Portrait of a Scotsman (A League of Extraordinary Women #3)(2)
She tried a smile. “Adventurous,” she said. “This is fabulous, and adventurous.”
She turned back to the room. This was a pirate’s lair. And the treasures were piled up high. Every shelf and table surface coming into focus was crowded with splendor: glossy porcelain couples—Meissen, at a second glance—filigree ivory-and-gold statuettes, ornately carved boxes with softly rounded edges in all shades of jade green. Select pieces were illuminated by small table lamps with ceramic shades so fine the gaslight shone through them as if they were made of silk. The wall opposite was papered in a riotously floral Morris wallpaper—a waste, because it was covered from floor to ceiling in paintings, their gilded frames nearly touching.
“Oh my.” She laughed softly. A Cranach the Elder was on display next to a picnic scene that looked like a Monet. Objectively, more intriguing than the Pre-Raphaelites. Shockingly, the glowing embers in the fireplace to her right held the greatest appeal today. As she carefully picked her way through the array of decorated side tables, her cloak jostled one of them and sent a porcelain ballerina swaying precariously on her pointy toes. Goodness. What had possessed Mr. Blackstone or his curator to jumble these precious pieces together like guests of a carelessly composed dinner party, and in a room open to the public no less?
The heat coming from the fireplace was feeble. Her reflection in the wide mirror above the mantelshelf was equally disappointing: the purple feather on her hat was thin as a rat’s tail, her usually silky curls were a riot, her upturned nose glowed pink. If this was what her brief walk had done to her face, what havoc had it wreaked upon her slippers? She stuck out a foot from beneath her hem. Dainty heels, white silk, embroidered with the tiniest pearls. A wholly inappropriate choice for an outing, but one of her favorite pairs. Clearly damaged beyond repair. Her stomach dipped.
It was Professor Ruskin’s fault. Had he not called her Abduction of Persephone “lovely” the other week, she wouldn’t have boarded the train this morning. It had been one such lovely too many since she had enrolled at Oxford last year. He had said it in passing, with a friendly nod, then he had lingered next to Lord Skeffington’s easel and had critiqued his work in depth, and she had stood with her ears straining to catch his advice on how to strengthen the Gothicness in a painting. Somehow, the idea of taking a good long look at Millais’s Ophelia, which Mr. Blackstone had secured for his private collection, had taken root during that class. And yes, there might have been a tiny, tantalizing temptation in the prospect of setting foot on property owned by Mr. Blackstone—the one man in Britain who dared to let her father’s lunch invitations pass unanswered.
Her attention, of its own volition, shifted to the pair of green-glazed, round-bellied vases flanking the mantelshelf clock. They were easily overlooked at first glance, unremarkable in their earthy simplicity, like the poor relation in an opulent ballroom. And yet … her eyes narrowed at the relief on the nearer vase. A keen sensation prickled down her neck—she was looking at something extraordinary indeed. Still, she shouldn’t touch it. She really should not. She tugged the glove off her left hand, stuffed it into her cloak pocket, and skimmed her index finger over the pattern on the vase’s rim. With some luck, there was a mark to confirm her suspicions—if she dared to check for it.
Her deliberation was brief.
She took the vase in both hands, handling it with the anxious care she would afford a raw egg, and turned it bottom up. There was a mark. All the fine hairs on her arms stood erect. This unassuming piece was almost certainly a Han vase. If it was authentic, it was near two thousand years old. Her palms turned hot and damp.
“I’d rather you not touch that,” came a gravelly male voice.
She jumped and shrieked, pressing the vase to her breast.
What she saw in the mirror made her freeze.
The pirate had returned to his cave.
She had seen and heard nothing while engrossed. He must have been watching her awhile, with one shoulder against the doorjamb of the side-chamber door and his arms folded across his broad chest. She turned slowly, her stomach hollowing. Of course he wasn’t a pirate, but he wasn’t decent: he wore no jacket, no cravat, and his sleeves were rolled up to expose muscular forearms. His unruly coal-black hair was too long, and his strong jawline was shadowed with stubble. But the most uncivilized part of him was his eyes—they were trained on her with a singular intensity that curled her toes in her wet stockings.
“I just …” Her voice faltered.
He closed the door. Her grip on the vase tightened. Obviously, he had been sent to fetch her, but her nerves shrilled, urging her to retreat. He moved in on her smoothly, too smoothly, rattling precisely nothing during his prowl through the delicate artifacts. She was motionless like a stunned rabbit until he was right in front of her.
He was arresting. His contrasts in coloring drew all attention to his eyes: hard and gray like slate, with inky brows and lashes, set in a pale face. His features were decidedly masculine, their well-done symmetry vaguely disturbed by a once-broken nose. He had the ageless look of a man who had lived too much, too soon.
He held her in his gaze while he slid two fingers of his right hand into the mouth of the vase. Which she was still clutching like a thief caught in the act.
“Why don’t you give this to me,” he said.
Her skin pulsed red-hot with embarrassment as she released the precious ceramic. She had brothers and she studied alongside men, and she was never tongue-tied in their presence—she was never tongue-tied. But as the man placed the vase back onto the mantelshelf, she breathed in his scent, an attractive blend of pine soap and starch—incongruently clean with his piratical appearance—and she didn’t know where to look. She was altogether too aware of this man being a man. He stood just above average height, but his soft cotton sleeves clung snugly to the balls of his shoulders, hinting at swells and ridges of muscle no gentleman would possess. She glanced back up at his face just as he inclined his head, and their eyes met in another mutual inspection. A thin scar bisected the left side of his upper lip. Her mouth turned dry. It was a trick of the light, but his irises had darkened by a shade or two.