Vexing The Viscount (2 page)

“I’ve been meaning to retire this suit in any case,” he informed her. “The style is
tres passé, n’estcepas?
”

That would be a pity, since the cut of that green frock coat does wonderful things for his shoulders, and as for those bree—Daisy caught herself before her thoughts completely ran away with her, but lost her fight with the urge to flick her gaze to where his breeches molded to his thighs.

He caught the direction of her gaze and an amused grin tilted his lips. “My! You are a keen observer, aren’t you?”

“Forgive me. Ruining your suit has upset me,” she said, her cheeks flaming. “I’m acting like some pudding-headed debutante.” Instead she was firmly on-the-shelf spinster of one and twenty.

“If you were a debutante, I’d have remembered you,” he said.

Daisy doubted it. Especially since he showed no signs of recognizing her yet. Surely she bore some resemblance to the young girl who’d followed him about like a puppy so many years ago. His family had spent only a week in residence at Dragon Caern, but it had been the most frustrating, most splendid, most memorable week of her young life.

“However, if you want my advice,” he continued, “your chances of remaining unmarried will decrease if you try not to douse every man you meet with ink.”

“Perhaps remaining unmarried is my choice.” She frowned until she noticed the way he flashed his teeth at her, clearly teasing. Lucian was the sort of man a woman might forgive anything so long as he smiled at her.

Daisy bit her lip to keep from babbling further. She sidled away from the case where the phallic lamp was on display.

Lucian looked around the nearly deserted exhibit hall. “It seems there is no way for us to be properly introduced, but perhaps you will allow me the honor of giving you my name.”

Final proof that he truly didn’t recognize her. Her belly spiraled downward in disappointment.

How was it possible that she could carry his image in her head for all these years while he completely forgot that Daisy Elizabeth Drake even existed? Bristling with indignation, she took another step backward to put more distance between them.

Before she could remind him that he should already know her name (and quite well, thank you very much!), the door behind her swung open and whacked her soundly on the bottom. Then the door slammed shut as whoever opened it realized he’d hit something. Daisy stumbled forward and Lucian caught her in his arms.

She was pressed tight against him, suddenly engulfed in his masculine scent, a clean whiff of sandalwood and soap. Beneath her splayed fingers, the musculature in his chest was rock hard. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Are you injured, miss?” Lucian asked.

“Only my pride.” Daisy pushed against him as a signal he should release her. She wasn’t about to admit that her derriere throbbed.

“No, I fear we have another casualty,” he said, not loosening his hold on her a bit.

Daisy followed his gaze to her décolletage, where some of the ink from his shirt and waistcoat had been transferred. Part of the stain marred her pale blue stomacher and part darkened the mound of her breast that rose above it.

“Pity. An alabaster bosom should never wear black.” He drew a fingertip along the froth of lace at the neckline she’d always thought of as modest, but never would again. “Alas, I forgot
my
handkerchief this morning or I should return the favor and try to wipe it off.”

The thought of his hand on her skin with only a thin layer of cloth between them made her belly quiver.

The door creaked behind her and eased open a tentative few inches. A monocled gentleman peeked in and waved Lucian over with urgency.

“There you are, Rutland. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Daisy started and jumped away from Lucian. She recognized the gentleman as Sir Alistair Fitzhugh, head of the Society of Antiquaries. She’d petitioned for admission several times, only to have Sir Alistair blackball her membership on account of her gender. The man cast a quick dismissive gaze over her and turned back to Lord Rutland.

A baron’s niece counted for very little when measured against a viscount, she supposed.

Fitzhugh’s monocle popped out and dangled from its silver chain as he eyed the large, oddly shaped ink stain on Lucian’s clothing. “Good God, man, what’s happened to you?”

“It was—” Daisy began.

“My fault entirely,” Lucian finished for her. “I will be in directly, Fitzhugh.”

Lucian turned back to Daisy. “Perhaps once I’ve delivered my presentation—”

“Hold a moment,” she interrupted, stunned. She’d expected
an Oxford-don type would lead the discussion. “You’re the speaker?”

He nodded with a wry grin. “When I’m allowed to be.”

She covered her mouth with her fingertips. When had Lucian become an expert in Roman antiquities? Or, more specifically, lost Roman treasure.

“As I was saying, I hope we may continue our discussion at a later time. I’d enjoy learning what else such a charming young lady finds…curious in these dry halls.” He retrieved his valise, made an elegant leg and shot her a wicked grin. “And for your information, the answer is no.”

“No?” Her brows nearly met in a puzzled frown.

“It’s not life-size.”

“What colossal cheek!” Daisy gaped at Lucian’s retreating back. The man had the gall to turn her quest for knowledge into something decidedly bawdy.

Of course, he might argue that she started it when she asked if the blasted lamp was life-size. But in her defense, she’d been under the assumption that she was talking merely to herself.

Why, Lucian was a veritable eavesdropper.

And insufferably smug.

To top it off, the dark-eyed devil hadn’t even invited her in to hear his blasted lecture! He was no better than the rest of the gentlemen in the Society.

And he’d committed the further unpardonable sin of not remembering her.

Sir Alistair had refused to admit Daisy to the lecture hall earlier. The study of antiquities was far too “earthy” a subject for a young lady, he’d said, looking down his long Scottish nose at her. Now that Daisy knew the speaker was only Lucian Beaumont, she was of half a mind to return to her great-aunt’s town house.

But the door to the lecture hall hadn’t latched behind Lucian when he took his leave, and Daisy wasn’t the sort to let an opportunity slide by. With a quick glance up and down
the corridor to make sure she wasn’t seen, she pulled the door open and sidled through as small a crack as possible.

The entire back row of chairs was empty, so she slipped into a seat and hoped no one would notice. Once she got a look at the mosaic propped up on the dais, she was sure no one would spare her a second glance.

The myriad of tiny colored tiles were almost completely intact. Even from her distant vantage point, she could tell that the artwork was splendid. But Daisy could see why this mosaic wasn’t on display to the general public. The subject matter would shock a sailor, and since she’d been raised by a prodigal pirate, that was saying something.

The work was nearly the size of a hogshead of beer in a public house. All around the outside of the circular mosaic, there were scantily clad figures depicted in odd poses, some bent over, some with limbs entwined in uncomfortable-looking positions. A few were joined in groups of three instead of two.

Daisy squinted, wishing she’d thought to borrow Great-aunt Isabella’s lorgnette. She turned her attention to the much larger representation in the center of the circular design.

The figure was a man, his calm Roman eyes looking out on the world with amused interest, the slightest upturn to his mouth. He stood proudly, his short tunic displaying muscular legs.

And protruding from beneath his tunic was an organ that would put Uncle Gabriel’s stallion to shame. It was as long as the man’s forearm and nearly as thick.

Hmph! Bet that’s not life-size either
, Daisy thought, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.
It looks more likely to impale than pleasure.

Daisy often sneaked into Isabella’s library to read her collection of love poetry. Most recently, Daisy had discovered the unpublished memoirs of Mademoiselle Blanche La Tour,
a French courtesan, who led an extremely adventurous life in and out of the boudoir. Mlle La Tour was not reticent in her description of either type of exploit, so Daisy’s knowledge of intimate behavior far outstripped her personal experience.

She was reading through the journal slowly, asking Nanette, her great-aunt’s French maid, for help when her own grasp of the language proved too schoolgirlish for the subject matter. Nanette proved a font of information, as well. Daisy never imagined so much could be accomplished with something as small and seemingly insignificant as a tongue.

She jerked herself back from her naughty musings. Lucian was speaking.

“This mosaic was unearthed on my father’s estate in the ruins of what I confidently believe was once a Roman proconsul’s residence,” he said. “Only a regional governor would have commissioned such a work.”

“Why do you say that?” one man spoke up. “It appears to me that any man with means would choose to have himself depicted as Priapus. I’d fancy something on that order on the boudoir walls myself.”

Several gentlemen laughed with him.

“Phallic cult art has always been popular, Lord Brumley, but only a politically well-connected gentleman would project his power in such a display in the foyer of his home. He must have been a proconsul, a man accustomed to obedience from those around him,” Lucian said. “And one who had no fear of his own wife.”

Daisy covered her mouth with her gloved hand to stifle a giggle.

Lucian certainly knows how to silence a detractor.

Lady Brumley’s public set-downs of Lord Brumley were legendary, as was
her
family’s close connection to the Crown. Her less well-placed husband quaked behind her,
walking a narrow line indeed. Lord Brumley made up for this humiliation by blustering loudly and bullying others whenever Lady Brumley was absent.

“As you can see from the artist’s rendition,” Lucian was saying, “the Romans led a varied and experimental life of the flesh. However, as fascinating as this mosaic is, the find I’m about to unveil is even more beguiling.”

To a man, his audience leaned forward in their seats.

Lucian reached down into his small valise and pulled out an object no larger than Mlle La Tour’s journal. “A wax tablet and stylus.”

The assembly loosed a collective sigh of disappointment.

“Well, it seems in remarkable condition,” Sir Alistair said. “But I fail to see how a tally of grain shipments or slave purchases—”

“I know that’s usually what one finds on these things, but not so in this case.” Lucian cradled the tablet as if it were his firstborn. He reached a finger to trace the delicate writing, then pulled back as if he’d thought better of it. “No, gentlemen, this is the treasure I promised to share with you in this lecture. Or rather, the way to find the treasure.”

“Well, don’t riddle us, Rutland,” Lord Brumley grumbled. “We have neither the time nor the patience.”

Nor the intellect
, Daisy added silently.

“What is it then? Out with it,” Brumley said.

Lucian held the tablet over his head like Moses descending from Mount Sinai. “This is the record of a Roman treasure that went astray and was never recovered—a year’s pay for the entire Roman Legion on the British isle.”

Daisy could almost hear the men calculating the sum in ancient coin as they settled back into their seats.

This time, Daisy leaned forward. The lure of a treasure tempted her as though she possessed a dragon’s attraction to shiny hoards. When she was a little girl, she had discovered a pirate’s cache of Spanish gold beneath the stones of her
home, Dragon Caern Castle in Cornwall. The sudden wealth changed her family’s life forever. Her uncle might be a mere baron and a former pirate, but the Spanish gold meant even dukes now sought him out for friendship and counsel.

Though Daisy and her sisters couldn’t claim a title in their own right, a generous dowry had landed a match with a marquess for her older sister, Hyacinth. The twins, Posey and Poppy, were engaged to an earl apiece. Only Lily was still in the schoolroom.

Daisy could have married thrice over, but she had little use for dandies. The men who danced attendance on her with visions of Spanish doubloons sparkling in their eyes were irritating in the extreme.

And more than a little dull.

Besides, none of them ever made her heart race like a certain skinny, dark-haired boy with an Italian accent had.

Drat the man!
How could he not even remember her?

“What I offer you today,” the dratted man in question was saying, “is a chance to partner with me to find this Roman payroll.”

The thrill of finding Dragon Caern’s treasure had never paled in Daisy’s mind. It was the finest adventure she’d ever had.

She longed to do it again.

“After all this time, it’s not probable the treasure is still intact,” Lord Brumley said with a sniff. “Does the tablet give the location?”

Lucian flashed a quick grin. “If it did, I’d not be likely to divulge it, would I? However, it’s not quite that simple. This tablet, though convincing, doesn’t contain the whole story. The narrative is unfinished, but it contains a sworn statement that the entire payload had been cached in one location. So I have to conclude that another as yet undiscovered
tablet contains the rest of the information. Now we—”

“I understand you can’t give specifics, but what, in general, does the tablet say?” Sir Alistair asked. As head of the Society of Antiquaries, he was a bona fide scholar. Of all the men in the room, Daisy judged him most likely to be able to read an ancient Latin text. Daisy had a passing acquaintance with many of the others in attendance—Lord Lindley, Lord Halifax, Sir Benton Wembley, to name a few—and she’d never have guessed at their interest in antiquities.