Lord Perfect

Lord
Perfect

Loretta
Chase

Chapter 1

Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London, September 1821

HE LEANT AGAINST THE WINDOW FRAME, OFfering those within
the exhibition hall a fine rear view of a long, well-proportioned
frame, expensively garbed. He seemed to have his arms folded and his
attention upon the window, though the thick glass could show him no
more than a blurred image of Piccadilly.

It was clear in any case that the exhibition within—of
the marvels Giovanni Belzoni had discovered in Egypt— had
failed to hold his interest.

The woman surreptitiously studying him decided he would
make the perfect model of the bored aristocrat.

Supremely assured. Perfectly poised. Immaculately
dressed. Tall. Dark.

He turned his head, presenting the expected patrician
profile.

It wasn't what she expected.

She couldn't breathe.

BENEDICT CARSINGTON, VISCOUNT Rathbourne, turned away
from the thick-paned window and the distorted view it offered of the
lively scene outside—of horses, vehicles, and pedestrians in
Piccadilly. With an inner sigh, he directed his dark gaze into the
exhibition hall, where Death was on display.

"Belzoni's Tomb," exhibiting the explorer's
discoveries in Egypt a few years ago, had proved a rousing success
since its debut on the first of May. Against his better judgment,
Benedict had formed one of the nineteen hundred attendees on opening
day. This was his third visit, and once again, he had much rather be
elsewhere.

Ancient Egypt did not exert over him the hold it did
over so many of his relatives. Even his numskull brother Rupert had
fallen under its spell, perhaps because the present-day place offered
so many opportunities for head-breaking and hairsbreadth escapes from
death. But Rupert was most certainly not the reason for Lord
Rathbourne's spending another long afternoon in the Egyptian Hall.

The reason sat at the far end of the room: Benedict's
thirteen-year-old nephew and godson Peregrine Dalmay, Earl of Lisle
and sole issue of Benedict's brother-in-law, the Marquess of
Atherton. The boy was diligently copying Belzoni's model of the
interior of the famous Second Pyramid, whose entrance the explorer
had discovered three years ago.

Diligence, Peregrine's schoolmasters would have told
anyone—and had told his father, repeatedly—was not one of
Lord Lisle's more noticeable character traits.

When it came to things Egyptian, however, Peregrine was
persevering to a fault. They had arrived two hours ago, and his
interest showed no signs of flagging. Any other boy would have been
wild to be out and engaging in physical activity one and
three-quarters of an hour ago.

But then, had this been any other boy, Benedict would
not have had to come himself to the Egyptian Hall. He would have sent
a servant to play nursemaid.

Peregrine wasn't any other boy.

He looked like an angel. A fair, open countenance.
Flaxen hair. Clear, grey, utterly guileless eyes.

A group of boxers under "Gentleman" Jackson's
supervision had been employed to keep Queen Caroline and her
sympathizers out of the king's coronation in July. These fellows, if
they stuck together, might have contrived to keep the peace while
Lord Atherton's heir was about.

Other than these—or a large military force—the
only mortal with any real influence over the young Lord Lisle was
Benedict-—the only one, that is, apart from Benedict's father,
the Earl of Hargate. But Lord Hargate could intimidate anybody—except
for his wife—and he certainly would not stoop to looking after
troublesome boys.

I should have brought a book
,
Benedict thought. Stifling a yawn, he directed his gaze to Belzoni's
reproduction of a bas-relief from a pharaoh's tomb and tried to
understand what Peregrine, along with so many other people, found so
stimulating.

Benedict saw three rows of primitively drawn figures. A
line of men whose beards curled up at the end, all leaning forward,
arms pressed together. Lone hieroglyphic signs between the figures.
Columns of hieroglyphs above their heads.

In the middle row, four figures towed a boat bearing
three other figures. Some very long snakes played a part in the
scene. More columns of hieroglyphs over the heads. Perhaps these
figures were all talking? Were the signs the Egyptian version of the
bubbles over caricatures' heads in today's satirical prints?

On the bottom, another line of figures marched under
columns of hieroglyphs. These had different features and hairstyles.
They must be foreigners. At the end of the line was a god Benedict
recognized: Thoth, the ibis-headed one, the god of learning. Even
Rupert, upon whom an expensive education had been utterly wasted—Lord
Hargate might have fed the money to goats with the same result—
could recognize Thoth.

What the rest of it meant was work for the imagination,
and Benedict kept his imagination, along with a great deal else,
under rigorous control.

He turned his attention to the opposite side of the
room.

He had an unobstructed view. For most of the Beau Monde,
the exhibition's novelty had worn off. Even their inferiors would
rather spend this fine afternoon outdoors than among the contents of
ancient tombs.

Benedict saw her clearly.

Too clearly.

For a moment he was blinded by the clarity, like one
stepping out of a cave into a blazing noonday.

She stood in profile, like the figures on the wall
behind her. She was studying a statue.

Benedict saw black curls under the rim of a pale blue
bonnet. Long black lashes against pearly skin. A ripe plum of a
mouth.

His gaze skimmed down.

A weight pressed on his chest.

He couldn't breathe.

Rule: The ill-bred, the vulgar, and the ignorant
stare.

He made himself look away.

THE GIRL STOOD at Peregrine's shoulder. He tried to
ignore her but she was standing in his light. He glanced up and
quickly back at his sketchbook—enough to see that she had her
arms folded and her lips pursed as she stared at his drawing. He knew
that look. It was a schoolmaster look.

She must have taken the glance as an invitation because
she started talking. "I wondered why you chose the model of the
pyramid," she said. "It is all angles and lines. So
uninteresting to draw. The mummy in the sarcophagus would be more
fun. But now I understand the trouble. Your draughtsmanship is not
very good."

Very slowly and deliberately Peregrine turned his head
and looked up at her. He was startled at first, when he got a good
look. She had eyes so blue, they looked like doll eyes, not real
ones.

"I beg your pardon?" he said in the icily
polite voice he'd learnt from his uncle. His father was a marquess, a
peer of the realm, and his uncle had only the courtesy title of
Viscount Rathbourne at present, but Uncle Benedict administered far
more devastating set-downs. He was famous for it. At his most
excessively polite, it was said, Lord Rathbourne could freeze boiling
oil at fifty paces.

The icy politeness didn't work so well for Peregrine.

"There's a perfectly good cross section of the
pyramid in Signor Belzoni's book," she said quite as though he'd
begged her to rattle on. "Wouldn't you rather have a souvenir of
one of the mummies? Or the goddess with the lion head? My mother
could make you a superlative copy. She's a brilliant draughtsman."

"I don't want a
souvenir
,"
Peregrine said witheringly. "I'm going to be an explorer, and
one day I shall bring home heaps of such things."

The girl stopped pursing her lips. The severe look went
away. "An explorer like Signor Belzoni, do you mean?" she
said. "Oh, that would be something grand to do."

Try as he might, Peregrine could not tamp down his
enthusiasm in the proper Lord Rathbourne fashion. "Nothing could
be grander," he said. "There are more than a thousand miles
along the Nile to explore, and people who've been say that what you
see is like the tip of an iceberg, because most of the wonderful
things are buried under the sand. And once we learn to read the
hieroglyphs, we'll know who built what and when they did it. At
present, you see, ancient Egypt is like the Dark Ages: a great
mystery. But I'm going to be one of the ones who finds out its
secrets. It'll be like discovering a whole new world."

The girl's blue doll eyes opened
wider. "Oh, then it's a
noble
quest
. You're going to shed light on
the Dark Ages of Egypt. I'm going on quests, too. When I grow up, I'm
going to be a knight."

Peregrine almost stuck his finger in his ear to be sure
it was in working order. He remembered his uncle was in the vicinity,
though, and picturing the look Lord Rathbourne would give him,
resisted the impulse. Instead he said, "Sorry. Say again? I
thought you said you were going to be a knight—as in shining
armor and such."

"That's what I said," she said. "Like the
Knights of the Round Table. The gallant Sir Olivia, that's who I'll
be, setting out on perilous quests, performing noble deeds, righting
wrongs—"

"That's ridiculous," Peregrine said.

"No, it isn't," she said.

"Of course it is," Peregrine said—patiently,
because she was a girl and probably had no notion of logic. "In
the first place, all that King Arthur and the Knights of the Round
Table folderol is a myth. It has about as much basis in fact or
history as the Egyptians had for their sphinxes and gods with ibis
heads."

"A myth!" The great blue eyes opened wider
still. "What about the Crusades?"

"I didn't say knights never existed,"
Peregrine said. "They did and do. But the magic, monsters, and
miracles are nothing more than myths. The Venerable Bede doesn't even
mention Arthur."

He went on, citing historical references to the simple
warrior leader who might or might not have been the source of the
legendary Arthur. Peregrine explained how, over the centuries, a
romantic tale developed, and along the way, mythical creatures,
miracles, and various other religious associations got stuck onto the
story, because the Church was the great power and stuck religion onto
everything.