Page 5 of A Star in the West

“I see nothing lacking.”

Pink colored her cheeks. “No need to be polite, sir. I saw you divert your eyes when you first beheld me.” He began to protest, but she held up a hand. “It’s all right. There’s a reason I’ve reached the ripe old age of twenty-eight without having a suitor.”

Her insinuation made his jaw clench. He looked her straight in the eye and refused to let his nervousness divert his gaze again. “You’re right. There is a reason you haven’t yet had a suitor. Because until today, I was in Massachusetts. I apologize for my tardiness.”

Now it was her turn to blink. Once. Twice. Three times. “You’re in earnest?”

He nodded. Then, just to ensure there was no misunderstanding, he added words. “I am.”

Slowly, her lips curved into another smile, a small one that didn’t even show her teeth. Yet it caused his pulse to pound in a terribly chaotic fashion. For this one, small as it was, reached her eyes and warmed her entire countenance.

Chapter 3

“Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea.”

Stella cringed inwardly as the young ladies of the R.C.B. Literary Society flocked around Frank on the lawn in front of Burleson Hall. They peppered him with questions and assaulted him with a mixture of batting eyelashes and antagonistic glares. Like an ill-prepared soldier thrust into battle, Frank flinched and dodged, tripping over both his words and his feet.

“Is it true they don’t allow women to study at Harvard?” Rose Atwater accused, her eyebrows slanting behind her wire-rimmed spectacles.

Frank stumbled sideways a step. “Ah . . . technically, yes, but there’s an Annex where, ah, females receive instruction directly from Harvard professors. I taught a course there last term, as a matter of fa—”

“So you condone the subjugation of women in institutions of higher learning?”

Frank’s eyes rounded like a hunted animal cornered by a predator. “That’s not what I—”

Annabelle Raymond sidled up so close to Frank that her black-checked skirt brushed his trouser leg. “Pay her no mind, Mr. Stentz. Rose is still sore from losin’ our suffrage debate last week.” Annabelle’s accent thickened as she laid on the southern charm. The sound grated on Stella’s nerves. Normally she adored Annabelle, but at the moment, Stella found her display of feminine wiles vastly annoying. “I’m sooooo lookin’ forward to attendin’ your lecture tomorrow on the transformational nature of pi, Professor.”

“Transcendental,” Frank corrected as he scooted a few inches away. “Lindemann proved pi to be transcendental not transformational.” He cast an anxious glance at Annabelle’s skirt, as if it were made of nettles that would sting him if they got too close.

A third young lady, Margaret Olson, jostled Annabelle out of the way and inserted herself into the vacated space. Stella bit back a groan. Could they not see how unsettled they were making him?

“The only pi you understand, Annabelle, is the kind you can eat.” Margaret turned to Frank. “I, on the other hand, am in Professor Barrington’s geometry class this term and am quite efficient in calculating circular areas.”

“Speaking of calculating circular areas,” Stella inserted into the quickly deteriorating conversation, “why don’t we apply some of our mathematical knowledge, ladies.” Before they henpecked Frank to pieces. “If Professor Stentz is the center of a circle with a radius of three feet and wishes to conduct conversation only with those standing at or beyond the circumference of said circle, where should each of us position ourselves?”

“Oh, oh, oh, I know this!” Annabelle bounced on her toes. “If the radius is three feet, then the diameter would be six—”

Margaret rolled her eyes as she took hold of Annabelle’s arm and tugged her backward. “For pity’s sake, Annabelle. It’s not a real math problem. Miss Barrington is just trying to get us to stop crowding the professor.”

“Oh.” Annabelle’s face flamed as she retreated.

“Your calculations were quite sound, though,” Frank said, daring a quick glance at the young woman before diverting his gaze to a tree some distance away.

Stella’s heart warmed. It spoke well of a man to look past his own discomfort to soothe the discomfort of another.

Annabelle brightened at the professor’s approval, but she made sure to respect Stella’s arbitrary boundary. “I’ll see you at the lecture tomorrow, Professor.”

Frank offered a tight smile. “I’ll be there.”

And he would probably be ready to run in the opposite direction should Annabelle approach him again. Stella bit back a grin. Poor man. She should probably warn her father about the ladies’ reactions so he could take precautionary measures to keep Frank from being bombarded. Apparently Baylor’s female population found Harvard men quite intriguing. At least the ones under forty. She doubted Professors Goldstein and Muir were experiencing the same flood of attention.

“Come on, girls,” Rose Atwater announced with the authority that came from being the oldest student of the group. “Let’s leave Miss Barrington to her beau. We don’t want to risk receiving a demerit for failing to arrive at the library on time for study hall.”

Annabelle’s gaze flew to Stella. “Your beau? Mercy, Miss Barrington. Why didn’t you say so?”

Now Stella’s face was the one flaming.

The other girls tittered as they followed Rose away from the dormitory where their literary society met toward the main academic building. Annabelle, however, hurried to Stella’s side and took her hand.