‘If this is all we’re to have together, let us swear to make it count…every minute, every moment of our time in Burnham.’ Dashiell held her eyes with a solemn gaze as he raised her hand to his lips and sealed the pledge with a kiss. ‘To making it count, Elisabeth.’
When he looked at her like that with hot blue eyes full of approval for what she was and not what she ought to be, ‘might’ became irrelevant, seeing as how she’d already fallen.
Chapter Nine
Burnham-on-Crouch was fifteen miles away, not so very far in distance, but much farther in terms of Society and luxury. They arrived close to noon to discover the village was bustling with holiday trade and fishermen driven to land by the icy December waters. The number of people on the streets created an almost festive atmosphere.
‘I’d forgotten it was so close to Christmas,’ Elisabeth commented, stepping down from the carriage in front of an inn on the main street. A little wave of guilt swept through her.
She’d been intensely focused on the comet to the exclusion of everything else these past weeks. Except for Dashiell, she hastily amended. He’d commandeered more than a slice of her attentions. She’d tried to ignore him in the garden. She’d abandoned him for her work in the observatory and still he’d stayed. He was proving to be quite persistent and she was glad.
She didn’t know if she’d have made it this far if it hadn’t been for him. Most likely, she would have either returned home or at best decided to risk one more night at Sir Richard’s.
She never would have dared leaving London.
Elisabeth watched Dashiell talk with a man at the kerb about obtaining rooms at the inn. The other man was stocky and squat which only served to emphasize Dashiell’s broad shouldered build and innate grace. He had the gestures and bearing of a gentleman yet he was not high-handed with that grace. She could tell he and the man were arguing, although she could not hear the entire conversation. She hoped it wasn’t bad news.
Dashiell held out an arm, gesturing for her to come over. ‘There must be some place we can sleep. We don’t require much. My wife is an astronomer. She is only here to study the comet,’ Dashiell was explaining to the man. ‘It’s very important. This comet occurs only once every seventy-six years. We must not waste this chance. The comet was lost after it passed perihelion but my wife has found it again….’
Wife. That was the second time he’d used the reference. Elisabeth took his arm and tried to look ‘wifely.’ The man hadn’t a clue what Dashiell was talking about beyond wanting to study the stars. But his expression was starting to change to something more amiable at the mention of strange words like perihelion. He was starting to think his guests might be important.
‘There’s a groom’s suite in the stables, if you don’t mind,’ the man offered finally. ‘It’s been empty for a few months since our groom took another position, but it should do.’
Dashiell reached into his pocket for some coins and pressed them into the man’s hand.
‘Thank you, sir. I appreciate your cooperation. Perhaps my wife can make a special mention of you in her reports to the Royal Astronomical Society? With your permission of course?’
The man smiled at that and bobbed his head. Elisabeth suppressed a smile. Dashiell had no idea what he promised. She should probably take him to task for it. She would make reports but they would be to Sir Richard Ogilvy, who in turn would make those reports to the Royal Society. She would be mentioned in anonymous terms such as ‘assistant’ and ‘colleague.’
They grabbed their meagre gear and followed the man back to the groom’s suite. Suite was a rather exaggerated term for the quarters. It only earned the moniker because it had a curtain partitioning the bed from the rest of the room.
‘He might have been a bit liberal with his description,’ Dashiell said with a good-natured laugh, setting down her valise on the rough-hewn table.
‘As were you.’ Elisabeth put her telescope and tripod beside their other things. ‘Wife? A fairly liberal description for a travelling companion, don’t you think?’
She was teasing as she said it.
But Dashiell frowned. ‘I hope you don’t mind. We wouldn’t have gotten anything if we weren’t married. It was all I could think of to sway our benefactor.’
Elisabeth went to him and put her arms about his neck. ‘I don’t mind at all. Make it count, remember?’ Perhaps for this day, for this night, he could be her husband and she could be his wife. Elisabeth stretched upwards on tiptoe and kissed him. A wife would do that. A wife could kiss her husband any time she wanted and if she was Dashiell’s wife, she doubted she’d get much else done.