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So exquisite was the work, she was not even embarrassed at discovering a number of the male figures were completely nude, though that fact did make her grateful Tavener had found a way to prevent Mrs. Randall from accompanying them.
The final work held her once again transfixed. The statue of the young woman was fully formed, the figure standing with arms at her sides and one leg slightly forward, a column capital balanced on her head.
“She is one of six maidens,” Tavener said at her shoulder, “who supported the porch of the Erechthion, one of the smaller temples below the Parthenon. Though she seems to be carrying the weight of the world, unlike the other figures, she was lucky enough to keep her head.”
“I cannot imagine how one could carve so large and perfectly formed an image,” Allegra marveled.
“There were originally some fifty even larger statues in the temple’s pediments, most of which were lost in an explosion when the temple, which the Turks were using as a powder magazine, was attacked by the Venetians. The largest statue, a thirty-three-foot-tall image of Athena made of ivory and gold, masterwork of the sculptor Pheidias, stood at the center of the temple.”
“Was that also destroyed in the explosion?”
“Perhaps. In any event, no trace of it remains.”
Fascinated, for a long time Allegra wandered back and forth examining the variety of figures carved onto the frieze panels, which Tavener explained represented a festival procession to the temple. From the clothing and the objects carried by the figures, Allegra tried to guess their occupations and envision what their lives might have been like.
Certainly musicians were well represented. Would her father’s status—and her own—have been higher in this ancient culture?
After studying the panels one last time, she took Tavener’s arm and let him lead her out of the shed.
“You enjoyed the carvings?” he asked as they walked back to the curricle.
“They are incredible!” she exclaimed.
His fierce blue gaze, free this time of any teasing sensual overtones, caught and held hers. “I knew you would love them,” he said simply.
Allegra could neither explain nor put a name to the emotion that flooded her as their gazes locked. Though all the suggestive remarks he’d already addressed to her argued that by no logical measure could Tavener be considered “safe,” still she couldn’t shake the strong sense that in his company she was protected, valued…at peace, as she had not been since the loss of her family.
Then his eyes darkened with a heat she did understand, sounding a warning in her brain that allowed her to break free of his spell. Pulling her gaze from his, she murmured, “Thank you for bringing me.”
“It was my pleasure.” They had reached his curricle, the sense of connection still humming between them. When she relinquished his hand after he’d assisted her into the vehicle, she felt somehow…bereft.
To distract herself from that disturbing reaction, as he set the curricle in motion, she said, “You seem remarkably knowledgeable about the artifacts. How did you learn about them?”
“My classics professor was acquainted with Reverend Hunt, Elgin’s chaplain whom he sent to negotiate with the Athenian authorities about the acquisition of the antiquities. Hunt described to him how it came about.”
“You are quite the scholar,” she said, intrigued to discover a more serious side to this beguiling rogue.
“Shockingly unfashionable, but I once thought there could be nothing more satisfying than spending a lifetime immersing oneself in the texts of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The plays of Euripides, the tragedies of Homer, the natural science of Aristotle—almost everything worth reading was written by them. However,” he continued with a self-deprecating twist of the lip, “my uncle said he’d be damned before he’d allow me to disgrace the Carlisle blood by becoming, as he put it, a common clerk.”
Though the words were pronounced casually, Allegra sensed an undercurrent of bitterness and regret. Sympathy filled her, but before she could express it, he continued, “Luckily, I soon discovered the superior delights to be found in…tasting the company of a beautiful woman.”
Taking his attention from his horses, for a brief moment he focused that intent gaze on her mouth.
Warmth coiled in her belly again as she forced herself to look away. Reminding herself she must not succumb to the blandishments of a rake, however scholarly he might be, she struggled to refocus the conversation. “Does it seem likely that Parliament will approve purchasing the marbles?” she asked after a moment. “Such beauty begs to be treasured.”
“Indeed it does,” Tavener replied softly, the heat of his quick glance making her wonder if he meant more than the sculpture. “Some argue that, rather than saving the works, Elgin butchered them by removing them from the site and contend he should not be rewarded for his piracy.”
“But if the Turkish authorities were not protecting the works, surely Lord Elgin can be forgiven for transporting them where they might be preserved and appreciated,” she said, relaxing a bit now that Tavener had returned to his story, easing the subtle tension sparking between them.
“Elgin certainly believed so,” Tavener replied. “Still, the marble frieze on which the figures were carved was part of the temple’s structure. Elgin’s detractors point out that chiseling out the figures defaced the building and destroyed the setting in which they were meant to be displayed.”
“Ah, I see. But would the works have survived, had they been left intact?”
He smiled at her. “That is the real question, is it not? I happen to believe Elgin’s action was justified. I suspect, however, if the Greeks ever overthrow their Turkish masters, they may hold a different opinion.”
Before she could comment, Tavener laughed. “Lord Elgin isn’t the first man connected to the sculptures to fare badly at the hands of public opinion. The great Pheidias himself, creator of the Athena statue and overseer of all the artistic work on the acropolis, was caught up in the political wrangling of his master Pericles, ruler of Athens. Falsely accused of fraud and sacrilege, he was banished from the city.”
“How awful!” Allegra exclaimed. “To have created such beauty and then be banned from ever viewing it again.”
“He had his justification in the end,” Tavener replied. “The Peloponnesians commissioned him to create an even larger statue of Zeus for the temple at Olympia, which later became known as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. A precedent that should give Elgin hope.”
“In what way?” she asked, glancing at him curiously.
The yearning she read in his eyes before he lowered his gaze to the horses sent a little shock through her. “That even those estranged from home and kin might someday find a place to be useful and belong,” he said softly.
He seeks the same thing I do, she thought, his words resonating within her. The sense of connection she’d felt earlier surged through her again.
While she curled her fingers in her gloves to resist the urge to place her hand over his, he continued, his voice once again teasingly light, “Let us hope it proves so for poor Lord Elgin. But now that we are entering the park, we must banish such scholarly topics.”
Blinking, Allegra realized that they had indeed arrived at Hyde Park without her being at all aware of their transit through the streets, so thoroughly had she been engrossed in Lord Tavener’s story. Just as she’d sat enthralled as a child, listening to her mama’s tales.
“Hyde Park during the promenade hour is society’s stage,” Tavener was saying, pulling her back to the present. “And society, my dear Miss Antinori, is all about frivolity. So unless you wish me to be thought a very dull escort indeed, you shall have to put off that serious expression. Or perhaps I should say something to bring a delicious blush back to your cheeks.”
“And confirm you are a rogue?” she countered, the mere hint of his saying something worth blushing over sending the heat through her again. “I thought you wished me to help you overcome that reputation.”
“You can’t expect me to be reformed overnight,” he reasoned as he slowed the horses and guided them onto the carriageway. Spared now from having to attend as closely to his cattle, he turned and fixed her with that flirtatious gaze which she was coming to anticipate and to which, alas, she responded all too readily.
“You cannot fault me for wishing to admire the beauties of the present as sincerely as we’ve just admired those of the past. Have I told you how charming you look? Despite the lack of classical drapery—though I should very much like to see you garbed as a goddess—you are as lovely as any Greek nymph. Lovelier, for you are not cold marble, but warm flesh.”
His eyes holding hers, he took her hand and kissed it.
Energy seemed to arc from his gloved fingers into hers. As he straightened, Allegra was suddenly conscious of his sheer masculine power, his broad shoulders blocking the sun, his eyes lazy-lidded over the blue fire of his gaze, the erotic curve of his lips. A shimmer of excitement spiraled in her belly, pooled low at her hips, tingled in her breasts.
He leaned toward her and for an instant, she thought he meant to kiss her, right here in the park. Panic breaking his sensual spell, she pulled away.
