Discovering the Baron (The Bluestocking Scandals Book 3) Read online

  Discovering the Baron

  The Bluestocking Scandals Book 3

  Ellie St. Clair

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  The Valet Experiment

  A Sneak Peek…

  Also by Ellie St. Clair

  About the Author

  ♥ Copyright 2020 by Ellie St Clair - All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

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  Cover by AJF Designs

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  Also By Ellie St. Clair

  Standalone

  Unmasking a Duke

  The Stormswept Stowaway

  Christmastide with His Countess

  Her Christmas Wish

  Happily Ever After

  The Duke She Wished For

  Someday Her Duke Will Come

  Once Upon a Duke’s Dream

  He’s a Duke, But I Love Him

  Loved by the Viscount

  Because the Earl Loved Me

  Happily Ever After Box Set Books 1-3

  Happily Ever After Box Set Books 4-6

  Searching Hearts

  Duke of Christmas

  Quest of Honor

  Clue of Affection

  Hearts of Trust

  Hope of Romance

  Promise of Redemption

  Searching Hearts Box Set (Books 1-5)

  The Unconventional Ladies

  Lady of Mystery

  Lady of Fortune

  Lady of Providence

  Lady of Charade

  Blooming Brides

  A Duke for Daisy

  A Marquess for Marigold

  An Earl for Iris

  A Viscount for Violet

  The Blooming Brides Box Set: Books 1-4

  The Bluestocking Scandals

  Designs on a Duke

  Inventing the Viscount

  Discovering the Baron

  The Valet Experiment

  The Victorian Highlanders

  Callum’s Vow

  Finlay’s Duty

  Adam’s Call

  Coming Soon

  Roderick’s Purpose

  Peggy’s Love

  Author’s Note

  I am often asked where I find the inspiration for my characters.

  The Bluestocking Scandals are all dedicated to and inspired by women of history. In Discovering the Baron, I had the opportunity to actually include reference to one of the women whose name is forever tied to the work she accomplished at the time.

  This note comes at the beginning of the book, as I felt it prudent to separate fact from fiction before you began.

  John Herschel plays a role in our story, while his father, William, and his aunt, Caroline are also mentioned. All three of these people are, in fact, true historic figures and astronomers. Their stories are part of history, although I have interpreted John Herschel’s character as fittingly as I could.

  Caroline spent her life as an assistant to her brother, William, however she also discovered comets and other astronomical beings in her own right. She dedicated her life to her brother and the stars.

  Forgive me for playing with history to suit our story. The planet in which our characters are in pursuit of discovering is what we know today to be Neptune. In actuality, the planet would not be discovered until 1846; however, it is possible that astronomers could have accomplished the feat earlier. In fact, there is some belief that Galileo may have seen it in 1612 but thought it a star.

  The process in which our characters search for it does follow the actual process astronomers eventually took to achieve the feat.

  With all of this in mind, I promise I have kept most of the science off the page, or else this would become an astronomy textbook instead of historical romance. The love story is what drives our tale and is awaiting you now.

  1

  London, 1821

  There was nothing quite like a clear, cloudless night.

  Celeste Keswick cupped her hands in front of her mouth, blowing on them before rubbing them together in front of her. Their chill was her own fault for not donning gloves before coming out to the garden. It might be mid-summer, but the London air was always cool at this time of night and she should have been better prepared.

  She again placed her eye at the lens of the telescope and peered up at the stars that had become as familiar as the flowerbeds within the garden stretching around her. She placed a hand on the long metal cylinder, slowly turning it from one side to the next as she swept the sky, breaking occasionally to refer to the map of stars beside her to determine whether anything out of the ordinary appeared, or if she had missed anything.

  Nothing out of place. So far, at least.

  “Celeste?”

  She let out a yelp, jumping at the intrusion, knocking the telescope to the side and nearly tripping over her own feet as she turned.

  “Nicholas?”

  Her brother stepped out into the cool night air, looking up at the midnight sky above them as he approached. He pushed back a shock of his red hair, his coloring so like her own, as he looked down at her, his freckles just visible in the light of the moon.

  He didn’t admonish her for being out in the cold, or for remaining outside at so late an hour, unlike most would.

  For he expected it of her.

  “Have you found anything?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing tonight. It is a beautiful night, however, Nicholas. If there was ever a time to find something, tonight would be it.”

  He stepped around her, taking his own look through the telescope as he readjusted it.

  “You’re right,” he said with a nod. “I wish we had something a little more powerful. Perhaps we will have to build our own telescope, as Herschel did.”

  Celeste nodded, but she didn’t reply, for she knew her brother would never follow through. Nicholas longed to reach the prominence of the man he so greatly admired, William Herschel, but she knew deep within her that he would never find the same level of success.

  The difference was, Herschel was devoted to his work, while Nicholas far preferred the notoriety than the actual practice of spending hours in front of his telescope, doing calculations, or studying the maps and work of others.

  He expected Celeste to do all of that — much as Herschel’s own sister, Caroline, had done.

  While it irked Celeste that her brother was
the one who took the credit for their work, who joined societies, who could converse with other astronomers about their discoveries, she was the one who loved the work, who lived for it day in and day out.

  Which was exactly why she didn’t complain. For without Nicholas, she would merely be a woman with ridiculous ideas. He did promise her that he would ensure she received the proper credit were she ever to discover a comet of her own. She had thought she had done so twice, but each time she later found out she wasn’t the first to do so.

  It was a continual source of disappointment.

  “Mother is going to bed and says to come in before you catch your death from the chilled air. She thinks you should bring the telescope inside and look out the window,” he said, one side of his lips turned up in a smile for he knew what Celeste would think of the idea. He held something out to her. “Or I brought you some gloves, in case you preferred to stay and enjoy the view of the entire sky.”

  She smiled at her brother and took them from him, sliding them over her fingers.

  “Did you just return home?” she asked, to which Nicholas laughed.

  “No, I’m actually going out shortly.”

  “Going out?” she said in astonishment. “Why, Nicholas it must be—”

  “Just past midnight, yes,” he said. “And the one night Mother hasn’t planned some sort of social event for the two of us.”

  Celeste rolled her eyes.

  “I wish she would let the matter rest.”

  “Let us rest, do you mean?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “We are not members of the nobility, and we never will be. I do wish mother would not continue to try to make us so. You haven’t helped, you know.”

  “Me?” Celeste placed a hand against her breast. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “You with your fancy friends and your invitations to a duke’s ball,” he muttered.

  “That is hardly my fault,” she countered. “How was I to know that Jemima’s brother would become a duke? And that Freddie would become such great friends with us? And you can hardly say anything about Rebecca, for she was a common woman as well, until—”

  “All right!” her brother exclaimed, throwing up his hands in mock surrender. “I understand. It’s not easy being the one with new money in a world where the rest of those with titles as old as Great Britain itself look down on you.”

  Celeste shrugged. “I don’t much care. Honestly, all it means is that Father worked hard enough that he was able to pave his own path. It is nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Nicholas sighed. “I wish I had your outlook on life, sister.”

  “There is no reason why you cannot.”

  He smiled. “I best be going. Are you taking detailed notes?”

  “Of course,” she confirmed. “I always do. But there is nothing to note tonight so far save some new nebulae.” She paused and scratched her nose. “Although, there is something that has been bothering me…”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know the planet Herschel discovered, George’s Star?”

  He looked at her impatiently. “Georgium Sidus. Just because we are common, Celeste, does not mean we have to speak that way.”

  “Now you sound like Mother,” she intoned, rolling her eyes.

  “This is different. This is our scientific work,” he insisted, but she just stared at him.

  “Actually, Nicholas, if you ask the French or the Germans, that’s not what it’s called at all. The French prefer to call it Herschel, while the Germans have named it Uranus. I rather agree with them.”

  “That is treasonous, Celeste,” he said, fixing her with a look when she snorted. “But yes, the new planet. The first to be discovered in the modern era. Of course I know about it.”

  “There is something that has bothered me about it.”

  “Celeste, we’ve talked about that. Newton’s Law is flawed that far from the sun, that’s all.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” she said, shaking her head. “I have been doing some calculations, and—”

  He held up a hand. “Can we discuss this later? I am late as it is.”

  “Very well,” she said with a sigh of exasperation, wishing her brother was as fascinated with the night sky as he pretended to be. “Have fun.”

  He winked at her as he gave her a cheeky smile. “I always do.”

  And with that, he turned on his heel, leaving her alone in the garden, with all the company she could ever ask for stretching out overhead.

  The next day in a neighborhood not particularly far away, Oliver Cunningham was frowning at the calculations written in his own neat hand upon the orderly papers spread out on the desk before him.

  “Is something amiss?”

  He whipped his head up to find his mother standing in the doorway, and he scratched his temple, noting as he did so that his hair needed trimming once more.

  Her mother was dressed as though she was ready to go out somewhere, her dark hair, tinged with gray, pulled back in the latest fashion.

  “Nothing,” he mumbled. “Something isn’t doing what it’s supposed to, when it should be fairly obvious and straightforward.”

  “Oh?” she said, arching an eyebrow. “Do you mean a certain someone who has been remiss in preparing himself for a function he promised his mother he would escort her to? Where he has important matters to attend to, such as doing a duty he has ignored for years now?”

  He looked up, smiling at her with affection. “Oh, Mother,” he said, standing and crossing the room to bestow a kiss on her cheek, before continuing on to the fireplace to peer at the mantel clock. “What time is it?”

  “Far past the time that you should be sitting here with all of those numbers in front of you,” she said, waving a hand at the stacks of papers lining his desk. She crossed over, picked up his slide rule and moved the cursor up and down.

  He lifted a hand as he attempted to tell her that he had been using that, but it was too late, and he let it flutter down next to his leg uselessly.

  “I’ve never quite understood how this thing worked,” she said with a frown, as she swung the instrument from one side to the other. “Besides, do you even need it? Your tutors always used to tell me that you were the brightest lad they had ever met. Match that with your charm, Oliver, and you should have had all the women of the ton fawning all over you, despite the fact that you haven’t the highest of titles. You are lucky, you know, that your mother has connections, or you might never have found a young woman.”

  He looked over his shoulder and smiled to appease her.

  “I’m coming, Mother, I promise.”

  She held up a finger, pointing it toward him. “You must come ready yourself before you go off looking through that monstrosity outside, do you understand?”

  “My telescope?”

  “Yes. My goodness, Oliver, if that thing was any larger, I’m sure we would have someone living in it.”

  He laughed, placing a hand on her back and steering her out the door.

  “Understood. You hate the telescope. But be pleased that I am now being the dutiful son and attempting to find my valet to help me prepare. Does that make you happy?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “You can go pester Alice now, and I will meet you in the foyer shortly.”

  “Do take time to look presentable, will you?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  She sent him a look of aggravation before continuing down the corridor with a slight huff.

  Oliver laughed and continued up the stairs to his bedchamber. He loved his mother, he truly did. But nights like tonight he wished she didn’t care quite as much as she did about his future.

  “She certainly looks beautiful tonight, doesn’t she, Ollie?” Alice whispered in his ear as he escorted her and his mother into the ballroom. Oliver pretended he hadn’t heard her, though he didn’t miss his sister’s knowing look.

  The Duke of Wyndham, the sixth of his name and the most unlikely of all of
them, was holding his biannual ball — although Oliver was aware that it was primarily the duke’s mother who forced such celebrations, something he and Wyndham had in common — but he was pleased to attend nonetheless.

  Primarily because the duke and his bride were known for inviting not only the ton but more common people as well, it always made for a rather lively event. Oliver looked around the ballroom, determining those he would enjoy spending time with, and those he would prefer to avoid.

  “Ollie,” Alice said in a stage whisper, and he looked down at his sister, her dark head coming just to the top of his shoulder.

  “Yes?”

  “She’s coming.”

  “Blast.”

  “Oliver!” His mother was now hissing in his other ear. “That is quite enough. Lady Venetia does look quite lovely tonight.”

  He glanced over at the woman who was practically twirling through couples and other young ladies to get to them. His mother and sister were right — she did look rather fetching, he supposed, but just looking at her, he was already filled with regret.

  However, he had made a promise, and it was one he intended to keep. He was many things, but he was not a man who went back on his word or who would throw over a woman.

  “Lady Venetia,” he said, bowing deeply over her hand, and the tops of her cheeks turned a lovely pink at the action. Or perhaps he was just noticing her rouge. He couldn’t be entirely sure. “How beautiful you look this evening.”