Page 10 of What Happens in Hedone

“Burnham.” He doffed his black top hat, silk, not beaver. At once the wind plunged its fingers into his hair, tossing the careful style and tumbling a wave of brown across his brow. She quite liked the rugged cast to his features, the bold nose, those quick eyes beneath deep brows. Gray eyes, like the flint stones that made up the beach. His sideburns, clipped short, accented the jut of his cheekbones and jaw. He was a man accustomed to weather, not one of those indolent gentlemen who lay about indoors at their clubs all the day, like her cousin.

She held forth her hand, the leather of her gloves damp at the tips. “Stanier.”

Clearly the name meant nothing to him. What a reprieve.

She ranged her gaze down his figure, thinking how very perfect he was for her purposes. “You’ve your boots today, I see.”

She understood why he’d chosen to remove his Hessians before. Fine leather, expertly made, well-seasoned. They oughtn’t be ruined by sea water.

“One requires footwear on this shingle. Besides, I can be polite when the occasion warrants.”

“Not here, I hope. How dreadful that would be.”

They’d kissed at a pleasure club and she’d pressed her breasts against him. Even now those parts of her peaked with nervous anticipation. The need for conventional courtesies between them was long gone.

He grinned, and Effie tamped down the urge to seize his ears and hold him still for another kiss. His mouth was as well-shaped as the rest of him.

He crouched beside her and stripped off his gloves, laying them with his walking stick and hat beside the rock pool. He bent one knee to the shingle as if careless of getting wet and draped a wrist over the other knee crooked in the air. He was quite close but seemed unconscious of his effect on her and he leaned forward to peer into the water.

“Any limpets here?”

“Sadly, none. But I have good reports of yesterday’s specimen. I sketched him from all angles, then put him and his kelp in a jar with water. I hope he will live for some days and provide a fruitful source of study. I named him Hector.”

He raised his eyebrows, two straight brown slashes. His face was the most interesting blend of stern and beautiful. He was a man in his full prime, she would guess him possessing a few more years than she, but curiosity gave his face a boyish light.

“Miss Iphigenia, be truthful with me. Have you a preoccupation with ancient Greece?”

She laughed. “I have seven siblings, and we are all of us named after gods or heroes. I could not escape the ancient world if I tried. And you? Have you a similar preoccupation?”

“With Greece?” He looked into the pool, not at her, but a small, sensual smile curled his lips. “My interest is increasing of late.”

Her heart soared. He knew. He recognized her, as she had known him the moment he entered the room at Heddy’s. The way her heart had swooped when she saw him take his seat for the tableaux! Perhaps he felt with her as she did with him, that some door had opened and she’d stepped into a world made for they two alone.

“What wonders have you discovered?” he asked, looking into the rock pool.

Him. She’d discovered him.

Effie leaned forward, peeling off her gloves. “There is a velvet crab hiding beneath that overhang. You can just see the tip of his blue pincer. I am waiting for him to venture out.”

“That must be the snakelocks anemone you spoke of.” He pointed.

“What an excellent student you are. That other anemone I do not know, the one with the purple column and the knobs atop its tentacles. It looks like a coronet, does it not? With all those pearls, he must be a person of some esteem, though I could not tell you the rankings.”

“Six pearls for a baron,” he said promptly. “On the coronet, at least.”

“Oh.” Effie gazed into the pool. She had thought the afternoon turned sunny, with his arrival, but now a shadow touched her shoulder. “I shall need to know that, I suppose.”

He glanced at her, suddenly wary. “You’ve an acquaintance with barons?”

She scrunched up her face before she remembered her mother had told her a thousand times not to make that face in company. “I have no acquaintance with that anemone, and I might take him home with me. Did you see the sea squirt?”

“I’ve always wondered why they are called that.”

She couldn’t resist. Effie lifted a rock with the leathery red pouch attached and laughed at the look on his face when the animal squirted water at him. “See that tube? That is the siphon. I think it must be how it feeds.”

He sat back, his expression curious, but not scoffing. “I ought to know these things. I grew up on the seashore. How did you learn about these creatures?”

Effie replaced the rock and stroked her fingers along a flat frond of rockweed. “I am interested in natural history, or zoology, some call it. I am particularly curious about marine life.”