London, two weeks later …
Throwing open the door to the study adjoining her bedchamber, Clare Dunnaby heaved a sigh of relief. A servant had thought to start a fire in the hearth in preparation for her arrival home, and it went a long way toward warding off the chill clinging to her. It had been a miserably cold and foggy morning, but she’d been looking forward to inspecting the newest exhibits at the British Museum for weeks now. Rain and cold be damned, Clare had been determined not to suffer from boredom while cloistered away indoors. Tenacity was her middle name, and she was often known for going against all prudence when it came to whatever she wanted most at the moment.
Actually, Cecelia was her middle name, but had she been able to choose her own middle name, she would have chosen Tenacity. Armored with resolve to enjoy her outing—along with a pelisse that buttoned to the throat and a cumbersome umbrella—she’d taken the walk from Bedford Square to the museum. Such weather was good for a hearty constitution, her aunt always told her, but while Clare often found light summer showers enjoyable, today’s inclement conditions left much to be desired. She peeled off her gloves while striding closer to the fire, tossing them aside without bothering to notice how they fell.
The housekeeper would swoon in a dead faint if she trod into Clare’s private domain, but Aunt Helene ordered the servants to keep out. The room had been transformed into a study of sorts, filled with tables, desks, and shelves which contained the assortment of items related to Clare’s intellectual interests. She was unforgivably absentminded and, as Aunt Helene affectionately called her, an irredeemable sloven. It wasn’t that she enjoyed making additional work for the chambermaids, or even that she had no care for her belongings. It was simply that her mind never ceased working long enough for her to give thought to anything beyond whatever held her attention.
And, at the moment, the thing capturing her interest was the parcel lying on her writing desk. It had been delivered during her outing, and the moment sensation returned to her numb fingers she would tear it open. She’d been waiting for the parcel for months now, and could hardly contain her excitement over what might be inside.
While the heat of the fire seeped through the layers of her clothes, she set to work making herself comfortable. Fumbling with the buttons of her pelisse, she peeled the damp garment off and flung it in the direction of the coat tree in the corner of the room. It fell into a heap, just missing its target and landing amongst a cloak and a spencer she’d forgotten to pick up and return to her lady’s maid for cleaning. Untying the ribbons of her bonnet, she tried again for the coat tree, smiling as she made her mark, sending the headwear spinning before it settled on its perch.
Her fingers no longer feeling like rigid icicles, Clare went to her desk while running them through hair cropped to chin length. In her youth, the locks had fallen to her waist in a heavy tumble of glossy black waves. However, she no longer had the patience to sit while her maid combed, brushed, and styled it. Clare found that the shortened hair freed up much of her time for more important things—such as her study of botany, her collections, and her books.
Before settling into her chair, she located the bell-pull and rang, desirous of a hot drink and something to nibble on as she whiled away the hours before dinner in her study. That done, she reached for her parcel, barely able to contain a wide grin as she tore through the brown paper. Inside, she found a plain box with a folded and sealed letter resting on top. Despite wanting to get to the contents of the box, she opened the letter first. Upon the stationary inside, she found the familiar handwriting of her dear friend, Gillian Young.
Dearest CeCe,
Do forgive me for taking so long to write. Our arrival in Cornwall preceded a whirlwind of activity as we settled in with Randall’s associates. Then, the excavation began and my daylight hours have been spent at toiling and discovery. The weather has impeded our work some days, but the moment the soil is dry enough we go right back to our site and resume our work. We’ve unearthed quite a few interesting specimens, a few of which I have enclosed samples of for your collection.
I do apologize for the shortness of this letter, but am certain you understand. We’ve only a few days left before we begin our travels again, and I hope our next destination proves as diverting as this one has been.
Thank you so much for including the pressed blossoms with your last letter. The cluster of Delphinium gypsophilum Ewan was my favorite. I look forward to your next letter, though it might be best for you to withhold it until I can apprise you of where we will travel to next, along with the address.
Randall sends his warmest regards.
Your friend,
Gilly
P.S. - on the back of this letter you will find a list of the specimens I sent for your collection.
Setting the letter aside, Clare slid the box closer to her and paused, allowing the anticipation to build before she would permit herself the satisfaction of knowing what lay within. She tried not to think on the inclusion of Randall’s greeting in Gillian’s letter. Her friend’s elder brother had expressed an interest in her a year ago, before the siblings had embarked on their journey of geological exploration. He had even invited her to join them, likely in an attempt to appeal to her intellectual tendencies, knowing he had little chance of appealing to her romantic ones.
It wasn’t that she had no interest in the opposite sex, only that she’d had yet to find a man who could capture her attention as easily as a good book, a scientific essay, or her beloved plants. She found it ever so ironic that one of the only men not repelled by her pursuits—on the contrary, he seemed drawn to her because of them—and Clare felt absolutely nothing but sibling-like kinship toward him. She and Gillian had been friends for so long, the other woman felt like the sister she’d always wanted, making Randall more like a brother to her than anything else. She only wished the man would finally realize this and turn his attentions elsewhere.
She’d turned down the invitation, for she would not leave Aunt Helene alone for the world. Besides that, she had also hoped time and distance would turn Randall’s attentions away from her and toward some other woman—one who would feel affection for him in return. It would seem that was not yet the case.
Shrugging aside those thoughts, she slowly opened the box, her breath catching at the sight of the specimens laid inside. The door to her study opened and footsteps approached, but she couldn’t be bothered to look up as a maid set a tray of tea and biscuits atop the stack of books resting on one corner of the desk. No one needed to ask why she’d rung, for all the servants knew that a summons from her study meant someone was to bring her tea and then promptly exit without disturbing her. The maid did that now, leaving her to contemplate the collection in peace.
She absently nibbled on a biscuit while taking up each stone and comparing them to Gillian’s list. There was a triangular hunk of beige and black speckled cassiterite in quartz, a small jade green slab of iridescent quartz, a jagged bit of cuprite sporting swirls of aquamarine and deep red, and a multifaceted piece of sky-blue chalcedony.
Forgetting about her refreshment, she fumbled about the clutter of her desk until locating her magnifying glass, needing more than the assistance of her brass-rimmed spectacles to properly study the stones.
Lifting the cuprite until its surface gleamed in the light of the taper resting nearby, she peered at it through the glass. She was so engrossed by the contrasting swirls of aquamarine and red that she hardly heard the knock upon her door. Without bothering to answer it, she turned the stone over in her hand and studied it from a different angle. The door swung open despite her refusal to urge the person to enter, and she didn’t bother to look up—knowing that after tea had been delivered, only one person would dare enter her domain without permission.
Aunt Helene’s familiar rose-oil scent wafted up her nostrils the moment before she spied the woman in her periphery.
“Aunt,” she murmured, laying the cuprite back into the box and selecting the chalcedony.
“CeCe, dear … how was your trip to the museum?” her aunt asked, leaning against the corner of her desk.
“Quite diverting, and far preferable to spending all day trapped indoors. What have you been up to today?”
“Why, preparing to surprise you for your birthday, of course.”
Clare paused, the stone falling from her fingers and into the box with a ‘thunk’. At last, she peered up at Helene, who gave her a smug smile, her bright blue eyes twinkling with mirth. Even as she approached her sixtieth year, her aunt proved to be a stunning woman. Smile lines around her eyes and a few wrinkles only added character to a remarkable face. To the everlasting despair of every eligible man of a certain age in London, Helene was adamant that she would never marry again after being widowed. Clare had always doted upon her aunt, seeing her as a model of the sort of woman she wanted to be. Independent, intelligent, and unconcerned with the thoughts and opinions of others.
“My birthday?” she murmured, furrowing her brow. “My …”
Helene pilfered a biscuit from Clare’s tray and took a dainty bite. “It is April 25th, my dear. The day of your birth, you might recall.”
Clare’s frown deepened as she sat up straighter in her chair. “No, that cannot be right. It can’t be so late in the month already.”
“Of course it is,” Helene insisted. “You’ve lost track of time again, busy as you have been with your plants and your rocks and such.”
“Minerals,” she corrected. “Or, specimens as Gillian calls them.”
“Oh, you’ve heard from Gilly. I do love that dear girl. How is she?”
Clare lifted her letter from the desk and waved it through the air. “Enjoying Cornwall and already plotting her next destination. But, back to the matter at hand. Are you certain it is my birthday? Perhaps you are the one who has the date wrong.”
Helene rolled her eyes and took another bite of her biscuit. “Today’s copy of the Post begs to differ. It is your birthday, my dear, and I’ve planned something especially wonderful for you this year.”
Raising her eyebrows, Clare found herself intrigued. “More wonderful than that hot air balloon ride last year? I was so grateful you convinced Mr. Kent to allow us to come along for his ascent. A most bracing experience!”
“Even better than that,” Helene declared. “It is not every day a girl turns one-and-twenty after all.”
Clare shrugged. “One would think receiving my inheritance would be gift enough.”
“That gift is from your parents, God rest them,” Helene replied, her expression growing wistful for a moment before she smiled. “This is something special, from me.”
Every birthday saw her on the receiving end of an extravagant gift from Helene, her aunt’s way of making the occasion special for her. It had been this way since she and her sister, Alice, had come to live with Helene after the deaths of both their parents. Having never borne children of her own, Helene had leaped in with both feet to raise two young girls alone. It was Clare’s opinion that she’d done an admirable job of it, even if Alice had departed from them to marry a baron years ago without a look back. Her elder sister proved as different from Helene and Clare as a bird from a fish. While Alice seemed to have been made for the shallow social world of the ton, Helene and Clare were content to live on the edge of it while making their own rules. They had no care for propriety or social norms, while Alice lived her life by them to a rigid degree.
This was why Clare could never have gone off to Cornwall to leave Helene alone in London. Her aunt had a busy social life as well as her own circle of friends to spend her time with. However, though she tried to hide it, Clare could see it hurt her aunt that Alice seemed to want nothing to do with either of them. She enjoyed her younger niece’s presence in her home, and Clare liked the freedom as well as the companionship of remaining in the same home with one of the few people in the world who understood her. Besides, if she left, who would make such a grand affair of her birthday each year, even when she forgot about it herself?
Setting her magnifying glass aside, Clare rose and smoothed her skirts. “Well then, where is this gift? I find I am most anxious to know what it is, even though I did not realize it was my birthday until a few seconds ago.”
A wide, catlike grin spread across her aunt’s face, and the woman stood from her perch on the corner of the desk. Motioning toward the connecting door to Clare’s bedchamber, her eyes glittered with excitement and mischief.
“I’ve stashed it in your bedroom, dear. I do hope you enjoy it.”
Without waiting for further explanation—and knowing her aunt had a flare for the dramatic—Clare went to the door. Throwing it open, she noticed that a fire and several tapers had been lit within. Stepping farther into the chamber she found that nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She’d half expected to discover that her aunt had wedged an entire circus inside her room, complete with acrobats, jugglers, and elephants. One might argue that the elephants would never fit, but her aunt was nothing if not resourceful. Baby elephants, perhaps.
However, she saw nothing other than the usual order maintained by her lady’s maid. Helene hadn’t redecorated, as there had been no change to the chinese wallpaper, heavy oak furniture, or silk seafoam green curtains.
Glancing over her shoulder at the closed door, she wondered if she ought to go ask Helene if she had hidden the gift. Perhaps Clare was meant to hunt for it.
But then, the rustle of fabric caught her attention and had her whirling to face the bed. Her mouth fell open as amongst the tousled mess of her unmade bedclothes, she found the very last thing she would have expected.
A man who appeared to be stark naked.
Good heavens, there’s a nude man in my bed! Her stomach performed a somersault as she noticed that he was quite an intriguing specimen of manhood—light brown hair falling in an artful tumble about his head, refined, angular features, and an upper body that suggested strength and agility. She’d seen a man unclothed before, but had not found him as pleasant to look upon as this one, with sinewy lines and bulges of muscles stretching along his chest and arms.
As he sat up in bed and met her gaze, a slow, sensual smile transformed his face into something sinful. It must be a sin for someone to look so delectably carnal—all full lips, mussed hair, and smooth, bare skin. Staring at him without blinking, she noticed that his eyes were a lovely shade of deep jade, akin to the chunk of quartz in the next room.
Her mouth went dry when those perfect lips of his parted to form words, emitting a deep, pleasing baritone.
“Hello, Clare.”