Someone Irresistible (32 page)

“Are you enjoying your work here, Professor?”

He exhaled loudly through his nostrils, recovering himself to murmur, “How do you know?”

“How do I know?”

“That you’re not with child.”

She paused, embarrassment flooding her as her face flushed hot.

He didn’t move his gaze from hers.

Clearing her throat and lifting her chin negligibly, she replied, “I know in the usual way a woman knows, Nathan.”

He blinked quickly as if the whole explanation simply dawned on him. Then he looked away. “I see.

Disappointment seeped into her. She’d so hoped for more, to witness some degree of the same in him as she’d revealed the answer to what he’d surely had to have considered these last few weeks. But his voice and expression weren’t telling. She supposed, though, that she should be pleased he hadn’t said how glad he was to know he wouldn’t be a father anytime soon. That would have been too painful for words.

For a long moment they stood beside one another, the tension mounting to a tangible thing, the rain coming down harder still to echo off the tarpaulin in an almost deafening roar.

At last he sighed and ran his palm harshly down his face. “I would hope, Mimi, that you came all the way out here to tell me something

more.”

That stung, she admitted, but then, she deserved his rancor. She had hurt him terribly these last few months, and although he didn’t understand and she wasn’t at liberty to explain, she felt his frustration as deeply as he did. She just didn’t know how to express that.

Grasping her elbows with her hands, she gazed back to his face with fortitude. “I agonized for months about how to tell you what I knew, Nathan,” she whispered passionately.

His jaw hardened as the only sign that he’d even heard her. It brought tears to her eyes, but she didn’t look away.

“I know what this has done to you. I know what you’re feeling—”

“I sincerely doubt that,” he broke in.

She inhaled a deep, shaky breath, ignoring that bitter pronouncement to move on. “I thought that by giving you back your jawbone at the banquet, everything done to you would be reversed and all would start to heal—maybe not be fixed, but at least be healed.”

He studied her for a moment, fairly expressionlessly, which worried her. If he felt anything but irritation, he hid it well.

At last he insisted, “You should have given me the jawbone when I first appeared on your doorstep last fall.”

“I know that,” she agreed without hesitation.

Such an affirmation surprised him just enough for her to notice.

Then he raised his brows to offer caustically, “And why didn’t you, if not to selfishly protect your late husband?”

Mimi felt the mounting anxiety pulse through her. “What was your intention that day, Nathan?” she asked frankly, head tilted to one side.

He briefly glanced at her lips, then back to her eyes. “My intention was to discover who ruined me—

“—And destroy my father doing it.”

Rain pelted the tarpaulin now in heavy sheets, keeping them isolated from the outside world, drowning out everything but their heated exchange.

His features grew tight with anger. “You might not have had anything to do with my initial ruin, Mimi, but keeping it from me when I returned was a choice
you
made.”

“And perhaps an incorrect one, I’ll grant you that, Professor,” she admitted sharply. “But what would you have done in my position?”

He straightened, dropping his hands to his sides in a manner of dismissal. “This conversation is pointless.”

“Is it? I think it needs to be had.” She moved closer, refusing to be intimidated. “You came to my home unannounced, and after polite introductions, accused my father of stealing your treasure and ruining you. Yes, I had your nasty little fossil sitting in my attic, but if I’d handed it over to you then, what would you have done? You would have filed charges without any explanation whatever.”

“That’s not true,” he countered, fisting his hand and pounding it once on the water barrel.

“Yes, it is,” she whispered.

He said nothing but never looked away.

She stood now only inches from his face, sensing the stark, sizzling heat between them, matching his determination with every bit of strength she possessed.

“I love you, Nathan,” she expressed in a fiercely quiet tone. “And you know that. But I love my family, too. I did the best thing I knew to do for you at the time without destroying them. I don’t expect you to understand, or even to forgive me. But I would like to think you care enough about me to acknowledge that I’ve realized all along how deeply we’ve hurt you, and that I’ve never been more sorry, and felt such anguish, about any injustice done to a man in my life.”

The biting wind picked up; the storm intensified as waves of cold rain swept into the side of the shelter to slap against their clothing, a witness to this equally turbulent moment between them that served as the critical junction to any future they might ever share together. Mimi could only wonder if he thought the same.

At last he asked gruffly, “Why did your father change the fossil for the sculpture the night of the banquet?”

She swallowed, wishing desperately that she could embrace him now, comfort him, tell him everything and receive his love in return.

Instead, she inhaled deeply and straightened, lowering her lashes at last. “I think that’s something you need to ask him.”

With that final note, she turned and stepped out into the icy downpour, letting the stinging drops strike her face without care.

« ^ »

N
athan stood inside Sir Harold’s brightly lit morning room, his side to the mantel, fingers interlocked behind his back, as he waited for the man.

Spring had arrived early this year, and a servant had placed a large crystal vase of fresh lilacs on the recently polished cherry wood tea table in front of the plum-colored sofa. The same sofa where he’d sat beside Mimi for the first time nearly eleven years ago.

Nothing had changed. The room looked exactly as it had for as long as he remembered, the walls covered with ornate flowered paper and painting after painting depicting landscapes, rose gardens, and portraits, all done by Mimi’s mother when she was alive. Nathan stared at one now, a formal of Mimi and her sister Mary, that hung over the fireplace, painted when Mimi had been about ten, he surmised, or at least slightly younger than she’d been when he’d first met her.

He quickly took note of the likeness between the girls, although Mimi had a warmth and charm about her that Mary lacked. Mary, ever the cool beauty, smiled serenely, her expression vague as if afraid to reveal feelings and secrets held within for reasons only she would ever know.

Mimi, however, exuded a fiery radiance, a loveliness in her smile that enchanted even the toughest men, a daring in her exquisite eyes that beckoned, that would bring a man to his knees before he’d realized what had hit him. She was, and always would be, someone truly irresistible to him.

Nathan missed her more than he’d ever thought it possible to miss anyone. He craved her touch, her breathless, intimate voice, her honest laughter, her endless questions that made him smile in spite of the fact that his answers were never quite substantial enough to satisfy her stupendous curiosity. Not a day had gone by during the last month that he hadn’t wanted to go to her. But his pride—or perhaps just tempered, lingering anger—kept him from responding to her pleas of understanding that she’d offered the day she’d come to the dig.

God, what a surprise that had been! Only Mimi would be bold enough to travel to a filthy place lacking modern conveniences and cluttered by colorful, questionable men. When he’d first set eyes on her that morning, after assuring himself that she actually stood tall in his presence, displaying a unique and dignified grace, he could hardly keep from smiling at her gall. He’d known, of course, that she wasn’t pregnant—not because she hadn’t told him sooner, but because he’d

cared enough about her to track her whereabouts and concerns these last few weeks, through Justin, who admittedly was becoming rather annoyed at having to keep up with the widow’s movements for his friend’s sake. Nathan knew that the last time they’d made love, regardless of whether the intimacy had been tinged with regret and anger, there had been an extraordinary bonding between them, and if a child had resulted, he would have done the honorable thing. And he would have been relatively at peace with it.

But he refused to beg for something she didn’t intend to reveal to him. If she loved him as she said she did, she’d confide in him. Or at least, that was how he’d felt until she’d come to the excavation site. Now he realized with certainty that she wanted him to confront her father, though for what purpose exactly, he couldn’t be sure. The thought of meeting Sir Harold face to face, after all the bitterness between them, had kept him from doing just that for weeks since her surprising visit to suggest it. But now, at last, he would learn the truth. It had taken him some time and careful thinking to put the pieces together, and to calm himself enough inside to challenge Sir Harold without breaking the man’s good neck, though it remained entirely true that he would never do anything to harm Mimi’s father physically, and both the man and his beautiful, conniving daughter undoubtedly knew that.

Sighing, he ran his fingers through his hair, then turned once more to the sofa. That’s when he noticed Mary standing in the doorway, hands clasped in front of her, watching him with piercing blue eyes that told him nothing.

“Miss Marsh,” he said in staid greeting.

She smiled pleasantly as was customary for the mistress of a house when receiving a guest. “Good afternoon, Professor Price. Would you care to be seated?”

“I think I’d rather stand, thank you,” he replied with a curt nod, afraid if he lowered his body onto the sofa seat the tension coursing through him would be noticeable. He also preferred to be standing when at last he addressed his adversary.

“My mother painted that portrait of Mimi and me,” she announced with erect shoulders as she slowly glided into the room, her gown of soft pink muslin swishing around her ankles.

“It’s a very good likeness,” was the most gracious thing he could think of to offer. She would no doubt detect any false adulation on his part when they both had to be aware of his reason for being in her home.

She continued to study him with keen eyes, her hands now behind

her back as she rounded the sofa and sat upon it stiffly. She didn’t have Mimi’s luscious figure, but Mary Marsh had curves in all the right places and carried herself with precision, ever a lovely woman of elegance and shrewd intellect that she undoubtedly used to her advantage. For the first time Nathan wondered why such a lady of twenty-eight years had never married. Clearly she could have any man of her choice. But of course he would never ask. A question of that indelicate nature would be highly inappropriate and none of his concern.

“My father has not yet returned from his meeting with Mr.

Waterhouse Hawkins, though he should be arriving shortly,” she maintained, a gentle frown crossing her brow as she glanced critically at his attire.

Nathan stiffened, knowing she found fault in his brown morning suit that was not of this year’s fashion. Too damn bad, he decided. He’d come to accept that he’d never fit into her social world, and at this point, after everything he’d been through, he couldn’t care any less.

“I’ll wait.”

Her eyes widened just enough for him to know he’d surprised her with his terseness.
But I’m not of your class, Miss Marsh
.

She breathed deeply, folding her hands in her lap, and for the first time, Nathan suspected she wanted something from him herself—or to have a little discussion of their own.

He never dropped his probing gaze, and after a moment, she shifted her body awkwardly, giving him his first real suspicion that she felt intensely nervous to be sitting in the room alone with him. Of course, that was ridiculous. She was perfectly safe with a household of servants no doubt spying on them and polishing already clean silver within hearing distance. So was it something else?

“Are you in love with my sister?”

He felt gut-punched.
Jesus
.

“I beg your pardon?” he blurted.

She raised her chin but her eyes narrowed as they remained locked with his. “I asked you if you are in love with my sister,” she said again, crisply.

He recovered himself enough to murmur, “I don’t believe that’s any of your business, Miss Marsh.”

She nodded. “Fair enough, Professor Price.”

Yes, this particular lady was very sly indeed.

“She’s in love with you, you know,” Mary asserted, after a moment of

powerful silence.

Nathan suddenly grew hot all over and wished he was anywhere but here, hoped that his face didn’t glow as it reddened. “I’m not sure that’s a concern of yours, either.”

She cocked her head to one side, studying him, or rather evaluating him, he suspected.

“What do you intend to do about it?”

He raised his brows in feigned innocence. “Do about what?”

Her perfectly pink lips turned up in a half-smile. “Come now, Professor. Certainly you’ve thought about her feelings for you, and yours for her.”

I’ve tried not to.

He remained silent, his expression like stone.

She sighed, exasperated, but she never lost her composure. “What do you intend to do with Mimi?”

“I intend to do nothing with Mimi,” he retorted at once, bitterly.

“She’ll be out of mourning soon.”

He had never clearly considered that fact, which shocked him in a manner he couldn’t describe or possibly understand. Especially right now. He didn’t want to dwell on such a poignant truth, and on what might have been. But it did make him suspicious that such an acknowledgment came from Mimi’s sister, a class-conscious lady who looked upon him disagreeably.

“I suppose she will be,” he returned derisively, staring at her frankly, oddly proud that he’d been able to respond with nothing, though adult enough to realize he was being childish and that she knew it as well.