Wilde in Love(10)

She nodded. “I want to ask about his work on hieroglyphs and the Egyptian alphabet.”

“What are hieroglyphs?” Diana asked, edging around to Willa’s other side, away from her fiancé.

“It’s a way of writing with little pictures,” Willa said. “Lavinia and I saw an exhibition of ancient Egyptian scrolls covered with them.”

“I’ve always been interested in hieroglyphs,” Lord Alaric said. “And so has North.”

He elbowed Lord Roland, who was gazing at Diana. “Absolutely,” his brother said. “Fascinated.”

“If I’m not mistaken,” Lord Alaric added, “Roberts is working on the barrel of papyri I sent home. I’d forgotten all about that. It’s just like our father to have someone in to translate them.”

“You cannot translate hieroglyphs,” Willa said, before she could stop herself. “The alphabet isn’t understood at this point.”

“She’s got you there,” Lord Roland said, snapping out of his study of Diana’s downcast eyes to elbow his brother back.

“I’m more interested in the present than the past,” Lord Alaric said. “But I shall be interested to see what the fellow thinks of the papyri. I had them off an old man who swore they were found in one of the pyramids.”

“Perhaps we should continue to the dining hall,” Willa said. Lady Biddle was bearing down fast behind Lord Alaric, the way a thundercloud bundles up on the horizon, and then manifests as a black cloud just over your head.

To judge by her scowl, she had decided that Willa was persona non grata.

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.