Sherry Thomas - Beguiling the Beauty

She arrived as they were leaving. The men cast curious and appreciative looks at her—she’d shed the gabardine and was clad in a lilac walking gown that showed her figure to every advantage. She, on the other hand, barely noticed their attention and headed directly for the very large object at the corner of the parlor.

Christian closed the door. “Go ahead, unveil it.”

It did not escape him that the bribe was probably the only thing they’d unveil on this trip.

She flicked aside the canvas that covered what he hoped would prove the best acquisition he’d ever made. The sandstone slab was six feet tall and four feet wide. Imprinted on it, going toward opposite directions, were two three-toed footprints, each measuring twenty-four inches long and eighteen inches across. In between marched a diagonal line of much smaller footprints, barely a quarter the size of the bigger ones.

“Oh my.” She sucked in a breath. “Tetrapodichnites.”

Tetrapodichnite was the scientific term for the fossil footprint of a saurian. It would appear she was quite familiar with paleontological argot.

“May I touch it?”

“Of course. There are paper and charcoal on my desk if you wish to take impressions. And here’s a blindfold you can put on me, if you’d like to take off your veil.”

He held out his white silk scarf. She turned around. “Your word that the blindfold would remain on.”

“You have my word.”

She took the scarf from him, tied it around his head, and guided him to the chaise longue. It was not easy, but he refrained from pulling her down onto the chaise with him. He wanted to inhale her again, that infinitely clean scent of her.

Her footsteps quickly crossed the parlor, back to the tetrapodichnites.

Her interest intrigued him. “Are you a naturalist yourself?”

“No, but I make an exception for dinosaurs.”

He imagined her pressed rapturously against the slab and smiled at his puerile turn of mind. More likely she was tracing the imprints with reverence and awe. “They were marvelous creatures.”

“Yes, they were. I dug one up myself.”

That was something he didn’t hear every day. “When? Where?”

“I came across a near-complete skeleton when I was sixteen, on holiday with my family. It was a massive beast. Of course I didn’t know when I saw part of the rib cage poking out of the ground that it would be quite that big, but I spent the rest of my holidays happily finding out.”

“You did all the digging all by yourself?”

“No, of course not. My siblings helped, as did children from a nearby village, and some young men who wanted to see what the fuss was about.”

“What species was it?”

A long beat of silence. “A—um—a Swabian dragon.”

“A Plateosaurus? I like those—handsome beasts. What did you do with the skeleton?”

“I wanted to display it at home, of course, but no one would let me.”

He laughed softly. “I can see why.”

An adult Plateosaurus could reach more than thirty feet in length. Even in a palatial home like Algernon House, such a display would dominate the tone and tenor of the entire place.

“I came to my senses after a while and donated it to a museum instead.”

The sound of charcoal scratching upon paper—she’d started to make an impression of a footprint. “Which museum?”

“It shall remain anonymous.”

“Are you afraid I’d go and find out your identity?”

“I’m sure you have far more important things to occupy your time, but I’m not taking chances.”

“Why not, when you are already taking the biggest chance you have in a long time?”

The scratching of the charcoal ceased—then resumed more furiously. “It’s precisely because I can disappear into the ether that I have taken a chance. What do you think this is?”

It took him a second to realize she was speaking of the fossilized footprints. She’d changed the subject on him again. “A juvenile iguanodon, possibly. Or perhaps a predator of some description.”

“How old do you think it is?”

“My guess is late Jurassic to early Cretaceous.”

“Amazing,” she murmured, “that something as fragile and ephemeral as a set of footprints can be preserved for a hundred fifty million years.”

“Anything can happen under the right conditions.” He touched the blindfold with his fingertips. She had tied it securely. But it was not black behind the lids of his eyes—more a dark ocher crisscrossed with beams of bronze. “Have you done any other sort of fossil hunting?”

“No.”

“Why not, if it delights you so?”

She gave no answer.

“Please remember, my dear, I cannot see you. So shrugging and rolling your eyes are not answers enough.”

“I didn’t roll my eyes.”

“But you did shrug?”

He took her silence to mean yes. “You said you were sixteen when you came upon your Swabian dragon. How old were you when you married?”

“Seventeen.”

“Did your late husband believe mucking about with sharp implements and old bones to be an improper pastime for a woman?”

Another silence—another silent assent, then.

“If memory serves,” he said, “some of the most significant finds in British paleontological history must be credited to a woman.”

“Yes, Mary Anning, I’ve read about her. My husband said her finds were due to blind luck.”

He snorted. “If God saw fit to give a woman that much blind luck, he can’t possibly object to such endeavors on a woman’s part.”

The scratching of the charcoal stopped. Her footsteps headed toward the desk—for another sheaf of paper? “You are trying to seduce me with words,” she said, her voice arch.

“That doesn’t mean I’m insincere. Come along with me the next time I go on a dig, if you don’t believe me.”

“I thought it was understood I would disappear into thin air the moment we sight land.”

“But there is nothing preventing you from coming back to me, is there? You know who I am. You know where to find me.”

“You will be married soon, and that will be obstacle enough for me.”

“I can delay my marriage.” His stepmother would have his head, but for the baroness, he’d willingly endure one of the dowager duchess’s rare bouts of umbrage.

“It will make no difference.”

He shook his head. “You are heartless, baroness.”

She did not miss a beat. “And you, duke, want too much.”

He left her in peace after that, but Venetia’s concentration was already ruined.

Why must he of all people prove himself so open-minded? And to invite her on an organized expedition! She’d daydreamed of one for years. Anytime she’d heard of a significant new discovery, she’d wished that she had been the one gifted with a rich vein of sedimentary layers and the privilege of unveiling the hidden history of the geological past.

After a quarter of an hour, she gathered the impressions she’d taken and set her hat back on her head. It would be discourteous to make him wear the blindfold for much longer. “Thank you, sir. It has been quite a pleasure. I will show myself out.”

Did she intentionally pass by too close to the chaise longue? She certainly felt all too giddy when he pulled her down on top of himself. Knocking away her veiled hat, he kissed her ravenously. Her blood simmered. Certain unmentionable regions of her body throbbed with need.

“I don’t want too much,” he whispered against her lips. “If you are going to vanish at the end of the crossing, it’s only fair that you do not leave my sight for the remainder of it.”

He should look helpless in his blindfold. But he was all purpose and confidence. Her heart thudded. “I need to go.”

“When will I see you again?”

“You don’t need to see me again.”

“I do, most assuredly—I haven’t enjoyed anything half as much as your presence in a very, very long time.”

Then why did he not ravish her on the spot? She could feel his arousal pressed against her. She wanted him to carry her off like a plundering Visigoth and overpower her will.

“I am immune to sweet nothings,” she declared—an avowal full of shaky syllables.

“I have never uttered a sweet nothing in my life,” he said solemnly. “When I’m with other women, it’s as if only part of me is there and the rest of me wants to be elsewhere, elsewhen. But with you I’m not split in two. I am not plagued by other thoughts and other wishes. You cannot begin to guess how gratifying that is—to be altogether here, altogether present.”

And he could not begin to guess how gratifying it was to have such magical properties attributed to her person. She had nothing to do with the alignment of her features, but she could take some credit, couldn’t she, when it was her presence, rather than her face, that held a man riveted?

“You don’t need to go anywhere,” he murmured.

“I do.” She was afraid to take responsibility for the choice. The last time she’d plunged ahead with such a decision, she’d opened herself to years of anguish and misery.

“But you will be back,” he said, autocratic at last. “That is not negotiable. You will have dinner here, with me.”

She gazed at the fine shape of his lips, the clean, chiseled line of his jaw, and the perfectly undisturbed blindfold. Beneath her palm, his chest rose and fell. She had to clench her hand to not begin to undo the buttons of his shirt at once.

“All right,” she said. “But only dinner.”

I feel deprived,” said Christian.

She had honored her word and come for dinner. He’d dined beforehand so she wouldn’t feel obliged to feed him while he remained blindfolded. Afterward, she’d walked him to the chaise longue for him to enjoy another glass of wine and withdrawn to the opposite corner of the parlor to further admire the fossilized footprints.