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Smiling in the darkness, Allegra edged closer to Rob. She would look forward to Tavener’s admittedly amusing company and repay his friendship by helping him reform his behavior so he might woo an heiress to restore his estates. And with Tavener goading Rob into staying near, maybe she’d finally be able to bewitch the man of her dreams.
As long as she stayed sensible, how could she lose?
CHAPTER SEVEN
ALLEGRA HAD an opportunity to put her resolve into practice the very next afternoon. To her delight, one of the gentlemen who called to pay his compliments after meeting her at Lady Ormsby’s rout was Lord Tavener.
Unfortunately, Rob was not present to see how Tavener’s eyes brightened when, after pausing on the threshold as the butler announced him, he located her on the sofa, flanked by a widowed friend of Mrs. Randall and one of Rob’s military mates.
Of course, the smile that sprang to her lips as she saw him would also have served to increase Rob’s determination to keep watch over them.
But why should she not smile at Tavener? she asked herself. They were to be friends and accomplices of a sort, she assisting him to more successfully beguile heiresses, he helping her to fix Rob’s interest. She dismissed a guilty little pang that while his purpose in seeing her had been freely expressed, she had no intention of divulging her private reasons for encouraging his calls.
A little voice warned that she should be careful what she asked for. By his own words last night, Tavener admitted he’d earned his rake’s reputation. While the danger of his company might keep Lynton on the alert, she must stay on her guard lest Tavener use his mesmerizing eyes and tremor-inducing touch to lure her into a situation that could destroy her plans for a future with Rob.
Tavener nodded to her before seating himself beside Mrs. Randall. To Allegra’s gratification, however, when the military gentleman stood up to take his leave, Tavener quickly claimed the place beside her. Their other caller also rose to depart, leaving Allegra with Tavener as Mrs. Randall walked her old friend to the door.
“Let me tell you again how much I enjoyed our conversation last night,” Tavener said. His gaze roving over her, he added, “As lovely as you appeared then, you delight the eye this afternoon in that sea-green frock, reminding me of a goddess just arisen from the waves.”
Though he brought his eyes back up to her face, something in his smoldering look and the caressing note in his voice intensified the warmth within her, pooled it sweet and thick as honey in her belly. Heat flushed her face as she recalled that the goddess who’d emerged from the sea had been clothed only in her natural beauty. Was that how Tavener envisioned her?
If so, she needed to redirect his thoughts—and her own. Forcing her eyes away from the power of his gaze, she said reprovingly, “A rather unacceptable greeting, my lord. Not only am I dark where she was fair, a compliment that mentions the birth of Aphrodite cannot be considered proper. I’m afraid you still have much to learn.”
His brows lifted in surprise for an instant before he laughed. “Touché, Miss Antinori. So you know the story?”
By the dancing light in his eyes, she knew he knew she’d caught him trying to sneak an impropriety past her. Disarmed by the swiftness of their wordless communication and happy at knowing she could speak freely about her family with him, she couldn’t make herself scold. “Yes,” she said instead. “Though music was his passion, my father interested himself in all the classic forms of art and literature. My mother read the fables to me as a child.”
“Ah, then I know the perfect excursion to suggest. You did tell me that it was acceptable to discuss topics pertaining to a lady’s interests, did you not?”
“I am gratified that you remember something of my instructions,” she returned severely, not willing to let him off entirely unscathed.
“Oh, I did listen, most carefully. It’s just that impropriety comes so much more naturally to me.”
He gave her a half regretful, half roguish smile so utterly charming, for a moment she was lulled into wondering what other improprieties he might be contemplating. Catching herself, she determined to steer the conversation back on track.
“If you wish to accomplish the purpose you described to me last night,” she admonished, “you shall have to embrace propriety wholeheartedly.”
Chuckling, he slid a quick glance up and down her figure. “I can assure you, I am most anxious to do so.”
He might just as well have run his hand along her torso, so keenly did she feel that glance. But before she could protest again, his face sobered and he held his hands palm-out in a gesture of surrender. “Let us cry pax! I shall follow your excellent advice and behave myself now. Did your father ever take you to see the Elgin marbles?”
Relieved—and a tiny bit disappointed—that he’d decided to play the gentleman, Allegra shook her head. “No. They are…carvings, I presume?”
“Remarkable ones, dating from the age of classical Greece. Lord Elgin, when he was ambassador to the Sultan in Constantinople, sent a team of artists and craftsmen to Athens, intending for them to sketch and make plaster molds of the sculptures in the Parthenon, the temple to Athena,” Tavener explained. “Upon discovering that the Turkish authorities in control of the city were allowing these treasures to be ground into lime or sold off, he decided instead to buy as many as he could and transport them back to England.
“Greek art represented the highest expression of civilization, Elgin believed. He wanted both to save these irreplaceable objects from destruction and enlighten and inspire his fellow countrymen when they viewed them. So, would you—and Mrs. Randall, of course—like to come and be inspired, Miss Antinori?”
“I would, very much!” Allegra declared. Thrilled at the prospect of an excursion whose object was of much greater interest to her than the shopping expeditions and stilted, tedious afternoon calls that had occupied her recently, Allegra looked over at her chaperone, now returning to her seat. “Lord Tavener has invited us to view some Greek sculpture. Should you like to go, ma’am?”
“Sculptures?” Mrs. Randall echoed. “At the Royal Academy?”
“Not far from it,” Tavener replied. “The collection is housed in a building on the grounds of Burlington House. ’Tis more like a shed, actually, and the space can be rather cold and damp. If you would rather not go, ma’am, I could escort Miss Antinori in my curricle. We could take a turn through Hyde Park on the way back. That would be quite unexceptional, would it not?”
“Of course.” Mrs. Randall nodded. “I must confess I am not a great admirer of carvings, particularly if they are housed in some chilly place. But if you wish to, Allegra, and Lord Tavener drives his curricle, you may go.”
Allegra glanced over at Tavener, her eyebrows raised. Though he returned her gaze with a look of bland innocence, it did not escape her that he had just cleverly disposed of her chaperone—in an entirely proper way. But the idea of viewing Greek art—and indulging in more of Tavener’s deliciously improper conversation—was too appealing for her to cede to the caution that should have made her overrule an excursion without her chaperone.
“Shall I return for you in an hour?” he suggested.
She gave him a stern look meant to inform him she knew exactly what he’d just done. His answering grin once again told her that he realized she’d seen through his ploy.
Suppressing the desire to grin back—like two children sharing a guilty secret—she said, trying to infuse her voice with quelling hauteur, “An hour would be acceptable.”
Accordingly, some ninety minutes later, Tavener handed her down at the entrance to Burlington House. “It seems a rather inauspicious place to house ancient treasures,” she remarked, gesturing toward the low-roofed building at the side of the grounds to which he was leading her.
“Lord Elgin had hoped to construct a museum to display them,” Tavener replied. “But after leaving Constantinople, he was captured and imprisoned for two years in France. When he at last arrived home, he discovered that his wife had…bestowed her affections elsewhere, leading to a divorce trial whose expense and publicity were ruinous. Needing to recoup some of his investment, over the last few years he has attempted to sell the works to the British Museum. One hopes, recognizing their value, that Parliament will approve the purchase and have them installed in a place worthy of their beauty. But now,” he said as he held open the door for her, “you will see for yourself.”
Allegra was about to speak when her gaze, adjusting to the darker light within the shed, focused upon the first sculpture. Her reply was lost in a gasp of wonder.
Precisely delineated in white marble was the head of a stallion, his mane cropped, his nostrils flared. So perfect in every detail was he, she felt she might rub his neck and feel beneath her fingers the warm, velvet texture of his skin.
Shaking her head in awe, she looked over at Tavener. A brilliant smile lit his face and he gestured her forward. “Go on. There’s much more.”
She walked ahead to examine bas-relief panels of figures seated on banqueting stools, the folds of their draped clothing looking as if they should ruffle in the breeze. Another displayed a man striding purposefully forward, drapery swirling about his muscular legs. Yet another, a rearing centaur grabbing an attacking male figure by the neck.
