by Lenora Bell
“I’ll escort you to your chamber. Have you had supper?”
“Only pastries.”
“I’ll have something sent to your room.” They walked up the stairs. “Here we are.”
“Where are you, in the other wing?”
“I’m right,” he pointed at the next door. “There.”
“Surely not.” Her eyes widened with alarm. “That can’t be. Surely Lady Sterling would never allow such an impropriety.”
“The guest wing is being refurbished and these are the only two rooms ready.”
“Splendid,” she muttered. “Just perfect. Tomorrow I’m finding new lodgings.”
“Or I’m happy to leave.”
“These are your friends, you should stay. I can’t take much more of Lucy’s wedding fever, so I’ll be the one to leave.”
A maidservant passed by and bobbed a curtsy, keeping her head down as she walked past them.
“I’ve something to tell you,” said Raven. “About our search.”
Here was where he diverted her attention away from Le Triton and toward Beauchamp and other less likely and far less dangerous suspects.
Indy entered her chambers and Raven followed, shutting the door behind him.
She traveled the perimeter of the large room, opening doors and sweeping aside curtains. His training in espionage had taught him to do the same in a new environment; map every potential entrance, exit, and hiding place.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
She moved to the fireplace and warmed her hands over the flames. “I was making certain that there was no adjoining door between our chambers.”
“If there was a door I would keep my side locked in case you decided to drink more whisky and rip my shirt open again in the middle of the night.”
“I didn’t rip open your shirt—you did. In your sleep.” Her gaze lingered on his cravat and collar. “Have no fear, Raven.” One side of her full lips slid into a smirk. “Your virtue is safe with me. Now what did you want to tell me?”
“Something Sir Charles told me tonight made me suspicious. He said that the Louvre has received several recent shipments for the Egyptian exhibit. When we go to the Louvre tomorrow, I want you to interview Beauchamp alone, while I slip away and search the premises.”
“Why don’t you do the interviewing and I’ll do the searching?”
“I don’t think my pretty ankles will distract him long enough for you to conduct a thorough search.”
“Why does your plan involve me standing around looking pretty?”
“It’s not that, and you know it. You’re the one who knows Beauchamp so well. Didn’t you study hieroglyphics with him for several months? I hear he’s infatuated with you.” Why wouldn’t he be? She was the most beautiful woman on earth.
“You make it sound improper. Lady Catherine and I merely attended a series of his lectures.”
“I’ve only met the man in passing, so it makes more sense for you to interrogate him while I search.”
“Oh very well,” she said testily. “I’ll keep him talking while you search.”
“And don’t fall for his glib flattery. He may be a brilliant linguist and antiquities expert, but he’s also a notorious libertine.”
“No need to warn me. I know all about notorious libertines.”
Ouch. Her words kept wounding him when he thought himself impervious to feelings of any kind.
“Beauchamp did ask me to become his lover once,” she said. “He told me that he admired my brilliant mind.”
“That’s not all he admired, I’ll wager,” he muttered.
She laughed. “Why my dear duke, are you jealous?”
“Of that conceited dandy? Hardly.” Raven wasn’t prepared for the ferociousness of his reaction. He wanted to shout that Beauchamp wasn’t worthy to kiss the hem of her gown but he wasn’t supposed to betray his emotions. He was a brick wall.
He was a brick wall who had to know whether she’d accepted Beauchamp’s offer. “Did you accept?”
Her lips flattened into a line. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“You’re my fiancée,” he said gruffly.
Stupid thing to say. He was betraying too much.
She rolled her eyes. “Do I have to remind you that this is only a farce to hide our true purpose for being in Paris? You have no rights over me. I could take dozens of lovers if I so chose. You certainly haven’t been chaste.”
True. But the rumors of his conquests had been greatly exaggerated, mostly by him, in order to maintain his roguish cover story. He hadn’t had a mistress in more than a year.
He should tell her that he had no objection to her taking lovers, that he wished only happiness and fulfillment for her, but the words stuck in his throat. The thought of her in another man’s bed made him feel like a bull in a china shop.
He wanted to stamp his hooves and start smashing things.
“Take a lover,” he said through gritted teeth, “just please don’t let it be Beauchamp.”
She tossed her head, and a lock of hair escaped from her simple coiffure. “Why do you object to him so much? Oh.” She nodded her head. “I forgot. He published that scathing article about fortune hunters stealing antiquities for private collections. It was a thinly veiled attack on your unscrupulous methods.”
“The man’s a sanctimonious prig.”
Raven hadn’t cared about the article. What he’d cared about was hearing that Indy was attending Beauchamp’s Paris lectures. Beauchamp and Indy spoke the same languages and shared so many of the same passions.
“Beauchamp invited me to accompany him on his upcoming expedition to Egypt under the patronage of King Charles.”
Another stab of pain, as if she’d jabbed her dagger into his heart. “Will you go with him?” he asked, striving to keep his voice casual and uninterested.
“Traveling with Beauchamp as brilliant as he is, as limitless his resources, I’d be nothing more than his assistant.” She shook the stray lock of hair away from her cheek. “I don’t want to be a footnote in history. I want my very own chapter.”
“And you’ll have it, too. Probably not just a chapter. A whole set of volumes devoted to Lady India, the intrepid explorer.”
She glanced at him with a puzzled expression.
That had been too intimate, too approving. Back away now, Raven. Back to your jokes and your innuendoes.
“Good night, then,” he said hastily.
“Good night.”
They stood there staring into each other’s eyes, neither one of them moving.
“Good night,” he repeated foolishly.
A good night for more kissing. A fine evening for bedsport.
He left her chamber and walked the few short steps to his own room.
At least there was no connecting door between their chambers, because if there were one, and if she came to him in the night and told him more about her erotic dreams, he wouldn’t be able to turn her away.
He’d survived torture. He’d been shot at, knifed, hunted like a dog.
But Indy would make short work of his defenses.
That’s why he had to find the stone. It could even be in one of the warehouses Sir Charles had been so furtive about. More likely, it was already with Le Triton.
If he didn’t find the stone in Charles’s warehouses that night, he’d talk to his usual contacts. Surprise a few ruffianly types. And if no one told him what he wanted to know, he’d bloody them up until they started talking.
He’d find the stone. Indy would positively identify it as the real one. And this mission would end.
He’d be a hero for the Foreign Office, his reputation reinstated. He would continue his quest for definitive proof of his father’s innocence, with access to all of the resources of the Foreign Office.
Indy would leave on her next expedition. Alone. Without that lecherous Beauchamp.
And Raven would . . . well, he’d find some fresh trouble to get into.
Put his head down, and follow the dutiful path.
Chapter 13
Indy lifted her eyes. “I’ve always loved this view.” She shivered in the chilly air. October usually began sunny, but soon the temperature would drop precipitously.
She and Raven stood on the Pont Royal. To their left was the impressive colonnade of the Tuileries and the Louvre, hugging the banks of the Seine. In front of them the river branched into two channels bordered by bustling quays, with the spires of Notre Dame rising majestically in the distance.
“It’s a beautiful view,” agreed Raven, but he wasn’t looking at Notre Dame. His gaze was fixed on her face.
Excitement drew curlicues in her mind, embellishing her thoughts with hope. Today she and Raven could solve this mystery. In some ways this journey was the fulfillment of their childhood dreams; the adventurous partnership they’d envisioned.
Searching for treasures in foreign lands with Raven by her side.
Even though he’d been a royal pain in her arse all through breakfast, amusing himself by calling her ridiculous endearments for the benefit of the delighted young Lucy.
He’d called her his tough on the outside yet delectable on the inside pineapple, to which she’d responded by calling him her petite cabbage, in the odd manner of the French, who thought cabbages were adorable.
The endearment battle had only escalated from there, leaving Lucy and Lady Sterling gaping at them, not knowing whether to laugh or call for the French police.
His mask of joking reprehensibility was firmly back in place, which made it easier to maintain a safe emotional distance from him, but also gave her an odd feeling of loss. A hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach.
He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. “I’ve always thought Paris to be one of the most romantic cities on earth, my fine feathered swan of a fiancée.”
“Enough.” She removed her hand and pretended to realign the fingers of her gray gloves. “We don’t have to continue the act when we’re alone. And what do you know about romance? Your dalliances are more transactional in nature, I believe.”
“Ah, but chérie, I’m looking forward to driving Monsieur Beauchamp wild with jealousy. I’m practicing.” He caught her hand and brought it to his lips.
“Kindly pull yourself together, you’re acting like a complete ninny.”
“I’m the Ravenwood you know and loathe.”
“You can say that again.”
“I’m the—”
“Not literally,” she huffed. “Come along now. We have an antiquity to hunt.”
They entered from the Place du Museum on the ground floor of the Old Louvre, which housed the Museum of French Sculpture and the Museum of Antiquities. Indy had brought Beauchamp’s catalogue of the Gallery of Egyptian Antiquities, which listed in detail the more than nine thousand pieces they’d acquired from private collections including those of the former King Louis XVIII.
“It says here that they have recently acquired a very interesting mummified cat,” said Indy, leafing through the booklet as they waited behind another tourist at the front desk.
The museum was only open to the public on Sundays, but foreigners with passports could enter by writing down their names and addresses.
“Is Monsieur Beauchamp on the premises?” Indy asked the bored-looking clerk in French when it was their turn.
“Yes, Madame, he is here but he is very busy at the moment.”
“Please inform him that the Duke of Ravenwood and Lady India Rochester are here to see him.”
“Dukes and ladies,” said the clerk, as if those were two of the things he found most annoying in life. “Dukes and ladies do not take precedence over very large, very heavy and fragile shipments of antiquities that just arrived today.”
Indy met Raven’s gaze. This could be it. Beauchamp could be unpacking the Rosetta Stone as they stood here.
“Monsieur Beauchamp knows me,” Indy said firmly. “Don’t mention the duke part, only the lady. He’ll want to see me.”
The clerk’s eyes traveled over her plain attire. “Lady . . .”
“Lady India Rochester. We’ll walk through the Antiquities rooms and wait for him in the Egyptian gallery.”
“Oh very well. I’ll inform him you’re here.” He snapped his fingers and a young page scurried to the desk to do his bidding.
They walked through the rooms of the Gallery of Egyptian Antiquities, Indy pointing out items of particular interest.
“It’s built on a grander scale than the British Museum,” remarked Raven. “Used to be a palace, I believe.”
“One of the most ancient palaces in France,” she replied.
“What does the name Louvre mean? I’ve never bothered to research it.”
Indy thumbed to the beginning of the catalogue. “Some have derived it from Lupara, a wolf, because it was formerly surrounded by a thick forest, much infested by wolves. Others have derived it from the Saxon word Lower, a chateau; and others, with more probability, from the ancient Gaulic word Ouvre,” she read aloud. “Signifying the beauty of its architecture.”
“It is magnificent.”
“Outside of archaeological expeditions, the place I feel most at home is in museums. Every painting, sculpture, and relic has a complex story that isn’t readily visible to the untrained eye.”
Communing with the art and artifacts of people long dead was endlessly fascinating. It was also her safe haven.
Usually museums made her feel calm and peaceful.
Today she was on high alert.
In the Salle de Candelabre Indy stopped in front of one of her favorite pieces, a towering marble statue of a goddess. “Have you seen her yet?” she asked Raven. “They call her Venus de Milo, because she was found on the island of Melos by a Greek farmer.”
“I’ve heard of her but never had the pleasure. She’s very beautiful. But where are her arms?”
“They never found them. Personally, I don’t think she’s a Venus at all. I think if they had found her arms, she would have been holding a spear and leading a charge as Victory.”
“Or she could have been holding an apple, the symbol of her victory in a beauty contest presided over by Paris before the Trojan War began.”
“I see a warrior, you see a beauty contestant. There’s the difference between us in a neat encapsulation.”
“Or she could be both,” said Raven. “A great warrior and a great beauty. Like you.”
His mask had slipped and he was being nice to her again. “I’m not a classical beauty like my mother. I have too much of my father in my face.”
“No one can look away when you’re in the room. You’ve a strength and beauty to you. And so does she.” He gazed at the statue. “What separates the great works of art? An artist who has a story to tell. Every brushstroke or chisel mark has an urgency to it as if the artist knew his own mortality and was trying to create something to outlast himself.”
And now he was inside her head. Bollocks. Why couldn’t he be despicable 100 percent of the time, like he used to be?
“I agree. The great works of art tell the story of the artist. The sculptor long dead, the hand that created this crumbled to dust, but the stone endures. And inside the stone, a song to be heard.”
Her two worlds were colliding.
Her safe, peaceful place invaded by the man who made all of her lonely, hermetic choices feel like they had been made not out of any grand or higher purpose, but out of fear.
The man beside her was sculpted not from stone but from flesh and blood and bone, and there was a heart beating beneath his ribs, a body she wanted to run her hands over to learn his shape. To find his story. Listen to his song.
She could see that he was hiding something from her.
She caught glimpses of another man behind his eyes.
She wanted to know why he donned the mantle of the unprincipled rogue. Was he hiding something painful? She thought of what Mari had said. An anger so strong can
only be born of pain.
If she chiseled away at him would she find something new underneath?
She could spend her entire life researching the past and ignoring the present. But would she wake up one day and already be old and frail, with only her books and memories to keep her company?
Would she look back on her life and regret the risks not taken, the kisses not kissed?
The anger she’d nursed for so long. Would she regret that as well?
“What are you thinking of?” he asked. “You have a thoughtful expression, as though you’re working out mathematical equations in your head.”
“I was wondering what I might find if I chiseled away at your disguise.”
Alarm flitted across his face. “I told you I had no deeper layers. I’m all surface. We should go and find Beauchamp.”
“We should,” Indy agreed.
A man’s voice startled her. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
They both turned around to find Beauchamp had entered the room while they were speaking.
Beauchamp was staring at Indy instead of the Venus when he spoke of beauty.
There’d never been any love lost between Raven and Beauchamp. If the man didn’t take his eyes off of Indy and move them to the statue soon, there could be bloodshed.
“Lady India, what a surprise.” Beauchamp bowed over Indy’s hand, giving her a limpid, admiring gaze.
Indy smiled widely. “Victor, it’s delightful to see you.”
She called him Victor? Raven barely restrained himself from ripping the man’s throat out with his bare hands.
“It is an unexpected pleasure to see you, my lady.” He inclined his head in Raven’s direction. “Your Grace.”
“Monsieur Beauchamp,” Raven growled.
He wasn’t in a very charitable mood at present.
He’d found absolutely nothing of interest last evening in Sir Charles’s desk drawers, or his warehouses. And Le Triton’s servants were proving remarkably un-bribable.
“What brings you to the Louvre, my lady?” asked Beauchamp, in an insinuating tone of voice that clearly implied that she was here to see him.
“I wanted to show His Grace the new gallery. I’ve been reading to him from your excellent catalogue. It’s quite an accomplishment. Over seven thousand new pieces.”