Vexing The Viscount (3 page)

Perhaps it was the risqué nature of the ancient art that commanded their attention.

“The tablet details a crime, a theft committed by the proconsul’s steward,” Lucian explained. “The named felon was one Caius Meritus, a freedman in the governor’s service. It seems he absconded with the pay wagon—”

A hiss of whispers circled the room. A wagonload of Roman coin, then. The mental calculations resumed.

“He hid the money and tried to flee the island, no doubt planning to return later to retrieve the treasure when the furor died down. Caius Meritus was killed in his escape attempt, but he left clues behind as to the whereabouts of the hoard.”

“What clues?” Sir Alistair asked.

“That is information I reserve to be shared with my partners in this endeavor,” Lucian said.

Sir Alistair waved a dismissive hand. “What assurance do you have that the Romans didn’t find it themselves?”

“Their own testimony that they didn’t,” Lucian said. “Caius Meritus’s cryptic deathbed statement left them bewildered.”

“But you fancy yourself able to decipher it centuries later. This reeks of arrogance, young man!” Brumley said.
“I make no claims for my own abilities, but I daresay the scientific method and use of reason improve my chances significantly.” The slightest tightening of Lucian’s jaw was the only sign that Brumley’s needling bothered him.

“Where did you find this tablet?” Lord Brumley demanded.

“In the same general area of our excavation as this magnificent mosaic.” Lucian waved a hand toward the well-endowed proconsul. “There’s no question of its provenance. I’m convinced we’ll find enough clues at this site to lead us in the right direction.”

“What is it you require from your partners, Lord Rutland?” Sir Alistair asked.

“An excavation is an expensive undertaking. Already I’ve invested a considerable amount from my own resources.” Lucian named a sum that sent a ripple of murmurs around the room.

Lucian was either very confident or very desperate, Daisy decided.

“I would require a similar investment from my partner,” he said. “We will share credit equally when the discovery is made, and my partner will be entitled to half the value of the items uncovered.”

“In other words, you’re selling blue sky just like your father,” Lord Brumley said with obvious disgust. “Luckily, I pulled out of the South Sea debacle in time to keep from sinking with Lord Montford, but plenty of other good men didn’t. I see you intend to follow in your father’s footsteps and lead others to ruin.”

Lord Brumley stood and turned to stalk out. Angry shouts and denunciations came from all corners of the room. Daisy rose and scurried toward the door before anyone could catch her trespassing on the Society’s meeting, but she tossed one last glance at Lucian before she made good her escape.

The look of cold fury on his face caused all the small hairs on her arms to stand at attention.

The South Sea Bubble. She’d been a child in the fall of 1720, but she remembered the financial scandal well. Probably because it was all tangled up with the visit of Lucian and his family to Dragon Caern. Lord Montford, Lucian’s father, had been trying to convince Uncle Gabriel to invest his newfound wealth in the South Sea Company. The Crown had given the investment group exclusive rights to trade with South American markets, and it was poised to make obscene profits.

Uncle Gabriel had argued that
obscene
was the right word for it. He hadn’t sailed the Spanish Main under a pirate’s flag for all those years for nothing. He knew the ships that plied those waters. And their cargoes.

The South Sea Company’s chief import to the New World was slaves from the African coast. Some of Gabriel Drake’s pirate crew had been runaway slaves. Daisy remembered her uncle Gabriel shouting that he’d be damned if he’d ever invest in a slaver. Not even so much as a halfpenny.

Lord Montford had stormed out of the keep in a huff, dragging his family with him. Daisy hadn’t even been able to properly say good-bye to the boy she’d bedeviled all week and become secretly enamored with.

In less than a fortnight, the stock price of the South Sea Company nosedived, taking the entire financial market with it in a crippling plunge. A good deal of speculative investing led to the crash. Many families of ancient wealth were reduced to poverty. Even Sir Isaac Newton reportedly lost over twenty thousand pounds.

Of the loss, Daisy read that the brilliant man had said only that he could not calculate “the madness of people.”

Lord Montford was ruined.

No wonder Lucian was furious when Lord Brumley compared his current scheme to his father’s greatest failure.

Daisy stood of to one side in the corridor, seemingly fascinated by the amphora collection behind the wavy glass of the display case, as more gentlemen filed out of the lecture hall. “Dreamer” and “ill-advised” were the kindest comments she overheard. “Charlatan” would rankle Lucian most.

Finally, Lucian emerged. When he saw her, he inclined his head toward her.

“I regret, miss, that I am unable to continue our pleasant conversation at this time.” His lips were pressed tight in suppressed irritation.

“Then let us conduct a business conversation instead, Lord Rutland,” Daisy said brusquely. “Your excavation intrigues me. I have the means you require. I should like to become your partner in the endeavor.”

Lucian bit back a weary smile. “Miss, you mistake me. I’m not the fraud the Society of Antiquaries would paint me. I’m in need of investors, admittedly, but I’m not yet so desperate that I will take money from a young lady to whom I’ve not even been properly introduced. Good day.”

He turned and began to stride away.

A frustrated puff of breath escaped her lips. The man had an ego as large as that of the well-endowed proconsul in the mosaic.

“Then perhaps you could prevail upon ‘Iggy’to introduce us,” she called after him. “For he and I knew each other well.”

He halted in midstride and turned back to face her.

“Daisy Drake.”

“Indeed, milord.” She bobbed a curtsy. “I’m gratified to learn that your memory is not as pocked with holes as I feared.”

He raised a brow. “You can hardly fault me for not immediately connecting a charming young woman with an irritating tomboy.”

Her chin lifted; she was both mollified by the compliment
to her now and incensed by his characterization of her then. “And yet I knew you almost instantly. It’s good to see you looking fit after all these years.”

“After the way you tried to spit me with a pike at our last meeting, I find your interest in my health less than comforting.” He rubbed the little scar on his chin for emphasis. “Of course, this must have made it easier for you to recognize me.”

“That was an accident and you know it. If only you’d kept to the way we practiced the fight scene, I wouldn’t have nearly skewered you.”

Daisy and her sisters produced plays for their own amusement in the same way other families produced mediocre poetry. The theatrical merits of their dramas might have been questionable, but the Drake siblings always managed to have genuine fun.

And very infrequent bloodletting. Really, Lucian ought to have forgiven her by now.

“In fact,” Daisy continued, “one might argue that your injury was as much your fault as mine.”

“One might,” he agreed.

“Then you’ll accept my offer to become your partner?”

“With regret, no,” he said stiffly. “Given our history, you’ll understand my reluctance to form another alliance with the house of Drake. It was only the greatest good fortune that kept my head affixed to my shoulders last time. I’m not one to tempt fate.”

“And then the insufferable prig walked away without so much as a backward glance.” Daisy accepted the eggshell-thin china teacup from her great-aunt Isabella’s beringed hand. “He obviously needs the money. Why would he not accept it from me?”

“Because it was from you.” Isabella Haversham, Lady Wexford, dropped a brown lump of sugar into her own cup and stirred gently. “It’s the way of the world, sweeting. Men are incapable of bending where their pride is concerned.”

“And they have the gall to claim women are vain,” Daisy fumed. “Just because I gave him a scar on his chin.”

“Oh, no, Daisy. I’m sure it’s not what you gave him. I suspect it’s more what your uncle wouldn’t give his father.” Isabella took a sip of the aromatic tea and then settled the cup back into its saucer with a barely audible clink. “Lord Montford made no secret of the fact that he felt the South Sea Company would have rallied if your uncle had invested heavily at that juncture.”

“That’s ridiculous. The enterprise was doomed.”

Isabella arranged her delicately boned hands on her lap. Faint blue veins laced her pale skin. She was still a striking woman, but time was chipping away at the former courtesan with a relentless vengeance. However, advancing age
had made no dent whatsoever in Lady Wexford’s sharp mind.

“Of course, the South Sea Company was doomed, but if money or love is concerned, when is the human race not ridiculous?” Isabella said, with a shrug that seemed curiously French. “But however misguided, if Lucian is loyal to his father, you shouldn’t hold it against him. I suspect you’d do the same if you perceived a slight to your family.”

Daisy sighed. “I suppose you’re right. But I so had my heart set on an adventure and finding another treasure would be a grand one. Each day is so like another, sometimes I think I’ll burst out of my own skin from sheer boredom.” Her lips curved in calculation. “You know, I just might be able to bear this disappointment if you’d let me come to your soiree this evening.”

Isabella fixed her bright-eyed gaze on Daisy, considering the matter. “I suspect Jacquelyn would have my head if I did.”

Jacquelyn was Isabella’s daughter. Even before Daisy’s parents died, Jacquelyn Wren had been the Drake sisters’fiercely protective governess. Once Mistress Jack married Daisy’s uncle Gabriel, she was no less protective as their aunt. In truth, Daisy thought of Jacquelyn and Gabriel more as her parents than as her aunt and uncle. And even though no actual blood tie bound Daisy to Isabella, Lady Wexford had fallen into the role of doting great-aunt with relish.

“I’m no longer a child. What I do or don’t do is none of my aunt and uncle’s affair,” Daisy declared. “Besides, I’m of age. And an independent woman.”

“Only thanks to your extremely enlightened aunt and uncle,” Isabella reminded her gently. Even though Daisy had discovered the family fortune, her guardians were under no obligation to be so generous to her. The fact that they gave her control of her own funds was a mea sure of their love and trust.

“Please, Isabella,” Daisy wheedled, not sounding particularly of age or in de pen dent. “I’ve spent time in your salon before.”

“Ordinarily, I’d agree, but this is no pitched philosophy discussion or poetry reading. I’m giving a masquerade in honor of Geoffrey’s birthday.” Isabella rejected the notion that she should refer to her much younger husband as Wexford. Their marriage was unconventional by all standards. Her mode of addressing him might as well be, too. “When people don masks, they feel free to do things, outrageous things they’d only dream of without the cloak of anonymity. This evening is bound to become…complicated.”

“If by that you mean there will be lovemaking in every curtained alcove, you needn’t worry that you will shock me.” Daisy scented victory and tried to sound worldly enough to have earned it. Isabella’s masquerade would definitely be exciting, and at this point, Daisy longed so for an adventure, she wasn’t about to quibble over what form it took. “Thanks to Mlle La Tour, I know what happens between a man and a woman, probably even better than Hyacinth. And she’s already a mother.”

“What did you just say?” Isabella was rarely shocked by anything, but she sounded stunned now.

Daisy’s fingertips few to her mouth. Her reading the courtesan’s memoirs was a secret between her and Nanette. “All right, if you must know, I’ve been invading your library every day for a month. Haven’t you always said a woman shouldn’t be forced to remain in ignorance? Mlle La Tour’s journal has been…very educational.”

Isabella loosed a tinkling laugh. “It is that. Well, I see there’s no point in closing the stable door. It appears the filly has bolted.”

“Oh, no!” Daisy protested. “I haven’t acted upon any of my knowledge.”

“I’m gratified to hear it. Not because I think it wrong for
a woman to take pleasure, Lord knows, but because I think it might be wrong for you now.” Isabella raised a questioning brow at her. “You know your family still hopes you’ll wed. It is inconceivable for a young lady of your birth and generous portion not to be set upon by suitors. No beaux in the offing?”

“None I care to encourage.” Daisy leaned her cheek on her palm. Her outspokenness discouraged the more desirable gentlemen, while her fortune enticed the worst. “Gallants and dandies, the whole lot. When they look at me, all they see is the pile of doubloons Uncle Gabriel has settled on me. They never seem to see
me
.”

“And yet Lucian Beaumont refused your offer of funds,” Isabella mused into her teacup. “I’m beginning to think I should like this young man.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Daisy said, wishing she didn’t. Lucian obviously wanted as little to do with her now as he had when he was twelve. “He’s stubborn as a—”

“A Drake? ”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “Point taken. But you’ve changed the subject. Back to your masquerade. Please, Isabella. Haven’t you ever wanted something…anything exciting to happen to you so badly you didn’t care if it was right or wrong? And if something didn’t happen soon, you’d be forced to take drastic measures to affect an adventure, devil take the hindmost?”

Isabella eyed her thoughtfully for a moment. “My dear, you sound quite desperate.”

Daisy hadn’t realized herself how very unsettled she felt until the words slipped from her mouth. Like a fledgling sensing the power of her untested wings, Daisy was dying to take flight.