Objects Of His Obsession (9 page)

She laughed at the look on
Benedict’s face. “It’s wrong, I know. Not very respectful. But I was only nine
or ten, I swear.”

Benedict shook his head. “No,
that’s very charming. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

“Why?” She lifted fine blonde
brows. “Because I found anything in this collection interesting? But it all is,
Benedict. Even then it wasn’t simply Anubis that caught my eye.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.”
Benedict roughly raked his hair back, cursing his own social ineptitude. “It’s
just that I didn’t realize you’d … I don’t know, visited here so long before
your marriage.”

Juliana burst out laughing. She
eyed him mischievously. “Poor Benedict,” she murmured. “You really are an
innocent, aren’t you?”

Immediately a deep, bloody
flush swept up his throat and into his cheeks. Sweet Jesus, he thought. Evander
and his wife could not possibly have discussed last night, even if she
had
bumped into him out in the hallway
afterwards. The possibility – that was just unthinkable–

Although his panic must have
been written large, Juliana merely traced a fingertip across the brass binding
the lip of the glass case they stood over.

“I merely meant,” she said
gently, “That you seem charmingly unaware of the circumstances of my marriage.
I will simply say that Evander and I have known each other for many years
– since he was a very small child. We are distant cousins, and my family
visited here with a certain frequency.”

Benedict swallowed, feeling a
bigger fool than he cared to. “I didn’t realize.”

She arched that brow again.
“Perhaps then I should also tell you that our wedding was a nine days wonder.
It was an elopement and I was considered a cradle-snatcher. Are you telling me
you truly know nothing of this?”

He shook his head. “No,
nothing.”

“Then either you do not listen
to gossip or you were out of the country. Perhaps both.”

Benedict picked up his pen and
looked down, rolled it between his fingers. “Most probably both. Your husband
once remarked that I have an affinity for sand and dead things. I’m afraid he’s
correct.” He gave her a quick smile. “If your chief interest in life is what
happened two, three, four millennia ago then … the latest gossip in London
really doesn’t get through, I’m afraid.”

Juliana grinned, nodding,
turning to go. She paused, glanced back. “I will simply say that I was twenty-six
when I married Evander, and he twenty-one. Many considered me a spinster, fit
only for the shelf. And so–”

“But you are exquisite.” The
words had tumbled out before Benedict could stop them. He flushed slightly, and
added, “I mean, I am quite sure, with your looks and character, you had many
offers of marriage. Only a fool would have considered you on the shelf.”

Her eyebrows lifted a degree.
The corners of that cupids bow mouth twitched and she put a fingertip up to
still it. The massive diamond on her finger blazed. “Oh, I had many offers of
marriage. Yet my father, amongst others,
did
consider me on the shelf. But none of those offers interested me until darling
Evander’s.”

Oh Christ, what had he done
last night? He had told himself that if Evander’s wife had a lover, surely it
did not matter if Evander and he–

But it did not matter to him if
the couple had come to an understanding or not.

The more time he spent with
Juliana, the more he liked her. And could not feel comfortable hurting her. In
any way. Even if she genuinely didn’t care that her husband took lovers, it did
not fit with Benedict’s code of behavior.

He had allowed his hunger for
Evander to overwhelm that code.

He could not again.

“I was cast as the wicked older
woman, spiriting away a naïve younger man,” Juliana was saying. She burst out
laughing and headed for the double doors. She halted, hand on a doorknob, and
glanced back. “Can you imagine that, Benedict? I confess, I quite enjoyed the
role. Although any who believed that Evander was a naïve young thing truly had
never met him. Even at twenty-one.”

And then she was gone, and
Benedict was left, staring, stunned, at the door she had departed by.

Impossible to concentrate. He
tried to do the maths required and realized that indeed, he probably had been
overseas when the couple eloped, but still…

He really had no interest in
gossip and occasionally it tripped him up.

It did not matter to him that
Juliana was five years older than her husband. He certainly would never have
guessed it from her appearance. No, what astonished him was what he,
self-absorbed fool that he was, had suddenly realized.

The St John’s had two children.
He’d a rough idea they were young … but however young, surely he should have
realized that Evander had been extraordinarily young himself when he wedded?

Twenty-one? Good God, had he
even finished university?

Benedict’s brothers had both
married closer to thirty than twenty, even Ranulph, required to ensure he had
an heir for the title.

Shaking his head, Benedict grimly
turned his attention to the cases contents.

Puzzling over Evander’s
marriage would get him nowhere. Even if, as he worked through the morning, he
was plagued by visions of a blonde haired, ten year old Juliana running about
the cases, perhaps playing hide and seek with a five year old Evander.

It was too bizarre. To distract
himself he wandered into the last of the three long galleries and began to
mentally catalogue its contents.

The man in him was still
stunned, aroused by the events of last night.

The knowledge he’d finally,
truly, unlocked and acknowledged the truth of his sexuality. The knowledge that
Evander, his obsession, had been the one to take that very particular
virginity, and so utterly skillfully. He would never forget last night. Not one
detail. It had all been so erotically … beyond his wildest fantasies. Every act
that Evander had introduced him to. Performed upon him. Just the thought of it
had his cock hardening against the confinement of his clothing. His very skin
too tight, hot, about his body. And his arsehole throbbing in memory.

But the archaeologist… The
archaeologist in him was just as stunned by the sumptuous display of items
through these spaces.

A pirate, Evander had referred
to his grandfather, the collections acquisitor.

He probably hadn’t been far off
the mark. And yet … it had resulted in an incredible collection. One which
would form the basis of an astonishing collection in the right museum, one
where scholars would be able to study, learn.

Contribute so much to the field.
To the bank of knowledge.

Truly, only another three days
after this would only scratch the surface.

He could not stay further,
would not force himself to, but in all honor would have to recommend a
colleague to take the job over from him and do the job justice. The collection
was just far, far too important to be treated with less respect.

At midmorning a maid came in
with a tray bearing sandwiches and tea.

Benedict took it gratefully.

It was only at lunch he knew
he’d have to stop. And yet every minute he was falling deeper and deeper into
this.

His twin obsessions were
flowering, their thorns hooking under his skin yet deeper.

Egyptology. Evander.

One he had no wish to be free
of… The other, must end.

At lunch a footman approached
Evander and waited, a silver salver in his hand, until Evander cut his sentence
short and face impassive, reached for the envelope offered. With a curt nod to
the man he tore it open, scanned its contents.

Halfway through, turquoise eyes
flicked up to his wife.

Juliana had halted her
conversation with Lily Rosso, the Prince’s ex-mistress, her blue eyes widening.
Watching them, Benedict realized that there was nothing everyday about this
scenario. Indeed, for a footman to interrupt a meal with a message as that one
had done–

Evander rose, nodded to the
table and went over to his wife, whispered something in her ear and drew her
chair back as her eyes widened and automatically she went to rise.

“Forgive us,” Evander addressed
the half-stunned, half-intrigued company. “We will be back shortly. Please,
continue.”

But something odd was going on.
Checkers exchanged glances with Eliza Stark, shook his head and changed the
subject to some news story she was working on. Soon he had the table involved
in a wild political debate.

Benedict, cutting into a piece
of potato, observed it all and felt that he was watching a theater piece.

Ten minutes later Evander
returned. As ever, he looked completely unmoved, taking his seat. As he lifted
his wine glass, he glanced about the table.

“I’m afraid some urgent
business has called away my wife. She gives her apologies for this afternoon
but will be back in time to grace the dinner table.”

Benedict’s warm brown eyes shot
to Evander’s face. Only because he had grown to know the man to … some degree,
somehow, beyond the purely sexual, could he see the strain about his
jewel-blue, black lashed eyes. Eliza Stark, seated beside him, briefly touched
Evander’s jacket sleeve with her fingertips.

He gave her a brief smile and
shook his head.

Benedict felt something twist
in his gut and forced his attention to the meal at hand. Yes, something was
wrong. For Juliana to have left the dinner party in such a manner … she would
not have done so on a whim. And from the tension Evander could not quite relax
from his shoulders, her husband would have preferred to accompany her to
wherever that message had taken her.

That cleanly cut, sculpted
jawline lifted and blazing turquoise eyes met honey-brown ones across the white
linen, the china, silver and crystal. A black eyebrow arched.

“So, Yeats,” that low, educated
voice commanded. “Give me a report. How did this morning’s exploration of my
dear grandpa’s collection go?”

Benedict put down his fork and
allowed the enthusiasm of this morning’s exploration to take over. His wide
mouth took on a smile and he deliberately relaxed, collecting his thoughts
briefly and launched into a description of the major pieces of the collection
and just what he had discovered about it in those brief hours.

He couched his description in
such a way as to appeal to his audience. The more ostentatious artifacts.
Treasure. The story behind the incredible mummy cases.

His love of the subject, he
knew, from past experience, could transform what for some could be a dry and
dull history story to one vivid, redolent of the magnificent civilization Egypt
had once been.

A rival to Rome. Ancient
Greece.

And behind it, as he answered
the most obvious questions always thrown at him – just how had those
mummies been created, just how many precious pieces had been entombed with
their owner, what kind of jewelry, had slaves been sacrificed to spend eternity
with their pharaoh – he was inwardly aware that Evander had chosen him
for this very ability.

To deflect the attention of the
luncheon table from Juliana’s abrupt absence.

Casterwell had had faith in Benedict,
so socially inept at most times, to hold an audience’s attention once he began
speaking so passionately on his specialty. But how? Unless he had attended one
of the infrequent guest lectures Benedict had given at different societies.

The thought was too bizarre.
And Evander a man whose business was that of moving amongst the upper reaches
of society, politics in the House of Lords when he deigned to attend, and when
not so occupied, managing the business matters of his family’s estate and
attendant far flung business interests.

He would scarcely take an
afternoon or evening off to attend, somehow unseen, a lecture on a civilization
which had ceased to play on the worlds stage millennia ago.

The Prince’s ex-mistress proved
her profession as an actress had been well chosen. The drama of the funerary
service, the ritual of the embalming, the years of artistic endeavor that went
into a tomb fascinated her, and the others were not far behind.

Half smiling, his host, he
noted, lazed back in his chair and simply observed, elbow on the arm of his
chair, a finger folded across that hard, carnal mouth, another caught against
the cleft in his chin, the tension leaving his tall, lean body by a degree.

And Benedict was glad. Glad
that in some bizarre way,
this way
,
he had been able to help.

~~***~~

Twin tennis courts, clearly
long established, masked by thick, lush hedges, high enough to hide the less
than scenic evidence, were set some distance behind the house.

Benedict sat back, giving
himself a short break for the afternoon before he returned to the work that was
no work at all. He glanced up from observing the match between Lily, the red-haired
society beauty and woman of definite sexual and social notoriety, and Eliza.
They appeared well matched.