Free Seeking Celeste by Hayley Ann Solomon Page B

fatalistically and thanked him in quiet tones. It was what she had expected.
    Now, it seemed, that communication had been false. It was the sister ship, the Astor, that had been caught on the rocky shores of the Eastern Hebrides. Polaris was late docking because it had been trading, quite profitably, in spices, tea and silk. Miss Derringer’s competence had not grown into a fortune, but it had certainly trebled in the year or so that the Polaris had been trading.
    Mr. Clark tapped his fingers on the table. He wished Miss Derringer had not been so precipitate in leaving Lady Somerford’s, her last known address. Inquiries had led him nowhere. There was nothing, he knew, that he could do about the situation. He ticked a column in his ledger, then shut the book with a sigh.
    Mr. Wiley chuckled. “Here’s a thought, Ethan! You could locate Miss Derringer, then marry the wench!”
    Not for the first time, Mr. Clark reflected on the bad taste of his partner. Still, he was a kindly man, so he managed a faint grin and endeavoured to ignore the thrust of the poor humour. Perhaps in his afternoon off he would make some investigations of his own. After all, people could not simply vanish into thin air. Or could they? Interesting thought.
    Mr. Wiley held out the basket of delectable-smelling buns from Gunther’s. A luxury, but it was his sixtieth birthday. Ethan bit into the sweet delicacy with unfeigned enjoyment. For the moment, the business of locating Lord Featherstone and the mysterious Miss Derringer was entirely set aside.

Seven
    The night was adrift with stars. Anne looked out of her window in amazed wonderment. This was the first evening, since her fateful appointment as governess, that she had had the leisure to peer out of the tall lattice windows and thoroughly scrutinise the sky. She was right. The stars of the country seemed brighter and more numerous than those of the city. For an instant, she felt a pang, for the sky that she knew so well, the black velvet that had become her intimate friend, seemed suddenly vaster, a trifle aloof from the easy familiarity with which she had become accustomed.
    But then, staring steadily, she located her old friend Polaris ... then the blazing light of Venus, Arcturus, Sirius, Canopus, Rigel, Procyon... . She relaxed and allowed the known to guide her to the myriad unknown. The naked eye could not lead her to the farthest planet known to man, Uranus, nor could it reveal to her its two recently discovered satellites, Ariel and Umbriel. With diligence, however, she could make out Saturn’s rings, the red glow of Mars, the constellations and clusters and trails of nebulae... . She felt the heady thrill of the adventurer, the explorer into the unknown, the unchartered. It was waiting for her, this night sky. Sometimes she felt its presence as a living thing. She moved from the window and retrieved her notebook where it was still tucked away at the bottom of her portmanteau. She need have no fear now of being labeled a bluestocking. There could be nothing more fitting, after all, for a governess.
    Throwing a serviceable cape over her shoulders, she tiptoed downstairs with a newly lit taper and tried the door of the sewing room. It was locked and looked unlikely ever to open, judging by its age, lack of oiling and dust upon the handle. Annoyed, she walked down to the west wing. There she found a much more promising exit. The door, whilst locked, appeared to be in good repair. It would be a small matter of retrieving the key in the morning. For the moment, however, short of waking the house staff, there appeared to be no way outside.
    Unless... . She remembered that Carmichael Crescent lived up to its name in that it was shaped in a semicircle. If it was symmetrical, as she suspected, there would be a balcony on the other side. If she could not stroll through the gardens, then stepping out onto the first-story balcony might serve her purpose just as well.
    It was a