by Marlowe Mia
“Guessed what, Lucian?”
He sank onto the stone bench, pulling her down beside him. “That kiss was the pinnacle of my experience with the fair sex.”
What was he saying? That he had no more firsthand knowledge of physical love than she? Daisy was dumbfounded.
“Surely you jest, Monsieur le Vicomte. Young gentlemen of title and wealth are expected to have—”
“Ah! You’ve hit upon the problem squarely,” he said. “I’m a gentleman of title, but no wealth. I’ve no desire to court when I have nothing to offer a wife but my name. And lack of funds means I’m unable to pay for . . . well, to form a relationship with a woman for the sake of pleasure.”
“But surely there have been willing maidens in your past.” Tales of dalliances between the lord of the manor and his house servants were grist for the penny novelists’ mill. Daisy had read more of them than she probably should.
“Perhaps,” he conceded, “but however tempting it might be, it never seemed fair to take one of the upstairs maids to my bed.”
“Commendable,” Daisy said, liking him better by the moment. “Especially since those sorts of liaisons invariably end badly for the girl who hopes to raise herself through them and rarely does.”
He met her gaze directly. “Is that what happened to you?”
“Me? No, of course—” She remembered that he thought her a “soiled dove” and naturally wondered how she’d come to fall from society’s grace. Daisy lifted her chin and recalled Blanche’s defiant record of her own life. “I became a courtesan with my eyes wide open. I ask you, milord, would you be content to go through life being treated as if you were a child or an imbecile?”
“Of course not.”
“Yet such is the plight of a married woman. When a woman becomes a wife, she becomes a man’s property. I might have married, but I wished to retain ownership of myself,” Daisy said, understanding Blanche more as she allowed the courtesan’s words to flow out her mouth and into the garden’s fresh air. “So I pursued an education that I might converse wittily on all subjects and chose to take a lover in exchange for rich gifts instead of a husband. And in so doing, I retain control of my moneys and goods as well as my person.”
“And do you have a lover now?”
A trace of his old Italian accent crept back into his voice. Daisy doubted anyone who hadn’t known him as a boy would have even marked the slight Latin huskiness in his tone. But it made her pulse dance.
“I am without a patron at present and in need of nothing. My last protector was very generous,” she purred. “I will take another lover at a time of my choosing.”
“Well, then, it certainly sounds as if you’ve done well for yourself in your choice,” he said with a laugh. “Perhaps I should take a page from your book and hire myself out. That would be one way to fund my work.”
Daisy glanced up at him sharply. Sitting beside him might be a mistake, she realized quickly, for the difference in their heights was pronounced without her tall shoes. She rose and pulled him to his feet.
“Ah! But a gigolo must possess amatory skills that you confess you lack,” she said.
He came willingly and looked searchingly at her for a moment.
“Blanche.” His rumbling tone caressed her false name. “Please don’t confuse lack of skills with lack of interest.”
Then he moulded a hand to the column of her neck. She cocked her head reflexively into his touch as he drew his fingertips along her thin collarbone. When his fingertip met the fabric of her gown where it dipped off her shoulder, he traced the neckline on her dress as he had that morning at the Society of Antiquaries before he knew she was Daisy Drake.
Only this time, her décolletage was much more daring, and he slid his fingers beneath the thin fichu to skim her bare skin instead of just brushing the froth of lace.
As Daisy Drake, she should slap him soundly.
But what would Blanche do? Daisy wondered. A courtesan without need of a patron might still allow a gentleman such liberties simply because it pleased her.
And Lucian’s touch pleased her very much indeed.
When he reached her exposed nipple, he drew his fingertip around the tight little mound in a maddening circle. Daisy scarcely breathed. A dull ache throbbed between her legs.
“I confess I do not possess the wealth required to become your patron. Not yet, at any rate. But I would happily become your devoted pupil,” he suggested as he continued to massage her nipple with his thumb. “You could teach me those amatory skills.”
His touch was hypnotic, and she leaned into it like a cat demanding a more thorough petting. Daisy’s lips parted, and she gasped at the zing that arced through her body, streaking from her breast to her womb. She gave herself a shake and rapped his knuckles with her closed fan.
“I think you already know much more than you admit,” she accused.
His eyes flared with sudden knowledge. “You liked that.”
“Of course I did.” Daisy dug through her memory for Blanche’s treatise on the care and titillation of a woman’s nipples. The shiver of sensation coursing through her effectively blocked her thoughts. She resorted to honesty. “I’m very sensitive there.”
“Are you?” he asked with surprise. “I’d have thought such a slight touch would be second nature to one in your line of work. A caress on your breast would seem of no more import than a handclasp.”
Daisy glared at him. “If you are intent on insulting me, Monsieur le Vicomte, I shall bid you adieu.”
“No, stay.” He grasped her wrist. “I meant no insult, truly. Blame it on my inexperience, not my manners. Believe me, Blanche, I hold you in the highest regard. Please don’t go.”
“You think to toy with me.”
“No, never.”
She turned back to him, a portion of Blanche’s wisdom sounding in her head. “It is a mistake to assume one can separate one’s body from the rest of oneself. Men may deceive themselves into thinking the life of the body has no bearing on their heart, but it is not so.”
He captured her hand and held it to his chest. “My heart is fully engaged, as you can feel for yourself.”
The great muscle in his chest pounded beneath her palm.
“You make sport of me. A physical heart will gallop so because one is merely aroused, monsieur. Your invisible heart may or may not be involved.”
“And that’s important to you,” he acknowledged.
“It is. I cannot enter an affair of the body without a corresponding affair of the heart. Perhaps a base harlot can manage such a feat, but only out of self-preservation. She lies with so many men, she must hold back her heart lest it shatter like a paste jewel beneath her patrons’ heels.” Daisy pressed her palm to his cheek. “So I do not take lovers lightly or often, for it means I must give away a portion of myself. If we become . . . involved, I cannot answer for the consequences.”
He covered her hand with his, then turned it up and pressed a hot kiss into her palm.
Her knees trembled.
“It’s a risk I’m prepared to bear.” His dark eyes flashed feral in the moonlight.
“But I am not.” She pulled her hand away and walked slowly along the torch-lit path. He fell into step with her. “At least, not yet. Though I like what I know of you, Lucian, I know very little. Tell me of your work.”
She listened with half an ear, since she’d already heard his lecture that morning. Steering the conversation to Lucian’s excavation gave Daisy much needed time to recoup. Every time Daisy glanced at Lucian from under her lashes, she felt a bone-deep tingle, as if she stood on the topmost battlements of her uncle’s Cornish castle.
Inches from certain annihilation and quiveringly alive.
“An ancient Roman treasure. How exciting! So all you need to complete your work is an investment from a partner?” she said when he was finished explaining about the Roman wax tablet. “Your search is at an end. I shall be pleased to join you in this endeavour.”
Lucian flashed
a brilliant smile. “While I welcome your investment, the work that goes on at the site is grubby in the extreme. I hardly think an excavation is likely to interest you.”
“Bien sûr,” she agreed with a sudden burst of inspiration. “I shall send an agent to represent me at the site. Someone who will bring the needed funds to you and possesses knowledge of Latin. Someone who can help with your work, no? Will that suffice?”
“Perfectly.” He went on to describe the location of the find and arrange for the time for her agent to join him on the morrow. “But I wonder if I might still call on you?”
“I shall count on it.” She allowed her voice to drift lower, as she’d heard her great-aunt do when she was in seductress mode. “Remember, you did promise to show me your naughty Roman art.”
“So I did.” He snapped his fingers. “I have it! What would you say to an exchange? Authentic Roman antiquities for lessons in love.”
“Not a love affair?”
“No, just lessons,” he said. “Teach me what I need to know to please a woman.”
Daisy’s heart sank to her toes. How could she teach something she knew precious little of herself?
“I am not in need of a lover at present,” she lied, trying to ignore the way her heart hammered against the whalebone prison of her bodice.
“Teach me what you know of kissing then,” he said. “That seems safe enough.”
He had no idea how his kiss melted her inside. Yet the thought of spending time with him, of exploring the mysteries of kissing him, was too delicious an adventure to pass up.
“Very well.” Daisy took his arm and led him toward the splash of light pouring from the open doors to her great-aunt’s home. “Bring me a suitably naughty Roman object of art and I will teach you what I know of kissing. But in the meantime, we should re-join His Lordship’s party. I believe that’s a saraband I hear. And I do so enjoy the dance.”
Daisy decided she’d trip through one more set, then plead exhaustion and head for bed. She was sure she’d be up half the night, rereading Blanche’s entries about the artful use of the lips, teeth and tongue.
“Dangerous principles impose upon our understanding, emasculate our spirits, and spoil our temper.”
—Jeremy Collier, English bishop, theologian and Jacobite
CHAPTER SIX
The reek of smoke and unwashed humanity surged over Sir Alistair Fitzhugh with the force of a Brighton breaker. The chimney at The Unicorn was drafting poorly again, so all the smells of the pub—yeasty ale, oily mutton stew, excessive perfume from the slumming dandies in the corner and the ripe tang of the serving girl who’d just as soon spread her legs for a man as bring him his brew—coalesced into a single stale stink.
Sir Alistair sniffed in appreciation. It was the smell of life, of honest, hard work. Barring the dandies, of course, but the pub needed them to keep the pickpockets from preying on the locals. It reminded him of the smell of his home pub back in Edinburgh.
Or as near to it as he could manage in the spidery sprawl of London town.
His eyes adjusted to the hazy dimness as his gaze swept the room. There in the far corner, a man in a greatcoat with the collar upturned was nursing a pint.
So, he came after all.
Sir Alistair made his way toward the booth and slid in across from the man without a word. A blowsy girl ambled over with a brimming mug in one hand and the other fisted at her waist. Her breasts threatened to spill over her tightly laced bodice. He dropped a coin between them and gave her already hard nipple a tug through the cheap muslin. She giggled and blew him a kiss, promising to return with bread and two bowls of stew. As she turned away with a flip of her skirt, Alistair scented a whiff of her, wet and swollen, beneath the homespun.
“Expect I’ll have a bit of that later,” his companion said.
“I wouldn’t if I were you, Brumley,” Alistair said. “If she isn’t riddled with the French pox already, she will be soon. Better to frequent a reputable brothel, where the madam makes certain the girls and the patrons are both clean. Surely you’ve the coin for it.”
“Not with the pittance my wife deals out,” Lord Brumley said with bitterness. “It was in the marriage contract. Winifred retains control of her considerable dowry by special decree. Always reminding me how tightly her father’s lips are pressed to King Georgie’s arse.”
“Bleedin’ German sod,” Sir Alistair muttered, not meaning Lady Brumley’s father.
“Quite.”
Might as well cinch the matter. Alistair hefted his mug. “To the king over the water, then.”
Not meaning the German usurper.
Brumley eyed him sullenly, lips drawn tight. This was the moment, and the bastard knew it. Lord Brumley drew a deep breath. Once pledged, he was in.
Alistair had cultivated the unhappy lord for months, enticing Brumley with visions of what his life would be like without the heavy-handed King George. The poor bugger wouldn’t be crawling to his well-connected wife for every scrap. James Stuart placed on his rightful throne would mean rich rewards for those who helped restore him, and a free hand for Lord Brumley into his wife’s deep pockets.
And not a damned thing her father could do about it then.
Brumley lifted his mug. “To the king over the water.” They clinked rims and drank. The sour bite of ale was mother’s milk to Alistair. And the sharp sting was made all the better by the enlistment of Lord Brumley to the glorious cause.
“What did you make of Lord Rutland’s claims this morning?” he asked.
“Roman treasure? A fool’s errand, if you ask me,” Brumley said.
“And yet perhaps not so foolish.” Alistair wrapped his hands around his mug and stared into the dark brew as if he were a Gypsy fortune-teller considering tea leaves. “The antiquities he’s unearthed so far are convincing.”
“So?”
“So, it could add up to a tidy sum if it’s true,” Alistair said. “I’ve done a bit of research this day. A particular friend of mine holds the classical studies chair at Oxford. I happened to catch him in town. He says scholars agree the stipendium for a Roman legionnaire’s pay was a silver denarius a day. Multiplied by a three-hundred-day year, the calendar used by the ancients.”
“You expect me to become enthusiastic over three hundred silver coins. What twaddle!”
“At one time, the number of Roman soldiers on our island swelled to fifty-five thousand men,” Sir Alistair said. He raised a brow. “Mayhap you need quill and ink to do the cipher.”
The sudden bob of Brumley’s Adam’s apple showed he was quick enough in his head with figures. “Holy God.”
“Indeed. Think what we could accomplish with millions in Roman silver. If we’d had such a cache of coin in ’15, the Rising might not have failed,” Alistair explained.
The Scottish Uprising in 1715 had met with sharp resistance from the English, who inexplicably preferred George I, the dour German Protestant, as king over His Catholic Majesty James Stuart. Alistair didn’t give two figs about his monarch’s religion, but his Scottish blood called for a Scottish king. And now that the first George was dead and gone, this second one was no more palatable than his predecessor.
“If the Roman treasure is real, it could go a long way toward the Restoration,” Alistair said. “An army has needs, ye ken.”
Ordinarily, he kept his accent at bay through intense concentration, but when he felt passionately about a subject, the brogue resurfaced.
“War is a messy business. An assassin’s dagger has fewer needs,” Brumley suggested.
“Very forward-thinking of you.” The Scot raised his mug in approval. “But that requires a hand close to the king being willing to wield the blade. Your wife’s connections put ye in the royal circle, near enough to do the deed. If ye felt yourself equal to it, we might keep the lion’s share of the Roman hoard and earn the gratitude of the true king by dispatching the usurper. But to kill a king, even a false one, is no light matter.”
Alistair
leaned forward and skewered Brumley with a searching look. “Is it in ye, man?”
Brumley’s gaze dropped to the worm-eaten table.
“Never ye mind,” Alistair said. Even a weak ally was better than none. “We’ll see if we can search out the truth of Rutland’s Roman coins. If we can manage to slip that treasure out from under the whelp, we’ll have done well enough by James Stuart. Besides, I’ve another idea or two yet.”
And another unhappy English lord besides Brumley whom Alistair judged ripe to entice into his web.
“A man will dispute it with his dying breath, but in his secret heart, he lives to be deceived.”
—the journal of Blanche La Tour
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Your pardon, milord.” Avery, the estate’s aging butler, leaned over the lip of the pit as far as his arthritic back would allow. “Your new . . . partner has arrived. She awaits your pleasure in the parlour.”
Lucian drew his bare forearm over his sweaty brow. He and Percy, the stable lad, had managed to move a good bit of earth since breakfast. Now he’d reached a level where he must lay aside his shovel and rely on a small whisk broom lest they destroy a delicate artefact with the sharp edges of their spades.
“She’s here? I thought she was sending an agent.” He shrugged on his discarded shirt before turning back to the boy who was digging with him. “Keep working with the broom, Percy. If you find something, don’t try to remove it. Just brush the dirt away and I’ll be back directly.”
Lucian climbed the ladder out of the excavation pit and strode toward his father’s manor house. From this distance, the shoddy roof and neglected gardens weren’t as readily apparent. Montford had suffered over the past years, not from lack of care, but lack of funds. There simply wasn’t enough left after meeting their basic needs to put into new roof tiles or roses.
But that would change. Lucian would see to it. Montford would be his someday, and even though he wasn’t English-born, enough English blood flowed in his veins for him to feel pride of place.