Someone Irresistible (33 page)

Still, his mood seemed to quell the questions. He could sense her irritation, too, and for a few long seconds she simply looked at him.

Nathan considered himself on display, yet he awkwardly stood his ground, hands clasped behind his back, acutely uncomfortable in Sir Harold’s quiet home, agitated by the pungent smell of lilacs, nervous about the encounter to come, and now besieged by a lady of quality too clever for her own good. He’d laugh if he weren’t so annoyed.

Suddenly he detected the slightest slump of her shoulders as she dropped her gaze to her lap and began rubbing her thumbs together.

“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice a tone softer.

That was none of her business either, but she certainly knew very well his reasons for an unannounced visit.

“I’m here to confront Sir Harold,” he replied without pretense,

feeling marvelous just saying it aloud. “I want some final answers that I believe only he can give.”

“I see.” She waited, then gazed up to him again, her blue eyes penetrating. “He is an old man, Professor Price.”

Nathan shifted from one foot to the other, uncertain of her meaning but unwilling to give in to persuasion. “I realize he’s not a young man, Miss Marsh, but neither would I consider him old.”

She stood abruptly, smoothing her skirt with both palms, eyeing him directly. “He is an old man,” she repeated with caution. “His best years are behind him.”

He watched her, noting a twinge of sadness in her voice coupled strangely with an assurance of bearing. The woman was a complex creature—but then, most women in his experience were.

“I’ll do my best not to shock him,” he said dryly.

Her lips thinned, but she didn’t offer a retort. Instead, she inhaled deeply and tried to smile.

“I’ll have refreshments brought to you, then. It may be a while until he arrives.”

With that she turned on her heels and, carrying herself with marked dignity and a lift of her skirts, waltzed from the room.

Nathan stared at the doorway, thinking how very peculiar it was that convention forced a hostess to serve tea and cakes to a guest who had more or less insulted her.

« ^ »

H
e waited three quarters of an hour, with growing impatience, drinking two cups of surprisingly good tea because he had nothing better to do with his hands or his time. The room had grown stuffy, and a servant, who never once even peeked his way, had wandered into the morning room to crack open a window to the garden. It helped a little, though this particular April had been rather wet and a light shower had already begun to fall. Still, Nathan had to wonder if Mary had ordered it

done. Probably, though he hadn’t seen her again since she’d posed her frightfully intimate questions, then left him alone to his musings.

Agitated, Nathan paced the rose embroidered rug in front of the grate, every now and then glancing at the portrait of Mimi as a child, reliving the night the fully grown woman had intertwined her legs with his and given herself to him with a yielding sweetness that still took his breath when he thought about it. He would most certainly never forget it.

Finally he heard the front door creak open, and he braced himself for the confrontation to come, fighting his anxiety by shoving his hands in his suit coat pockets to keep them calm.

It was time.

Sir Harold’s footsteps echoed in the foyer, and then the man himself appeared at the morning room door, stopping short as he gazed upon Nathan for the first time since the night of the banquet almost three months ago.

His astute brown eyes opened wide upon initial sight, his features going slack with a startled realization of who stood before him in his home. Then he blinked and straightened a little, gathering his faculties as he pulled his damp overcoat off his shoulders and handed it to a waiting parlor maid. She immediately turned and walked away with it, leaving the two of them alone.

Nathan had to admire how unaffected Marsh appeared at such a disconcerting moment. And it had to be disconcerting for him, since the last time they’d been together, he’d all but accused the man of ruining him. Still, the surprise he now witnessed on Marsh’s face had been well worth the wait.

“Sir Harold,” he drawled with a tip of his forehead.

The older man’s side whiskers flared at his cheeks as his mouth tightened. “Well, if it isn’t the renowned paleontologist Nathan Price.”

Nathan had no idea if the man mocked him, but the flat comment sparked his anger anew. “Surprised to see me?” he asked soberly, squeezing his hands into fists in his pockets.

“Not at all,” the older man remarked. “I’m actually surprised it took you this long.”

“This long?”

“To confront me. I expected you weeks ago.”

That Sir Harold used the same word he had to describe their upcoming meeting sucked the wind from him, but he lifted a brow in feigned nonchalance. “Indeed,” he returned. “Then let’s get to it. I

would like a word with you in private.”

“I imagine you would,” Sir Harold acknowledged, not in the least daunted by that announcement. He turned abruptly and thundered,

“Gracie!”

The parlor maid appeared at once as if she’d been standing in his shadow.

“Sir?”

“We’ll take tea immediately, in my study.”

She curtsied and left.

More tea. Nathan winced. Right now he’d rather have a whiskey.

“Follow me,” Marsh ordered with a wave of his hand, turning to stride purposefully from the morning room.

With a deep breath for confidence, Nathan trailed behind him, moving rigidly across the circular foyer and into the man’s private study.

It had been years since he’d been in this room, but it remained the same, ever so much a reflection of the man himself. The wooden fixtures and furniture spoke of exotic adventures, with several pieces of fine ivory, jade, and carved wood gracing his dark walnut mantel and bookshelves. Above the fireplace hung a portrait of fine quality, the figure of a gracefully beautiful blond woman in her mid-twenties, Nathan guessed, dressed in deep purple and wearing a serene smile.

Mimi’s mother, undoubtedly. Both her daughters bore a striking resemblance to her.

“Care to be seated?” Sir Harold offered, walking straight to a walnut and inlaid bronze sideboard beside a tall window.

He stood erect, hands behind his back, next to the grate. “No, thank you.”

The older man chuckled without looking at him, reaching inside an opened cupboard. “Sit down, Nathan.”

The mood in the room had shifted to one of weariness. No longer did he feel anger and resentment coming from the man, but a tiredness of bone and a softening of heart.

It put Nathan on edge, but he did as told, sitting awkwardly in a cushioned wing chair opposite an oblong, walnut desk covered with papers and an array of charcoal sketches.

Sir Harold raised himself from the lower sideboard cupboard, holding a bottle. Turning to Nathan, he smirked and lifted it. “Can’t have tea without brandy at a time like this.”

Thank God.

Nathan nodded, but said nothing, observing Marsh’s stiff movements and enlarged knuckles that signaled advanced arthritis. No wonder he kept spirits at his convenient disposal. Drink undoubtedly numbed the pain considerably.

In what couldn’t have been better timing, a servant gave a shallow knock at the door, then entered carrying a china tray with matching cups and saucers, silver spoons, milk, and sugar, which she dutifully sat on the desk in front of him. She swiftly returned to the door and shut it quietly behind her without a word.

Nathan ignored the refreshments until Sir Harold moved behind his desk, pulled out his chair, opened the bottle, and poured a generous amount of brandy into each china cup, forgoing the tea completely.

“No need to dirty a snifter,” he said presently. “These will work just as well.” He then took the full teapot, turned to his right, and dumped the contents into the base of a large green plant of unknown variety sitting sturdily next to the window. “This keeps it healthy. Mary gave that to me two Christmases ago. Sometimes she wonders why it’s growing better than all the others.”

It was, too. Nathan suppressed the urge to smile, noting how the brandy in his cup looked exactly like tea, and wondering if the man had learned this bit of deception when his wife was alive.

Sir Harold at last shuffled a few papers out of the way and placed the bottle on the desk then sat down in his chair with some difficulty, stretching out and taking a long sip of the soothing liquid.

“Well,” he began evenly, after a moment of strained silence. “I hear you’ve recently been working for Owen at one of the quarries in Tilgate Forest.”

So Marsh wanted to begin their little discussion slowly, on cordial terms. Perfectly fine with him.

“We traveled there together last month, yes.” He reached for his cup.

“I dug for a time, then helped him catalogue a few recently unearthed bones.”

“Hylaeosaur?”

“Exactly.” Nathan shrugged. “Nothing remarkable, but the work is good.”

“I suppose being away is the reason you haven’t shown up here until now.”

And the reason I have.

He shifted his body in his chair. “Yes.”

Sir Harold frowned and looked into his cup. “It must be nice to be

working again in so prestigious a manner, and with someone of Owen’s reputation.”

Nice?

He cleared his throat and sat forward, his feet planted firmly on the floor, elbows on knees, as he turned his cup in his fingers. “I’m relieved, actually. If it hadn’t been for Mimi and her brilliant sculpture, I would still be looking for menial labor. As it is, I’m able to again do what I was trained to do. It’s very satisfying and rewarding.”

“Ah, yes. Mimi.”

Nathan felt the urgency within him rise. His moment drew near; the feeling in the air one of bleakness charged with excitement, an odd sensation, to be sure.

He took a swallow of delicious brandy, letting it slide down his throat, warming him on the inside.

Sir Harold watched him carefully, his head tilted to one side, eyelids thinned in assessment. “You know, Nathan, it wasn’t the sculpture that had everybody so enthralled at the banquet; it was you, or more rightly, the existence of your original find that you’d at last been able to prove, and at the most splendid of moments.”

Sir Harold had told him this? He didn’t know whether to be flattered that the man had admitted it to him, or irritated that he would assume Nathan wouldn’t have known. “I’m aware of what happened that evening, sir,” he retorted somewhat caustically.

The older man grunted. “You made a fool of me.”

Nathan felt a sharp pain in his gut, and he made every attempt to suppress the vague presence of guilt. “From the very beginning, I’ve only wanted to right this wrong,” he answered tersely, voice lowered. “It was never my intention to make a fool of you—”

“Oh, good God, Nathan, I knew what the bloody hell was happening, why you were there,” Marsh interjected irritably. He tossed down the remainder of his brandy and grabbed the bottle for a refill.

Nathan watched him, unsure. “What exactly
did
you know, Sir Harold?”

Marsh sighed and leaned back heavily in his chair, eyeing him cautiously, swishing his brandy around in his teacup by the dainty pink handle. After a moment of silence, he murmured softly, “What do you feel for my daughter, exactly?”

Why the hell do these people keep asking me that?

He squirmed in his seat and replied coolly, “I thought we were discussing the banquet.”

The corners lifted at the older man’s mouth, driving his wrinkles deeper into his face. “Isn’t everything about Mimi? The banquet? The sculpture? The jawbone?” He paused, then whispered, “The devastation that befell you at the Crystal Palace two years ago?”

Nathan suddenly felt like crawling out of his skin—or exploding in fury and crushing everything in the room. This whole affair from the beginning perplexed him to the point of insanity; the frustration he experienced right now nearly provoked him into jumping across the desk and wrapping his hands around Sir Harold’s thick neck.

Squeezing.

Instead, as gentility prevailed, he drew a long, deep breath for continued strength and lifted his cup to his lips with good manners, tactfully gulping down the remainder of his brandy, then leaning over to help himself to more. Marsh only waited, watching with a forthright gaze.

“Why is this all about Mimi?” he finally muttered, his voice sounding cold and distant, even to him.

Sir Harold never looked away. “She’s always been a little bit in love with you, you know.”

That did it. Nathan bolted from his chair, his brandy sloshing over the sides of his cup, which he licked with his tongue regardless of the social gaffe he committed in doing so. He paced the carpet in front of the mantel, clutching the pink handle of his cup, jumbled thoughts reeling in his mind.

“I want to know why you stole my jawbone two years ago, Sir Harold,” he said in a ragged whisper. He turned to the man, facing him directly, his gaze piercing with a final insistence. “I’m so damn tired of the innuendoes and lies and irrelevant excuses for answers. I want the goddamn truth!”

Marsh never faltered. For minutes—or hours, it seemed—he sat unruffled, staring at Nathan candidly from across his desk. And then at long last he gradually dropped his gaze and lowered his cup to its saucer.

“I never stole your jawbone, Nathan,” he said huskily, his tone holding a tinge of sadness.

Nathan brushed over that and went rigid again, head to toe, pinching the cup handle with enough force to turn his fingers white. “Then if it wasn’t you, tell me who did. I know you know the answer to that one.

Give it to me.”

Sir Harold scratched his chin, stalling.

Nathan had had enough.

In two quick steps he stood before the desk, lowering his teacup with a hard
clink
to the saucer, then gripping the edges of the walnut wood as he loomed over his adversary of nearly three years. It was a very gratifying moment.

“What happened,” he articulated in deadly quiet, “the night of the Palace opening?”