The British Museum was housed in a sprawling French-style edifice on Great Russell Street. The building had been constructed for the first Duke of Montagu but a subsequent duke, alarmed by the decline of Bloomsbury from fashionable aristocratic enclave to distinctly middle-class district, had abandoned the house in the mid-eighteenth century and moved to Whitehall.
“The building was sold to the trustees of the British Museum and used to house the collection of the Irish Physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane.”
Alex nodded dutifully as he followed curator Henry Franks through the museum’s echoing halls.
“The lower floor, where we are now,” Franks explained, “contains our extensive library of printed books.” He gestured vaguely toward a wing that disappeared off to the right. “The upper floor, which we shall see in a moment, Lord Melton, is home to our impressive collection of insects, worms, corals, vegetables, birds and quadrupeds—stuffed, of course, not live”—he chuckled at his own humor—“snakes, lizards, and fishes.”
Alex shuddered. He’d seen quite enough lizards and flies during his time in the Peninsular. Those damned mosquitoes had plagued the entire regiment. He made a noncommittal sound. “And where might I find a blue diamond that was loaned to the museum a few years ago?”
Franks pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose. “Ah. You refer to the Eliason jewel. That would also be on the second floor, in our minerals, shells, and fossils room. This way.”
Alex let out a relieved exhale when he saw the jewel in question was still resting in its velvet-lined cabinet. The Nightjar had not already paid the museum a clandestine visit. “Who has the key to this cabinet, Mister Franks?”
“I do, my lord, although I don’t carry it around with me all day.” Franks held up a jangling metal ring upon which resided eight or so keys. “I keep the keys to the main doors here on my person, but all the cabinet keys are stored in my office downstairs, on hooks. Each one is labelled with a room and a cabinet number to avoid confusion.”
“I see. And what other security measures do you have in place?”
“Well, I myself live in an apartment in the east wing, my lord. I make a nightly patrol at eleven, just before I retire, and another at nine in the morning, just before opening time. And of course, there’s Brutus.”
“Brutus?”
“Our guard dog. He’s half Doberman. I let him loose in here at night. He’d let me know if we had any intruders.”
“Aren’t you worried he’ll relieve himself on one of the exhibits?” Alex chuckled.
Franks sent him an offended look. “Brutus wouldn’t do that. He knows he only receives his morning beefsteak if he waits to use the gardens.”
Alex nodded.
“Can I ask why you’re so interested in the museum’s security, my lord?”
“I expect you’ve read about the break-in at Rundell and Bridge a few days ago?”
Franks nodded. “Indeed I did, sir. A most worrying state of affairs. I do hope Bow Street don’t think the British Museum will be another target.”
“It’s a possibility,” Alex hedged. “You should stay alert.”
More like a certainty, if his theory was correct.
Franks drew himself up. “I am conscious of the fact that we house a great number of valuable objects here at the museum, sir. Rest assured that I shall be most vigilant when it comes to the security of our collections.”
Alex clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man. I’m sure Bow Street can count on you to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Now, I have a mind to visit the sculpture gallery before I leave. Lord Elgin tells me the friezes he brought from Greece are worth a look.”
“The diamond is upstairs,” Camille murmured as she and Emmy strolled through the British Museum’s Greek and Roman sculpture gallery. Their skirts swished softly in unison against the polished parquet floor. Emmy counted the number of steps it took to reach the staircase, twenty-eight.
They paused to admire a marble depiction of a gladiator, and she tried to imagine the athletic figure dressed in clothes. It would be impossible to fit shoulders that muscled into the confines of a modern tailcoat. And what cravat would wind around a neck so thick? For one brief, startling moment, she wondered what Alexander Harland might look like without his clothes on, and her entire body begin to glow. Would he look like this? Both hard and smooth? All ripples and curves?
“Oh, look. There’s Lord Melton.”
Emmy swirled around in horror. Sure enough, the subject of her feverish imaginings was standing at the far end of the gallery.
She ducked behind the statue and closed her eyes. It was as if her outrageous fantasies had actually summoned him into existence, like some terrible, far-too-handsome genie. She tried to will him away, but when she braved a peek from around the gladiator’s thigh, there he remained, stubbornly, attractively present.
The one small mercy was that he hadn’t noticed them—he seemed to be inspecting a frieze of wall-mounted panels. They could still escape.
Since they were at a safe distance, Emmy allowed herself a moment to study Harland’s physical architecture in the same way she might study the floorplan of a heist, taking in every pertinent detail. Certainly he was built along monumental lines. Tailoring couldn’t disguise the bulk of muscle in his biceps, nor the breadth of his shoulders. His breeches conformed so faithfully to his thighs that she could actually see the ripple of muscles beneath. And the tails of his coat were undoubtedly hiding a remarkable posterior—
“We really should go and introduce ourselves,” Camille trilled.
Emmy clutched her arm. “Are you mad? Why would we want to do that? I thought we’d agreed to avoid his notice?”
“Oh, pish. He’ll turn around and see us at any moment. It will be far more noticeable if we don’t acknowledge him. We must be brazen. Confident. And besides, I knew his mother. I’m sure he’s a lovely man.”
“He is the enemy,” Emmy hissed as if she were the wicked stepmother in a badly acted play. “He works for Bow Street! He is the law.”
Camille waved her hand in a dismissive gesture.
“And he is not a ‘nice man,’” Emmy added. “He is a rake and a gamester. He might be an earl, but he is thoroughly disreputable. He owns a gaming club. In St. James’s.”
“And where else would one open a gaming club?” Camille asked tartly. “Blackheath? Limehouse? Is he rich?”
Emmy narrowed her eyes. “Well, yes, by all accounts. Not that it makes—”
“There you go, then.” Camille smiled. “Handsome, rich, and charming. The perfect trifecta.”
She began to sidle forward, using the sculpture of a recumbent Apollo as cover. Emmy tried unsuccessfully to pull her back.
Alex was not impressed by Lord Elgin’s marbles. They seemed to consist of an endless procession of headless riders dressed in little more than bath sheets trying to control overly frisky mounts. If the Greeks wanted them back—and he wasn’t sure why they would—they were welcome to them.
He was about to return to the Tricorn when his nose detected the same scent he’d experienced outside Rundell & Bridge. He stilled in shock. His heart began to pound against his rib cage, and for one moment, he experienced an almost overwhelming surge of happiness.
The girl from the garden. She was here! Fate was giving him a second chance.
She must be remarkably close. It had been months since anyone had managed to sneak up on him without attracting his attention; he was usually far more conscious of people coming at him from his blind side. The marble sculptures must have concealed her approach.
He was almost afraid to turn around. “Never meet your heroes,” the old adage said, and the same was doubtless true for mysterious dance partners. What real-life flesh-and-blood woman could hope to compete with three years of dedicated fantasizing? She was bound to be a disappointment. Married. Or plain. Or cross-eyed.
Still, he had to know.
Bracing himself as if for a blow, Alex turned and encountered a froth of brown hair done up in an elaborate feminine style. He readjusted his gaze downward—the owner of the hair was a good foot shorter than himself—and found himself looking into a pair of wide grey eyes set in a pale, elfin face.
The same face he’d studied across Lady Turnbull’s ballroom last night.
He experienced an instant’s confusion and then a wave of bitter disillusionment incinerated every last ounce of optimism in his soul.
He’d always suspected fate was a perverse bitch, but even he couldn’t have predicted this cruel twist. Of course his mystery woman would be the prime suspect in a series of impossible crimes. And of course she would be beautiful, in that subtle, understated way that had always appealed to him most.
Alex bit back a cynical laugh and narrowed his eyes. It made an awful kind of sense. How much energy had he wasted, dreaming of her? He should have known she was too good to be true.
This close, he could see details he hadn’t noticed at Lady Turnbull’s. Her eyes were grey, with pale, silvery flecks. Her nose was small and tilt-tipped—the word “impertinent” sprang to mind—and the bridge of it was unmistakably freckled. She had a beauty spot half an inch below her left eye.
He let his gaze drop lower and almost groaned. Her lips were exactly as he remembered. Those lips had laughed at him from beneath a Venetian mask. Those lips had pressed against his in innocent ardor and left him panting for more.
Those lips were utter, pink perfection.
“Lord Melton?”
Alex blinked. A throaty female voice to his right interrupted his self-flagellation.
“Good morning! I am Camille Danvers, Comtesse de Rougemont. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I knew your mother, years ago. Such a charming lady. I still miss her terribly.”
Remembering his manners, Alex lifted the older lady’s hand to his lips. “A pleasure, madam. And thank you, but I barely remember her. She died when I was but six years old.”
The countess gave him a studied appraisal. “She was a handsome woman, and I must say you’ve certainly inherited her good looks.” She gestured to the tiny traitor beside her. “Allow me to introduce my granddaughter, Emmeline.”
Alex took the hand that was offered, amazed at how small it seemed within his own. They were both wearing gloves, but the shock of the contact still sent a sizzle of something—anger, definitely anger—all the way down to his toes.
He brought her hand up to his lips, and at the last moment, seized by a wicked impulse, twisted it and pressed his mouth to the inch of exposed wrist between glove and sleeve.
The scent of her robbed him of breath, and he took a perverse satisfaction in her shocked gasp as his lips touched the bare skin over her fluttering pulse.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Danvers,” he growled.
At last.