A Love That Never Tires (9 page)

“Cousin Berenice, we’ve been looking for you,” Linley said, coming to her side.

The woman took her by the arms. “And that is exactly what you should not be doing—
looking!
I’ve never seen anything more offensive in my entire life!”

Linley glanced from Berenice to the white-faced attendant, to a clueless Patrick, and then back to Berenice. “What do you mean?”

“Nudity,” the woman spat. “How could your father have approved our coming here? This is no place for a lady! And Lord Kyre,” she said, turning upon an unsuspecting Patrick. “You should have had the good sense not to escort Miss Talbot-Martin here!”

If it had not been so ridiculous, Linley might have found it all funny. “Berenice, if the sight of the classical male form makes you uncomfortable—”

Without listening to another word, Berenice grabbed her by the arm and led her back through the Roman and Grecian antiquities, throwing her hand up to shield Linley’s eyes from the statues of naked men and women.

“We cannot leave!” Linley argued. “I haven’t even seen Elgin’s marbles. Or the Egyptian exhibits!”

Patrick stayed a few steps behind them, trying not to draw attention to himself or the situation. People in the museum knew his face. Some even tipped their hats in recognition. No doubt that pack of women and their mothers already started gossip about seeing Lord Kyre at the museum with an unknown young woman. And to think he imagined spending a quiet afternoon with Linley! This was not going his way at all, and if he didn’t do something about it, the entire day would be ruined.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Excuse me,” he said, catching up with them. “But I do believe Miss Talbot-Martin is right. There is still a great deal left to see, and I doubt
all
of it is offensive.”

Berenice stopped and turned to him. “As her chaperone, it is I who am responsible for protecting Miss Talbot-Martin’s sensibilities, Lord Kyre, not you.”

“But this is a museum of art,” Patrick argued. “It’s not as if I’m suggesting she walk through a room full of men with their trousers down.”

At that remark, Linley could not help but burst into giggles, and immediately clamped her hand over her mouth to keep quiet.

“You!” Berenice glared at her. “You think this is funny. Shame on you!”

Linley pursed her lips and tried to compose a straight face.

“If you intend on taking her through the rest of this wretched place,” Berenice said, almost going so far as to jab a finger into Patrick’s chest, “you will do it with no help from me!”

Patrick and Linley stood with mouths agape as Berenice stormed out of the museum. At least two-dozen pairs of eyes turned in their direction. If Patrick’s calculations were right, he and Linley would be the principal topic of London gossip by dinnertime.

He cleared his throat and straightened his necktie. “Should we follow her?”

“No,” Linley said. “I think it best we leave her alone.”

***

Past the Roman Gallery and the three Greco-Roman rooms lay one of the most famous collections in all of the British Museum: the Elgin Marbles. Originally part of the Parthenon, Lord Elgin brought these priceless works back from Athens, and in 1816, he sold them to the British Government. Linley traveled to Greece many times throughout her life, often visiting the Acropolis, and always dreaming of the day when she would see the marbles for herself. As she walked through the vast collection, she imagined how they once looked situated across the pediments of the Parthenon.

Many of the sculptures were severely damaged—some missing heads, others missing limbs. Some were only heads, having lost their bodies millennia ago. Slabs of marble lined the perimeter of the room, friezes depicting an Athenian processional before the Gods. Some fragments showed chariots and horses, others showed Grecian maidens. Linley studied them all with equal curiosity.

“They are so much more beautiful than I imagined,” she said, her voice wavering at the sight of the east pediment sculptures depicting Athena’s birth.

Patrick was more struck by her reaction than to the sculptures themselves. “Are you crying?” he asked, pulling a white handkerchief from his sleeve and handing it to her.

Linley dabbed her eyes, more than a little embarrassed of her emotions. Turning from Athena, she strolled around the rest of the room, stopping here and there to admire a sculpture, sometimes giving little anecdotes, sometimes too breathless even for words. Patrick kept up as best he could, asking questions only to hear the wonderment in her voice, pointing out some interesting element just to see her eyes shine.

One thing he did not expect to draw such a marked reaction from her was a statue of a headless, partially armless, male nude. Utterly speechless, Linley studied the marble man spread out before her. She tilted her head to one side and then to the other.

Patrick stood beside her, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. He noticed the pink tint creeping across her cheeks and thought that
something
ought to be said.

“Haven’t you ever seen a naked man before?” he asked. “I should think the sight of artfully represented male organs would be quite common in your line of work.”

“Never so…vividly,” she said, gesturing to the meticulously detailed testicles in front of her.

“Does it frighten you?”

“Frighten me?” she said. “No. It intrigues me.”

He expected many possible reactions from her, but that was certainly not one of them. It was, however, not an altogether unwelcome one.

Dropping the subject, they moved on, passing from one sculpture to the next. From one male nude to another. Suddenly, the room seemed dominated by the masculine sex, and Linley began to wonder if Berenice had not been right, after all. She’d seen women without their clothes on many times, especially in Africa, and it never once affected her. Yet she couldn’t get the image of the naked man out of her mind. Was it the same for gentlemen, too? Did Patrick experience these same feelings every time he saw a woman without any clothes on?

“Have you ever seen a naked woman?” she asked. “In the flesh?”

Patrick looked around the room to see if anyone overheard the question. Fortunately, they were alone. “I don’t think that is something you should be asking me.”

“Probably not, but that doesn’t mean you can’t answer,” Linley said with a nudge. “Is it because you’ve never been with a woman?”

“I have been with women before.”

“
Many
women?”

“Linley!”

She leaned in close to him and whispered, “More than five?”

“No.”

“Less than three?”

“This is really none of your business.”

Stepping away from him, Linley took a turn around the room, relishing in how uncomfortable he seemed. “I don’t understand why it is perfectly fine for men to sleep with as many women as they want, while women are expected to remain virgins.”

“Because men are jealous, stubborn creatures,” he explained. “We cannot bear the thought of another man possessing something we desire.”

“Desire.” Linley grinned. “What an interesting choice of words. Did you come up with it on your own, or were you inspired? By something in this very room, perhaps?” She toyed with the lace around the collar of her dress.

“Do not tempt me,” he told her. “Just because I am a gentleman does not mean I will always act like one.”

“I don’t think you could be ungentlemanly if you tried.”

Somehow, she had managed to gain the upper hand in the conversation, although Patrick wasn’t sure exactly when. How glibly she pranced between the statues! She mocked him. Baited him. Patrick couldn’t stand it. If she wanted to play like an adult, he was damned well not about to stop her!

Without another word, he leaned down and kissed her squarely on the mouth.

Linley blinked up at him, stunned. She had not expected that. She’d only meant to tease him. To push him just a little, to see him blush and fluster and fidget. She never in a million years thought he would pull her into his arms and press his lips to hers…and certainly not in the middle of the British Museum.

“I can’t believe my very first kiss was in front of Elgin’s marbles.”

Patrick was suddenly aware of their marble audience. The room was full of cold, blank eyes, and they all seemed to be turned toward the flushed young couple in the center.

“Your first kiss?” he asked her.

Linley nodded.

“Oh good Lord.” Patrick closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “How have you made it this long without being kissed?”

“Who would have done it? Archie? Reginald?”

“You have a point,” he said, taking her by the arm. “But this was not at all what I had in mind when I said I wanted to show you London. Perhaps we would have been safer with Mrs. Hastings, after all.”

“
You
might be safer,” Linley teased. “Though I really can’t blame you for getting carried away by my charms. Truthfully, I was beginning to wonder if, underneath all those fancy clothes, there was a man in there.”

“I’m sorry to have disappointed you.”

“Oh, I’m far from disappointed,” she said as she led him through the doorway to the next room. “It isn’t every day a girl gets kissed by the third most eligible man in England.”

***

The Egyptian Sculpture Gallery was crowded. They had to keep their distance from each other for appearance sake. Linley listened to a museum attendant give a lecture on how the Egyptian race more closely resembled Europeans in color and stature than their African neighbors while Patrick stood a few feet away, wondering if she weren’t actually thinking about their kiss and not hearing a word the man said.

It was a good kiss, perfect for someone’s first time, but it could have been better. Of course, Linley had nothing else to compare it to, but Patrick hoped she wasn’t one of those girls who expected the sky to open up and angels to sing. Next time he wanted to
really
kiss her. To wrap his arms around her and run his tongue between her teeth. But a man didn’t kiss a woman like that unless he planned to take her to bed, and Patrick had absolutely no intention of doing that…although with her bright mind and natural curiosity, he couldn’t help but think she’d be quite an enjoyable partner.

What the hell was he doing thinking things like that? This was Linley Talbot-Martin—a young
lady, not some good-time girl from the Gaiety he could take for a toss. Patrick was no sex-crazed lunatic, but if he weren’t careful, he’d end up with a very uncomfortable
situation
in the middle of the British Museum. That hadn’t happened to him since university, and while it may have been excusable then, it would be very hard to explain to a group of mortified museum patrons! He needed to find something else to think about. And quickly.

“Do you think you could show me the Rosetta stone?” he leaned forward and asked.

Linley turned her head at the sound of his voice, nodded, and backed out of the crowd. She spent the majority of her life in Egypt, slogging through the sands of Giza, Memphis, and Thebes. If anyone was capable of giving someone a tour of Egyptian antiquities, it was she.

“The Rosetta stone is the most popular exhibit in the entire museum,” Linley explained, leading Patrick over to its display case. “The French originally discovered it, but we took it from them after the Napoleonic Wars.”

The large black slab, broken off at the top and bottom, bore three incomplete inscriptions: two in Egyptian and one in Ancient Greek.
 

“What does it say?” Patrick asked.

“My Egyptian hieroglyphics are spotty, but according to the Greek, it says something about King Ptolemy,” she ran her finger across the protective glass. “Archie could read it much better, though.”

“I’m not interested in what Archie can do.”

Linley grinned, scattering her freckles across her face. “But you are interested in the Rosetta stone, and without its discovery, no one would have any clue what the hieroglyphs mean.”

Further down the sunlit, columned gallery stood the colossal bust of Ramses II and the head of Amenhotep III. They presided over the space, dwarfing everything else in their presence, demanding the attention they deserved.

Linley and Patrick walked between them, craning their necks back for a better look.

“No one could call the Egyptians subtle,” he said.

“No,” Linley laughed. “They certainly could not.”

Patrick pointed to the gargantuan bust in front of him. “Now, who is this fellow?”

“That is Ramses the Great. ‘
Ozymandias, king of kings.
’ ”

“
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,
” Patrick said, finishing her words.

Linley looked up at him. “You know the poem?”

He nodded. “I read literature at Oxford.”

“Oxford? Then surely you must know Greek.” She looked back toward the Rosetta stone. “Why didn’t you tell me you could read it? Were you testing me?”

“Not at all,” Patrick said. “To hear you speak so passionately and knowledgeably has had quite an effect on me.”

Linley put her hand to her chest. “I have an effect on you?”

“Certainly,” he said, smiling down at her. “I don’t just go around kissing anyone.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Patrick sat awake in his modest rooms just off Pall Mall. He preferred sleeping at his club, as opposed to drafty Kyre House, or even to his sister’s home on Curzon Street. Of course Georgiana begged him to stay on at Hereford House, unable to understand that, even in an enormous private mansion, there was just no room for him.

“Something on your mind, my lord?” his valet asked, noting the absent way Patrick stared into the fireplace.

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Quite a great deal on my mind tonight.”

“Anything I could help with?”

Patrick kept his eyes fixed on the fire. “Do you think I’m being unreasonable refusing Hereford and Georgiana’s offer? I just feel that with the baby on the way…”

“Unreasonable? No,” his valet said. “Stubborn? Perhaps.”

“They’ve barely been married a year. How could they possibly want a houseguest? You know how I hate to be a burden to anyone.”

The valet shuffled around the small room, picking up Patrick’s clothes and setting aside his shoes to be polished. “I think Her Grace invites you to stay on because she misses you. And if you don’t mind me saying so, my lord, your sister loves you a great deal.”