Vexing The Viscount (14 page)

“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 house hold. 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 trembling 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.” 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.

“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 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 of 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 of 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 of onto the rough plank bench.

“Maudit, merdeet 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 almost 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 Brumleys, 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 of 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 of 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.

“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 that 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.”

Well, that’s odd.

Did she imagine it or did he just sniff her hair?

“What’s that fragrance you’re wearing today?” he asked.

“I’m not wearing any,” she said. “Too many bees in this field to douse myself with rose water.”

“It doesn’t smell like rose water.”

Each evening, just in case Lucian should take it into his head to visit, Daisy donned her Blanche disguise. That included a liberal spritz of jasmine. She did her best to scrub it of each morning, but evidently Lucian’s sense of smell was keener than most.

“Perhaps something’s blooming nearby,” she said.

“Perhaps.” His dark eyes were hooded as he looked down at her. There was something different in his gaze, a sort of disbelieving fascination. He stared as if he’d never seen her before.

She wondered if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head.

“You look tired,” he finally said.

“I don’t think that’s any of your concern.” She swiped at her eyes with both hands.

No, she wasn’t sleeping. She burned the candles down reading Blanche’s journal each night. Ever since Lucian had asked about that secret place on a woman’s body that when touched might drive her wild, Daisy had been searching for the answer. The French courtesan knew a good deal about her own body, and she recorded her observations with astonishing frankness.

When Daisy did a little exploring on her own, she quickly discovered that Blanche knew her subject exceedingly well.

So now Daisy knew. She was still innocent, but definitely not ignorant.

But did she possess the courage to play the next hand as Blanche?

She didn’t know. Sometimes at night as she lay on her bed, her chest ached with longing. She might never marry;
she knew that well enough. She was old for it now, and she didn’t like any of her choices. Better no husband than the wrong husband.

But she wanted to be touched. And she wanted Lucian to touch her.

“I haven’t been’round to see Blanche lately.” Lucian’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “We parted rather badly the last time. Bit of a tiff. How is she?”

“She’s fine. Busy.”

“Hasn’t taken a lover, has she?”

“No, no, of course not!” Daisy snapped, then amended quickly, “She’s on holiday, remember.”

“Ah! That’s right.” He turned away to begin working on the tablet he’d started translating yesterday.

Daisy tried to focus on the mosaic, but the tiles kept blurring before her eyes. “Blanche misses you.”

He stopped, quill poised over his paper, and turned to her. “Did she say so?”

Daisy nodded.
In for a penny, in for a pound…

“She wanted me to tell you…” Her courage faltered.

“Yes?”

Heat crept up her neck and kissed her cheeks with flame. “That she is ready to show you something you wanted to know about.”

A slow, sensual smile stole over his lips.

“That’s very…unexpectedly good news. Please tell her I shall attend her this evening. Would eight o’clock be convenient, do you think?”

Daisy swallowed hard. “She’ll look for you then.”