He experienced another inexplicable jolt at the mere memory of her remarkable, vibrant presence. Her eyes . . . her lips . . . her voice . . .

“Orion? Are you . . . Are you woolgathering?”

The astonishment in Attie's tone brought Orion back to his bedchamber with a snap. He met Attie's gaze with a frown.

“I think perhaps I was.”

Her eyes widened. “But we don't gather wool. Ever.”

It was true. Other Worthingtons did. The family was in general a dreamy lot, prone to artistic creativity and leaps of inventiveness. They were all quite intelligent in their particular ways, even the more socially aware Elektra, now Lady Arbogast, who currently applied her considerable energy and steely determination to the ongoing restoration of the Worthington family estate in Shropshire.

However, Attie and Orion shared a capacity for intense focus that had bypassed the others. Their minds did not wander. Their attention did not fade. It might end, rather abruptly, when events became uninteresting—but it did not meander off into contemplations of shining dark hair and lustrous eyes that danced with amusement . . .

“You're doing it again!”

Orion blinked at his sister. “This is a new development.”

She shook her head, her eyes wide. “Stop it. I don't like it.”

“I can't say that I'm happy about it myself.”

Attie shook off the very thought of his woolgathering with a visible shudder.

A tap came on the chamber door. “Mr. Worthington?”

Orion looked at Attie. “It is Miss Judith Blayne,” he informed her. Orion found himself unwilling to mingle his new world with his old. As much as he loved his family, this was meant to be his time to realize his own ambitions—ambitions better achieved without the interference of his unpredictable, outrageous family. “She will wonder how you came to be here. You ought to go.”

Attie shrugged, then turned toward the chamber's large, vaulted window. She scrambled onto the deep padded seat within the embrasure and opened the window. Leaning far out, she looked down.

“There's an excellent tree,” she called back over her shoulder. “I'm going home now.”

Orion nodded without alarm. Attie was a superior climber. He attributed it to the relative strength of her wiry arms to the scarcity of her flesh. He could toss her into the air with one hand.

He could . . . if he were feeling a tad suicidal. Attie had a tendency to bite.

He watched as Attie stuck her hem between her teeth to get her baggy skirts out of her way. Beneath them she wore a raggedly chopped-off pair of boys' trousers, probably a castoff from the twins' childhood wardrobe. She'd secured them around her waist with a bit of hemp rope.

As he watched, she leapt from the window, hands outstretched. Orion thought he probably ought to watch to be sure she made it safely to the ground, although he reasoned that there was very little he could do standing at the window to stop a fall from a tree.

Still, Callie would expect him to at least try.

Attie walked the narrow branch closest to the house like a circus performer, with her hands outstretched for balance.
When she reached the relative safety of the trunk, she turned to wiggle her fingers at him in farewell, then proceeded to swing down, from branch to branch, until she was forced to drop from the lowest one, which remained about eight feet from the ground.

It was soft, grassy ground, so she landed with a practiced roll, stood, spat out her dress hem, dusted her hands on her bottom, and sauntered around the house, out of sight.

Satisfied that he had performed his brotherly duty, Orion turned to answer the door of his new chamber. Miss Judith Blayne stood in the hall, her hands folded before her.

“Papa has asked me to show you to the laboratory. He is waiting there for us.”

Yes. The laboratory. It was, after all, the reason he now found himself at Blayne House.

How odd that he'd forgotten all about it.

W
HEN he passed through the double carriage-house doors into the outbuilding that dominated the considerable gardens of Blayne House, Orion Worthington entered heaven.

Sir Geoffrey's laboratory was a scientist's fantasy come to life. Orion suddenly realized that all his days he had operated in a whirling chasm of chaos. Although his study in Worthington House was undoubtedly the most ordered chamber in the house, it was still a hodgepodge of salvaged equipment piled on tables he'd cobbled together from scrap, using materials he'd scrounged or bartered or, occasionally, stolen.

All in the name of science, of course.

But this . . .

He stepped forward and felt the peace of order and clarity settle into him, as if he breathed it in along with the air.

Sir Geoffrey opened his big hands expansively. “As you can see, Blayne House is equipped with all the latest in scientific invention. I have my lenses ground in Switzerland to my exact specifications. No end of trouble during wartime, I assure you. I was forced to deal with smugglers, if you can
imagine.”

Orion forced himself to turn his absorption from the pristine racks of gleaming beakers, in every shape and size, including some he'd never known existed. On some level he thought perhaps Sir Geoffrey wished to hear some approbation for his exquisite facility, although why the man would care what Orion Worthington thought, he could not imagine.

He opened his mouth to say something politely admiring. “I want this.” He did want it, deeply, passionately, with a profound longing that he'd never known before. However, through that gut-wrenching desire, he was aware that his brief, intense statement had fallen into the room like a brick.

Sir Geoffrey's eyes bugged slightly. Then he barked a short laugh. “Give it time, son. This may all be yours . . . someday.” He sent a significant glance in Judith's direction.

Judith seemed serene enough at the implied notion. Her gaze was even, her stance at ease, her golden beauty gleaming in the brightly lighted laboratory. Nevertheless, Orion found his gaze drawn to the hotly burning eyes of small, dark Francesca, who stood just behind her cousin. It seemed that this was the first that Francesca had heard of the proposed possibility of engagement.

She had the oddest expression on her face. Her widened eyes denoted surprise, her wrinkled brow expressed doubt, yet the whiteness of her knuckles as they clenched the polishing cloth seemed to signify pain of some sort.

Her lips, for once, were not curved in amusement.

Behind her, Orion saw a single corner of the laboratory that stood out from the rest of the organized perfection. A rough wooden table had been shoved into the corner opposite the door. It was piled with stacks of notes, alongside a chunk of rock and a beaker stuffed with drooping flowers. Above it, charts covered in hurriedly inked branching lines had been pinned on the two corner walls.

The scruffy little corner reminded Orion rather forcibly of his own makeshift laboratory in Worthington House. His
internal scientist flinched at the reminder. Now that he had seen the Blayne lab, how could he ever bear to go back to such a state?

Sir Geoffrey followed his gaze and sniffed. “That is Francesca's little project. I'm allowing her to dabble in a bit of crossbreeding. Of course, I was hoping that my own organizational skills would prove to be an example, but . . .” He waved a dismissive hand and turned Orion back to the rest of the lab.

Sir Geoffrey had moved on in the moment of Orion's distraction. “What do you think of this, Worthington?” He gestured toward a polished copper contraption that spouted wire and tubes at seemingly random intervals.

Orion nodded. “It is a distillation device, I believe.”

Sir Geoffrey's eyes narrowed. “Not just a distillation device. One of my own invention,” he stated with a touch of aggrieved arrogance in his tone.

From the side of his vision, Orion saw Judith twitch slightly. He did not know the meaning of such a movement, unless one had unexpectedly encountered a distasteful insect.

He doubted any such creature had ever entered this sterile establishment, unless it was contained in a specimen jar.

Sir Geoffrey stroked a hand over the shining copper dome of the still. “I have taken several such designs to the patent office in recent years. My mind is simply overflowing with ideas. Puts to rest any nonsense regarding my slowing down in my elder days!”

Judith folded her hands before her, her always tranquil features taking on a peculiar stillness. “Yes, Papa. The Royal Fraternity of Life Sciences needs you more than ever.”

Judith must be very proud of her father, Orion decided. No doubt some of the Fraternity had grown impatient for the great man to step down from his long-held position of First Speaker. A ridiculous notion. The elegant efficiency of the device before them attested to Sir Geoffrey's continued brilliance.

Orion could not help another glance toward Francesca.
She gazed down at the beaker in her hands, polishing with great ferocity. It was already perfectly shiny.

However, it seemed that Sir Geoffrey had found a flaw in his flawless equipment. “Judith.”

Judith stepped forward swiftly. “Yes, Papa. I see it.”

Orion didn't, not until Judith reached for a single bulbous beaker on a shelf. As it passed before the lantern, Orion thought he spotted a faint staining on the bottom of the glass, as if something had once cooked too long upon a flame. He blinked, thinking that if such a beaker were in his home laboratory, it would likely be one of the cleanest he owned.

Yet Sir Geoffrey was livid. “Judith, you know how I feel about inferior tools!”

Judith put the offending beaker behind her back. “Yes, Papa. ‘Only inferior minds use inferior tools.' I shall replace it at once . . . Only, the glassblower, Papa—”

Sir Geoffrey harrumphed. “Blasted miser. The ingratitude of the man, when he secured the accounts of every member of the Royal Fraternity upon my recommendation!”

The conversation had veered to the financial, so Orion shut off his attention and turned to study the distillation apparatus. While he opened the hinged copper doors, which were adorned with a rather unnecessary amount of brass filigree in his opinion, he found himself delighted with the triple-chamber process within. The purity of the distillation would be quite unrivaled in his experience. Further, the chambers appeared to all have been blown from a single glass. He admired it enormously. So very efficient!

Somewhere in a tiny corner of his attention, he was aware that Francesca had stepped forward, claiming responsibility for both burning the beaker and for replacing it on the shelf improperly cleaned. Sir Geoffrey had some sharp words for her carelessness, accusing her of having “an untidy mind.”

Orion took note of that assumption, thinking it quite likely when placed next to the undeniable facts of her irreverent
expression and Sir Geoffrey's opinion that she tended toward indulgence of the senses.

Still, in a tiny recess of that tiny corner of his mind, it occurred to him to wonder why an experiment in crossbreeding would require a chemical test in a laboratory. He filed that away under “insignificant curiosity” and turned back to the other three.

“I should like to begin immediately, Sir Geoffrey.”

Sir Geoffrey, who had become rather red faced in his adamancy, turned from further scolding Francesca.

“Ah! Yes, indeed. A much more profitable use of our time, to be sure. Women in the laboratory can be such a distraction.” He clapped his hands. “Out, my dears!”

Judith merely granted her father and Orion a small curtsy and turned to leave without comment. Francesca glared. Orion couldn't imagine why he was the target of such indignation. She ducked a resentful curtsy and stomped out after Judith.

Outside the large double barn door of the laboratory, Judith turned to Francesca.

“You did not have to do that, Cousin.”

Francesca peered into Judith's face, but if anything, her cousin appeared more distant than ever. “I did not mind. My uncle thinks little of me anyway.” She sighed. “Even if I were a man, I do not think he would prize my ‘untidy' mind.”

Judith looked away. “There are worse things than being dismissed by Papa.”

Francesca snorted. “Such as what?”

Judith gazed up at the rear facade of Blayne House, still grand even from the back. “Why, being valuable to him, of course,” she said quietly.

Then she floated serenely away, her ladylike pace denoting the perfect balance between leisure and purpose. Judith never bustled, yet she accomplished so much every day.

For the first time, Francesca wondered if Judith
wanted
to
spend her days on such mundane and utilitarian tasks, or if her cousin might long for something more.

*   *   *

“Why, what's the matter,

That you have such a February face,

So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”

A February face, in the Worthington household, was used to describe the visage of a family member deep in the throes of creative angst, or sibling-induced rage, but it was indeed most often used in current days to describe the scrunched-up dissatisfaction of the youngest Worthington, skinny, mop-haired Atalanta. At thirteen, she was snagged like a fawn in a flood by a particularly excruciating stage of growth on the way to what seemed likely to be considerable beauty.

From her perch on the second-to-lowest stair, Atalanta shot her beloved father a disgruntled look. He beamed at her expectantly, eyes bright beneath his wildly curly but thinning silver hair. Despite her unhappiness, she could never bear to disappoint Archimedes Worthington in anything. With a grudging sigh, she responded. “
Much Ado About Nothing
, act five, scene four.”

Archie hiked up the legs of his trousers and settled his bony bottom on the stair next to her own skinny rear. “He'll be back, pet.”

Attie wanted to lean her head on her papa's shoulder and believe that he was big and strong and would make everything better, but she'd deciphered her parents' true natures by the time she was four years of age. Archie and Iris adored each other, and every single one of their eight sons and daughters, and always had a smile and an embrace ready to hand—but they were a pair of the most naive, drifting, inconsistent dreamers ever born, refusing to acknowledge anything even vaguely resembling reality.

It had made Attie strange, that knowledge. A child should
not have to raise her parents.

“Did you see much of Blayne House?” Archie asked idly.

Attie shook her head. “I shall have to reconnoiter more thoroughly another day. I heard old Sir Blowhard carrying on until I thought I might asphyxiate. There were two ladies. One was Judith Blayne, for she was very English. The other was some sort of niece. She sounded different. I think I heard that she was from Italy.”

“Two young ladies in the house? Hmm.” Archie smiled as he hummed. “The Italian accent is very exotic, is it not? She will be very pretty, I should think. Italian women are always so, in my experience. None to compare to Iris, of course. You should have seen your mother, lounging in a Venetian gondola, with the sunset turning her hair to fire . . .”

He sounded lost in the past again. Attie sank a little deeper into her disgruntled slump. According to all their stories, Iris and Archie had once lived a very exciting life, traveling the world and meeting all sorts of people. Now Archie strolled around the house, speaking in sonnets while Iris painted canvas after canvas, her graying locks pinned up with paintbrushes.

Attie thought both of her parents were quite brilliant, and entirely useless, especially the way that they didn't seem to see the way the family was breaking into little pieces and disappearing, but she would defend their dreams with her very life if she had to, so she only said, “Yes, Archie.”

If someone was going to pluck Orion from that house of scientific temptation, it was going to have to be her and her alone.