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She wore a white gown in the Grecian style that bared one of her shoulders, exposing a sprinkling of golden freckles, just as he’d imagined they would be sprinkled.
A wide collar fashioned from strands of gold beads layered one upon the other was clasped round her neck, covering her from the base of her throat to the top of her bosom.
“By gad, that’s a pretty gel,” Edgar heard the Earl of Haddock say. “Who is she?”
“Artist’s model, no doubt,” said Baron Rubens, with a lascivious smacking of his lips. “Though I’ve not seen her before, and I attend all the best salons.”
“I’ll wager you do, you old goat,” said Haddock.
Edgar nearly climbed over the cushions and tackled them both.
That’s no artist’s model,he wanted to shout.That’s Mari. And she’s mine.Soeyes off.
Yes, he was thinking of her as Mari. How could he not? When she had stars shining around her and gold at her throat?
She was causing quite a stir. The few ladies in the room, Lady Blanche included, were eyeing her jealously, while the men were undressing her with their eyes.
Edgar simultaneously wanted to cover her up, and undress her himself.
He should be the only one allowed to ogle her.
No, that wasn’t right.
India kept talking but her voice receded to the edges of Edgar’s consciousness.
All he could concentrate on was Mari... a goddess come to life.
He’d hired her against his better judgment and this was precisely why.
She wasn’t merely a governess.
She was a modern incarnation of an ancient goddess-queen.
He was meant to worship at her feet. In fact, he had the urge to kneel at her feet right now. At this very moment. In front of the learned gathering of antiquities experts and archaeologists.
Adele waved her dried palm frond, fanning long, ruby red waves of hair away from Mari’s pale, oval face, earning a half smile from Mari that nearly stopped his heart from beating.
In that ancient society he would have been a bricklayer, no doubt. A serf that wasn’t fit to touch her hem.
He saw their roles reversed. It didn’t matter what dire circumstances her family had fallen upon, or why she was forced to be a governess.
She was a queen. Made to be worshipped.
He’d known it already, seen it in the way she held herself, the way she spoke to him.
The way she put him in his place.
The sharp intelligence she wielded with such grace, a subtle and charming hammer that shaped everyone around her into something better.
And in the wild fancy of that moment, with the last of the evening sun glancing through the windows and setting her hair ablaze, gold beads glinted and dripped from her throat, ending at the place where he wanted to start.
The pathway from her heart to the tips of her breasts.
Kneel at her hem. Offer his fealty.
Claim her. Make her his own.
Forever.
