Misfit Maid by Elizabeth Bailey

Author:Elizabeth Bailey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1999-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

Delagarde stared in astonishment at the small telescope fixed to a stand set at the precise centre between the French windows in Maidie’s bedchamber. It was of brass, with a retractable length that she was pulling out.

‘I cannot get it to its full size without opening the balcony doors,’ she said, unclipping the cover over the glass end and lifting it up. ‘Although this is only Great-uncle’s travelling piece, which he used when we went out on what he called his expeditions.’

Delagarde was frowning heavily as he tried to take in this extraordinary new perspective on his unwanted charge. ‘You went with him?’

‘Always.’ Maidie laughed. ‘Which made it very much an expedition, for Worm would insist upon all manner of comforts for me, particularly as Great-uncle would rarely let her come. Except once when we encamped in the wilderness—like heathen Bedouins, Worm said. We turned night into day for near a week, and the whole retinue had to do the same! After that, Worm was glad to be left at home, I think.’

The Viscount watched in reluctant fascination as she turned to the whatnot, lifting up a stack of large charts—some printed, some clearly made by hand—and leafed through them, explaining their purposes as she showed them to him by the light of the heavy candelabrum he had brought in and set down upon the dresser. There were maps of the night sky, charting the stars in their constellations; crudely drawn configurations, covered over with incomprehensible jottings; tables of names and figures, neatly labelled with times, positions by degrees and places of origin; and pencilled sketches, heavily annotated, which recorded the exploration currently engaging Maidie’s attention, she said.

‘What are you exploring?’ he asked, almost absently, for he was dazed by the evidence which proved beyond all possible doubt that she had been speaking nothing but the truth.

‘I am chasing a comet.’ Then she tutted, stabbing at the sketch in her hand in some annoyance. ‘And this evening I find that I have miscalculated quite shockingly. By Sir Granville’s telescope, I was able to perceive its true path—oh, it is quite the most beautiful object, I had no real idea of that until tonight!—and I now see that I must adjust my prognosis of its probable flight by quite a wide margin.’

Delagarde blinked. ‘This is a comet? Why a comet?’

Maidie smiled. ‘Well, to tell you the truth, they are not my real passion. But Great-uncle was comet crazy. Between him and Charles Messier there was nothing to choose. They were always in correspondence, and Messier wrote very kindly to me to express his sense of loss when Great-uncle died.’

‘But you are not comet crazy?’

‘I am planet crazy. Or rather, my fascination is with the satellites that attend them. My greatest hero is Galileo, who proved beyond all doubt—and it was by the behaviour of satellites that he did so—that it is the earth which travels around the sun, and not the other way about.’

Enthusiasm lit her features, and Delagarde gazed in

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