Page 4 of The Marquess of Temptation
Chapter Two
Alexander Jack de Pfeffel Delaney, Sixth Marquess of Falconbridge, was a man who liked reason and order. It stemmed, he thought, from his years of having studied the scientific art of mathematics. He fervently believed that everything happened for a reason and there was both a rational explanationandsolution for any situation - until today, that is.
"How on earth did you manage to entangle yourself like that?" he drawled, his eyebrows knitted together in surprise as he surveyed the woman before him. The blonde lady, if one could call her that, for no proper lady would be skulking in Montagu House alone, was attached to one of the museum's ancient Greek urns by a long piece of ribbon, which was in itself attached to the most hideous bonnet Alex had ever seen. The ribbon had inexplicably wrapped itself into a knot around the slender neck of the urn and the young woman, who Alex estimated to be not more than twenty, was trying to detangle it without knocking over the priceless, historical artifact.
"I don't know," the girl stammered, turning toward his voice. Her movements caused the urn to wobble precariously and Alex uttered a silent oath. It would not do for her clumsy actions to break the artifact into smithereens. As a patron of the museum, Alex was well aware of the item's historical significance, not to mention value. He was also aware that the noise would send dozens of people scurrying their way - and then he would have to explain what he was doing, alone, in the pottery room with a young woman. A beautiful, young woman, if the parts of her that he could see, were anything to go by.
"Don't move," he ordered, absently touching her shoulder to still her. The problem, he deduced, began with the mammoth proportions of her awful hat. The bonnet was so large that it concealed her view, its brim acting like side-blinkers on a horse, and the poor girl must have panicked and tangled herself even more in a blind-tizz.
"We shall have to take off your hat," he declared confidently.
"I've tried that," a mournful voice replied, "There are so many pins holding it in place that it's near impossible."
"Nothing is impossible," Alex gently chided as he assessed the pins which, upon closer inspection, he now saw were threaded through the hair at the nape of the young woman's neck. It looked like there were at least two dozen of them determinedly binding the bonnet to her head.
"Why on earth do you need so many pins?" he wondered aloud, whilst thinking that it would take a few minutes of him threading his fingers through the young woman's locks before she was free. A thought that left him feeling a little dry-mouthed - which was ridiculous for a man of his age; he had touched far more intimate places on a woman's body than her hair.
"I need them to hold it in place, lest it's blown away by a gust of wind," the woman, whose face he still had not seen, explained cheerfully. "It's one of the chief risks of wearing a bonnet."
The opinion that losing the bonnet in question to a windy day, would, in fact, be no great loss, was on the tip of Alex's tongue, though he chivalrously refrained from voicing it. He knew that not everyone had the financial resources to be as sartorially refined as he, nor the help of London's most expensive valet in choosing clothes from Saville Row. Though heaven knows poverty was no excuse for such a heinous head-piece; the gift of sight was still free after all.
"I'm afraid, if I am to release you, that I will have to touch your hair," Alex said, the strange feeling inside him making him sound gruff and irritated. "I hope you won't take a fit of the vapours when I do."
"Lud, no," the girl snorted, "The only thing that's making me feel faint is the thought of that vase toppling over and breaking into a million pieces. My mistress would never let me hear the end of it."
"Your mistress?" Alex asked, as his fingers began to work their way through her hair. He wasn't particularly interested in the girl's life or occupation but he wanted a distraction from the alarmingly pleasant feeling of her gold locks against his fingers. Who knew that hair could feel so silky to the touch?
"Miss Jane Deveraux," there was a note of pride in the girl's voice, "She's here giving a lecture on the morality of the ancient Romans."
"Is she indeed?" Alex had little interest in the Romans - the Egyptians on the other hand were his current passion. He and his partner Pierre Dubois had been working since the war had ended, on trying to decipher the hieroglyphics found on an ancient Egyptian steele which was currently located in the museum. The work was a perfect mix of his two great loves - history and mathematics --for to decipher the ancient language required logic and Alex had that in spades.
"Oh, yes," the young woman nodded her head fervently, causing the pin in Alex's hand to snag on her curls. She did not seem to notice, for she continued speaking in her sing-song voice that brought images of the seaside in summer to mind.
"She knows everything about everything. She's so very clever - and she wants everyone else to be clever too. She helps to fund a school for girls in Brixton, so they can learn to read and write, and she spends her summers in St Jarvis attending egalitarian saloons with authors and poets."
"St Jarvis?" the woman's ramblings had finally caught Alex's attention, "Your mistress must be the Viscount's sister, Lord Deveraux."
"Are you acquainted?"
"In a way," Alex shrugged, he was nearly at the end of his bonnet mission, though his hands had now slowed and he was working at a more relaxed pace. There was something quite right about the feel of his fingers in this girl's hair and their close proximity. From where he stood he could feel the warmth emanating from her body and though he had not seen the young woman's face, he was certain it was pretty. What a pity she was only a servant...
"Everyone in the ton knows each other in some way or another," he continued absently, as he wrested the final pin attaching her bonnet to her head from her hair and - finally - set her free. "Especially the men. We either schooled together in Eton and Oxford, or served together on the continent."
"You served during the war?"
Alex was unable to answer the question, for, now that she was released, the woman had turned to face him, and her wide, blue eyed stare had left him feeling winded. He had been right, when he had thought she would be pretty, but now seeing her fully, he saw that he had also been wrong - this woman was more than that, she was beautiful. Not in the classical sense, though her hair was blonde and her eyes were blue as was currently fashionable, she was beautiful in a fragile, almost sad way, that left Alex longing to cradle her in his arms.
Goodness, he started, where on earth had that thought sprung from?
"I did," he replied with a shrug, "For a time."
For three years, in fact, until the death of his younger brother forced him back to English soil and into a hasty, ill-thought-out marriage. One did what one had to, to secure the line; though there was not a day that Alex did not regret leaving the men he had fought with behind. His guilt was assuaged by the fact that he had still been working for the crown, helping to decipher codes in correspondence from suspected spies, but first and foremost, he was a man of action.
"How brave," the woman whispered, unswayed by his deliberately short and uninspiring reply.
"Lots of men were brave," Alex replied gruffly, wishing to close down the conversation topic, "And lots of them didn't return. I am lucky that I did. Now tell me Miss, what exactly are you doing alone in a room that is, quite clearly, marked as being private?"
His sudden change of tact left the girl flushing red with embarrassment. He almost regretted the harshness of his words, though the pink stain which made her cheeks glow, acted like a reward for his poor manners. In truth, usually, his actions were always the height of chivalry, but this girl - whatever her name was - was setting his nerves on edge.
