Willa aimed a smile over Lord Alaric’s shoulder.
The thundercloud darkened.
Lord Alaric’s eyes narrowed, but he did not turn.
“Ladies, I shall speak to Prism and arrange to join you at the meal,” Lord Roland said, bowing.
“Excellent idea; I’ll join you,” Lord Alaric said heartily, turning on his heel without further farewell.
Lady Biddle arrived just too late, drawing up short in the aggravated way a horse does when a carriage nips out from a side alley and blocks the road.
Diana, Lavinia, and Willa all curtsied.
“You three act as if you’re so different from the rest of us,” the lady said, in an astonishing display of poor manners. “As if you didn’t want him. The truth is that he’s a handsome beast, and we all want him.”
“I beg your pardon,” Diana said frigidly, doing an excellent imitation of a woman who would someday become a duchess.
“As a matter of fact, I’ve changed my mind,” Lavinia said with her usual ready friendliness, even though Lady Biddle was glowering. “He seems like a real person now, if that makes sense.”
“Lord Alaric is not a beast,” Willa stated, wondering why she was bothering to defend the man.
Lady Biddle laughed. “He’s a primitive. That’s the thrill of it.” Her mouth twisted. “Oh, why am I trying to explain to you? Green girls are so tiresome. Don’t think he isn’t bored by the three of you, because he is.”
“I have no doubt,” Willa said, keeping her tone even. “If you’ll please excuse us, Lady Gray will be looking for us.”
“That woman is extraordinarily ill-bred,” Diana said, as they climbed the stairs to the great hall. “When I am married, I shall give her the cut direct.”
“I was fascinated to see Willa throw her hat into the ring,” Lavinia said, twinkling at Willa. “You practically challenged Lady Biddle to a duel, or a version of it.”
“I most certainly did not,” Willa exclaimed.
“You raised an eyebrow,” Lavinia crowed. “I saw you! That was a challenge. Your expression implied that Lord Alaric was at your feet and you were contemplating whether to accept his hand. And then you defended him!”
“Really?” Willa said, trying to decide whether defense could be construed as a challenge.
“Absolutely,” Lavinia confirmed. “If you were a man, you would have slapped her cheek with a scented glove and challenged her to meet you on the heath, and there in the early dawn, you’d have to defend your—”
“Don’t say ‘love,’ ” Willa advised.
“I wasn’t going to. You’d have to defend your desirability over Lady Biddle’s. Obviously, you would win.”
“That’s not high praise,” Willa said, thinking about Helena Biddle’s eyes. They were beady. And greedy.
“Don’t you want the famous Lord Wilde at your feet?” Diana asked, peering past Lavinia. “You would be my sister-in-law.”
“I’m sorry, but no, even under those circumstances,” Willa replied.
She couldn’t imagine Lord Wilde at her feet. He was the explorer, the man who leaned close to Lady Biddle, who spoke knowledgeably about Egyptian pyramids, and seemed to await praise of his books. If not his profile.
But Lord Alaric?
That was a different story. The very idea of him at her feet, or in her bedchamber, made her feel hot all over.
Lord Alaric was livid at the idea of his personal life playing out on the stage. He didn’t want all his admirers. He made terrible puns and looked as if he’d like to pounce on her.
Carry her from the room and into his bedchamber.
“Think of how many ladies are mad for Lord Wilde. It would be such a triumph,” Diana insisted.
Willa shrugged, breaking her own rule. “I’m not interested.”
“Willa!” Lavinia hissed.
Lord Alaric was looking down at them from the top of the stairs, certainly within earshot. Willa stopped short, hand frozen on the balustrade.
He opened his mouth and almost said something, but instead took himself off down the hallway.
“Well, that was awkward,” Lavinia murmured.
Willa bit her lip. She hadn’t intended for him to overhear her. All the same, she’d meant what she said. She would hate it if women pursued her husband, sniffing at his feet as dogs do after a fox’s tail has been dragged over a path.
She would never marry a fox’s tail.
That didn’t quite make sense. She didn’t want to marry a man whom everyone wanted, as Helena Biddle put it. The lady was wrong to call him a primitive, but she was right about his desirability.
No one lusted after Socrates, she reminded herself again.
Her engraving of the philosopher pointed directly to the type of man with whom she could be happy.
Chapter Seven
Lavinia’s mother, Lady Gray, had the easy confidence of someone whose great-great-grandfathers rubbed shoulders with kings. “Of course, you may eat wherever you wish. But why would you wish to do such a peculiar thing?” she sighed, before waving the girls away.
The moment Lady Gray was out of earshot, Diana murmured something about a headache and fled to her bedchamber, so Prism escorted Lavinia and Willa to a small table at the very bottom of the hall, managing—as butlers do so well—to mask his disapproval of their voluntary displacement with an impassive face, while somehow still making his feelings known.
At their approach, the young scholar, Mr. Roberts, sprang to his feet. He was thin as a billiard cue and was wearing an old-fashioned wig with a queue. Twists of sandy hair escaped around the edges of his wig, making him look like a dandelion gone to seed.
Willa was surprised to see his eyes widen in something like awe, as he’d been perfectly composed when the duke had introduced her earlier in the day. Then she realized that Roberts was reacting not to her, but to Lord Alaric, who was looming just behind her.
“Good evening, ladies,” his lordship said, bowing. “I’m afraid we’ll have to dine without my brother. Once made aware that Miss Belgrave had retired for the evening, North decided he wasn’t as interested in hieroglyphs as he thought.”
“Lord Alaric, may I present Mr. Roberts?” Willa said.
The scholar’s eyes were as round as saucers. Evidently, Lord Wilde’s books had been well received in the university. “I am … I am honored,” he stammered.
Interesting.
Willa would have thought that an academic would disdain authors of popular travel narratives. But not this author: Roberts proceeded to reveal that he had read every one of the books.
Willa watched Lord Alaric respond to Roberts’s lavish praise politely, but with no life in his voice. In fact, it was as if an impassive veneer had settled over his expression.
He wrote the books; why would he be so disinclined to tell Mr. Roberts what the “true story” was behind some incident that had taken place in the Americas? Instead, Lord Alaric insisted, in a voice courteous but remote, that there was no “true story” other than what he had put on the page.
Mr. Roberts seated himself to Willa’s right, his expression frankly disbelieving. Just as she had decided that Lord Alaric’s scar was the result of an accident in the privy, Mr. Roberts had apparently come to his own conclusions about that incident.
And no matter what Lord Alaric said about it, Mr. Roberts was not inclined to change his mind.
Much to her own surprise, Willa discovered that she trusted the author. The quiet, even way he affirmed the events he had described in his book made her believe him.
Annoying though Lord Alaric was, it seemed he told the truth. No literary flourishes, no extra characters added for the sake of drama.
No cannibals. Which meant no missionary’s daughter. There was no logic to the relief she felt at that idea.
When all four of them were seated, Lord Alaric looked across the table and said, “I’m very pleased that you invited me to join you, Miss Ffynche.”
It was a blatant provo
cation, as she had not invited him. And so was the naughty smile he was giving her. Willa had been taught not to speak across the table, so she merely nodded, and turned to Mr. Roberts.
“I was most interested by the article you published in The Gentleman’s Magazine about Egyptian papyrus rolls. I wonder if you’ve made progress deciphering the hieroglyphs.”
Mr. Roberts cast her a wary look. “You read my article in The Gentleman’s Magazine?”
“Yes,” Willa said, keeping it simple because it appeared that even notable scholars had trouble understanding the English language. “Have you been able to make progress on the scrolls?”
He frowned. “Matters of ancient philology cannot possibly interest ladies of gentle birth. I thought you wished to discuss my travels in Egypt.” He turned to Lord Alaric. “Don’t you agree, your lordship?”
“I’d think you’d welcome intelligent conversation with anyone even slightly familiar with your work.” Lord Alaric glanced at Willa, a gleam of laughter in his eyes. “I’m sure I find it easier than talking to people who boast of never having read a page of my books.”
Willa swallowed back a grin.
After that blunt appraisal, the scholar got over his reluctance to discuss hieroglyphs with ladies, and admitted that he thought he had made some valuable discoveries. “The most contentious question is whether each individual hieroglyph represents an idea or a sound.”
“Which do you believe?” Willa asked.
He puffed out his chest like a bantam rooster, and spoke over her head to Lord Alaric. “I have come to the conclusion that each hieroglyph represents an idea.”
“Could you give us an example of a hieroglyph?” Lavinia asked. “I must admit that I didn’t pay close attention to the exhibition of papyrus.”
“Regrettably, I haven’t a way to draw one,” Mr. Roberts replied. His expression suggested he thought ladies were incapable of deciphering such mysteries in any case.
“That is no matter,” Lord Alaric said, picking up his bowl of spring pea soup. He poured a thick green glop on the white plate underneath the bowl. “Draw your hieroglyph here.”
Mr. Roberts picked up his knife and scratched a shape.
“I know what it is,” Lavinia cried. “It’s a golden idol, the sort they used to worship. A baby. Yes, it is certainly a baby. With a crown!”
That was characteristic of Lavinia’s imagination. Willa didn’t see a baby. Or a crown.
Lord Alaric was frowning, perhaps because he was viewing the image from the side. “Is it a swan?”
“Very close,” Mr. Roberts said. He turned to Willa.
“It’s a duck,” she said. “I must say that while I applaud your drawing skills—and those of the ancient Egyptians—I find it hard to imagine what concept a duck might represent.”
“I am working on the hypothesis that because a duck loves its children, this image means ‘son.’ ”
There was a moment’s silence. “Miss Ffynche,” Lord Alaric said at length, “what do you think of Mr. Roberts’s proposition?”
“Mr. Roberts’s reasoning isn’t immediately clear to me,” Willa replied, discarding the rules of dining etiquette in order to respond directly, “but perhaps that is because I don’t know as much about the species as he.”
“I don’t think closer study of ducks would help,” Lord Alaric drawled. “Even if one discounted animals unknown to ancient Egyptians, any number of animal hieroglyphs could indicate parental affection.”
Mr. Roberts started rapidly blinking his eyes. “The duck was particularly known in antiquity for its care of its offspring.”
“I noticed many cats in the scrolls on display in the British Museum,” Willa intervened. “What do you think they represent, sir?”
“I vote for ‘daughter,’ ” Lord Alaric said, before Mr. Roberts could gather his thoughts.
“We have a tomcat in the stables who must have fathered hundreds of kittens, but he dislikes them all,” Lavinia said. “Even mother cats care for their young only until they are able to kill their own mice, which contradicts your suggestion, Lord Alaric.”
Mr. Roberts appeared rattled by the turn the conversation had taken. “The ancient Greek word for ‘duck’—”
Lord Alaric cut him off. “Ladies, are you aware that a duck will feign an injury in order to draw a fox away from her nest? The bird runs the risk of being eaten, putting her life before her offspring’s.”
He had switched sides, Willa thought with some indignation. The discussion was merely a game to him.
“I have read about that behavior,” she said. “However, Mr. Roberts did not indicate that the image of the duck connoted the idea of sacrifice. He specified ‘son,’ thus I believe he has further reasons for his argument.”
Mr. Roberts’s pained expression suggested he was not enjoying the conversation, no matter how respectful her phrasing. Willa was used to that; it sometimes took gentlemen a good half hour to get over their conviction that the additional body parts men possessed indicated their brains were extra large.
It was one of the reasons that she and Lavinia had decided to question but not counter their beaux during the Season: men were so tiresomely afraid of being proven wrong.
She gave Mr. Roberts yet another encouraging smile. “I do hope we are not making you uncomfortable by engaging with your intriguing idea.”
“Willa is forever discomfiting knowledgeable gentlemen,” Lavinia remarked, “and nothing our headmistress said could dissuade her from it.”
“Please explain the reasoning behind your association of ‘duck’ and ‘son,’ ” Willa said, ignoring Lavinia.
Lord Alaric was sitting back in his chair and was watching her with a faint smile that was absurdly unsettling. In fact, it gave Willa a warm feeling in her chest and belly that—
That was unacceptable. She was not affected by a man.
Mr. Roberts, for his part, was seemingly still trying to adjust to the fact that his conclusion was being called into question by two women.
“I believe you were about to say something about the Greek word for ‘duck’?” Willa prompted. “Am I right in thinking that it is ‘Penelope’?”
Lord Alaric gave a bark of laughter. “What was your headmistress like?”
“Are you asking whether Willa and I belong to the Bluestocking Society?” Lavinia inquired. “They’d never have us. We’re entirely too fond of dancing, and I, for one, am remarkably frivolous.”
Willa was wrestling with the uncharitable instinct either to kick Lord Alaric under the table, or lead him to believe that she knew Greek.
Which she did not.
“I do not read Greek,” she admitted. “But in Greek mythology, Icarius was angered by the sex of his eldest child, Penelope, and threw his infant daughter into the water to drown, whereupon she was saved by a family of ducks. My understanding is that Penelope’s name means ‘duck.’ ”
“It’s a lovely story,” Lavinia said. “I can imagine a family of ducks anxiously keeping the baby afloat with a great deal of diving and quacking.”
“Lavinia is likely the only person I know capable of writing that play you disparage so much,” Willa said to Lord Alaric. “She has a remarkable imagination.”
Lord Alaric grinned. “Miss Gray, did you author a disgraceful farce entitled Wilde in Love?”
“I wish I had,” Lavinia said. “Because then my mother would have been forced to allow us to see the production, don’t you think?”
Mr. Roberts was gaping from one to the other.
“I assume that Lady Gray would feel confident that your girlish innocence could not be tarnished by listening to heady poetry that you yourself wrote,” Lord Alaric agreed.
He was addressing Lavinia, but looking at Willa.
She broke his gaze—which was harder to do than it should have been—and turned back to the scholar. “If you don’t mind my asking again, Mr. Roberts, how did Penelope’s experience with ducks influence your thinking about the Egyptian hie
roglyph?”
Chapter Eight
Alaric was experiencing that disagreeable emotion again. It was an emotion that brought an unpleasant physical response with it, like seasickness.
Or the consequence of too much brandy.
Perhaps the sudden onset of a fever.
He sat back, thinking it over, while the young fool from Oxford painstakingly tried to explain to Willa the links between a mythological girl named Penelope and the figure of a duck drawn in pea soup.
Roberts’s efforts weren’t helped when the lady, with exquisite tact, noted that she was confused by how the Greek civilization, which had begun thousands of years after the Egyptians invented hieroglyphs, could have influenced the earlier system of writing.
Alas, Roberts was unable to respond with anything resembling clarity.
If he had anything logical to say, which Alaric doubted.
“I believe I understand,” Miss Gray put in after Roberts had repeated himself three or four times in the forlorn hope his thesis would sound better in different words. “You think that the myth of Penelope is much older than scholars believe.”
She was nearly as smart as her friend, and equally pretty.
What in the devil had happened to English ladies in the years he’d been traveling?
Helena Biddle was as lustful and foolish as he remembered, but Miss Gray and Miss Ffynche seemed as akin to her as … as an ancient Egyptian to an ancient Greek.
When Willa Ffynche was intrigued by something, her blue eyes darkened to indigo.
Roberts had at last figured out that the two women were as intelligent as he, if not more so. He leaned forward in order to reply to Lavinia, causing his sleeve to brush Willa’s bare arm.
Primitive instincts had kept Alaric alive on more than one occasion. The instinct to run was a powerful one. Very useful.
The emotion he was feeling right now?
Just as powerful, but not as useful.
He stared at Roberts until the man uneasily glanced at him … and sprang back into his seat, removing his person from the vicinity of Willa’s arm, as if Alaric had put a torch under his nose.
Perhaps not a useful emotion, but an effective one.