Beauty and the Duke (6 page)

“This will all be mine someday. What is the difference if I sell bits and pieces of this room off now as later? It’s only rubbish, old gel.”

She swept past him and down the dais to her workbench. “Quit calling me that.” She closed the books she’d left strewn over her workbench.

When they were children, he had taken great pleasure in throwing paste in her hair and tormenting her. Christine had been so grateful to her grandmother for leaving her a trust fund that would help her maintain her independence. She had used it to support Sommor-shorn Abbey.

Lounging a hip against the countertop, her cousin leaned over her shoulder and picked up her C. A. Sommers’s book. “Chasing dragons like your father, old
gel?

“Why are you here?”

He sobered. “I heard Sedgwick was at the Fossil Society gala. Word travels. I also heard the bastard came here. Where have you been spending your time all week? No one can seem to find you.”

“Perhaps because I have been teaching classes.”

“Why was Sedgwick here?”

“He was in contact with Papa some months before he passed away. He merely came to offer his condolences.”

“Is that
all
Sedgwick came for?”

“What does that mean?”

“The man has a reputation. He is dangerous. Just look at what happened to my poor sister who made the fatal mistake of marryin’ the bastard.”

“Charlotte died of scarlet fever. Don’t be an ill-informed ass. Besides, I don’t recall hearing you complain when you thought there was a profit to be made. You and your father liked him enough when you believed he was going to make you rich.”

“What about his second wife?”

“Go away, Gordy. Annoy someone else. The night is still young. I am sure you can find someone receptive to your attentions. I am not.”

“I only find it interesting that he came to see you.” He slid her spectacles up the ridge of her nose before she could slap his hand away. “It ain’t as if you are the crème of London’s new crop of socialites,
old
gel.” He shoved away from the counter. “Though you probably wouldn’t be a half-bad looker if you took off those spectacles and did something different with your hair. Got rid of that hat.”

Christine strode past him up the dais to the door. “Don’t come down to this laboratory again without my
permission. Nothing in this room belongs to you. I’ll donate it all to the museum before I let you put your hands on anything.”

He laughed. “You always did have airs, coz. I will tell Papa his control of your trust fund is still intact. He worries so for our security.”

“Good night, Gordy.”

After he left, Christine locked up the laboratory and walked upstairs to make sure he left the house entirely before she returned downstairs and worked another hour, carefully cleaning Erik’s fossils with a small knife and brush. After supper, she grew tired and went upstairs to her room. Aunt Sophie was already in bed, so the house was quiet. Christine sank to the tufted bench in front of her vanity. It always bothered her when Gordy called her
old gel
.

For even at eight and twenty, she still suffered girlish freckles on her nose. After removing her spectacles, Christine took the pins out of her hair and let the length fall down her back. Her dark wavy hair defied the subjugation found in the soft feminine styles popular among the blond, fashionable set. She turned her head from side to side and tilted her chin. Her mouth was too bold and wide, perfect for shouting at rude hackney drivers but not necessarily pretty. Christine well knew she wasn’t the embodiment of the classical beauty, but her imperfections had never bothered her before.

Papa once told her in a moment of whimsical intoxication that she looked like her mother, though Christine would not know. She barely remembered her mother and no one ever spoke of the base-born actress Papa had married and who had died somewhere in Italy with her lover. Christine turned down the lamp. She had not let herself think about her mother in years.

“Mum, will ye be needin’ anything?” the house
keeper asked from the doorway.

Christine looked around the room. She relaxed a little when she found Beast asleep on her windowsill. She wanted only to be alone with her cat. “Go to sleep, Mrs. Samuels. I’m sorry I kept you up waiting for me.”

Mrs. Samuels remained in the doorway. “Is Miss Amelia all right, mum? We’ve not heard from her in a week.” Mrs. Samuels looked at Christine in the mirror, her gray eyes anxious as they met Christine’s in the cheval glass.

“I’m sure she is enjoying herself and will want to tell us everything when she returns.” Joseph would want to return as soon as possible to begin all necessary preparations for his trip to Perth.

After Mrs. Samuels shut the door, Christine twisted around and located the scratch paper Erik had given her with his instructions to have Joseph contact him upon his return to London.

She knew with the condition of the roads, a trip to Gretna Green and back could take over a week.

Christine studied Erik’s missive she was supposed to give Joseph upon his return. Then she looked at the clock and saw that it was half past eight. Guilt over what she was about to do pulled at the strings of her conscience but only for a moment as she rose and walked to her dressing room to find her cloak.

Joseph had Perth, she told herself.

He had the museum’s backing and support. He had entry into the Royal Geographical Society. The Edinburgh Scholars welcomed him with open arms.

Christine, on the other hand had sadly reached an impasse in her life where if she didn’t do something brilliant soon, she would become irrelevant. Since her return to England two years ago, her prospects had already dried up, like a well in the Sahara. Her funds were
not endless. She didn’t want to live the rest of her life never venturing far from Sommershorn Abbey and die of old age without another single, solitary discovery—or friend. Her life and her work were unfinished. She needed Erik’s find.

More than anything in the world, she wanted the beast of Sedgwick. And though her pride balked at the idea of pleading with Erik to put her in charge of the dig, she could
not
allow him to give this discovery to Joseph Darlington.

R
ain pebbled against the windows of the hack Christine had hired to take her to Mayfair. Lightning flashed in the distance, bringing a frown to her brow, but the brunt of the storm had yet to reach this part of London. Absently, through her kid gloves, she fingered the ring on her finger. A dozen times, she had fidgeted with the band of ancient silver only to pull her hand away. She leaned forward and stared out the window. She usually never did anything impulsive.

Streetlamps marked the shiny pavement as the hack turned off a busy street. It wasn’t as if she were going to a bachelor’s residence in the dead of night, she told herself. Lord Sedgwick’s sister lived with him—and it was not yet nine o’clock. Any meetings he might have had during the day would be over. If he wasn’t at some club, she hoped he was home reading in the library or playing chess with his sister. He had always enjoyed playing chess, she thought. A game of give and take that rewarded the best strategist with a satisfying win. Tonight felt a little like that chess game of old. She had to win.

After a few minutes, the hack finally rolled to a stop. Ignoring her racing pulse, she tugged the hood
of her cloak over her head and stared out the window. A grove of knotty oaks and a rather large brick wall shielded most of the huge stone manse from the street. She glanced down one more time at the address in her hand to confirm she was indeed at the right residence in Mayfair.

Her eyes fell on her simple rose-colored gown. Only now did she think she might have better served her purpose wearing something less countrified. She had not thought to change from what she’d been wearing to teach classes that day, though she had repinned her hair. The door opened and the driver set out the step. It was too late to worry about such nonsense as her looks now.

“Are you sure this is the correct house?” she asked.

“We be at the right place, miss,” the driver assured her, a hint of a grumble in his voice as he glared at the sky. “I told ye we would not beat that storm.”

She shoved a coin into the driver’s hand. “My business here will not take long.”

He held up the coin. “You want me to stay? You’ll pay me more than this here pittance, dovey. This won’t even buy me time with me Delia.”

She scowled over the rim of her spectacles at him, but deciding she needed this boor’s services more than she wanted to argue fare, she gave him a second coin. “I will give you another just like it when I return.”

She walked through the gate and into the yard, her sturdy half boots crunching on gravel as she followed the footpath toward the arched entryway. She hurried up the steps, stopped at the front door, and rapped loudly.

A moment later, the butler answered. He was a tall, aged figure with a head full of gray hair and a bushy
white mustache that reminded her of an English general. Other than the rise of one brow, his face showed only the slightest expression. “Miss—”

“Sommers,” Christine said. “I am here to see Lord Sedgwick.”

His eyes went over her. “Is he expecting you, Miss?”

She had told Erik she would get back to him; she just had not told him when. Christine stepped past the butler into the foyer. “Yes,” she lied. “If you will please inform his grace that Miss Sommers is here to see him, I am sure he will see me.”

“Very well, mum. If you say so.”

He led her into a tall foyer. A brilliant chandelier colored the walls in rainbows. Christine had barely registered her surroundings when the
clink
of silverware in a distant room stopped her. She turned and looked down the corridor toward the butler. “Wait!” she rasped. “Does he have guests?”

The butler turned on his heel, but before he could speak a young girl’s voice came from above. “My brother will not mind the intrusion.”

Christine looked up. Lady Rebecca sat halfway up the stairs looking down at her from between the spindles on the bannister, her curls wrapped in rags like some adolescent Medusa. She wore a pink wrapper buttoned up to her neck and tied at the waist with a sash. “Are you here about my tooth?” She hurried down the stairs in a swish of pink silk. “Erik said he visited you at Sommershorn Abbey.”

“As a matter of fact, I
am
here about the tooth.”

The girl peered at the butler. “Go tell my brother Miss Sommers is here. But walk slowly…. And whatever you do, don’t say you saw me awake.”

The corners of his stern mouth softened into what suspiciously resembled amusement. “No, miss, I would not dare.”

After the butler turned away, Lady Rebecca stuck out her tongue at his back. “He is an informer. If Erik finds me, he’ll know I lied about my dreadful headache. Then I will be subjected to another long and boring lecture.”

Christine cleared her throat to cover her laugh. She pulled her cloak tighter over her gown. “Do you lie to your brother often?”

“Only out of self-preservation.” Lady Rebecca lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “You have not met Lord and Lady Willows and their insipid daughter. They are even worse than the Marquess Elderbury’s wife and daughter that we had over yesterday. Did you know they had never even
seen
a fossil? I showed them one of a partial skull and Lady Elderbury fainted.” Erik’s sister rolled her eyes. “If my brother takes either daughter as a bride, I shall…I shall surely leap off a cliff and drown myself.”

“That is a little extreme, is it not?” Christine couldn’t help her grin, before she realized the butler would be returning at any moment. “Perhaps I should return tomorrow.”

“Oh no, that will not do, Miss Sommers.” Lady Rebecca took Christine’s elbow and led her down a hallway. “You cannot go yet. Not when you have come all this way about my fossil.”

She branched left into a carpeted corridor and dipped into a white-and-blue parlor. Christine stopped. The walls were bright blue trimmed in white wainscoting. A marble fireplace covered one entire wall and warmed the well-ordered room. She had never seen such pure white curtains and polished furniture. Everything shone
bright and new, completely opposite the chaos in which Christine reveled in her own life.

“Now tell me about my tooth before Erik finds us,” Lady Rebecca said, her voice pulling Christine around. She stood inside the arched doorway as if on lookout. “Erik won’t allow me down by the riverbed any longer.” She lowered her voice. “By my estimation, the creature in whose mouth that tooth once belonged must be huge. Imagine a
beast
like that living in Sedgwick.”

“Yes, imagine.” Christine felt excitement escalating in her blood. “Tell me what else you have found.”

She went on in detail about a second tooth and part of what she thought might be a vertebrae. The girl had no idea just how rare and magnificent a find like this was. Though Christine could hardly contain herself, she hesitated to say more until she saw everything for herself.

“But then Erik found…he found partial human remains.”

“Yes, he told me.”

Lady Rebecca’s brown eyes widened. “Do you think that horrid tooth beast
ate
the unfortunate person?”

Christine remembered who Lord Sedgwick thought that “unfortunate” individual was. “No. I find it more probable the beast was dead many, many millennium before that particular person crossed paths with its grave, and the river has somehow dredged up both.”

“Do you truly think so?” Lady Rebecca considered the statement but did not appear entirely convinced. “I wish I could be as logical about such things. But the idea of the beast has not made the tenants wholly confident there isn’t another beast like it living in the crags.”

“Why would they believe that?”

“You haven’t walked the crags, Miss Sommers,” Lady Rebecca whispered. “Some who have…never return.”

“Lady Rebecca—”

“Oh, please, call me Becca.”

Voices in the foyer suddenly snapped the girl around. She hurried to the archway and stared into the corridor. “He’s coming.” She looked over her shoulder at Christine. “I have enjoyed our conversation, Miss Sommers.”

“Wait—” But Becca had already dashed out the door before Christine could glean more information about the other fossils.

Bloody hell
.

She stepped into the corridor in time to glimpse a flash of pink vanish in the servants’ staircase down the back of the hall. She turned at the sound of voices near the foyer. Apparently, Erik was searching the front rooms for her.

She stepped back into the parlor, out of sight. Her heart pounded as she juggled the idea of returning tomorrow when he did not have guests, but a glance around the parlor revealed no sign of a doorway that opened to the garden. Drawing in a deep breath, she smoothed her skirts and shut her eyes.

This is business
, she thought.
Convince him you are the best contender for the job. We’re adults
.

With that mantra in her thoughts, she took one more fortifying breath, turned and nearly screamed.

Erik leaned against the door, his arms crossed over his chest. Her fist flew to her breast. “You scared the
life
out of me, Erik.”

His gaze traveled from the top of her square-shaped hat, down the tiny rows of buttons on her bodice to the damp hem of her skirt before he returned his attention
to her face. His mouth turned up at the corner. A little thrill shot through her stomach. “Christine.”

He was dressed impeccably in formal black, his white shirt a stark counterpoint to the image of brute strength he so casually conveyed in his easy stance. “It seems my sister put you in a wing that has no escape door.”

Christine’s brows snapped together. “Your butler informed on her?”

“That she left me at the mercy of our guests on the pretense of suffering a headache?” He smiled. “No, he did not have to. I know my sister.”

Evidently, his grace knew something about Christine as well, to recognize that she would have escaped had there been a door. “I came to talk about your visit to Sommershorn Abbey. I know you said to go through your man of affairs to make an appointment. I will return tomorrow if that is your want.”

“Did you give the tooth back to my sister?”

“No.” She smoothed her gloved hand over her reticule. “My reasons for coming here tonight were spontaneous. I didn’t think to pack up everything. I…I normally plan such things with more attention to detail.” Nor did she normally blather about like a flitting butterfly. “Your sister said that you had more specimens where that tooth came from.”

He didn’t reply, which doused her hope that he had brought the entire cumbersome collection to London. “If fossils have been washing up on one of your riverbanks, the source has to be from somewhere near where the tooth was discovered. I want to examine all your bones.”

He suddenly pinched the bridge of his nose and quietly laughed. Her gaze of its accord moved to his lips. And a random memory besieged her.

No one kissed like Erik. Not in her entire life had
any man touched all five of her senses with only a taste of his mouth. He could make her hot and buttery and certain of her desires. He could make her want more than she knew she should have. His eyes returned to hers, amusement in their depths.

The long-ago memory vanished, but not the heat it left behind. “What is so humorous?” she asked.

A strange, tender light came into his eyes. “All of this we could have discussed in the morning, Christine.”

“No, we can’t.”

Christine didn’t understand why this conversation couldn’t have waited until tomorrow but something inside was pushing her forward, an ember of passion she had not felt in so long. Passion that was suddenly flowing through her veins and pumping her heart faster.

Her future was in Scotland. She knew it in her heart and her gut and she only had to convince him. “Have you ever believed in something that no one else did?” she quietly asked. “Ever
wanted
something so much, then suddenly find that by whatever fate it has dropped into your lap and your whole world changes?”

His silence seemed to tell her he was listening.

“I want to go to Scotland and find the beast,” she said. “I am asking you to hire me. You cannot find anyone better qualified than I am for the job.”

She withdrew a packet of folded papers from the pocket lining her cloak, outlining all of her qualifications and years of experience. Laying out in detail the last ten years of her life. All she had done since…since she and her father had boarded a ship to South America. Since she had walked away from him…

“I know what your qualifications are, Christine.”

Christine felt a rush of heat to her face. But to her relief he held out his hand and took the slim packet. “I assume Darlington has yet to return?”

She had the sense to recognize that his hesitation might have something to do with her obviously stepping over Joseph, and how unfeeling it might appear. But in her mind, her case for doing so was strong. Joseph had Perth.

“Mr. Darlington is on his honeymoon. I can be ready to leave before he is,” she went on in a rush afraid he would say no, unsure what she would do if he did. “That tooth your sister found might very will be the link for which Papa spent years searching. You must have known it or you wouldn’t have come to me. At the very least you must have known what that find would mean to me.”

“Go on,” he said.

She took a hidden steadying breath. “Your beast of Sedgwick is going to help me prove that dragons may have once inhabited this world.”

Silence followed.

Christine fought a frightening urge to laugh. “Not in the way that fables and mythology have painted them. But as you must know since you read his book, my father believed there were creatures as big as a house that once roamed the earth, a place far different from what we know today, the same creatures that eventually evolved into what we see today as birds.”

Erik’s brows lifted in a clear attempt to tell her he must have missed that chapter in the book. “You want to take Becca’s find and announce to the world that dragons or something that might have passed for such once existed and are still here today having evolved into what…? Chickens, or the red-breasted robin we see picking worms out of the earth?”