Beguiling the Beauty

CHAPTER 6

The sea had calmed, but the Rhodesia plowed through steady rain and frigid air. Few souls were out and about on the promenade deck. The Atlantic was a vast expanse of cold, misty gray, its dreariness only occasionally leavened by the zestful leap of a dolphin.

Lexington stared at his pocket watch. She was fifteen minutes late for their stroll. He summoned a steward. The man was to convey Lexington’s compliments to the baroness. Not exactly a subtle reminder, but then she already knew he was not a man who greatly valued subtlety.

As he was giving instructions to the steward, she rounded the corner, clad in a sturdy, black gabardine. The wind expressed a great interest in her umbrella, jerking it about every which direction. Another woman would have looked frantic and clumsy, but she moved with the command and drama of a prima ballerina taking center stage.

He waved the steward away. “You are late, madam.”

“Of course,” she said firmly. Her veil, tied at the base of her throat to counter the wind, blew against her face, hinting at rich lips and high cheekbones. “Ladies are not carriages. We cannot be expected to pull up at the exact appointed hour.”

It was the most charmingly ridiculous excuse he’d ever heard. “What is the appointed hour for, then?”

“You’ve been invited to dinner, have you not, even though you shun Society?”

“I have not thrown myself at the mercy of a London Season, but I do not shun Society when I’m at home. I dine at my neighbors’ houses. I’ve even been known to give dinners.”

A stiff squall nearly made away with her umbrella. He clasped a hand over hers to help her hold on to it. But after the wind had dissipated, he did not let go.

She gave him a look—a hard look, he imagined. But when she spoke again, her voice was not at all severe. “What were we speaking of?”

For some reason, his heart skipped a beat. “Dinners.”

“That’s right.” She pulled the umbrella—and her gloved hand—out of his. “You do not sit down to dinner the moment you walk into the host’s house. Instead, you circulate about and engage in pleasantries with the other guests. And so it is when you rendezvous with a lady. You wait, you pace, and you think of her—it makes her arrival all the more momentous.”

He was a stickler for punctuality. Such tardiness he would not have tolerated in another woman. Yet he found himself smiling. “Are you serious?”

She tilted her head. “My goodness, you’ve never waited for a woman in your life?”

“No.”

“Hmm. Let’s not stand here.” She set out at a brisk pace. “I suppose it makes sense that kept mistresses would wait on you, instead of the other way around. But I can’t believe you’ve never enjoyed a liaison with a lady.”

“I have, but those who didn’t arrive on time found I’d left already.”

He wondered whether he sounded too harsh. He hadn’t meant to reproach her, only to answer her question truthfully.

“You are still here,” she murmured.

“I very much wished to see you again.”

He’d said nothing new. But she dipped her head slightly, then glanced toward him at an angle, almost as if she were feeling shy.

“Did you fret that I wasn’t going to come?”

He hesitated. Honesty was easy when one’s answer was simply an opinion that revealed little of one’s inner thoughts. But the honest answer to this particular question involved not only an acknowledgment of desire, but a confession of greater attachment.

“Yes. I was about to send a steward to remind you that I was waiting.”

“And what were you going to do if that did not bring me rushing into your arms?” She paused. “Send flowers?”

There was a subtle but unmistakable edge to her voice.

He shook his head. “I never send flowers to anyone I wish to know.”

Behind the veil, she might have frowned; certainly she had her face turned toward him, as if expecting him to read her expression. Only a moment later—realizing that he could not see anything, perhaps—did she ask, “What does that mean?”

“My father was a great philanderer who gave innumerable bouquets in his lifetime. I view flowers as false gifts. I would not give you flowers.”

“But you did. You sent a huge vase of them to my suite at the New Netherlands Hotel.”

His confusion did not last long. “I see what must have happened. I did order some flowers sent, to a woman whose acquaintance I did not wish to further. But I gave that task and the map you dropped to the same hotel attendant—so your map went to her and her flowers came to you.”

The baroness did not reply.

“Have I offended you by not sending the flowers?”

She laughed, a dry, rueful sound. “Quite the contrary. You offended me deeply when I thought you had sent the flowers. I did not like such a bald expression of interest.”

“A huge vase of flowers, you said?”

“Enormous. Pushy. And rather ghastly.”

“I am doubly amazed now that you changed your mind.”

She was silent for a while. “This wind is quite defeating me. Shall we go into one of the lounges?”

The flowers had tipped her from rage into action.

Had they not been delivered when she’d returned to her suite two nights ago, she’d have continued to stew in her fury, imagining his head on a platter, but she would not have set them on a collision course.

And now to find out that the flowers hadn’t been for her. At all.

Did that still make him a hypocrite, condemning her and wanting her at the same time? Or had he only been stupid, sharing in public opinions that were better kept private?

The heated lounge was a shock of warmth after the damp cold of the promenade deck. She untied her veil—the air was becoming too still inside. He led her to a table at the corner, between two potted fronds.

“You are very quiet,” he observed.

“I’m a little distracted.”

“A terrible thing to say to your lover, who is letting nothing distract him from you.”

Her heart thumped at the word lover. “What would you have done had I bought a ticket on a different steamer?”

“I would have had a much less enjoyable crossing.”

“There are many other ladies aboard.”

“They don’t interest me as you do.”

“How can you say that? You know nothing about them.”

He turned and looked around the room. “Other than you, there are eleven women in this lounge, two are old enough to be my grandmother, three more old enough to be my mother, and one is barely fifteen, if that. Of the other five, one is recently engaged—she keeps looking at her ring while she writes her letter. The one in the pink frock is thinking only of chocolate—I can see her trying to sneak a piece from the secret stash in her pocket. The one in the redingote is rude to waiters—she sat not too far from me at dinner last night. The one in yellow, Redingote’s sister, dissects every lady’s dress down to the last detail—see, she is whispering to Redingote now, probably about your dress. And the woman in brown is a lady’s companion who does not want to be a lady’s companion anymore. But she is very practical. She does not take note of me because I have you by my side; she is looking for a lonely, unattached gentleman who might overlook her humble origins and make her his wife.”

He turned back toward her. “See, they don’t interest me as you do.”

The veil obscured the color of his eyes, but there was no mistaking the pleasure in his countenance as he looked upon her. Her pulse turned erratic—more erratic, that was. She had yet to know a steady heartbeat in his presence.

Belatedly it occurred to her that he was a great deal more observant than she’d given him credit for. And with that realization came a frisson of alarm. “What do you know about me?”

“You probably married quite young. Your husband exerted tremendous influence over you—because you loved him very much, because he was a good few years older than you, possibly both. Even to this day you still haven’t quite escaped the shadow he cast. But you do not think of your solitude as a sign that you remain bound to him. If anything, you have been glad to be alone—and safe.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. He ought not to know this much about her. “I probably should have remained alone. I’m not sure I am safe with you.”

“Tell me what you think of the men in this room.”

She glanced at him, not sure what he wanted.

“Humor me,” he said.

Other than him, there were only three other men. “One of them is glancing toward the girl who loves chocolate with exasperation. He is most likely her brother. Perhaps their mother is suffering from seasickness and he is forced to play chaperone. The young man who is actually talking to our chocolate lover reminds me a little of my brother: He has that aura of dutifulness to him—someone who takes his responsibilities seriously. I’d say Our Girl of the Hidden Chocolate and her brother have been ordered here by their mother to make a good impression on Responsible Young Man. Except Responsible Young Man is distracted. He keeps looking toward one of the women old enough to be your mother—and who might in fact be his mother.

“That woman is speaking to a man in his thirties. And I can see why Responsible Young Man might be wary. He taps his foot incessantly and blinks too much. His smiles don’t quite reach his eyes. And his accent shifts: He is trying to pass himself off as an English gentleman, but I can hear traces of American vowels, especially in the diphthongs.”

“Aha,” said Lexington, evidently satisfied.

“What does that mean?”

“You said last night that you mistrust your ability to judge a man. My dear, you can judge a man just fine.”

She fidgeted. She was not used to being complimented on her abilities.

“Being an astute judge of man, have you witnessed anything in my character or conduct that would lead you to conclude you won’t be safe with me?”

“No,” she had to admit.

“In that case, would you allow me to offer you a cup of hot cocoa in my rooms?”

“It would be very messy, drinking hot cocoa with this veil on.”

“I’ll blindfold myself. You can take off the veil.”

“That is a very kind offer, but going into your rooms, sir, would encourage you when I have no intention of doing so.”

“How can I change your mind?”

“I don’t plan to change my mind.”

“There must be something I can do. Or give.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Do you think my favors can be purchased?”

“The point is not to purchase your favors, but to prove my sincerity. The knights-errant of old went on their impossible quests to prove that they were worthy of serving their lady. I will do the same here. Name something—anything—and I will find it for you.”

“On the Rhodesia?”

“She is a great ocean liner carrying a thousand passengers, if not more. Chances are, whatever you want, someone has it, or a close enough approximation of it.”

But if the duke woos me with a monster of a fossil, who knows how I might reward him.

She ought not. He was right. No matter how rare or exceptional an object, there was a chance that someone on board might have it.

“You are a naturalist,” she heard herself say.

“How do you know?”

She swore inwardly: They’d never discussed why he’d been away from England. “I saw the books in your room; I inferred.”

“Mysterious and sharp.” He smiled at her.

Perhaps he’d smiled at her before, but never in the light, with her looking directly at him. The transformation was astonishing. Gone was the last vestige of the iceberg. In its place, the tropics, all warmth and graciousness.

Her heart stuttered, to her chagrin. Was it not enough that he had already turned her plan on its head?

“Now how is it significant that I am a naturalist?” he asked.

She was almost absolutely certain neither he nor anyone else aboard had access to what she had in mind, yet she felt a sting of nerves in her soles. “I want a dinosaur skeleton.”

He raised a brow. “You jest.”

“Not at all. Do you have one?”

“No, I don’t. My specialty is not Dinosauria.”

Her disappointment was disorientingly fierce. She did want to go to the duke’s rooms, she now realized. But she wanted her decision to be made for her, for the Fates to compel her action.

“I do, however, have something that might pass as a suitable equivalent.”

She shouldn’t let him do this to her—dashing her barely understood hopes one second and reviving them the next. Especially now that she knew she shouldn’t be entertaining such hopes in the first place. “I don’t want to see the remains of little amphibians or trilobites.”

“Nothing of the sort.” He rose. “Come by my suite in an hour, will you? I will have it ready for you.”

“If it is less than magnificent, I shall turn around and walk out of the door.”

He smiled down at her. “And if it is everything I promised, what will you do?”

That smile was going to be her undoing. “I might stay and admire it for a while. But you still should not expect anything else.”

“I don’t expect. But I always go after what I want.”

She wanted him to. Fate or him, as long as someone took the decision out of her hands. “I should like to see you do that blindfolded,” she said, as haughtily as she could.

“Then I will make you come to me. Now if you will excuse me—I must see to the removal of a heavy object from the cargo hold.”

Christian had anticipated difficulties, but the bribe had proved even more uncooperative than he’d thought. By the time it was set down in his room and uncrated, more than an hour had passed. However, thanks to the baroness’s practice of being fifteen minutes late, the stewards had just enough time to take away the crate and sweep up the clumps of straw that had scattered on the carpet.

She arrived as they were leaving. The men cast curious and appreciative looks at her—she’d shed the gabardine and was clad in a lilac walking gown that showed her figure to every advantage. She, on the other hand, barely noticed their attention and headed directly for the very large object at the corner of the parlor.

Christian closed the door. “Go ahead, unveil it.”

It did not escape him that the bribe was probably the only thing they’d unveil on this trip.

She flicked aside the canvas that covered what he hoped would prove the best acquisition he’d ever made. The sandstone slab was six feet tall and four feet wide. Imprinted on it, going toward opposite directions, were two three-toed footprints, each measuring twenty-four inches long and eighteen inches across. In between marched a diagonal line of much smaller footprints, barely a quarter the size of the bigger ones.

“Oh my.” She sucked in a breath. “Tetrapodichnites.”

Tetrapodichnite was the scientific term for the fossil footprint of a saurian. It would appear she was quite familiar with paleontological argot.

“May I touch it?”

“Of course. There are paper and charcoal on my desk if you wish to take impressions. And here’s a blindfold you can put on me, if you’d like to take off your veil.”

He held out his white silk scarf. She turned around. “Your word that the blindfold would remain on.”

“You have my word.”

She took the scarf from him, tied it around his head, and guided him to the chaise longue. It was not easy, but he refrained from pulling her down onto the chaise with him. He wanted to inhale her again, that infinitely clean scent of her.

Her footsteps quickly crossed the parlor, back to the tetrapodichnites.

Her interest intrigued him. “Are you a naturalist yourself?”

“No, but I make an exception for dinosaurs.”

He imagined her pressed rapturously against the slab and smiled at his puerile turn of mind. More likely she was tracing the imprints with reverence and awe. “They were marvelous creatures.”

“Yes, they were. I dug one up myself.”

That was something he didn’t hear every day. “When? Where?”

“I came across a near-complete skeleton when I was sixteen, on holiday with my family. It was a massive beast. Of course I didn’t know when I saw part of the rib cage poking out of the ground that it would be quite that big, but I spent the rest of my holidays happily finding out.”

“You did all the digging all by yourself?”

“No, of course not. My siblings helped, as did children from a nearby village, and some young men who wanted to see what the fuss was about.”

“What species was it?”

A long beat of silence. “A—um—a Swabian dragon.”

“A Plateosaurus? I like those—handsome beasts. What did you do with the skeleton?”

“I wanted to display it at home, of course, but no one would let me.”

He laughed softly. “I can see why.”

An adult Plateosaurus could reach more than thirty feet in length. Even in a palatial home like Algernon House, such a display would dominate the tone and tenor of the entire place.

“I came to my senses after a while and donated it to a museum instead.”

The sound of charcoal scratching upon paper—she’d started to make an impression of a footprint. “Which museum?”

“It shall remain anonymous.”

“Are you afraid I’d go and find out your identity?”

“I’m sure you have far more important things to occupy your time, but I’m not taking chances.”

“Why not, when you are already taking the biggest chance you have in a long time?”

The scratching of the charcoal ceased—then resumed more furiously. “It’s precisely because I can disappear into the ether that I have taken a chance. What do you think this is?”

It took him a second to realize she was speaking of the fossilized footprints. She’d changed the subject on him again. “A juvenile iguanodon, possibly. Or perhaps a predator of some description.”

“How old do you think it is?”

“My guess is late Jurassic to early Cretaceous.”

“Amazing,” she murmured, “that something as fragile and ephemeral as a set of footprints can be preserved for a hundred fifty million years.”

“Anything can happen under the right conditions.” He touched the blindfold with his fingertips. She had tied it securely. But it was not black behind the lids of his eyes—more a dark ocher crisscrossed with beams of bronze. “Have you done any other sort of fossil hunting?”

“No.”

“Why not, if it delights you so?”

She gave no answer.

“Please remember, my dear, I cannot see you. So shrugging and rolling your eyes are not answers enough.”

“I didn’t roll my eyes.”

“But you did shrug?”

He took her silence to mean yes. “You said you were sixteen when you came upon your Swabian dragon. How old were you when you married?”

“Seventeen.”

“Did your late husband believe mucking about with sharp implements and old bones to be an improper pastime for a woman?”

Another silence—another silent assent, then.

“If memory serves,” he said, “some of the most significant finds in British paleontological history must be credited to a woman.”

“Yes, Mary Anning, I’ve read about her. My husband said her finds were due to blind luck.”

He snorted. “If God saw fit to give a woman that much blind luck, he can’t possibly object to such endeavors on a woman’s part.”

The scratching of the charcoal stopped. Her footsteps headed toward the desk—for another sheaf of paper? “You are trying to seduce me with words,” she said, her voice arch.

“That doesn’t mean I’m insincere. Come along with me the next time I go on a dig, if you don’t believe me.”

“I thought it was understood I would disappear into thin air the moment we sight land.”

“But there is nothing preventing you from coming back to me, is there? You know who I am. You know where to find me.”

“You will be married soon, and that will be obstacle enough for me.”

“I can delay my marriage.” His stepmother would have his head, but for the baroness, he’d willingly endure one of the dowager duchess’s rare bouts of umbrage.

“It will make no difference.”

He shook his head. “You are heartless, baroness.”

She did not miss a beat. “And you, duke, want too much.”

He left her in peace after that, but Venetia’s concentration was already ruined.

Why must he of all people prove himself so open-minded? And to invite her on an organized expedition! She’d daydreamed of one for years. Anytime she’d heard of a significant new discovery, she’d wished that she had been the one gifted with a rich vein of sedimentary layers and the privilege of unveiling the hidden history of the geological past.

After a quarter of an hour, she gathered the impressions she’d taken and set her hat back on her head. It would be discourteous to make him wear the blindfold for much longer. “Thank you, sir. It has been quite a pleasure. I will show myself out.”

Did she intentionally pass by too close to the chaise longue? She certainly felt all too giddy when he pulled her down on top of himself. Knocking away her veiled hat, he kissed her ravenously. Her blood simmered. Certain unmentionable regions of her body throbbed with need.

“I don’t want too much,” he whispered against her lips. “If you are going to vanish at the end of the crossing, it’s only fair that you do not leave my sight for the remainder of it.”

He should look helpless in his blindfold. But he was all purpose and confidence. Her heart thudded. “I need to go.”

“When will I see you again?”

“You don’t need to see me again.”

“I do, most assuredly—I haven’t enjoyed anything half as much as your presence in a very, very long time.”

Then why did he not ravish her on the spot? She could feel his arousal pressed against her. She wanted him to carry her off like a plundering Visigoth and overpower her will.

“I am immune to sweet nothings,” she declared—an avowal full of shaky syllables.

“I have never uttered a sweet nothing in my life,” he said solemnly. “When I’m with other women, it’s as if only part of me is there and the rest of me wants to be elsewhere, elsewhen. But with you I’m not split in two. I am not plagued by other thoughts and other wishes. You cannot begin to guess how gratifying that is—to be altogether here, altogether present.”

And he could not begin to guess how gratifying it was to have such magical properties attributed to her person. She had nothing to do with the alignment of her features, but she could take some credit, couldn’t she, when it was her presence, rather than her face, that held a man riveted?

“You don’t need to go anywhere,” he murmured.

“I do.” She was afraid to take responsibility for the choice. The last time she’d plunged ahead with such a decision, she’d opened herself to years of anguish and misery.

“But you will be back,” he said, autocratic at last. “That is not negotiable. You will have dinner here, with me.”

She gazed at the fine shape of his lips, the clean, chiseled line of his jaw, and the perfectly undisturbed blindfold. Beneath her palm, his chest rose and fell. She had to clench her hand to not begin to undo the buttons of his shirt at once.

“All right,” she said. “But only dinner.”