My Lady, My Lord (14 page)

He called for a carriage and a maid to accompany him, drove to the museum, and went into the exhibition hall. Several other visitors wandered about the place, enjoying the ancient sculptures. Ian stood before the alabaster statue and found himself wishing, foolishly, that he could speak to it. The stone goddess stared at him with blank, almond-shaped eyes, as though to say she wouldn’t listen even if he did.

C
ORINNA LIFTED THE CUP OF COFFEE
to her mouth, grinning. The previous afternoon after the truncated ride in the park, she had gone home—to Ian’s home—and back to sleep. She’d barely stopped smiling since she awoke. The look on Ian’s face when she pulled away from Amabel Weston’s barouche in the park was priceless. The baroness must have said something fantastically horrid.

Corinna took up the
Times
and scanned the news, but her attention wandered. Tomorrow she would meet Mr. Sparks and win back Ian’s horse. She would triumph, then they would go to the exhibition and Aphrodite would reward them with their own bodies again.

Her gaze strayed to the society gossip column, and arrested. She never usually read the thing, but now that she was likely to show up in it—as the Earl of Chance—she gave it a glance each day. Today she finally appeared, twice, both of her identities in the same paragraph.

Halt everything! It seems that the Earl of C. is not content with early morning fisticuffs, as the Marquess of A. led us all to believe. This columnist has it upon unimpeachable authority that the earl and Lady C. M. were seen enjoying a cozy drive in the park yesterday. The disturbing news can be greeted with nothing but the most genteel shock. Lord C., showing his face to society before dusk (away from the track)? Can the earl be courting the sophisticated salon mistress?

Impossible, this skeptical commentator concludes. Neither morals nor natural inclination allow for it. But perhaps she is merely busy teaching him to read Greek so that he might choose a name for his next prized stud to replace the last he recently lost. Or perhaps he is offering her pointers on how to dress. The feathered pelisse she wore Thursday was quite fetching in cut, however habitually drab.

Corinna’s hands and coffee went cold as she stared at the print. But what had she expected? This was precisely the reason she didn’t usually read this sort of thing.

Without announcement, Ian entered the dining room.

“Well, you are abroad early.” She gestured for the footman at the sideboard to leave the chamber, then poured a cup of coffee and proffered it to the man wearing her body.

“Your household rises at an ungodly hour.” He accepted the cup.

“I miss my mornings as well,” she said, pushing her untouched breakfast to him along with the folded journal. Too late she realized her mistake. Ian perused the column, his face unreadable. Without comment he flipped over the paper and read the remainder of the sheet as though it were all the same.

Corinna poured another cup of the bitter brew and sipped. When he finally looked up, he seemed perfectly at ease.

“What did Amabel Weston say to you to put you in such a temper yesterday?” she asked, her earlier humor returning. “You should have seen your face. I didn’t know I could look like that.”

“It doesn’t bear repeating.” He seemed uncomfortable. Corinna’s amusement increased.

“Really, Ian, what on earth did you find to discuss with her?”

“Don’t pretend to be more naïve than you are, Corinna,” he scowled.

She lifted a brow. “You, I presume.”
Delightful
. “What did she say? Something you didn’t like, hm? Or something you liked very much and now you are crabby because you cannot pursue it. Ah, that must be it. Although I cannot imagine why Amabel Weston would confide that sort of thing to me. We are barely acquainted. What on earth possessed you to get into her carriage?”

“Pelley sent a note to you yesterday,” he said abruptly. “He wishes to speak with you tomorrow concerning your offer.”

“Tomorrow?” Crisp anticipation overtook her amusement. “When?”

“He will attend a ball at the home of the Earl and Countess of Alverston and wishes for you to meet him there.”

“Another party? Why won’t he see me in private?”

“Perhaps he wishes to avoid a lengthy interview.”

“You think he does not intend to accept my offer.” Corinna set back her shoulders. “I will make him accept it. Rather, you will.” Her gaze flew to him. “But what of the game with Mr. Sparks? Haven’t you already written to him confirming tomorrow night?”

“Yes, but the place has yet to be determined. Alverston will certainly have cards.”

“Then it will be the perfect situation.” She clapped her hands, unconcerned that it wasn’t a manly gesture. With Ian, after all, she could be her true self. “Have you received an invitation?”

“I expect so. Andrews will have to dig it out of the waste bin.”

“He stores them in a drawer in your dressing room table. I think he has grander hopes for your social intercourse than you know. But what about Mr. Sparks? Will he be invited?”

“Lady Alverston and I are well acquainted. I will send a note requesting an additional invitation. Sparks is not good
ton,
but he is a gentleman if only in the loosest sense.”

She peered at him. “But Lord Alverston is still alive, isn’t he?”

Ian’s expression flattened. “He is young and healthy. Her family breeds racers. I do business with them.”

She shrugged in mock innocence. A smile creased his face, but it slipped away swiftly.

“What?” Corinna asked. “What is amiss?”

“The other night Pelley mentioned a test that he expects you to take when you next meet.”

“A test? Of what sort?”

“He wishes to know which fifteen works of classical literature you would first publish were you to become head of his company, and to provide him with justifications for your choices.”

“Well that’s simple enough. I could give him a list of fifty titles, and pages of justifications for each. I’ve been dreaming of this forever; I’ve long since made up such a list.”

“But I have not.”

“Oh, nonsense,” she said. “You spent four years at Christ Church College, and before that at Eton. You had the education I longed for, including instruction in classical literature.”

“Corinna, I spent my time at Eton establishing myself as the best horseman on campus, and my years at Oxford in a chapel crypt with a set of dice and a deck of cards playing for my classmates’ quarterly allowances.”

“But you made adequate marks.”

He lifted an impatient gaze to her.

“Well, you must have,” she exclaimed.

“Of course I did. I was the heir to an earldom. I would have had to do something much more scandalous than the numerous things I did do to fail in that.”

She shook her head. “But at least you read the required texts and met with your masters. Didn’t you?”

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “I did.”

“Then you need only recall to mind those books and meetings now.”

He remained silent. Corinna bit her lip, but a frisson of excitement tickled her. She moved toward the door.

“We can recall them now together. I have just bought them all for your library, in fact, in the original languages of course. We will look them over and refamiliarize you with them. It should not take more than a few hours, and you can spend the rest of the day reading.”

“You intend to make me study?”

She set her fists on her hips. “It won’t kill you. In fact, it’s a great deal less likely to kill you than the vices you typically engage in.”

“You look ridiculous like that.” He gestured toward her stance.

“Well it’s about time someone made Ian Chance look poorly,” she shot back.

He smiled, and this time the smile did not fade.

In the study, he settled at his desk, but she was too happily agitated to sit. She moved about the chamber, removing books from the remaining crates and hardly seeing the titles before she shelved them.

“You will need to calm yourself considerably for tomorrow night’s game,” he commented, scratching his signature across the bottom of his note to Lady Alverston. He paged through papers his secretary had left for him the previous day and set them aside.

“I do not lack calm,” she said without any regard for the truth and found she could not look directly at him.

“Hm.”

“You should begin with something of recognizable, popular value. Shakespeare. Perhaps, a trio—a comedy, a tragedy, and a history play. He will see your business acumen then. Shakespeare never fails to sell copies.”

“
Your
business acumen,” he muttered, writing on a blank sheet. Corinna didn’t know why the sight of him taking notes should make nerves tingle in her stomach. Irrational. She turned to a shelf and pulled in a steadying breath.

They worked for some time compiling the list he would take into his conversation with Pelley. By the end Corinna finally sat in a comfortable armchair, but her foot tapped.

“For the fourteenth and fifteenth books you must recommend Virgil and Ovid, produced as a set with matching bindings and an introduction and notes by the same editor. Perhaps English translations on the facing pages. That would be a lovely touch.”

“Which title?”

She cast him a sideways glance. He was bent over the pen and paper now like a recalcitrant schoolboy—or rather, schoolgirl. But he knew well enough to ask the question. Naturally she would choose Virgil’s
Aeneid,
but Ovid’s greatest work was debatable.

She pursed her lips. “Of Virgil or Ovid?”

“Ovid.”

“Ian Chance, you
are
a liar.”

His head came up. “My patience is currently rather thin, Corinna. Believe me, this is not the moment to throw insults at me.”

“You have a perfectly good knowledge of this material.”

“Ah. Ready to retract the thousand or so times you’ve called me a cretin?”

“No.” She smiled. “There are other reasons that descriptor still applies, of course.”

“Of course.” He bowed.

“When you are speaking to Lord Pelley you must mention that Professor Wright-Hampton at Magdalene will write the introductory commentary on this pair. He’s spent his life studying the relationship between the classical epic’s dactylic hexameter and the elegiac couplets of love poetry.”

“I have no idea what those are, so you needn’t revise your opinion of my idiocy after all,” he said with good humor.

“I don’t think you are an idiot, Ian.”

He paused only a moment before saying, “A rather surprising turnabout,” but his brief hesitation was enough. Corinna screwed up her courage.

“I am a terrible snob.”

“
No
. S’truth?” he drawled.

“This is not easy for me. Don’t be a boor.”

He grinned. “That is better than an idiot, I’ll merit.”

A scratch sounded at the door and Simmons stepped inside.

“My lord, given today’s excellent weather, I have taken the liberty of ordering luncheon to be set out on the terrace. And Lady Chance sent a message earlier indicating that she hopes you will pay her a call at your aunt’s home this afternoon.”

“Thank you, Simmons.”

The butler bowed and retreated, leaving the door open.

Corinna turned to Ian. “Does your mother typically request your presence at afternoon tea? Are you usually even awake at that time of day?”

“She summons me when she has some information in particular she wishes to tell me.” He moved into the corridor.

“Family business?”

“Occasionally.”

“What else?”

They crossed the withdrawing room and a footman opened the French doors onto the terrace. Paved in slate with a vine-covered trellis descending to the walled garden behind the house, it bespoke quiet pursuits—like reading, and thinking. Corinna hadn’t imagined he could have such a place in his house. The sun shone warmly on the terrace, grass, and reflecting pool.

“I only wish to know,” she said, “so that I will not be unprepared should she speak of something of a personal nature.”

“My mother and I do not share intimate secrets.”

“Of course not.” She chuckled and moved toward the reflecting pool. Three perfect lilies, undisturbed by the cool weather in their enclosed corner of the garden, floated on the water’s silvery surface. “I simply do not wish to misrepresent you.”

There was a brief silence.

“Thank you for your tact with Lady Weston yesterday.”

She laughed. “I didn’t know if you would recognize my effort there. It was a struggle, I assure you.”

“Corinna, we must not be seen in public together again.”

If he had slapped her she would have been less stunned. The enjoyment of the morning and her excited anticipation fizzled. She banded her arms across her chest.

“It was not my idea to go into public together in the first place,” she said.

“It was a poor choice on my part to allow it, to meet Abernathy so openly, and to come here as well. After today, I will not call again or meet you in society.”

Her heart beat with sudden speed. “After tomorrow we will not need to meet again.”

His brow creased. “Perhaps.”

“You have no faith in this plan. You think it won’t work.”

“Not ‘no faith.’ I have some.”

“Well, I have a great deal of it. And I fully intend to make one more outing alone with Lady Corinna Mowbray, tomorrow night if possible.”

“To the museum.”

“Of course.” She clamped down on the spiral of sick nerves climbing through her middle. She didn’t give a fig if he found the gossip linking his name with hers distasteful. This must be about that foolish column. Or his conversation with Lady Weston. Whatever the case, Corinna would not allow herself to refine upon it. She could not.

“I think you misunderstand,” he said at her side.

“What is there to misunderstand? Neither of us has ever been shy of speaking our opinions of the other. There’s no sense in beginning now.”

“My name appears with such regularity in the society columns, I am inured to it.”

“But not beside mine.” With effort she schooled her voice to practiced calm, as though speaking on a rational topic, as though her throat were not thick as pudding. “Naturally you would rather not see that again.”

“I would rather not see your name in the gossip columns at all.” He met her gaze in the mirror of the pool. “I cannot hope to extract mine, but I can try to assure that yours will not be further tarnished through unflattering associations with the Earl of Chance.”