“I’ll assume that edition is in Greek?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. Now he would go away, and she would be safe. A woman could succeed as an eccentric only if she were well-born, preferably titled, with heaps of money and leisurefor salons and philosophical talk. Scholarly women,femmes savants, were detested like the pox.
“Tell me what you think of this tomb painting,” he said.
Curiosity warring with prudence, Henrietta followed him to a fragmented piece of tile pieced together on a cloth of dark velvet. “But that is Minerva,” she exclaimed with delight. The brown paint was faded, and some of the tiles were chipped, but the outline could be discerned. “Do you suppose they borrowed her from the Greeks as well?”
“It is possible, but difficult to know.” He shrugged. “The Romans stole what they wished from the Etruscans, and when the Republic rose in power, they crushed them. They obliterated their language, their literature, their history, their religion—everything.”
There was nothing sly or seductive in his manner, warning her to guard her virtue. He didn’t behave like a gazetted rake. There was nothing of the macaroni about him either; he had not once lisped, or taken snuff, or held up a quizzing glass, or played with the fobs strung across his coat. He stood at ease as if waiting for her response. As if he were interested to hear it.
She turned back to the display. “Perhaps the Etruscans had their own Minerva. How exciting if they did.”
“You seem certain of the identification,” Daring murmured.
“I know Minerva when I see her,” Henrietta said, pointing. “She has the helm, the chiton, the breastplate, and the spear. And that is her aegis, the head of Medusa on her shield.”
He bent over her shoulder to look at the long-faded traces of paint, and Henrietta panicked. She stepped back, collided with a firm obstacle—his chest or shoulder—and trod on his foot. As she lurched away, the toe of her slipper caught the hoop of her skirts and pulled her off balance. Before she could topple, he caught her upper arms, keeping her on her feet.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I was crowding you.”
“No, I must beg yours,” Henrietta gasped. “I am exceedingly clumsy.”
His gloved hands were as strong and masculine as the rest of him, the fingers long and shapely. The heat of shame and something else soared through her arms and chest. There was nothing to do but flee to the next funerary inscription, displayed in pieces on a plaster pillar.
He followed.
“The Greeks were great sailors,” he remarked. “No doubt they traded heavily with the Etruscans, with the influence going both ways. From these fragments, it seems possible the Etruscans borrowed from the Greek alphabet as well.”
Henrietta peeked at him from the corner of her eye. His tone was neither flirtatious nor condescending. Clearly, he was prepared to behave as if she had not tripped and practically fallen into his arms. As, legend had it, a hundred other young women had done before her.
She was arming herself for battle, and he was pursuing a conversation, not her virtue. She felt both grateful and annoyed.
“The characters do resemble the Greek far more than Latin,” she agreed. “But I thought the Greeks borrowed their alphabet from the Phoenicians?”
“It’s also possible the Etruscans had a fully literate society before any Greek influence,” Daring said. “The burial customs, too, are quite different.”
“You know a great deal about them,” Henrietta observed with surprise. Surely gazetted rakes were not also intelligent and charming. Something about the mindless pursuit of pleasure dulled a man. Mary Wollstonecraft said so.
“As a dilettante only, not a scholar. My interests are principally architectural, so if you would like to discuss Roman or Greek building practices, I might wax much more eloquent on the subject.”
He looked directly at her, holding her gaze. How rare it was for a person to do that. Most people’s eyes slid away after a second or two of contact, usually to see if there were someone else in the vicinity they might wish to talk to. Small lines fanned about his eyes, and his skin was tanned from the sun, contrary to the pallor that was so fashionable for ladies as well as gentlemen.
“Your eyes are the most astonishing color.” The remark slid out before she could catch it.
He drew back. “I have sometimes been told that, thank you,” he said. “I believe blue eyes are quite common, however.”
“Not in such a pure shade.” She peered into his face. “Most blue eyes have streaks of gold, or green, or something else. Yours are the lapis lazuli of a medieval illumination. It was quite a prized pigment, you know—very valuable and difficult to procure. Found only in Afghanistan.”
The creases around his eyes deepened and grooves appeared at the sides of his mouth, warming his austere expression. He did not resemble a classical sculpture as much as Forsythia Pennyroyal had claimed. His features had a touch of ruggedness, the nose a bit large, his jaw broad and square, but altogether it was a pleasing countenance. Too pleasing, if his reputation were to be believed.
He leaned toward her. The bottom dropped out of her stomach, but he was only subjecting her eyes to the same examination she had given him. Her lungs gulped for air. His eau de cologne brought to mind summer meadows and spicy earth, damson fruit fresh from the tree, humid dusks thick with shadows, and her mother’s elderberry wine as soft on her tongue as a bolt of patterned silk.
She mustnotbe a goose around London’s most notorious seducer.
He straightened. “Gray,” he pronounced. “Rather unusual.”
“Flat gray,” she managed. “Quite unremarkable.”
