Vexing The Viscount (8 page)

He started to reach up to remove them, but Daisy put a hand to the owlish frames.

“Can’t see a thing without them, more’s the pity.” She took Lucian’s arm. “If you’ll excuse us, milord, I believe we have work to do.”

“Quite right.” Lucian steered her toward the door. “Come along…Miss Clavenhook.”

“So, you did remember, after all.” Daisy triumphantly squeezed Lucian’s arm as they made their way over the uneven ground toward the excavation site. “I was sure you must.”

“Remember what?” He waved away a bluebottle fly that buzzed near them, the insect weaving drunkenly in the sun-splashed midmorning. A small shower might spring up later, but for now, the weather was finer than a Londoner could hope.

However, the fair skies did little to improve his sour mood. Daisy would have to see to that herself.

“Clavenhook,” she said. “That was my name in the play when we were children. Lady Rowena Clavenhook of the—”

“Of the Deadly Pike,” he finished for her, rubbing his chin with a rueful expression.

“No, no, of the Castle Perilous.” She made a small growl of disgust. “Will you never give that a rest? In truth, I think the scar gives you character.” Daisy reveled in the warmth of his arm beneath her palm. It radiated through the thin fabric of his shirt and up her wrist to send the blood dancing in her veins with an effervescent fizz. “A small flaw like
that is actually quite becoming. It makes you appear a dangerous man.”

“Or a slow one,” he said with a reluctant grin. “I obviously wasn’t quick enough to get out of your way.”

“Well, it doesn’t appear you’ve been slow here,” she said as they drew near to the Roman site.

Not only was there an impressive excavation pit, Lucian had constructed a long, low shed to house his finds once they were unearthed. The waist-high benches lining both walls groaned beneath the weight of dirt-encrusted objects.

Lucian handed her a small whisk broom and cloth. “Your domain,
Lady Rowena.
I apologize for the mess. I fear I’ve been less systematic than I should have been. I’ve been so intent on discovering the next tablet I’ve neglected many of the other finds.”

“I’ll need to cata log it all first.” She eyed the disarray with mild trepidation.

“There’s a small lap desk here somewhere. Please do what you can to bring order to this chaos.” He started to go, but stopped short. “I should warn you that you may find some of the artwork…objectionable.”

The lewd little phallic lamp and the exceedingly naughty mosaic flashed through Daisy’s mind. Against her will, she felt her cheeks heat.

“Pray don’t trouble yourself, milord,” she said. “I am not easily shocked.”

“No, I’m sure you’re not,” he agreed with a raised brow. “In fact, as I recall, you possess a healthy curiosity about such things. To that end, I wonder if you’d clean this object first.”

He picked up a little statuette from the bench and placed it in her open palm. It was a representation of the goat-god doing a cloven-hoofed jig, his engorged penis all out of
proportion to the rest of him, despite having a bit of the tip missing.

“I plan to take that to Mlle La Tour this evening,” he said. “I think she’ll enjoy it, don’t you?”

Daisy’s heart tripped a beat or two. She was cleaning up this lascivious little bit of antiquity so he could present it to…her, in exchange for kissing lessons.

“Blanche will be charmed,” she said.

“Good.”

His smile was so blindingly white against his tanned face, it made Daisy’s eyes water to look at him. She sighed in relief when he turned back toward the pit.

“Oh, and
Miss Clavenhook
, just so you know,” he called over his shoulder, using her assumed name for the benefit of the boy who labored below in the dirt. “That’s not life-size either.”

Daisy worked through the rest of the morning, sorting, stacking, and rearranging the odds and ends. She grouped the shards of pottery according to color, in the hope that later she’d be able to reassemble the bowl or vase or amphora the pieces had once been.

She discovered the portable writing desk beneath a section of a mosaic depicting nymphs and satyrs. Most of the mosaic was damaged beyond repair, but she was able to discern a few body parts represented in the intact sections: there a set of bared breasts, here detailed genitalia of both sexes first in congress and then separate. She found a confusing scene with only male figures and decided not to scrutinize the mosaic further.

She tingled in strange places when she looked at it.

She turned her head surreptitiously to gaze from the shed to where Lucian labored. The day was unseasonably warm, so he and the boy who helped him had removed their shirts. The muscles in his chest and broad back bunched and flattened.
His sun-darkened skin glistened with a sheen of male sweat. The sight of Lucian bare-chested sent a flutter through Daisy’s belly. Even stronger tingles settled between her legs. She jerked her gaze back to her lap desk.

She noted each item in her small curlicue handwriting on the fresh paper and found that reducing the pulse-jumping images to mere words helped ease their effect.

Reading about Leda dallying with Zeus in the guise of a swan was romantic. Seeing the act depicted so…realistically was another thing altogether.

Daisy’s quill hovered over the page, dropping a blob or two of ink in her hesitation. There was something different about the next pottery fragment. The detailed ornamentation was just as explicit as the others. A nude young man was reclining on his elbow while a young woman hovered over him, guiding his erect penis between her widespread legs. Their gazes were locked on each other.

The man was reaching up one hand to touch the woman’s face. The gesture was so tender; it reverberated with power through the centuries and made Daisy’s breath catch in her throat. She wondered if she’d been laced too tightly that morning.

No, it’s just that these Romans were real people
, she thought.
Doing the loving things real people do.

“Only they apparently did so much of it, one wonders when they found time to conquer the world,” she murmured.

“Perhaps this was why they conquered the world.” Lucian’s voice sounded behind her, and she started. “In order to have peace to enjoy the gentler pursuits. Art, music, the delights of love.”

She slanted her gaze up at him. “I wasn’t speaking to you.”

“Oh.” He looked pointedly around the long shed. “I see no one else here, so unless you have an imaginary friend, I have to assume you intended for me to hear you.”

“You might assume so if I’d known you were there.” He’d donned his shirt once again, but hadn’t buttoned it properly. A deep vee of dark skin showed at the base of his throat. Daisy looked away from him. “Honestly, for a large man, you’re quiet as a cat when you wish to be.”

“Or perhaps you were deeply absorbed by something.” He leaned over her shoulder and looked at the painting of lovers that had so captured her imagination. “Ah! Yes, quite…inspirational. I see why you didn’t hear my approach.”

She pressed her lips together in a tight line. “It’s still very rude to eavesdrop on someone else’s conversation—even if it’s only with themselves.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Someone else said something very like that to me recently.”

Blanche.
Surely he wouldn’t connect the two of them solely on the strength of that one tiny gaffe.

“Well, whoever it was, milord, they were right.”

“No doubt she’d agree with you,” he said with a laugh. “Unfortunately, I’m expected for tea with Lady Brumley and her daughter, and I can’t greet them covered in grime, so I need to clean up a bit. I would ask you to join me, but—”

“I’m not in need of a bath at present,” Daisy said primly. Why did he feel himself at liberty to make such outrageous suggestions to her? At the same time, the thought of
Lucian’s warm skin and slithering soap bubbles left her slightly light-headed.

He snorted. “What a charming imagination you have. I meant join me for tea.”

“Oh.” Her belly writhed like a bucketful of eels. It was an honest mistake. Hadn’t he…She squinted at him. She suspected he wanted to see if he could catch her with his craftily worded noninvitation to tea.

“No, thank you. There’s too much work to be done here for me to stop for tea and silliness. No need to trouble yourself on my account, milord.” The last thing she needed was to have to watch Lucian dance attendance on Miss Brumley. “Besides, I know both those ladies and they me. If your father should join the party…”

“Our little charade would be at an end, Miss Claven-hook.” Lucian took her hand suddenly, all traces of teasing gone from his expression. “Thank you for understanding.”

He truly was worried about his father, she realized. Daisy had been quite young when she lost both her parents, but she still had the loving support of her aunt and uncle and her four sisters. And her great-aunt Isabella, of course.

Lucian had only his father.

“It’s all right. But you might send out a pot of tea and a biscuit or two,” she said. “We who are about to die of hunger and thirst might salute you, but we won’t be able to continue to work without a little sustenance. And I’d like to keep working here.”

The teasing grin returned. “Ah, the Clavenhook curiosity. Long may it wave.”

Some of the images Daisy saw that afternoon explained a number of mysteries; others created even more questions in her mind, but she couldn’t discuss the disturbingly erotic art with Lucian. In fact, she tried mightily not to even
think about him while she sorted and arranged and fit pieces together into startling pictures.

But she did anyway. He rose in her mind’s eye unbidden. It was as if Lucian were still peering over her shoulder.

Perhaps it was because she was now seeing depictions of the adventures of the flesh she’d only read about in Blanche’s journal. Perhaps it was because the men in the artwork were all blessed with hawkish dark good looks, an echo of Lucian’s Mediterranean heritage. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that she’d be giving him lessons in kissing that evening as Blanche.

Her insides twisted in confused circles.

She turned away from the pottery to the stack of wax tablets. Lucian had skimmed over them, hoping for a reference to the missing Roman pay wagon, but he hadn’t done detailed translations of them. House hold accounts and bills of lading seemed safe enough. She settled to the work, taking another sip of the tea Lucian obligingly sent out to her. She kept “Rowena Clavenhook’s” steel-rimmed spectacles at hand in case Lord Montford should make an unexpected appearance.

A distant rumble warned of an approaching shower. Daisy decided the shed would offer enough protection for her to remain at work. But after only a short time, the Latin etched on the tablets began to blur as if she were actually wearing the ill-fitting glasses. Daisy’s concentration kept wandering to the Montford parlor, where Lucian was courting Lady Clarinda.

What on earth would Lucian find to talk about with Clarinda Brumley? The girl was useless. She gave new definition to
shallow
. Surely Lucian couldn’t be taken with her.

Clarinda was appealing enough, Daisy supposed, in a plump, German-partridge sort of way. Or perhaps what drew Lucian’s interest was her dowry, which was reportedly even more ample than the girl’s shapely bosom.

Men married for money all the time, exchanging their name and title for fresh infusions of cash or lands. Even Daisy’s uncle Gabriel had set out to do it once, but he fell in love with a penniless girl and couldn’t bring himself not to marry her. Daisy hated the way money intruded on what should be a matter of the heart.

Quite often, it was painfully obvious in well-moneyed matches that the transaction was purely financial, and yet the world didn’t call the men involved whores. Daisy frequently complained of the inequity. But her great-aunt Isabella, who’d been called many things, simply reminded her that butting her head against that par tic u lar wall would only produce a headache without any effect on the wall whatsoever.

Still, it seemed weak-minded for Lucian to court a woman for her money. Even though the world in general would heartily approve, she couldn’t imagine why he allowed himself to be bullied into it. After all, he was a man who wasn’t afraid of manual labor—an activity fashionable folk
would
frown upon—and he was stouthearted enough to pursue his dream even when the Society of Antiquaries laughed him from their halls.

If Lucian had to marry for money, why not marry her?

The thought startled the quill right out of her hand. She’d nearly set herself to the idea of never marrying. The long march of days alone stretched ahead of her now. She might enjoy her freedom in the sunshine of her youth, but the light patter of rain now plinking against the shed’s roof reminded her that life was not always fine. Dark days of illness or loss might rise to meet her. And to go through those times alone was not a pleasant prospect.

Still, a woman must have scruples.

No
, she decided as she bent to retrieve the fallen pheasant feather. If she had to purchase a husband, she’d do without.

Besides, if Lucian wouldn’t accept her funds for his project, he’d never accept her fortune for his name. Not so long as his father hated her family.

With a sigh, she turned back to the tablet she was translating. Her eyes flared when she recognized a name.

Caius Meritus. The ancient thief.

She bent over her work with absorption. Lucian must have missed this one. Her quill flew across the page. If she could translate it quickly, she might be able to dash up to the manor house before the rain began in earnest.