Someone Irresistible (17 page)

She shrugged daintily, arranging cold tomato slices on a plain china plate for him. Softly, concentrating on her task, she asked, “Do you think you will eventually?”

Not without the means.

“I’m famished,” he said in evasion, suddenly agitated, sitting up a

little and reaching inside the picnic basket. He removed a bottle of wine and two glasses, then worked the cork loose with a screw, all the while knowing she’d stopped what she was doing to watch him. His evasion annoyed her, perhaps puzzled her. He could feel it. But he chose to ignore her silent stare and disregard her current mood. One had to be so damn careful of women and their shifting moods.

Seconds later, without further comment, she focused her attention back on the contents of the basket, lifting one of the ample meat and vegetable-filled pastries and placing it on the plate, next to the sliced tomatoes, then setting it beside him. He kept track of her movements from the corner of his eye as she did the same for the second plate. After serving both of them, she closed the basket and moved it off of the blanket away from them.

“Have you ever tried
pasties
?” he asked lightly, deciding to be as charming as possible, pouring her a half-full glass of burgundy wine and handing it to her. “They’re a typical lunch where I come from, but quite good. I thought you’d enjoy something different.”

She took a sip of the dark liquid at her fingertips, then graced him with a rather prosaic smile. “I’m not sure that I have, though I’m looking forward to trying one. They smell heavenly.” She lifted her glass to her lips again, entirely disregarding the food now while she continued to gaze at him speculatively. “So I suppose, in essence, I’m sipping fine wine with a common workers’ luncheon, both served to me by a reserved, educated gentleman. How amusing.”

She wasn’t at all amused, which made him uneasy. He poured himself a generous amount of the dark red drink, then shifted his body away from her a little and leaned back on his free hand.

“Tell me, Nathan, why do you study science?”

That certainly came from nowhere. “I thought we were discussing food.”

Her lips thinned to a flat smile. “It’s a lady’s prerogative to change the subject.”

His eyes widened. “Is it?”

She said nothing to that, though a brow rose faintly as if to challenge him to prove it wasn’t.

A second or two later he returned the cork to the bottle, squinting up at her bland, patient expression as the sun peeked out from behind a tree branch to warm his skin, and to illuminate hers beautifully.

“It’s what I’ve always wanted, what I enjoy, I suppose,” he finally replied, indifferently.

“That’s a very good, prepared answer, Nathan,” she immediately returned with a gentle nod. “But I could have guessed that. Now, be honest with me and tell me the real reason.”

For a long moment, anger burned in the pit of his stomach, and then her tender manner and the candid way she probed him for explanations subdued him. She was genuinely interested, and he liked that. Probably more than he should.

He blew out a heavy sigh, then took a long swallow of wine. It was excellent, as it should be by the price he’d paid to impress her with it, and he let the warmth of it linger in his throat before he began.

“It’s a sorry tale, Mimi,” he admitted, lifting his eyes to her inquiring ones, searching for evidence of her recoil.

Her smile became sincere at that, and she relaxed into her corset.

“I’m sure I’ll not be repulsed, Nathan, no matter what you’ve done. Tell me.”

She didn’t understand. She assumed he meant he had a shadowed past, one of a common thief or pickpocket, perhaps even just a society beggar. Her misinterpretation troubled him more than he could say, but something about her manner assured him she wouldn’t let the subject lie. He would have to reveal his past, however uncomfortable it would be for him.

“I will tell you everything, but only if you start eating before your food freezes.”

Immediately, she reached for her pasty and lifted it to her lovely lips that curled ever upward in triumph. “You may begin, Professor.”

He watched her bite into the crust, saw her eyes light up when she started chewing, and he couldn’t help but smile in return.

“It’s marvelous.”

“Undoubtedly,” he replied, casually crossing one ankle over the other. “Mrs. Sheffield’s cook rarely disappoints.”

“You’re stalling,” she pressed in a sing-song voice.

He chuckled and rubbed his tired eyes with his fingertips. Then following another deep swallow of wine to warm his cooling body, he began at a most appropriate part.

“Let’s see… I’m originally from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne—”

“I assumed you were from the north country,” she cut in, licking her lips before taking another large bite. “Did your father work in industry, then?”

That irritated him. Not that he found her knowledge of it irritating, but that he hadn’t been able to competently conceal the fact of his

common birth into a working family.

“Yes, my entire family—father and three brothers—works in some capacity in the steel industry,” he maintained a little coolly, and without elaboration. “My father’s father, and those before him, were miners.”

Coal miners—dirty, dark, and deadly work. Nathan had sworn that whatever happened with his life, he would never set foot inside a mine.

Mimi nodded without remark, without looking at him, enjoying her pasty with every bite, either ignoring the fact that his family were all common laborers, or dismissing the entire disclosure out of pity.

Nathan assumed the former. He despised pity.

“When I was little more than sixteen,” he continued, “I left for Oxfordshire with twenty-nine shillings, sixpence in my pocket.”

She raised her lashes again and glanced up to him, eyeing him with a combination of disbelief and amazement. At least he thought it might be that. With another sip of wine, he turned to stare at a vine-covered trellis to his left, its branches brown and empty of life and color.

“I had no immediate goals except that I wanted to work in the field of archaeology, then paleontology, both of which had fascinated me from the first time I’d heard the terms as a schoolboy. If I was going to dig, I thought, it would not be for coal, but for something unique and monumental. Something worthwhile beyond its monetary value.

Unfortunately, I quickly learned that important work for a man in my financial and educational position was not to be found anywhere. I was escorted onto a field where I was allowed simply to dig. I couldn’t even touch or help to remove the finds, couldn’t catalogue the discoveries, was not allowed to contribute anything to intellectual conversations between the scholars. I was a digger, nothing more.” He shook his head sharply and took a long swallow of wine, no longer tasting it. “I hated that.”

“I’m sure you must have learned a great deal, even in that position,”

she said at length. “It all sounds very fascinating, actually.”

He shifted his gaze to her once more, noting the look of concentration on her features, a few strands of hair laying across her cheek from the gentle breeze that she didn’t appear to notice. “It could have been, Mimi, but not for someone of my social class. I was not expected to be a man of intelligence. I came from a family of lowly workers. Frankly, this assumption of my stupidity and ignorance due to the station into which I was born made me furious.”

She watched him as directly as he did her, waiting for her condolences, her insincere patting on the hand, whether real or figurative, while she trumpeted the reasons for class distinction. But it

didn’t come. Nothing about Mimi Sinclair was as expected.

“So what did you do?” she asked instead, eyes probing his with keen interest. “How did you go from being a common laborer’s son with no education to Professor Nathan Price, scholar and expert in paleontology?”

When put like this, his jump to her social level sounded utterly ridiculous, and his head ached at the temples from simply thinking about it. So much of his personal past was embarrassing, frustrating, and so very difficult for him to reconcile, much less discuss.

He drew a deep breath and squeezed his glass with his hand, which in turn kept him from reaching for that strand of long, silky hair now very near her lips.

“My mother, as it happens, married beneath her when she met my father. She was born into a middle class family of modest wealth, a banker’s daughter, who was always a bit too assertive for her own good.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “When she met my father at the bank, by sheer coincidence, they fell in love immediately and were married within a month.”

“How romantic,” Mimi interjected, her voice a cross between a breathless sigh and cheerful excitement.

He snorted. “Yes, well, perhaps at the time, and for her especially, but her family did not approve of the match.” He tipped his glass to his lips and finished the contents in two easy gulps. “She was more or less rejected by her family after that. I really don’t know my aunts and uncles, or grandparents, at all.”

Mimi didn’t say anything to that, as he knew she wouldn’t. She couldn’t possibly understand because her life was so simple, so ordered.

Nobody married outside of class, therefore one didn’t have to worry about prestige, or money, or society and family disdain. Life, for her, had been so easy.

The air grew colder as they sat on the garden grass, in the tiny alcove, fairly sheltered from the world outside and the northern breeze.

The food apparently forgotten, Mimi wrapped her mantle around her tightly, though she didn’t raise the hood, and for that he was glad. He liked looking at her hair. It reminded him of sunshine.

“So, as a boy, your mother took it upon herself to educate you,” she stated, as if already knowing the answer.

At last he picked up his pasty and took a rather large bite. The crust was cold but the contents inside were still warm enough—a marvelously simple combination of beef and vegetables that melted on his tongue as he chewed. He really was hungry, and it gave him something to do while

he considered what and how much to tell her.

“Not formally, mind you, but she was persistent,” he admitted after a moment. “She corrected my grammar whenever I misspoke, addressed my manners, tutored me in proper social behavior, as she did for my brothers, James and Kendall. My father, though not cultured, adored her and let her do as she pleased when it came to rearing us as gentlemen, probably because he never believed we’d succeed in living above our station.”

“And yet you have,” she said, smiling. “How did you manage to become formally educated, then?”

He was afraid she’d ask. It humiliated him to take charity as he had, but to get to the top of his field, it had been necessary. It was suddenly very important to him that she understand that.

“My mother knew of my interest in science when I was very young,”

he revealed, his voice low and tight. “She had… connections, shall we say, through her family that didn’t acknowledge me, and knew of ways to get me involved with the right tutors.”

“She found you a sponsor,” Mimi said for him.

He fidgeted, picking off a piece of the crust and flaking it onto the plate between his forefinger and thumb. “Yes, exactly.”

She waited, and when his explanation wasn’t forthcoming, she opened her arms wide and fairly gaped at him. “Well? Who?”

“Who what?”

“Who is your sponsor, Nathan? Do I know him?”

After all this he supposed it wouldn’t matter that she knew. With tight lips, he revealed, “John Marley, Viscount Durham.”

“Ahh. Justin’s father. Well, that makes sense.”

He had no idea why it should, but he wasn’t about to ask her to explain her thoughts. He truly felt ill at ease now, talking of this not only with a woman, but with Mimi Sinclair, Sir Harold’s daughter.

With a deep sigh, he attempted to put the matter to rest. “My mother did the only thing she could,” he replied solemnly. “Without a direct sponsor I wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t have my education, I would not have had the opportunity to work with Owen and his colleagues, I would not have had the chance to meet those of supreme intelligence within upper social circles, who, in turn, have so much influence in this profession. I simply would not be a scientist. I would undoubtedly be digging at the quarry for a minimal wage so others could collect accolades from
my
finds, or worse, working alongside my brothers at the factory in Tyne.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Nathan, you’re being so dramatic.”

His eyes snapped up to meet hers in challenge. “It’s not drama, Mimi, it’s the truth,” he readily rebutted. “To see me succeed, my mother had no choice but to petition a family who deserted her and solicit funds and backing from a social acquaintance.”

She scoffed. “You make it sound as if your mother did something awful by seeking to help you.”

“I never said that, but I don’t necessarily want everyone to know. I do have my pride—”

“Don’t be absurd,” she countered quickly. “The way men discuss their pride as if it’s some great…
thing
to be won or lost for all eternity continually annoys me. They use that excuse when it’s the easy one.”

Irritation emanating from every movement, she reached for a tomato slice, dropping it in her mouth from above. Her pert little tongue darted out to catch the juice, and he stared at it, feeling the most unusual mixture of arousal and anger pulse through him.

“I don’t think you understand,” he asserted coolly.

“Don’t I?” She wiped her lips and fingertips daintily with a white linen napkin. “I could tell the first night I met you that you were uniquely intelligent, Nathan. You are a smart man who’s had a chance to rise above his station because you belong there and were fortunate enough to have someone care. You
are
a scientist, and that is something I would
know
, not something I’m guessing. Your mother did the right thing by finding you this opportunity because she could, because you didn’t have it handed to you by birthright. Frankly, I think she sounds very loving and wise.”