Vexing The Viscount (25 page)

Blanche La Tour virtually guaranteed that any woman who followed her sensual advice would have a man on his knees in short order.

But it was hours until nightfall, and she had little to occupy her, since she could no longer work at the excavation site. Daisy Drake had supposedly returned to Cornwall, so she couldn’t very well call on her friends.

And Blanche La Tour had none, except Isabella, of course. Even though the former courtesan was a firm believer in romance, Daisy didn’t trust her great-aunt to understand why she’d defied Lord Wexford’s order not to see Lucian again.

She drummed her fingers on the arms of her chair. Like a bolt from Jupiter’s blue, an inspiration struck her.

“Send for a chair, Mr. Witherspoon,” she called out to her new butler. Riding in an enclosed sedan would effectively shield her from society’s view, and she might travel about London in perfect anonymity. Especially this early in the morning, when most of the upper crust were still abed.

Lucian might not relish the idea of being tossed from the Society of Antiquaries, but Daisy was accustomed to it. One more time could not ruffle her dignity any further. And she might pique Sir Alistair Fitzhugh’s interest enough that he would help her find the information she sought amid the tall stacks of musty books and scrolls that made up the Society’s library.

Wouldn’t Lucian be surprised when he turned up at her door this evening and found she had already solved Caius Meritus’s riddle?

“So he gives us all the heave-ho,” Mr. Peabody said, wringing his grimy hat in his grimier hands. “Weren’t no use pickin’away no more, he says.”

Sir Alistair’s thick brows beetled as he leaned back in his desk chair. The Society of Antiquaries provided him with a
sumptuous office on the second floor in which to conduct its business. He might not be entitled to a
milord
, but he was surrounded with the trappings of one by day.

“Did Lord Rutland seem upset?”

“No, his lordship were happy as a cricket.” Peabody scratched the top of his head. “Course, the lads were sad on account of us losing our positions, but Lord Rutland give ‘em all good letters o’reference and a tidy little sum. As severance, he said. So they all cheered right up.”

Sir Alistair rubbed his chin.
Rutland’s found something
.

“’Cept some of’em weren’t happy’bout not ever seeing her no more.”

“Her?”

“His assistant,” Peabody explained. “Miss Clavenhook. She were a fair treat, and no mistake.”

Clavenhook.
Alistair couldn’t place the name. He stood and strode to the window and looked down on the bustling street below. Along with the street sweepers and the merchants scurrying to open their shops, a fashionably dressed young woman was emerging from an enclosed chair. She looked up and down the street, then started toward the front door of the Society at a brisk, unladylike pace.

It was that infernal Drake chit again. Did she never tire of rebuff?

“Only I don’t think Clavenhook was actually her name,” Peabody said. “Once or twice, His Lordship called her something else, but I weren’t never quite close enough to really catch it.”

“What did she look like?” Fitzhugh asked.

“Like a lady, gov,” Mr. Peabody said. “Skin like a pail o’milk, golden curls, bright green eyes, but a bit too sharp, if ye take my meaning.”

That certainly fit Miss Drake. As far as Sir Alistair was concerned, brains were wasted on women. Daisy Drake
had been lurking about the museum the day Rutland first spoke publicly about his hopes of finding the Roman treasure. “Are you sure you don’t recall the name?”

Peabody’s eyes rolled heavenward. “It were a bird name, I think. Swan? Mallard?”

“Drake?”

“Aye, that’s the one.”

Sir Alistair sighed. If she was working in concert with Rutland, Miss Drake bore closer scrutiny.

“Always neat and tidy,” Peabody droned on, “even in the dust o’that shed where she sorted out His Lordship’s lewd pictures and such.”

“Lewd pictures?”

“You know, mo-say-icks and such-like,” Peabody said with a leer. “Say what ye want about that art stuff. To my eyes’t were nothing but more nekkid bodies than a brothel.”

“Yes, well, that will be all,” Sir Alistair said, anxious to shoo Peabody out of his office before Miss Drake made her appearance. He doled out a small stack of coins into Pea-body’s open palm. “Take the back stairs and speak to no one on the way out.”

By the time Miss Drake’s sharp rap sounded on his office door, Sir Alistair was seated behind his imposing desk and, to all appearances, deeply embroiled in a newly discovered illuminated codex.

“Come,” he said curtly.

He looked up at his visitor and tried to register surprise. Politeness dictated that he rise, so he did, but took no pains to hide his displeasure at seeing her. If he was going to gain information from her, he had to treat her as he always had, or she might become suspicious.

“Miss Drake, it pains me to have to tell you each time, but frankly you must accept the fact that the Society of Antiquaries will not receive female members.”

“I’m not here to petition for membership,” she said, seating herself opposite him, though he had not invited her to do so.

“Oh?” He settled back into his chair.

“I was wondering”—she paused, and her gaze flitted up and to the left for a moment, a sure sign of prevarication if ever he’d seen one—“if you could settle a dispute my ladies’sewing circle is having.”

“My expertise does not include slip stitches and French knots,” he said frostily.

She laughed as if he’d uttered a witticism. “Of course not. This is a question concerning history, a dispute that I’m fully certain you will be able to settle. You see, some of the ladies have become interested in”—she leaned forward as if imparting a wicked little secret—“druidism.”

Sir Alistair frowned, intrigued despite himself. Perhaps it would be prudent to let her believe him interested.

“I have certain information on that subject at my disposal, though it seems an odd topic for women to trouble themselves about. What do the ladies wish to know?”

“Well, a disagreement arose about whether many ancient druid sites of worship have been discovered.”

“More than ought to be,” he said stiffly. “Filthy pagans, the lot of them.”

“Yes, quite. But still, the Celtic past is part of our nation’s history and therefore subject to inquiry,” she said, sounding by the moment less like a member of a sewing circle and more like a scholarly adversary preparing for a verbal joust.

Most unwomanly
, Alistair thought.

Miss Drake rose. “If you do not know anything about druids, you might as well say so.”

“I didn’t say that.” He’d overplayed his hand a bit. Time for a more conciliatory tone. “There have been a number of unusual discoveries throughout our isle—barrows, standing
stones, and such-like. They seem to be scattered about willy-nilly.”

He strode to his bookshelf and pulled down the dog-eared copy of Edlington’s
Age of Magic or The Mysteries of Druidism and Other Pagan Religions Explained
. He needed to tread cautiously to avoid putting her on guard.

“Did the ladies have any par tic u lar place in mind?” he asked.

She hesitated for a moment. “Well, several of the ladies have country estates upriver, and they wondered if there were any druidic sites near the Thames.”

“Oh, assuredly,” he said as he thumbed through the old tome and found a faded map. He spread the book on the desk before him and turned it around for her to see. “Look here.” He pointed to the Celtic symbols dotting the page. “Each of them represents a curious find indicating an ancient sacred spot.”

Daisy’s face screwed into a frown. “I never dreamed there’d be so many.”

“Where are your friends’estates? Perhaps if I knew the precise locations of interest, we might narrow the field a bit?” he ventured.

“Actually,” she said as she peered at the map, “I think they were interested in the ones that are to be found on islands in the Thames.”

Alistair bit back a smile. He was getting warmer. If need be, he’d take a punt and search every stinking isle on the entire length of the whole stinking river.

“Weel, then,” he said, his brogue slipping out in his excitement. “Have your ladies in the sewing circle aught else to go by in your search?”

“Not really,” she said, sitting back in her seat. She reminded Alistair of a whist player who knew she was holding a winning hand, yet feared he might peek at her
cards. “Unless perhaps some of the islands have Celtic names?”

“Assuredly, there are some,” Sir Alistair said. “Even the name of the River Thames comes from the Celtic,
Tamesis.
Let’s just see here.”

He swiveled the book back around so it faced him and rattled of a half dozen or so whose place-names he recognized as having old roots.

“Do you know if any of the islands with Celtic names also have remnants of a druid presence?” she asked.

“Any island with an oak grove or a high spot might fit that description.”

“I see.” Her frown said she didn’t. “I wonder if you’d be so kind as to lend me that excellent book, just for this evening, mind. I solemnly promise to return it to you on the morrow.”

“Impossible, Miss Drake,” he said. “What you request is a right reserved for members of the Society. I would be overstepping my authority to allow this copy of Edlington to leave the premises in your care. However, I can see this is important to you.” He turned the map page back to face her. “Is there a par tic u lar Celtic phrase you’re hoping to find in a place name?”

“How very astute you are, Sir Alistair,” she said, cocking her head at him like a robin eyeing a bug on the cobbles. “One hears all sorts of things, you know. One of the ladies, of course—I shan’t tell you which one—said she’d heard that there was an ancient site that had…rather intimate connotations. Something to do with a ‘pagan blade’and a ‘goddess’s sheath.’”

She blushed rosily.

“There you have it, miss,” Sir Alistair said. “The very reason women are barred from the study of such things. Much of the ancient world’s ways were bound up with fertility rites and such. Totally inappropriate for a lady’s tender
sensibilities. Aside from the fact that ye haven’t the mind for such study.”

The blush faded and two angry indentations formed between her brows.

“I assure you, sir, there is nothing amiss with my mind,” she said stonily. “In fact, I believe your bluster is the result of your not being able to answer a mere woman’s simple question. Clearly, your reputation for scholarship is vastly overstated. Is there such an island or not?”

“Aye, there is,” he said testily. “Braellafgwen.” He pointed to the spot at one of the crooks of the Thames on Edlington’s map. “The name is a compound of several old Welsh words.
Brae
meaning hill,
llafn
blade and
gweiniau
sheath. Literally, ‘hill of the blade and sheath.’Do not trifle with me over scholarship, Miss Drake. If you presume to try, I warn you, you will be irretrievably out of your depth.”

“Braellafgwen,” she repeated as she leaned forward and narrowed her eyes at the map, clearly marking the island’s location in her mind. “I stand corrected, Sir Alistair. It appears your reputation as a repository of arcane information is well deserved, after all.”

Alistair could have kicked him self. If he hadn’t responded to her goading, he might have been in sole possession of the name of the island she sought. He’d miscalculated the Drake chit’s cleverness.

As she thanked him and took her leave, he made a mental note not to underestimate her again.

It was still fairly early, not yet ten by the chimes of Westminster. Most members of the aristocracy rarely rose before noon, but Daisy’s country upbringing in Cornwall never allowed that sort of indolence. Now she was glad for the lethargic habits of her peers. It meant she could gad about London without fear of being seen. Besides, she’d never understood wasting the best part of the day lolling in bed.

“Unless, of course, Lucian were lolling with me,” she murmured to herself as her chair was borne in a bouncing trot through the narrow streets. That delightful thought faded as the enclosed compartment combined with the unpredictable motion of the chair made her stomach roll uncertainly. She parted the curtain to peer out for a whiff of fresh air.

And recognized a milliner’s shop.

“Stop, please,” she called, and the chair came to a chugging halt.

She’d almost forgotten the little hat she’d dropped of there at Mrs. Hepplewhite’s millinery to be refitted. It was the one she’d smashed hopelessly on Lucian’s square chin that day she ran into him at the Society of Antiquaries. The milliner had made
tsk
ing sounds when Daisy brought the ruined fontange in for her to examine, but the excellent craftswoman had promised to try to repair it.

In years to come, that cunning bit of feather-and-lace frippery might serve as a sweet reminder of her reunion with Lucian. Even though Miss Daisy Drake was supposed to be in Cornwall and therefore should
not
be seen larking about London, she had to retrieve that hat.

Daisy had managed to get in and out of the Society of Antiquaries without any problem. One more stop wouldn’t hurt. She glanced up and down the street from behind the safety of her chair’s curtain. She recognized no one, so she told her bearers she would be back in an instant and scurried into Mrs. Hepplewhite’s tidy establishment.

One other patron was in the shop, counting out coins into Mrs. Hepplewhite’s open palm, and Daisy stopped dead for a moment. The woman’s striped skirt was fashioned from sturdy, practical fabric, not some exotic silk, and the heels of her sensible shoes bespoke someone who was on her feet most of the day, not lounging on a fainting couch. She was someone’s lady’s maid, out and about on an errand for her mistress, and not one of Daisy’s many acquaintances. She breathed a sigh of relief.