“Elgin certainly believed so,” Tavener replied. “Still, the marble frieze on which the figures were carved was part of the temple’s structure. Elgin’s detractors point out that chiseling out the figures defaced the building and destroyed the setting in which they were meant to be displayed.”
“Ah, I see. But would the works have survived, had they been left intact?”
He smiled at her. “That is the real question, is it not? I happen to believe Elgin’s action was justified. I suspect, however, if the Greeks ever overthrow their Turkish masters, they may hold a different opinion.”
Before she could comment, Tavener laughed. “Lord Elgin isn’t the first man connected to the sculptures to fare badly at the hands of public opinion. The great Pheidias himself, creator of the Athena statue and overseer of all the artistic work on the acropolis, was caught up in the political wrangling of his master Pericles, ruler of Athens. Falsely accused of fraud and sacrilege, he was banished from the city.”
“How awful!” Allegra exclaimed. “To have created such beauty and then be banned from ever viewing it again.”
“He had his justification in the end,” Tavener replied. “The Peloponnesians commissioned him to create an even larger statue of Zeus for the temple at Olympia, which later became known as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. A precedent that should give Elgin hope.”
“In what way?” she asked, glancing at him curiously.
The yearning she read in his eyes before he lowered his gaze to the horses sent a little shock through her. “That even those estranged from home and kin might someday find a place to be useful and belong,” he said softly.
He seeks the same thing I do, she thought, his words resonating within her. The sense of connection she’d felt earlier surged through her again.
While she curled her fingers in her gloves to resist the urge to place her hand over his, he continued, his voice once again teasingly light, “Let us hope it proves so for poor Lord Elgin. But now that we are entering the park, we must banish such scholarly topics.”
Blinking, Allegra realized that they had indeed arrived at Hyde Park without her being at all aware of their transit through the streets, so thoroughly had she been engrossed in Lord Tavener’s story. Just as she’d sat enthralled as a child, listening to her mama’s tales.
“Hyde Park during the promenade hour is society’s stage,” Tavener was saying, pulling her back to the present. “And society, my dear Miss Antinori, is all about frivolity. So unless you wish me to be thought a very dull escort indeed, you shall have to put off that serious expression. Or perhaps I should say something to bring a delicious blush back to your cheeks.”
“And confirm you are a rogue?” she countered, the mere hint of his saying something worth blushing over sending the heat through her again. “I thought you wished me to help you overcome that reputation.”
“You can’t expect me to be reformed overnight,” he reasoned as he slowed the horses and guided them onto the carriageway. Spared now from having to attend as closely to his cattle, he turned and fixed her with that flirtatious gaze which she was coming to anticipate and to which, alas, she responded all too readily.
“You cannot fault me for wishing to admire the beauties of the present as sincerely as we’ve just admired those of the past. Have I told you how charming you look? Despite the lack of classical drapery—though I should very much like to see you garbed as a goddess—you are as lovely as any Greek nymph. Lovelier, for you are not cold marble, but warm flesh.”
His eyes holding hers, he took her hand and kissed it.
Energy seemed to arc from his gloved fingers into hers. As he straightened, Allegra was suddenly conscious of his sheer masculine power, his broad shoulders blocking the sun, his eyes lazy-lidded over the blue fire of his gaze, the erotic curve of his lips. A shimmer of excitement spiraled in her belly, pooled low at her hips, tingled in her breasts.
He leaned toward her and for an instant, she thought he meant to kiss her, right here in the park. Panic breaking his sensual spell, she pulled away.
“M-my lord!” she exclaimed, her breathing shaky. “I thought we had established that a gentleman does not compare a lady to…to a Greek nymph.”
Abruptly he straightened, his eyes snapping wide. “Drat!” he exclaimed and uttered a rueful laugh. “You are quite correct, Miss Antinori. But propriety of speech is deuced difficult to maintain, especially when one’s companion is so utterly lovely. I don’t expect you could help me out by contriving to appear a bit less beautiful?”
He arched an inquiring eyebrow, for all the world as if he’d just uttered a reasonable request. Surprised and diverted, Allegra said, “Would dull homespun suffice? I wore enough of it growing up to prize my new gowns, but I did promise to assist you.”
He made a show of studying her, then shook his head. “Grateful as I am at your willingness to eschew your fashionable new frocks, I fear ’tis not the gown that fires the attraction, but the compelling lady wearing it.”
Though she could not help but feel a feminine gratification at his remark—and the frankly admiring look that accompanied it—his words still skirted too close to the edge of what was acceptable. “Flatteringly said, my lord, but you must remember the Marriage Mart is not comprised of worldly-wise widows or experienced matrons. Any reference to the wearing of a gown would put a young maiden to the blush. You must try harder—or refrain from compliments altogether, for the present.”
“I stand rebuked,” he said with a nod. “Though I could scarce be harder,” she thought she heard him mutter before her attention was attracted by the approach of two riders, who slowed their horses to keep pace with the curricle. Though Allegra did not recognize them, their elegant attire and languid air proclaimed them to be dandies of the first stare.
“Tavener!” the nearer one called. Riding a black gelding, he was garbed in dark blue, his blond locks falling fashionably over his forehead. “Who is the lovely Venus you are escorting? Pray, introduce us!”
“Indeed, do!” the man’s dark-haired companion said, his eyes raking up and down Allegra’s figure.
Liking the second man’s blatantly assessing glance even less than the slight innuendo of the first one’s greeting, Allegra turned away, her cheeks coloring.
Any doubt that she might have misinterpreted the nuance of the two men’s behavior disappeared when she felt Tavener stiffen beside her. “If you want introductions, solicit them from the young lady’s guardian, Lord Lynton.”
“Trying to keep her for yourself, are you? Sly dog!” the second gentleman riposted.
Allegra felt an increase of tension in the tall man beside her even before a look of trepidation replaced the fatuous expression on Dark Hair’s face. As she glanced up curiously, a little shock went through her.
In place of the lazy-eyed, teasing acquaintance of a few moments ago sat a stranger who radiated menace, his jaw set and his feral, icy gaze fixed on the second gentleman. Allegra shivered, glad that look was not directed at her.
“I’m sure you’ll wish to apologize to the lady before you take your leave, Fitzhugh,” Tavener said softly. “Or must I teach you some manners?”
“N-no need to get yourself into a pelter, Tavener,” the man stuttered. “Apologies, ma’am,” he said, quickly doffing his hat to Allegra. “Meant no offense.” Before she could murmur an acknowledgement, the two men wheeled their horses and rode off.
Shaken by the encounter, it was several minutes before Allegra could bring herself to look back up at Tavener. Though his expression was no longer quite so forbidding, he drove in tight-lipped silence, staring straight ahead.
Saddened and a bit angry at having the mood of the afternoon spoiled, at last Allegra ventured, “I take it those two gentlemen were men I should not know?”
Tavener looked back at her and sighed. “I doubt your chaperone would approve an introduction. Fitzhugh and Markham, rakehells and gamblers both, have never to my knowledge sought out
the company of innocent maidens.”
Comprehending after a moment what he must mean, she said, “So they thought I was your…oh, my!” She put her hands up to mask her flaming cheeks.
Why would they assume that? she wondered, anger, distress and humiliation warring within her. Her carriage dress was a model of high fashion and modesty, and since she’d barely glanced at them, surely nothing in her manner could have prompted such an assumption.
At that moment, Tavener guided the team off the carriage path and pulled up the horses. Turning to face her, regret and a simmering anger in his eyes, he said, “I must apologize. I truly thought it would be safe to drive you in the park in the middle of the afternoon, but it appears I was mistaken. Though I would hardly call those gentlemen ‘friends,’ we are acquainted. ’Tis my blasted reputation that led them to presume…what they did.”
He gave a short, bitter laugh. “I warned you an association with me might endanger your good name. I hardly expected to find that assertion proved so quickly.”
This time Allegra did not stop herself from laying her hand atop his. “You cannot be sure your reputation prompted their behavior. It must be well known that you are escorting Lady Domcaster this Season as you look about for a wife. You are not responsible for the vileness of their presumptions…any more than I was responsible for Sapphira’s rudeness at Lady Ormsby’s rout.”
Eyes studying her face, as if seeing her in a different light, he said softly, “Though I still think you are mistaken, ’tis kind of you to try to ease my chagrin.”
Allegra laughed shortly. “Thank heavens Sapphira was not present! She would have delighted to see me mistaken for a Cyprian.”
Tavener lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “Her dislike of you is that great?”
“I’m afraid so. She believes my breeding and lineage should bar my even attempting to enter society and is furious that Uncle Robert’s bequest has elevated me above what she considers my proper place.” Suddenly recalling that she ought not be discussing family matters with one who was almost a stranger, she flushed. “Forgive me for prosing on a matter in which you can have no interest.”
“You are mistaken. I’m interested in everything about you. But perhaps I should return you home.”
The incident having spoiled her enjoyment of their excursion, Allegra nodded. “I am feeling a bit weary.”
“We’ll leave at once.” After backing the horses and turning the curricle toward the exit, Tavener added, his voice carefully neutral, “I shall endeavor to convey you home without any additional untoward events.”
“Truly, you mustn’t blame yourself,” Allegra repeated, not wanting him to think her desire to return home was prompted by a reluctance to be seen with him. “Even if a previous association with you led those…gentlemen to jump to false conclusions, you quickly made them aware of their mistake. Lord Lynton himself could not have dismissed them more blightingly, as if I were a gently bred maiden whose innocence must be protected.”
Tavener glanced over at her, a slight smile on his lips. “You are a gently bred maiden whose innocence should be protected,” he pointed out.
Recalling her youth hobnobbing with musicians and theater people, Allegra sighed. “If you knew some of the things I’d done and witnessed growing up, you wouldn’t think so. Certainly society would not.”
“Society can be a dolt,” Tavener said with some vehemence. “But if you are gracious enough to agree to continue our friendship, I shall make sure in future not to endanger you. We shall not stir a foot from your door without your chaperone at our side to maintain propriety.”
The strong connection she felt to him and his forceful handling of the unpleasant incident just past led Allegra to reply, “On the contrary, in your company I do not feel endangered—but very safe. And I shall be honored to consider you a friend.”
Tavener was far too attractive for her to safely relax her guard around him, but though she’d surprised herself with the forcefulness of that avowal, still she knew what she’d just said was entirely true.
By his expression, she saw she’d surprised her escort as well. “You leave me with nothing to say but ‘thank you,’ Miss Antinori,” he said, his voice low.
Conversation ended as they reached the street, which seemed more than usually crowded and required Tavener to keep his full attention on controlling his horses.
As she had while returning from the musicale the night before, Allegra had time to reflect on her excursion with this dangerous and very appealing gentleman.
She had best not underestimate that appeal, she thought, recalling the remarks that had heated her blood and made it difficult for her to concentrate on maintaining a proper conversation. And yet paradoxically, there had been moments when she felt more at ease with Tavener than she’d been with anyone since losing her family.
She supposed she ought to be grateful that if she must cultivate the acquaintance of some other gentleman in order to excite Rob’s interest, the man to whom that task had fallen was turning out to be as complex, interesting and worthy of friendship as Lord Tavener.
A man who’d also, for a fraught moment, made her long for his kiss—in a way she had never, a little voice added, longed for Rob’s.
Shocked by the thought, Allegra gave a little gasp. She looked up quickly, but her escort, occupied by the traffic on the roadway, did not appear to have noticed.
From whence had that nonsensical notion come? she wondered. Of course she wanted Rob to kiss her! Hadn’t she dreamed for years of having him carry her off across his saddle bow? And of course, when he did, she would experience the same warmth in the belly and tingling in the breasts she felt when Tavener fixed her with one of his hot gazes, or murmured his delicious improprieties.
Which was precisely the point, she reassured herself. Rob had never looked at or spoken to her thus, so how could she have felt such reactions? Far too proper and honorable to trifle with the sensibilities of a virtuous maiden, he’d never allow his desire to be revealed in warm glances or tempting speeches, most likely not until after his chosen lady had consented to become his wife.
She knew she hadn’t mistaken the gleam of sensual appreciation she’d seen several times in his eyes, when he didn’t realize she knew he was looking at her. Maybe she ought to somehow inveigle ways to get him alone and encourage him to act on his attraction. Perhaps if she could entice him to acknowledge his desire, he would recognize it was permissible to see her as more than the kindred spirit of his youth. That it was a natural and honorable progression to allow himself to view her as a woman, a lady for whom he could feel both love and passion.
Encouraged by that conclusion, she was smiling again when Tavener pulled up his horses at the Lynton town house.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AFTER ESCORTING Miss Antinori to her front door, Will set off toward home in thoughtful silence, his mind replaying the incident in the park.
He would indeed like to keep Allegra Antinori for himself, he thought ruefully. But as loath to bring harm to her as he would be to injure Lucilla, he must in future be more careful. No more excursions without her chaperone, alas. And if men like Fitzhugh and Markham were going to come sniffing around—with her allure, how could any man resist?—he would also have to watch his conversation, that he give none of them any cause to treat her with the insulting familiarity Fitzhugh had exhibited in the park.
At least, he’d have to watch what he said when there were others nearby. Recalling some of their warmer exchanges, he had to smile. Clever and worldly enough to have caught some of his sensual references, she was still an innocent—a combination as fascinating as it was unique.
Both his senses and his extensive experience with women promised him that beneath the untouched exterior of that luscious body lay a depth of passion just waiting for the right man to awaken it. Ah, that he might be that man!
Damping down the immediate surge of desire the idea evoked, he sighed. ’Twas a shame she was not the opera dancer
or chanteuse her dusky beauty hinted at. Were she a lady of small virtue, he would know just how to proceed, luring her into a delightful game that would lead eventually to its inevitable, satisfying conclusion.
But Miss Antinori was a genteel virgin. The fact that she responded—and knew she responded—to the sensual banter he couldn’t seem to refrain from indulging in around her both excited and disturbed him.
Theirs could be no casual, mutually enjoyable tryst. If she followed where desire prompted him to lead her, that road must end in marriage.
Which was exactly what Lucilla was urging. But not with Miss Antinori. His cousin had made it clear last night that though she had nothing against the girl personally, given her dubious upbringing and the tarnish on his own reputation, he ought to bypass her and pursue a lady of unquestioned character.
He had to admit that along with his curiosity to discover if Miss Antinori would be as intriguing in daylight as she’d been in the glow of the candelabra, irritation at Lucilla’s sensible advice had prompted him to call on her. As he’d suspected, a further acquaintance with Miss Antinori only confirmed the qualities of wit and intelligence he’d glimpsed the previous night. In addition to the ever-present sensual allure, she was an interesting and delightful companion.
But it was more than that. Some…connection he couldn’t put a name to drew him to her, something he’d never felt before. The strength of that pull was both compelling and unsettling.
He enjoyed women, the warmth of their voices, the softness of their bodies, the rush of sexual release they afforded, and several times his chere-amies had gone on to become friends. The feelings Miss Antinori engendered, however, were stronger, sharper…different in a way beyond his previous experience.
Through hard and bitter effort he’d carved himself a small, relatively secure niche in an indifferent world, peopled it with a few friends on whom he could depend. Though by no means sure he was suited for matrimony, he supposed he could enlarge that small store of affection to include fondness for a wife. But some instinctive premonition warned him that Miss Antinori might elicit in him feelings far more intense than mere fondness.
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