Page 29 of With Love in Sight
“You can be a sarcastic little baggage at times. Did you know that?”
“Of course,” she replied in lofty tones. “But only with those I am closest to.”
“Well,” he murmured, his eyes smiling at her, “count me honored, then.”
And then, because she couldn’t stand the ache that was forming in her chest as she looked on his moonlit face, she swung her gaze to the darkness above her. Tiny pinpricks of light dusted the sky and she took a deep breath, forcing her muscles to relax as she took it in.
“Do you even know what we’re seeing here?”
“Certainly. Well,” he hedged, and she could hear the smile in his voice, “some. My tutor did attempt to teach me astronomy. I didn’t have much of a grasp on it, I’m afraid. But,” and here his arm swung up, his long fingers pointing to a spot to the right, “I do remember that the cluster of stars just there, those three in a line, is Orion’s Belt. You can see the stars surrounding it are in the shape of a hunter with his bow. That would be the Orion constellation.”
She gazed up, so very happy for her spectacles. Now that he had pointed the formation out, her mind was connecting the points, making the image he had described stand out amid what had seemed a veritable jumble of pinpricks. “Yes, I see it,” she murmured.
“Now,” he said, moving his arm to the left and up a bit, “do you see those two bright stars there?”
She followed his finger. “Yes.”
“That would be the stars Castor and Pollux. They form part of the constellation Gemini.”
She nodded. “The twin brothers from mythology, each born from the same woman but of different fathers. One mortal and one divine.”
She sensed him glancing at her but kept her eyes firmly on the night sky.
“You know your mythology well, it seems.”
She shrugged. “It was a passion of my father’s for a time. I admit I found it fascinating as well. He would read me the stories when I was small.” She sighed happily. “It is wonderful to imagine people hundreds, even thousands of years ago, gazing up at these same skies, at these same stars. What histories these heavens have seen.”
“Yes,” he murmured. “Wars and pain, romances and joys, all under these very stars.”
And as she lay there, flat on her back and looking out into the great emptiness above her, she felt it. Clear to her toes she felt it, the smallness of herself, the vastness of the heavens above.
She let out a soft, awed sigh.
“It is amazing, isn’t it?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” she breathed. “It makes you feel as if all your problems are tiny in the grand scheme of things.”
“That it does,” he agreed. And then somehow her hand was in his and everything else faded, and she felt the utter perfection of the moment go straight to her heart.
• • •
He did not know how it came about, how her hand wound up in his while they lay on that blanket, stargazing like two children. But he did know one thing—that it felt right.
He paused but a moment before lacing his fingers with hers. He felt her give his hand a small squeeze, and a contentment he had never known rolled through him. Her hand was so small in his own, the bones so delicate. And yet it radiated strength.
They lay there like that for some time. Suddenly, in the quiet of the night, he heard her give a sigh. It was a small sound, but the forlorn tone of it caught at him. He looked over at her and saw the moon reflect off her spectacles as she turned to meet his gaze.
“That sounded as if the weight of the world were in it,” he said softly.
Her mouth twisted at the corner, but not in humor. “Tomorrow is the masquerade.”
“Yes?”
“And then we will return to London. And this will all be over.”
The very thought sent a chill through him. “We can still continue on in London.”
The smile she gave him was full of sadness. “No, we cannot. Things will be different there, much more formal. And anyway,” she continued, returning her eyes back to the sky, “it is time I began living my life. I cannot keep it at bay forever.” Her expression relaxed then into one of true contentment. “But I have wonderful memories to bring with me. I will never, ever forget this. This moment, right here, I will carry with me always.”
