by Marlowe Mia
Things are as one perceives them to be.
Surely he was mistaken. He searched his memory. Had he ever seen Daisy in the same room as Blanche? No, he hadn’t. Still, that didn’t prove anything.
He looked back over and found Daisy had dropped to her knees. She leaned over the lip of the pit, her posterior pointed to the sky.
A very un-maidenly pose. He’d wager his title she had no idea how erotically appealing she looked.
Blanche, on the other hand, would know full well what she was doing and milk the posture for effect. Daisy’s attention was focused on something wedged in the strata of dirt below. She was so keen on whatever it was, she didn’t concern herself with how she might appear.
Lucian had seen enough Roman art to imagine how she’d look with her skirt flopped up over her head, bare bum smiling at the sun.
“Never a stiff breeze around when you need one,” he muttered, tamping down that thoroughly rakish hope. Lucian walked around the pit and stood behind her for only a little longer than necessary. Then, since no breeze seemed to be coming, he cleared his throat.
“Oh!” Daisy righted herself and glared over her shoulder at him. “I see you’ve finally deigned to grace us with your presence, milord. Has it escaped your notice that half the morning is spent?”
“Seems you’ve managed well enough without me.” Lucian strode forward to inspect the crew she was directing. “Who authorized hiring these men?”
“Your partner, Mlle La Tour,” she said. “She thought her investment would pay their salaries, and their labour will free you to work on . . . well, to work with me on organizing your existing finds.”
“And that was Blanche’s wish?”
She squinted up at him. “Yours as well, I assume. Didn’t you discuss it with her last night? Oh, you there!” Her gaze was dragged back to the pit. “Careful with that.”
Daisy leaned down again, reaching for the newly excavated wax tablet. Her hoops swayed in the breeze. Her skirts pressed against her legs and conformed to the confounded wire contraption she had strapped to her hips, but she remained more or less decently covered. When she sat back upright, she was cradling the tablet.
“This is the third one we’ve found this morning,” she said. She blew across the surface to try to dislodge some of the clinging dirt, but succeeded only in raising a billowing cloud of dust that had them both coughing and sputtering.
That settled it. He was definitely taking a slight resemblance between Daisy Drake and Blanche and multiplying it all out of proportion. Blanche would never risk dirtying her coiffure and gown in order to blow ancient grime from an old wax tablet.
“Here.” He handed her his clean handkerchief. She wiped her eyes and then blew her nose soundly on it.
“I’ll have it laundered and return it to you tomorrow.” She slipped the hankie into a pocket pinned amid the folds of her skirt, then called down into the pit. “Mr Peabody, please take charge of the others and remind them to be careful.”
The new fellow tugged at his forelock and turned back to his task.
“Where did you find them?”
“Mr Peabody was waiting here when I arrived this morning,” she explained. “According to his letter of reference, he’s served in similar capacity as foreman for several excavations on the Continent, Germany and Italy mostly. He’d caught wind of your finds and thought to offer his services.”
Lucian frowned at the back of Peabody’s head. “I’d rather hire my own people. This is a delicate situation.”
“Ordinarily, I’d agree, but since you presented at the Society of Antiquaries, it’s not as if you are working in secrecy,” Daisy said. “Besides, where would you find someone with Mr Peabody’s experience?”
“Experience we cannot readily verify.”
Daisy cocked her head at him. “He’s already kept your stable boy from hacking off the winged foot of an unsuspecting statuette of Hermes.”
She turned and strode toward the shed. Daisy’s words made sense, but doubt still niggled at him.
“Do you want to release them from service?” she asked when he didn’t move to follow her.
As he watched, the team of workmen fetched up a delicate copper chain, the metal green with age. Peabody handled the find with as much care as Lucian would himself, placing it in a canvas-lined wooden tray and hoisting it out of the pit so Lucian and Daisy could retrieve it easily.
“There,” she said from behind him. “Are you satisfied?”
“I suppose.”
“Come, then.” She waved him toward the shed. “You and I have work to do.”
Daisy massaged the bridge of her nose. Both she and Lucian had been working all day translating the newly discovered tablets. They stopped briefly for tea and biscuits when Avery brought out the refreshments, but even then, Lucian had spent the time poring over his notes, hardly speaking three words to her.
She glanced over at him. He’d cleared a space on one of the benches and was bent over a tablet, quill in hand, transcribing the contents of the ancient Roman manifest. His brow furrowed and his tongue was clamped firmly between his teeth in concentration.
I swear the man’s ignoring me, Daisy thought. Ignoring her? In her guise as Blanche, hadn’t she advised him to ignore the young lady he wanted to impress? Could it possibly be that he . . . ?
“Look here!” he said suddenly.
“You’ve found a clue about the location of the payroll?”
“No, but I have found another reference to our thief.”
Daisy hopped up and strode over to join him.
“Oh! This seems to be a court docket of some kind,” she said as she skimmed over the text. “Plaintiffs, respondents, pleas. Ah!”
Lucian ran a finger beneath the line in question.
“‘Caius Meritus, freedman, requests permission to purchase the freedom of one Deirdre of the household of Quintus Valerian Scipianus,’” he read.
“That’s the same name as the girl he bought as a servant for the proconsul’s wife.” Daisy settled onto the chair near Lucian and folded her hands on her lap. “Jupiter! Do you suppose he loved the girl?”
“The record on the tablet doesn’t say anything about that,” Lucian pointed out.
“Well, of course it wouldn’t, would it?” Daisy said, warming to the idea. “In the process of reconstructing antiquity, some things must be inferred.”
“Or fabricated.”
“Why are you so certain he didn’t love her?”
“My dear Miss Drake, you are assigning much more noble motivations to Caius Meritus than he may deserve. He was a thief, after all.” Lucian’s mouth curved in a crooked smile. “And a man doesn’t have to love a woman in order to crave her company.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Just as you don’t love Blanche.”
“My relationship with Mlle La Tour is not the subject under discussion,” he said.
“And your motivations are ever so noble.” Her tone dripped sarcasm.
His smile took a decidedly wicked turn. “Again, you infer that which is not in evidence.”
Daisy narrowly resisted the urge to box his ears.
“You want evidence. Very well. Here is what we know. Caius Meritus bought the girl in the proconsul’s name to serve in the ruling household. He subsequently attempted to purchase her freedom. It says here”—she stood and pointed to a row of characters on the ancient tablet—“that the request was denied. The only other thing we know about him is that he stole an entire Roman payroll. Is it such a stretch to imagine that these events are connected?”
“There’s only one problem with your theory,” Lucian whispered, leaning toward her.
“What’s that?” Daisy whispered back. She leaned toward him, subconsciously mirroring his movement.
And was shocked to her curled toes when he slid a hand behind her neck and pulled her down for a kiss. His mouth claimed hers in a warm rush. When her lips parted for an instant, he was quick to send his tongue in for a
scandalously sexual exploration of her mouth.
She felt herself go pliant as a reed by the riverbank. She could no more stop her body from rousing to him than she could stop her finger from bleeding if she pricked it with a needle. Moist warmth pooled between her legs.
But she didn’t have to let him know it. She pulled back her arm and sent him a stinging blow to the cheek.
He released her at once.
“Why did you do such a thing?” Daisy demanded. His taste was still on her lips, his scent all she could smell.
“Because I wanted to prove my point.”
“Which is?”
“I wanted a kiss, Miss Drake. So I did what most men would do given the opportunity. I stole one,” Lucian said with smugness. “If Caius Meritus wanted the girl, why didn’t he just take her and escape to the hinterlands? Why steal the Roman payroll instead?”
“Maybe she didn’t want to go with him,” Daisy said. “After all, I didn’t want you to kiss me.”
Her tremble damned her for a liar.
“Really? I could have sworn you didn’t mind at first, but that’s a discussion for another day, isn’t it?” He stood and she stutter-stepped back to stay out of his reach. “Don’t worry, Daisy. I’m not going to steal any more kisses to convince you of my point.” He strode to the open doorway, then stopped and turned back to her. His eyebrows hitched upward twice. “Not unless you ask me nicely.”
His dark gaze was so knowing, she felt as if he’d suddenly caught her naked. His lips taunted her, and she realized she wanted him to kiss her again.
Very badly.
When she schooled him in kissing as Blanche, she’d created a monster. A damnably attractive monster.
She pushed past him and stomped out of the shed, her shredded dignity trailing behind her like a broken pair of angel wings.
“There comes a point in every chase when the vixen must slow her pace, lest the hound lose the scent.”
—the journal of Blanche La Tour
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Your face is flushed,” the earl said as he stared down at his only son, who still lolled in bed.
Lucian had smacked his own cheeks several times before his father entered the chamber. Now he let his eyelids droop in what he hoped was a sickly fashion. “Please convey my regrets to Lady Brumley and her family.”
“This is deucedly inconvenient.” His father frowned at him. “Damned insolent of you to allow yourself to get sick. We accepted their invitation for a picnic and lawn bowling weeks ago.”
You accepted the invitation weeks ago, Lucian amended silently. “I don’t feel myself up to it, sir. Pray have me excused.”
“It’s all that mucking about in the dirt.” The earl exhaled noisily but finally bobbed his head in agreement. “Well, you’re no good to me this way, in any case. I’ll make your apologies and send ’round the leech.”
“Don’t trouble yourself, sir. I’m certain this will pass.” Even if Lucian were truly ill, they’d have to bind him to make him submit to his father’s quack of a doctor, with his foul lancet bowl and evil-smelling purges.
If the physician had been able to help the earl quell his temper, Lucian might have thought better of him. The earl’s melancholy was getting worse, his late-night drinking louder and more destructive. Lucian had had Avery hide his father’s pistols for fear that he might harm himself. Last night, the earl nearly dismantled his study looking for the pearl-gripped pair. His shrieks and curses rattled the rafters when he couldn’t find them.
When the morning dawned, Lord Montford shook off the black rage and donned his best remaining suit, chipper as a lark. Lucian chalked up the brightening of his father’s mood to the prospect of a match between Lucian and Clarinda Brumley.
Lucian wanted to please his sire, but not at that cost.
If he’d judged his father to be his rational self, Lucian would have had no trouble standing up to him directly. But because he suspected the earl teetered on madness, Lucian was loath to do anything that might send him careening over the edge. Bedlam, the only hospital for those with troubled minds, had an evil reputation. Lucian didn’t want to see his sire tossed into its maelstrom if he could help it. So he feigned illness instead of starting an argument.
Once his father left, Lucian threw off the bedclothes and dressed. He gave quick instructions to Avery to water the liquor in his father’s cabinet, hoping to tone down his nightly drunkenness, and hurried out to the site.
Daisy would be there already, he was sure. No matter how early he appeared, she always managed to beat him there, almost keener about finding the treasure than he. She’d be head-down, puzzling over some translation or reassembling a bit of broken crockery.
He wondered if the girl ever slept.
In fact, now that he thought on it, she was looking a bit haggard of late. Dark smudges had settled beneath her green eyes, and more than once, he caught her nodding over her work in the drowsy mid-afternoon. He appreciated her dedication, but he didn’t want her health to suffer for it.
In fact, there were many things he was beginning to appreciate about Daisy Drake—her quick wit, her scholarship and attention to detail, her creamy bosom.
Her lovely mouth.
He rarely looked at it without conjuring the memory of that stolen kiss. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he could have sworn he scented a slight whiff of jasmine when he claimed her lips.
Blanche’s fragrance.
No, it was ridiculous. Daisy and Blanche could not be the same person. No respectable English miss would masquerade as a French courtesan. Daisy might be unconventional, but she was certainly respectable.
He peered around the corner of the open shed and found her in deep concentration over a pile of mosaic tiles. She was trying to re-fit them into the ancient plaster. A frown knit her pale brows together as her clever fingers worked.
He stared at her hands. Blanche had unbuttoned his breeches. She’d held his cock, caressed his balls and driven him nearly beyond reason. For a moment, he tried to imagine Daisy doing such a thing.
The notion was laughable.
In the simple muslin she wore to work amid the antiquities, Daisy’s breasts were pressed together and up, the creamy mounds displaying her gender. Lucian had suckled Blanche’s nipples, giving and receiving torment. He wondered if Daisy would tell him, as Blanche had, to nip her again.
He almost snorted aloud.
Daisy tipped up the portion of mosaic to get a better look at it, and all the little tiles spilled off onto the rough plank bench.
“Maudit, merde et sacre bleu!” Daisy swore with vehemence.
Lucian staggered backward. The French invectives might have poured from Daisy’s throat, but the voice sounded exactly like Blanche’s. He ducked back around the corner, his mind reeling.
Daisy Drake and the French courtesan Blanche La Tour were one and the same. He was certain of it.
Almost.
Frustration sizzling, Daisy scooped up all the tiny pieces and started over. As soon as Avery told her that Lucian and his father were expected to call on the Bramley’s, she purposely picked a task that would occupy her for the better part of the day. Her annoyance over Lucian’s social calendar spilled into her work on the mosaic.
“Good morning.”
His voice nearly knocked her off the little stool upon which she perched. Lucian appeared in the doorway, his lean, masculine frame silhouetted by the morning sun, as beguiling as the fallen Angel of Light himself.
“Oh! I wasn’t expecting to see you,” she said. “Avery told me you were off to Lord Brumley’s estate for a day of merrymaking.”
“I had a change of plans,” he said curtly.
“Clarinda Brumley will be disappointed.”
“It will do her good not to see me,” he said with a quick grin.
Daisy’s belly clenched. He was ignoring Clarinda, just as she, as Blanche, had advised.
Jupiter! He must truly want the match then.
&nb
sp; “What have you there?” He moved to stand over her.
“A mosaic,” Daisy said. “I can’t be sure I have all the pieces, but I believe it’s a representation of Ariadne.” She held a small tile up for him to see. “Doesn’t that look like part of a spool of thread?”
He leaned down and squinted at the tile. His fresh, masculine scent washed over her, and Daisy forgot to exhale for a moment.
“I think you’re right,” he said, straightening to his full height. “Poor Ariadne. First she saves Theseus from the Minotaur with her neat little rope trick, and then the brute deserts her on Naxos.”
“One might argue that’s the way of all men,” Daisy said sourly. After all, Lucian tried to seduce her as Blanche, and forced a kiss on her as herself, while in the midst of a politically and financially expedient courtship with Clarinda Brumley.
“That’s a cynical outlook.” He pulled a face at her.
“I’d argue it’s realistic.” Daisy stuck her tongue out at him in retaliation. Some things about their relationship had not changed a whit since they were children. “Nowadays, a woman must be prepared for a man to pledge his undying devotion and then keep a light-o’-love on the side.”
Lucian cocked a brow at her. “For an English maiden, you seem to know a good deal about men.”
“I know lots of things,” she said tiredly. Blanche’s memoirs were filling her head and stealing her sleep. “You might be surprised.”
Lucian considered her carefully for a moment, then turned his attention to the remains of the Ariadne mosaic.
“Well, we ought not shed too many tears for Ariadne,” he said. “There is a variation of the tale that says that after she was abandoned by Theseus, she caught the eye of Dionysus. Not a bad end for a mortal woman.”
“You do know your mythology, don’t you?” Daisy said.
“I know lots of things. You might be surprised.” He leaned over her shoulder, picked up a tile and placed it in a likely spot. “I surprise myself sometimes.”
Did she imagine it or did he just sniff her hair? Well, that’s odd.