“Hugh,” she gasped, looking up at him with wide eyes, her glasses so far down her nose, he wondered if she could see him properly. “What are you doing here?”
“Visitingmylibrary. The question is, what areyoudoing here?”
She pressed a hand to her chest, not seeming to notice the smear of black she left across the skin there from her fingers. “You startled me.”
“So it would seem.” He glanced at the books surrounding her. “Latin primers?”
“St. Mary’s did not see fit to teach it.” She yawned and stretched. “I was also doing some reading on advanced mathematics.”
“Naturally.” Ignoring the aching in his limbs, he lowered himself to the floor beside her, pushing a few books to the side. “Is this a frequent pastime of yours?”
“Only when I have the books to study. Are these yours?”
“My father’s. He enjoyed an intellectual challenge.” As, it seemed, did Christiana.
“Ah,” she murmured, her eyes glassy behind her spectacles. “That would explain it.” She rubbed at her face, and he wondered how long she had been here, doing precisely this.
“Explain what?”
“They smelled as though they had not been read in some time.” She offered him a distracted smile, her mind clearly elsewhere. “You are not interested?”
“I confess mathematics does not come naturally to me, and I do not have time in my daily routine for study.”
“Try being a lady,” she said with some of that wry, self-deprecating wit he was coming to enjoy immensely. “Then you would have countless time on your hands and very little to do with it.”
“Aside from advanced mathematics, of course.”
“And astronomy.” She reached across him to heft a rather large volume onto her knee. “This isConnaissance des Temps, published in 1784. Also your father’s?”
“It’s not mine, so one would presume so.” He peered at her. “What do you find so fascinating about it?”
“My nurse always said I had a curiosity for everything I should not care about,” she said, tracing her fingers down the page. “She thought my interests were things men alone should care about. But women’s supposed interests always struck me as rather dull. It’s why I have no accomplishments to speak of, despite my finishing school.”
“You have other accomplishments. Such as riding astride.”
That made her laugh, and he took it as a victory of sorts. “Precisely. Yet another thing ladies ought not to be doing.”
“What else?”
“How much time do you have?” She huffed a small laugh, intent on the page before her. “It seems everything I have an interest in is something a lady shouldn’t be doing. And everything ladies should be good at, I tolerate at best. Playing the pianoforte, embroidery or, heaven forbid, singing. I’m afraidthat, I do not tolerate in the slightest.”
“Then it’s fortunate singing is not a requirement of being married to me.”
“What an agreeable husband.” She left another smear of ink on her nose as she pushed her glasses up again. “I do have another request, though.”
He tapped a finger on the open page of her primer. “As I’m in an agreeable mood, let’s hear it.”
“I had hoped, now that I am a duchess with some influence, I might make a contribution to William Herschel’s work. If money is an object, I could win it at the Lyon’s Den—that is what I did as a girl, before I knew how dire things had become with my father.”
“Absolutely not.” Hugh had barely thought before he’d spoken; all he knew was the thought of her, his wife, traveling to London—alone, mark you—so she could win a small fortune at the card tables to donate to this Herschel fellow was untenable. “If you have a desire to be a patron of the arts, of course you may. But you will do so with my money.”
The frown in her eyes didn’t ease. “You are already purchasing my father’s estate for me. Even in its current state, that will be no insignificant cost. I can’t ask more from you.”
“Even so. I won’t hear of anything else, Chris.”
She ran a hand through her hair, dislodging more uneven curls. All the other ladies he had met would have been self-conscious, but she paid it no mind at all. That small fact seemed oddly charming to him. He could not forget the way her small body had felt against his hands.
It had become a sorry state of affairs that such a small moment of contact now burned in his mind like a candle in the dark.