by Olivia Drake
He grasped the door handle. By damn, he’d turn the key in the lock this time. There must be no more interruptions for the remainder of the afternoon. The tantalizing hieroglyph awaited his decryption, and the prospect of identifying its meaning filled him with vigor.
But as Miles began to close the door, he spied a footman in crimson livery at the end of the long, stately corridor. The servant was carrying a silver salver and walking toward the ballroom.
Bollocks, Miles thought, clenching his jaw. Hopefully, it was only a letter. Surely he could not be plagued with yet another visitor. It was high time the staff was reminded of their duty in turning away all uninvited callers.
The carpet muffling his swift steps, he met the footman halfway. “George, I need a word—”
It was then that Miles noticed the woman.
She was creeping down the corridor in a clandestine manner, slipping from pillar to pillar. A gold sash cinched the waist of a gown the color of deep bronze, and the wide brim of her straw bonnet formed a semicircle around her face, shading her features from his view. Even as he narrowed his eyes at her, she ducked out of sight again, apparently flattening herself against the wall.
He took a step forward. “Who the devil is that?” he bit out.
George glanced back over his shoulder. “Beg pardon?”
“The woman hiding behind the pillar. She was following you.”
The footman’s face went as pale as his powdered white wig. He presented the salver. “Er—you’ve a visitor, Your Grace. She was most insistent on an audience. I bade her wait in the antechamber.”
Miles snatched up the pasteboard card. The neatly penned letters read Miss B. Jones.
The name meant nothing to him. But he had a grim suspicion of her purpose. Over the years, ladies of the ton had used a variety of excuses to worm their way into Aylwin House. One had conveniently sprained an ankle while strolling past the house. Another had claimed to bear a private message from the bailiff on one of his estates. Yet another had purported a friendship with his late mother. Their scheming minds shared one belief: that a bachelor duke must be in want of a wife.
“Shall I send her away, then?” the footman asked rather nervously.
Miles crushed the card inside his fist. “No. I’ll deal with her myself.”
Flinging the crumpled bit of paper back onto the salver, he stalked down the corridor to her hiding place. The thick carpet muted the sound of his footfalls. Miss B. Jones must not have heard his approach, for she peeked out from behind the colossal pillar.
Her widened gaze lifted to him. The crimped edge of the bonnet formed an oval frame for her features. In an otherwise unremarkable face, her dark blue eyes had the depth and richness of lapis lazuli.
He stopped, curiously stunned. His tongue felt incapable of producing speech. She was no naïve debutante, but a mature woman. For a moment they stared at each other, Miss Jones hugging the pillar and himself struck by the odd impression of a connection between them. He sensed a vague familiarity about her, something deep and mysterious, something that pulled at him.
What nonsense. Aside from her eyes, she wasn’t even pretty.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Her gaze flicked to his informal garb. Then she stepped out from her hiding place. “I am on my way to see the Duke of Aylwin. I have an appointment with him.”
“Liar. I’ve no appointments on my schedule today.”
“Oh! Surely you’re not … but perhaps … you are the duke?” Her cheeks took on a becoming blush. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. I’m Miss Jones. Miss Bella Jones.”
She dipped an awkward curtsy, then thrust out her hand, not in the limp, delicate manner of a lady, but like a man, brisk and purposeful. He found himself grasping her gloved fingers in his. They felt strong yet feminine, the fingers of a determined woman.
A devious woman.
He released her hand at once. “You were prowling through my home without invitation,” he stated coldly. “I’ve no wish to speak any further with you. The footman will show you to the door.”
George discreetly appeared at her side. “This way, miss.”
She ignored him. Her blue eyes intent on Miles, she said, “Pray forgive me. I followed your servant only because I feared that you might refuse to see me. I’ve a matter of great importance to discuss with you.”
“You’ve wasted your time. Leave this house. And never return.”
Pivoting on his heel, Miles started back toward the ballroom. The audacity of her manner irked him beyond measure. And those eyes—gazing at him with such boldness. As if he were the one at fault for refusing to be duped by her scheme. He hadn’t gone more than three steps when her voice called out to him.
“Wait, sir … Your Grace! I’m no stranger to your family. My father was Sir Seymour Jones. He was a colleague of your father’s in Egypt.”
The bottom fell out of Miles’s gut. He turned slowly around to face her again. Disbelief warred with astonishment. Was that why he’d sensed a connection between them? Because they’d met as children?
More than twenty years had passed since that tragic episode in Egypt. He tried to reconcile her features with the hazy memory of the six-year-old girl who had followed him everywhere in the encampment. Bella … Isabella. That was what she’d been called back then. The child he’d known had had blue eyes, too. But he recalled little else. He’d only been thirteen at the time and prone to ignoring pesky infant girls.
And Sir Seymour! He had seemed a friendly, honest fellow, always patient and helpful whenever Miles asked questions about the excavation of the pharaoh’s tomb. He could still picture the man, his bearded face browned by the hot Egyptian sun, his white teeth flashing in a smile.
By God! Miles had naïvely trusted the rascal even after his own father had been murdered by grave robbers. Not twenty-four hours later, Sir Seymour had abandoned him. He had taken his wife and daughter and vanished into the night, never to be seen again.
Miles could still feel the crushing weight of despair and grief at being left alone and fatherless in a foreign country. Even worse was the burden of his own guilt. If not for the quarrel they’d had, his father would never have left the encampment that fateful night. He would never have died …
The memory threatened to suck him down into a black hole.
Miles drew a deep breath. He cautioned himself not to take this woman at her word. Her claim might yet be a trick. A clever ruse concocted for the purposes of ingratiating herself with him.
But if Miss Bella Jones really was Sir Seymour’s daughter …
Then Miles had to find out what she knew.
Chapter 5
“Follow me,” the duke snapped.
Bella hastened to comply with the terse command. After being caught in a barefaced lie, she didn’t dare risk incurring his wrath again. She half ran to keep pace with his long strides down the corridor. Her fingers clutched at her skirt to avoid tripping on the gown with its myriad stiff petticoats.
With the funds from Lady Milford, she had sent Lila to buy the bronze silk from Fothergill’s shop. It had given Bella great pleasure to wear the very fabric that he had deemed too fine for her.
But now she longed for the comfort of her Persian robes. The whalebone corset pinched her ribs and the wide brim of the bonnet acted like blinders on a horse, restricting her vision so that she could only gaze straight ahead at the duke.
Where was he taking her?
She didn’t know, but at least he hadn’t ejected her from his house. A cautious elation lifted her spirits. She had crossed the first obstacle. She had convinced him to listen to her.
But oh, Lady Milford had not exaggerated. The Duke of Aylwin really was a beast. He was an imperious, high-handed autocrat who rejected even the veneer of hospitality. His rude manner only solidified Bella’s distrust of the English aristocracy.
She glowered at his broad back. Never once did Aylwin turn around to make certain she was stil
l behind him. He seemed indifferent to her presence as if he were accustomed to having underlings obey his orders at the snap of a finger.
Yet he wasn’t quite what she’d expected, either.
On the coach ride to London, she had pictured in her mind an aging dignitary in rich, elaborate garb with a purple robe around his shoulders and a gold scepter in his hand. But Aylwin was no old codger; he was a man in his prime. He resembled a common laborer, all brawny muscles and rumpled dark brown hair. His linen shirt was open at the throat, and the sleeves were rolled up to expose his bare forearms. There was even a smudge of gray dust on his black trousers.
How could she have guessed that he was the duke?
The memory of his brown eyes boring into her caused a disturbing quiver inside Bella. The feeling resonated in her depths like an instinctive warning. Aylwin didn’t appear to be the sort who could be easily deceived. He looked hard and tough, no one’s fool. Yet somehow she had to convince the tyrant to hire her.
Bella followed him through an arched doorway and into an enormous oblong chamber. There, she stopped in amazement. Afternoon sunlight poured through the wall of windows at one end of the room. The formal style included cut-glass chandeliers, gilded wall panels, and an arched ceiling painted with cherubs and nymphs.
But that wasn’t what held her attention. It was the contents of the room. Spread out before her lay a vast sea of Egyptian artifacts.
She advanced slowly, turning her head in the restrictive bonnet in order to view every piece. There were many strange figures carved in stone, some of them part human, part animal. Gods with jackal or ram heads. Women with kohl-rimmed eyes and snake crowns. Polished stone boxes that looked like coffins.
Bella reached out to trace the granite hand of a robed man with a curiously long goatee and a tall crown. A sense of wonderment filled her, the same excitement and interest she’d always felt when helping her father explore an old shrine in a jungle or excavate a crumbling monument in the desert. It was as if she stood inside an ancient tomb instead of a grand house in the middle of London.
“Don’t touch.”
Bella jumped at the gravelly sound of Aylwin’s voice in her ear. Her hand flew to her bosom and she whirled around to find the duke standing directly behind her. “You startled me,” she chided.
His lips thinned, he regarded her with distaste. “It’s that wretched hat. It impedes your vision. I don’t know why women wear such impractical nonsense.”
Bella had done so because she’d wanted to play the part of a well-groomed English lady. Lila had assured her that the straw bonnet was the very latest style. Bella disliked the wide brim, but Aylwin’s rudeness irked her into saying, “I thought gentlemen were trained to offer compliments, not criticism.”
“I am no gentleman. Now, you really must take it off.”
Before she realized his intent, his hand flashed out to yank on the ribbons tied beneath her chin. He plucked the bonnet from her hair, pivoted sharply, and dropped the hat onto the head of a tall stone goddess with the face of a lioness.
“There,” he said on a note of grim satisfaction. “Now I can see if you really are who you claim to be, Miss Jones.”
Shocked, Bella reached up to pat her uncovered hair. She felt exposed and outraged by his imperious action. The place where his fingers had brushed against her throat burned from his touch.
She checked the impulse to grab for the bonnet. How was she to retrieve it without looking like a fool? It was out of her reach, and anyway, she needed to remember that her purpose here was to charm the beast into employing her as his curator.
Nevertheless, the audacity of his action made her seethe.
With effort, she kept her voice modulated. “I am indeed Isabella Jones. Who else would I be? And I fail to see how removing my hat would prove my identity, anyway.”
“That remains to be seen. Come with me.”
On that cryptic remark, Aylwin wrapped his fingers around her upper arm and pulled her deeper into the labyrinth of artifacts. Bella drew in a breath to object, but a whiff of his alien masculine scent warned her to be cautious. Aylwin was nothing like her openhearted brother or her mild-mannered father. By stark contrast, the duke had an intimidating nature that complemented his superior height and physical strength. In less than ten minutes, he’d proven himself to be harsh, dictatorial, unpredictable. His thoughts were as incomprehensible to her as the strange symbols chiseled on many of the stone relics.
At least she’d had the sense to hide the dagger on her person. If he tried anything untoward, she would make him very sorry.
But at the moment, he merely escorted her to the wall of windows and released her arm. Planting his hands at his waist, he surveyed her from head to toe and back up again. “Your hair is a middling brown,” he pronounced. “Hers was lighter than yours, almost blond.”
“Hers? Who?”
“Isabella Jones. Sir Seymour’s daughter.”
Bella blinked. How could he have known her hair color as a child? Understanding struck in a blinding flash. “Are you saying … you were in Egypt, too? At the same time that I was there?”
He inclined his head in agreement. “I accompanied my father on the expedition and helped out at the work site. Whether or not you were the nosy little girl sneaking around the camp, peeking into everyone’s tent, remains in question.”
She tried to absorb the news. How amazing to think that she’d met Aylwin already—although he had not been the duke then, only the heir. And she remembered the fragment of a scene that had come to her when Lady Milford had told her about the sojourn in Egypt.
“I was too young to remember very much,” Bella said. “I only recall one incident. I was trying to dig a hole in the sand and it kept refilling. I remember hearing a boy laugh at my efforts. Was that you?”
He gave a quick, impatient shrug. “I’ve no recollection of it. I’m afraid I’ll need better proof than that of your identity.”
“How do I know your memories of me are accurate?” she countered. “How old were you?”
“Thirteen. And I shall conduct the questioning here. Tell me, why should I trust that you’re Sir Seymour’s daughter when your hair color is different?”
“It isn’t uncommon for blond hair to darken with age. Surely you know that.” But he still looked skeptical, and Bella felt mired in frustration. The duke would never employ her if he believed her to be a liar. It didn’t help matters, either, that he had already caught her in one fib. “Your Grace, I fail to see why you’d think I’m pretending to be someone else. What would be the purpose of such a deception?”
He stood before the backdrop of a lofty stone stela. His austerely handsome face appeared chiseled from granite, like one of the fearsome gods on display. “Ladies have a habit of trying to ingratiate themselves with me,” he said. “They use trickery in the hopes of deceiving me into marriage. I’ll admit your ploy is cleverer than most. It required some research into my family’s past.”
He believed her to be a husband hunter?
The notion was so absurd that Bella felt a trill of mirth bubble up into her throat. As a little choke of hilarity escaped, his face tightened and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh. It’s just that … at my advanced age, I’m too set in my ways to think of taking a husband, let alone trapping one. Rather, I came here because … because of the connection between our families.”
She paused, hesitant to make her application for curator while he looked so ill-humored. Better to flatter him first by asking questions about his Egyptian artifacts. Men always liked to talk about their particular interests. “You see,” she went on, “my father died last year and I’d hoped to find out more about his work in Egypt. When I heard that you had inherited many of the artifacts that Papa helped discover, I thought perhaps that you might show me some of them—”
“By damn,” Aylwin broke in with a snap of his fingers. “There is a way to confirm your identity. Something I’d
nearly forgotten.”
“Oh?” A little bemused, Bella took a step toward him. “Do tell. I’m happy to lay your doubts to rest.”
His shrewd gaze fixed on her, the duke prowled back and forth. “Sir Seymour’s wife fell very ill while in Egypt. Her daughter’s nursemaid was a Berber woman who held many superstitious beliefs. She had Isabella’s legs inked with symbols designed to ward off the jnoun, the evil spirits that bring disease. The markings are indelible. If you are indeed who you claim to be, you should still have those tattoos.”
A tremor quaked through Bella. He knew about the strange patterns on her ankles? When she had been old enough to ask, Papa had explained that the tribal woman had only meant to protect Bella from illness. He had led her to believe that the incident had occurred during a journey through Morocco …
But apparently it had happened in Egypt. Why hadn’t Papa told her the truth?
Aylwin stood waiting, his arms folded across his broad chest. The directness of his stare increased her disquiet. Did he expect her to show him the markings?
He must.
The very idea of letting this man look beneath her skirts revolted Bella. Not just for the assault on her modesty, but also because she had never revealed the tattoos to anyone outside her family. At one time, she had considered them a disfigurement. In her youth, she’d attempted to scrub them off until her flesh had turned raw. But the ink went too deeply into her skin.
Now, she seldom spared a thought for the markings. They were simply a part of herself that could not be changed. A hidden secret that no man—not even a duke—had any right to see.
“Yes, the designs are still there,” she admitted stiffly. “But you will have to take my word on the matter.”
He made a sound halfway between a snarl and a laugh. “Your word? I think not. You will verify your identity here and now—or I will know you to be a charlatan.”