The Songbird's Seduction (26 page)

He’d told himself he’d only done what she’d prodded him to do, but now he added liar to the list of grievances he was compiling against himself. He’d kissed her because he wanted to feel her in his arms, to feel the moment her mouth woke beneath his, physical hunger ignited by the wildfire of his own desire. And he had! He had . . .

He should never have touched her.

When he’d finally come to his senses, recalled to their surroundings by the diners whooping like spectators at a burlesque show, he’d been so stunned by his own actions he’d actually dropped her. She’d handled the whole thing with far more aplomb than he had, hopping to her feet, dusting herself off, and curtseying to the madly applauding spectators before disappearing for the rest of the night.

Or fleeing.

“And then I said to him—”

“What is going on?”

The bright flow of chatter stopped. She eyed him candidly, a clear sign she was about to tell a hummer. “Nothing. Why do you ask?”

“There’s something odd about how you’re acting today. Look, if it’s about that kiss—”

“No! No.” Her face grew bright. “Please. I understand. It was just a kiss for show is all.” She gave a little laugh then peeked at him sidelong. “Right?”

For once, he couldn’t read her tone. Expectant? Anxious? Hopeful? Guilty? Nervous? He could read each one in that single word.

“Aren’t you having fun?” she asked in small voice when he didn’t answer.

“No,” he bit out. It was torture.

“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped but then she darted a quick glance at him and smiled. “We’ll just have to try harder is all.”

“Please, don’t.” He didn’t know if he could survive Lucy’s concentrated efforts at fun.

He must not have sounded sincere because she grinned and he decided to give up trying to figure out what was going on with her. Instead, he went back to listening as she took up the interrupted narrative with some bit of doggerel that wrung a smile from him with one of her overblown impersonations.

They’d been traveling since morning with only one stop for a midday meal. Rather than stay with him, Lucy had sought the fiddler, the only other member of the troupe who spoke any English, and spent the meal with him. Archie had watched, fascinated by how naturally she drew the portly musician out, in the same way she had the old man on Sark.

“What was the fiddler telling you at lunch?” he asked when she finally fell quiet for a rare few minutes.

“The fiddler?”

“Yes. You looked positively riveted.”

“Oh.” She finished tearing off the last bit of meat from the chicken leg and tossed the bone to the side of the road. “He was telling me that because of the recent persecutions against Romani, Luca has convinced his family to reinvent themselves as a traveling troupe of entertainers.”

“Wait. They’re
Gypsies
?”

She nodded, then scowled. “It’s disgusting what they must endure. Why, they aren’t even allowed to—What? What’s wrong?” She glanced down to see if she’d dribbled on her blouse.

“Why would he reveal this to you?” he asked, amazed.

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because the Romani are notoriously close-mouthed with outsiders.”

“Oh, that,” she said nonchalantly, digging in the wagon well behind her before producing a wizened little apple with an air of triumph. “Want some?”

“No and yes,
that
.”

“He thinks I’m Romani.”

“You told him you were a Gypsy and he
believed
it?” he asked incredulously.

She gave him a flatly disgusted look. “No. I never underestimate my audience, Archie. You’d do well to remember that. He thinks I have Romani ancestors. He said only someone with Romani blood could sing that song like I did. I simply didn’t deny it.” She preened a bit, a small sign of vanity he found inexplicably enchanting.

“And so he just told you everything. Just like that?” He was afraid his doubt was apparent in his voice. “
How
?”

“I don’t know. I asked him a few questions, such as whether he played any other instrument, who’d taught him, what his favorite song was. You know. And one thing just led to another.” She took a bite, eyeing him curiously. “Why does this surprise you so much?” she asked around a mouthful of apple.

“I’m a trained anthropologist. I’ve spent most of my adult life observing people, investigating societies, and attempting to understand them. I gain my subjects’ trust by not intruding upon them, then unobtrusively recording their lives from the fringes. And here you come, chattering away, pretending to be one of them and—”

“Hold on there,” she stopped him. “I did not pretend anything. Yuri drew conclusions and I did not correct them. For all I know I do have Romani blood.

“You make it sound as if I did something suspect, or at least unethical. All I did was become part of his world, I . . .” She searched
for the word and snapped her fingers when she found it. “I assimilated. People are not subjects. They’re people. How can you possibly understand something if you don’t experience it, Archie? Recording something isn’t
knowing
it.”

“You misunderstand. I wasn’t criticizing you. I was trying to understand your process.”

“Process?” She laughed. “I don’t have a process. I’m simply interested in people.”

He frowned. She’d said something similar before. Something about how they did nearly the same thing, how she delved into other people’s lives to be able re-create a facsimile on stage, while he did the same for science. Both of them strove to understand how people connected, how a society is formed of individuals . . . Good Lord.

“A penny for your thoughts.”

He looked up. “Lucy, you brilliant girl, you said a person creates society.”

She stared at him as if he’d gone daft. “What are you talking about?”

“On Sark, you said that a person not only comes from a place that molds him but that he, in turn, has molded.”

“I did?”

“Yes. You were explaining to me how you went about developing your characters for the musical stage.”

“You listened to me that closely?”

“Of course,” he said, distracted by the idea burgeoning in his mind, something monumental, something extraordinary.

She shrugged. “What of it?”

“It’s brilliant.”

“It is?”

“Yes,” he said excitedly. “It’s revolutionary, is what it is.”

“Oh?” She straightened her spine, preening a bit. “How’s that?”

“It’s generally accepted by the anthropological community that culture’s purpose, the reason it exists, is to meet the needs of the group.
Group
is the main player, has the starring role, if you will. The individual in that group is secondary.

“But what you have hypothesized is that the individual shapes as much as is shaped by the society.” The idea had caught fire in his imagination. “If society exists to meet the needs of the individual it fundamentally changes how we see . . .
everything
. Am I making a bit of sense?”

She nodded.

He raked his hair back with both hands and laughed, convinced he’d discovered something important. “It’ll take years of research to prove, of course.”

“The prospect doesn’t seem to discourage you.”

“Discourage me? Why would it? It’s exciting!” His thoughts were racing ahead, already formulating new methodologies.

“You really love it, don’t you?” she asked in an odd voice.

He turned toward her. “Yes. Yes, I really do. I know most people don’t consider anthropology terribly useful. I don’t make anything, or deliver a service to anyone, and any benefits I provide are only in the most indirect ways, as insights. But I can’t imagine doing anything else.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “I suppose that makes me fatuous.”

“No,” she said softly. “It makes you lucky. You’re able to do what you love and you’re good at it.” She paused. “At least I assume you’re good at it. I mean, a college wouldn’t just hire any young man who enjoys tromping about the world and chatting up anyone who’ll let him in the door. Really, I’m quite jealous.”

He looked at her in surprise. “You’re kidding.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m not. Cross my heart.”

“But why should you be? I could say the same about you. You love what you do and you are better than good at it.”

Her extraordinary eyes lit with pleasure. “That’s awfully swell of you to say and I do like to sing. But as for the loving it?” She shrugged. “Sure, I enjoy pretending to be someone else for a few hours. It’s sort of fun to try on another life.” She shrugged.

“
Like
to sing?
Fun?
That’s rather damning what you do with faint praise.”

“Well, then, how about if I say I find it interesting?”

“No,” he said decisively. “No one could be as good as you are if there weren’t more to it than that. There must be more driving you. What is it?”

She squirmed a little, clearly unused to being questioned so closely. Or, he thought with sudden intuition, to having anyone insist on delving deeper into her answers, unwilling to accept that whatever she was
willing
to share was all she
had
to share.

“Maybe I’m just not as deep, passionate, and intense as you are,” she suggested blithely. Flags of color had risen to her sharp cheekbones.

Three days ago he would have left it alone, believing that, as a gentleman, whatever line she drew in the metaphorical sand was one he’d be forced to respect. But three days ago he’d only been intrigued. As a young scholar confronted with something inexplicable, he’d been filled with a passionate need to comprehend. Now he was something far more.

Now, he wanted to understand Lucy. He
needed
to understand her.

She fascinated him, charmed and alarmed him. Even when she made him feel befuddled—which was most of the time—he still had this insane conviction that she made sense. It was only when they were apart that he recognized otherwise.

It was the very opposite of how he felt about Cornelia. When they were together he felt out of sync; when they were apart they made sense.

He hadn’t given much thought to his would-be intended in days. Not really
thought
about her. But then it wasn’t all that unusual. In fact, he rarely did so when they were apart. He’d never once questioned why. But now he did. Because when he was not with Lucy, however briefly, he thought about her all the bloody time.

It could only end badly. He’d spent his life learning to keep his passions tamped down, under control, out of sight, buried. Passion was the antithesis of reason and reason was civilization’s bulwark against anarchy. He should just stay mute, distance himself from her and everything about her, start the process of tearing out the hooks she’d buried deep in his—no! he would not say
heart
. Psyche—deep in his psyche.

So, of course, because this was Lucy and he seemed categorically incapable of doing what made sense where Lucy was concerned, instead he took a deep breath and said, “That’s a lot of rubbish. If you don’t want to tell me about yourself, fine, but don’t put me off with that . . . bunk.”

She blinked, feigning shock. “Why, Professor, fancy you using slang.”

“I do have students, you know,” he said. “Occasionally I’m forced to communicate with them. I find both parties are best served if I use the students’ preferred argot. Besides, I’m discovering that linguistics could present a rather intriguing area of study. I’m surprised no one has thought to treat it as a completely separate subspecialty.”

“You’ve never showed off this talent before.”

“The slang you employ doesn’t have that many terms in common with the one my students use. I suspect yours is a more dated form.”

She gave him a slow grin. “I believe you just called me old.”

Good God, had he? “I . . .
No
. . . I mean . . . Of course, you’re not old. You’re hardly older than my students. I only meant that the slang you use is perhaps specialized to the traditions of the
theatre. And, lest you think differently, your rather heavy-handed attempt to distract me won’t work.”

“Piffle,” she said.

“Now, if you please.”

“Please what?”

He fixed her with a firm stare. “If it’s not acting and not singing, what is it about the musical theatre that draws you?”

She made a very unladylike noise. “I suppose if I invented a reason you wouldn’t believe me. It seems to be rather a peculiarity with you.”

He wasn’t sure why his ability to see through her thin charades should surprise her—it really wasn’t all that hard—but he was always happy to impress her. “Yes.”

“All right, then. Fine. But it’s a tad embarrassing. I’m afraid you’ll think me terribly shallow.” She strove to sound nonchalant, but the color was back into her cheeks and her gaze kept skittering away from his, telegraphing clear as day she was about to admit the unvarnished truth.

He waited, uncertain what she thought might lessen her in his eyes. That she liked dressing up in pretty clothes? That she liked the bouquets given by admirers? He didn’t care.

“I like the applause,” she blurted out.

“The applause.”

“Yes,” she said with a touch of defiance. “The cheers, the whistles, the
applause
. I like standing in front of the curtain after the last act, when we no longer are in character, and they applaud and I know it is for me.
Me
. Not the part I played or the songs the composer wrote, but what I did with them.” She broke off suddenly and swallowed, a tremulous smile flickering. “I love that.”

Her gaze met his and danced away. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and once again strove for a light tone. “I like feeling that I matter, I guess. That I’ve done something people fall
in love with, even if it’s just on stage. Because after the curtain, when you’re just standing there and they can finally see you . . . it feels real.”

Of course, he thought. How many roles had she played, in how many places, long before she’d ever stepped on a stage? She’d told him about a few: the songbird, the tomboy, the obedient niece. But beneath it all she’d wanted to be recognized, to be seen. “It is real,” he said. “And there is nothing shallow about wanting to be seen for who you are, what you are.”