My Wicked Marquess (18 page)

Max glanced past her. “Come in, Dodsley.”

Daphne turned around as the butler took the tray from the liveried footman who had been holding it for him.

Max pulled out the nearest chair for her with a gallant smile, while Dodsley and the footman made a dignified procession into the dining room.

Daphne sat down, and Max took a seat beside her; Dodsley placed the silver tray on the table between them. When the servants withdrew, they exchanged a smile and helped themselves to the light repast that was the very picture of elegant simplicity.

The chilled lemon cream awaited in petite china cups with silver spoons. A crystal bowl tempted them with a fresh fruit salad: apricots and plums, raspberries and blueberries, all generously sprinkled with sugar.

Perfectly balanced with the tart zing and smooth texture of the lemon cream were the crisp, pale, wafer-thin biscuits universally known and loved as ratafia drops. The sweet sophistication of their understated almond flavor paired with
the creamy sorbet to perfection.

Though Dodsley had also brought them a pitcher of chilled tea with a sprig of mint and a slice of lemon floating in it, they both opted for a second glass of the Champagne instead.

“There's something I've been meaning to ask you,” Daphne spoke up as they sat together.

“What's that?”

“The night of the Edgecombe ball—well, I wasn't trying to eavesdrop—but I heard Albert say you ‘vanished' when you both were boys. He seemed quite mystified by it, and frankly, so was I. What did it signify?”

“Oh, I was sent away to school when I was thirteen. Albert and his brothers went to Eton, but…my father could not manage that for me at the time. So I attended a small academy in Scotland.”

“Oh.” She smiled at him, not wishing to remind him of his family's earlier lack. “That makes sense.”

Looking around at this house, she saw he had certainly come a long way.

“Shall we?” he asked a bit later when they finished their snack, much refreshed. “I'll take you up to see the long gallery now.”

“Yes.” Daphne joined him eagerly, and they continued the tour. The time was flying, and she dared not stay much longer.

Max showed her out of the dining room and up a grand staircase with marble steps and a flowery wrought-iron banister. She had an increasingly surreal feeling to find herself on such intimate terms with a man she had seen on only three occasions in the past—a man who even now considered himself her betrothed.

Strangest of all was how naturally they both seemed to fall into this easy companionship with each other. He was almost as easy to talk to as Jonathon, but the two could not have been more different.

Perhaps he really did know what he was doing, she thought, stealing another sidelong glance at him. He was older and much more experienced than she was, after all.

At the top of the stairs, the white marble floors gave way to light oak parquetry. Though the staircase continued on to upper regions where, presumably, the bedchambers were situated, their destination was the main floor, with its elegant reception rooms.

He showed her the pale blue drawing room at the front of the house and the music room behind it, the two adjoined by sliding pocket doors. The music room boasted not only a large, graceful harp, but a fine black pianoforte, as well.

Daphne glanced at her host. “Do you play?”

“No, but I am an avid listener. Sometimes I hire a trio to come in and play for me. Do you play, Miss Starling?”

Long-lost days of playing the pianoforte beside her mother came to mind at once, but that was long ago.

She shook her head. “So, where is this grand art collection that you keep bragging about?”

“Across the corridor. After you.” He swept a gesture toward the doorway of the music room.

With a teasing glance, Daphne exited as he bade her and crossed the wide, graceful hallway, but when she peeked ahead of him into the long gallery across the way, the room was dark.

He brushed past her, going in first. “We keep the shutters closed to protect the paintings.”

He crossed the gallery, approaching the row of nearly floor-to-ceiling windows along the opposite wall. The click and creak reverberated through the long, narrow room as he opened each tall shutter, and folded it back into place.

Light slowly permeated the splendor of a classic picture gallery with golden parquet floors and red walls, a traditional background for his collection.

Daphne stepped into the room, staring all around her in wonder. To be sure, it was a treasure trove. Some paintings were huge; others, lovingly framed miniatures. All different eras were represented: courtly lovers in the Baroque style, awash with lace, in towering wigs and Watteau gowns. Glowing Venetian landscapes. A stone slab with Egyptian hieroglyphs was displayed on the opposite wall. There were numerous statues, both bronze and marble. Dutch portraits,
dark and moody. A pair of two-handled Roman amphorae as tall as herself.

She cooed over a brilliant illuminated manuscript on a stand, and then became entranced by a glittering Byzantine mosaic to her right.

He watched her in mysterious silence.

Drawing in her breath, she approached a modest sepia sketch of a portly naked female, ever so sensitively rendered. Then she turned to him, wide-eyed. “Is that—?”

He nodded, rich satisfaction in his eyes. “Leonardo.”

“God,” she breathed, pressing her hand to her heart. It was the closest she had ever stood to the genius of Leonardo da Vinci.

“My tastes are eclectic, as you can see. This one is a particular favorite of mine,” he added, turning to a tall alabaster statue of a female water bearer a few feet from where he stood. He walked over to it. Daphne also approached. “She's Roman, circa
A.D.
56. Isn't she splendid? The skill this must have required—and the fellow never even signed his name. One of history's unsung heroes.”

“She is exquisite.”

“Hm. Solid stone, and yet,” he added in a thoughtful murmur, grazing his fingertips along the water bearer's thigh, “you almost expect to feel the diaphanous cloth of her robe.”

Something about his idle caress made her full attention home in on his strong, graceful hand. She shivered a little, but fought off the dart of desire that came out of nowhere.

“What robe?” she answered archly.

He flashed a rueful half smile. “She isn't wearing much, is she?”

Daphne returned his smile, rather mystified. Then she shook her head, turning to look all around her again. “I can't believe you have these things.”

“Well, you know, Europe's been a battleground these many years. I was privileged to save many of these beautiful pieces from destruction. Shall we?” With a courteous gesture, he invited her to join him on a stroll around the gallery.

He folded his hands behind his back as she fell into step beside him. Some of the pictures he explained to her; others he merely stood back and let her enjoy. But when they came to a portrait of a man with pale eyes and dark hair, she was riveted.

“Who is this?” she murmured, half impressed, half intimidated by the way the lordly figure stared out from the canvas with a face full of arrogant intensity.

“That,” Max answered dryly, “is my father.”

Daphne looked at him in surprise. “Oh—I should have known. You have his eyes. Indeed, you are a copy of him.”

“No, I'm not,” he answered airily, avoiding her gaze with a broody little smile.

Taken aback by the steely undertone in his quiet reply, she turned to him in question, but when he blithely ignored her, she decided not to press him. “Are these your ancestors, too?” She nodded toward the next few portraits.

“Aye, there's a whole row of the blackguards.”

His apparent ambivalence about his forebears puzzled her. Intrigued, Daphne spent a few minutes studying the various Rotherstone lords. Their clothing reflected different periods, but that same guarded intensity had obviously been passed down through the bloodlines over time. Some of the marquesses were shown in court robes for their official portraits. Others wore military uniforms, while a few were portrayed in gentlemanly country clothes with a horse and an estate behind them.

But one small detail in some of the portraits caught her eye: a white Maltese cross adorned with some obscure insignia. “What is that?” she asked, her curiosity piqued.

“What is what?”

She pointed to the symbol, sometimes shown on the clothing, sometimes obscurely tucked away into a corner of the painting.
“That.”

“Oh—that's just one of their honorifics. Different members of my line have been inducted into several noble orders. Many of them are hereditary. Basically meaningless, but you know, funny robes and whatnot. The occasional odd ceremony once a decade or whenever the ruling monarch
takes the whim.”

“I see.” They had come to the end of the room, where a rectangular Persian carpet defined a small seating area arranged in front of the plain white fireplace.

The whole gallery was a feast for the eyes, but her scanning gaze was drawn to the fantastic jeweled broadsword on display above the mantelpiece.

A low exclamation escaped her. “How…marvelous.” She moved toward the fireplace and stared up at the gleaming steel blade.

He came to stand by her side, and then looked at her quizzically. “Miss Starling: You are very wise.”

She looked at him in surprise. “I am?”

“You have sounded out the most valuable piece in my entire collection.”

“This?” She pointed to the sword. “Even more than the Leonardo?”

“To me, it is.”

“Why? Where did you get it?”

When he looked up at it, she stared at his noble profile. “It was handed down to me by my father, and his father before him—and so it has been, for some six hundred years. It belonged to the first Lord Rotherstone. He was a warrior-baron, a knight, at the time of Richard the Lionheart. He took this sword with him to the Holy Land, and with it, slew a hundred of Saladin's Mamluks in the fight to free Jerusalem.”

“Really?” she breathed. “This very sword?”

“Yes.” He turned again to her with a trace of amusement around the corners of his eyes at her enthusiasm for this bit of family history.

“And now you have it,” she echoed.

He nodded, coming closer.

Well, his willingness to join the fray in Bucket Lane certainly made sense now, she thought. He had the battle instinct in his blood.

“Have you ever tried it out?” she asked with a flirtatious look askance, glancing back at the Crusader's sword.

“You really think I go around smiting people, don't you?”

“You didn't answer the question.”

“Sorry?” He was staring at her mouth.

He stepped nearer.

She furrowed her brow. “Why is it that when you don't wish to answer a question…” Her words trailed off as he laid his hands gently on both sides of her neck at its base, where it met the angle of her shoulders. “My lord—”

“I'm sorry, but I have to do this,” he whispered, then he lowered his head and kissed her.

His lips were soft, but the short scruff of his beard was sharp and prickly. It both hurt and startled her; she jerked back automatically, and looked up into his eyes.

He paused, trailing a fingertip gently over her chafed chin. He smiled at her ever so subtly. Then he approached again even more carefully, tilting his head at a wider angle so as not to scrape her. This time he brought no pain, only sweetness, pleasure.

She closed her eyes, slowly exploring the sensations of delight that infused her as his lips played against hers. Growing light-headed, she rested her hands on his chest to steady herself; vaguely, she gripped the lapels of his silk waistcoat.

“
Daphne
.” He breathed her name, and when she responded with a faint, intoxicated smile, he deepened the enchantment, tasting her with the tip of his tongue, a slow, seductive caress.

She groaned barely audibly, yielding to the coaxing pressure of his lips parting hers. When she opened her mouth uncertainly, he accepted the invitation with smooth and unhesitating ease. Now he was in full control, ruling her senses with the light pressure of his thumbs stroking up the sides of her neck, in time with the mesmerizing glide of his tongue on hers.

He tasted of sugary lemon and French Champagne.

Her head was in a whirl, her heart racing as the Marquess of Rotherstone stole her breath and gave her back his own. The sound of his breathing was deep, its rhythm slowed.

Under his spell of his kiss, she was not sure how or when he had maneuvered her toward the wall nearby, out of the range of vision of any servants who might have happened
past the long gallery, shielded, also, from the window and the view of passersby on the street below.

A folded shutter was on one side of her, the ornate frame of some painting on the other, but his kiss and his towering frame filled her world, in front of her, above her, around her. His tongue was in her mouth, teaching her an entirely new way of being in his power, by means of the mindless pleasure he could give her.

At the moment, she was all too happy to submit, even though she had the distant feeling that she was getting in over her head. His kiss was exquisite, paradisiacal, transporting her.

His hand moved gently down the curve of her throat to her heaving chest, his warm fingertips alighting between the lace folds of her neckline. They rested there and then began to stroke, right above the heart they caused to flutter so. Her senses clamored to touch him in return.

Still lost in their kiss, she reached up and molded her hands tentatively against the hard, wide angle of his solid shoulders. He seemed to welcome it. From there, she inched her palms downward over the silk waistcoat that stretched over his chest; she could feel his heart pounding.

Next she explored the strong arms that held her, reveling in the virile power of his iron biceps through his thin white shirtsleeves.