fever.
Generally, scientific analysis comforted her mind. Today it proved useless.
Gracious, his legs were long. His feet stretched almost to the hearth. And muscular. Although she’d best forget his legs and attend to the conversation unless she wanted to seem a complete ninny.
They were discussing antiquities, naturally. Her father seldom participated in conversations on any other subject.
‘I travelled to Athens last year,’ Lord Wyburn said.
‘Aha!’ Sir George pulled his chair forward with a scrape of its legs. ‘And what, sir, is your opinion of Lord Elgin’s decision to remove the marbles from Greece and bring them to England, eh?’
‘It was wrong,’ the viscount answered easily.
‘But,’ Rilla blurted because she could not help it, ‘if he had not, the marbles would have been destroyed!’
The viscount shifted, turning towards her and, in so doing, narrowed the gap between them. ‘Indeed, Miss Gibson, but was it not a crime to take them from Greece? To do business with the Turks and bring them here?’
Their gazes met. Again, Rilla had a disconcerting feeling that all else in the room had shrunk, diminishing and fading to unimportance.
She had thought his eyes a dark, opaque brown and now realised they weren’t. Their colour was hazel, flecked with gold and green.
‘A lesser crime than to do nothing and allow their destruction,’ she said, with effort.
‘So it is right to preserve beauty from the past and undermine a country’s sovereignty in the present?’
‘I—’ She frowned because she had not thought of it like this and could see validity in his argument. ‘Yes, I think so. The marbles are our heritage. They are the heritage not only of one country, but of mankind. We hold them in trust for future generations. The politics of today are transient.’
‘I am not certain if the Greeks would agree. You are an individual with strong opinions.’
She flushed. ‘A trait not generally admired.’
‘I admire your honesty, but you may need to exercise discretion if you expect to do well in London society.’
‘Oh, I don’t,’ she said.
The straight eyebrows rose. ‘Then you are indeed unusual. To what do you aspire in London?’
‘Well, to see the London Museum, the Rosetta Stone and—’
Rilla left the sentence unfinished, catching Imogene’s look.
‘It appears you do not share the dreams common to most young ladies,’ Wyburn said.
‘Not for myself,’ she said, then stopped.
She had revealed more than she had intended.
Thankfully, Imogene interrupted the slight pause. ‘You said London, Lord Wyburn. Does that mean you will not oppose Lady Wyburn’s plan?’
‘It means, Miss Imogene, that your début will afford my stepmother amusement and I seldom deny her pleasure.’
‘We are much obliged.’
‘Quite so.’ The viscount turned his gaze to Rilla. ‘It would seem, Miss Gibson, that I will have the pleasure of hearing more about your singular opinions in London.’
* * *
Rilla, Imogene and Lady Wyburn had arrived at the capital within the fortnight. They spent the first week shopping, drinking tea and allowing a bossy French maid to style their hair into any number of styles.
Actually, Heloise appeared to be the only member of Lady Wyburn’s staff under the age of seventy. Her butler, Merryweather, was so bent and wizened that Rilla longed to take the tray and bid him sit. She didn’t, however, fearing to insult his dignity.
As for Wyburn, they did not see him at all as he had gone to his estate.
‘Which he hates,’ Lady Wyburn explained. ‘It always makes him dreadfully grumpy.’
The viscount’s absence filled Rilla with both relief and irrational disappointment.
‘He made me feel like I had a smudge on my face,’ she explained to Imogene. ‘I want to prove that I am not always like that, but have adequate social graces.’
‘Except you usually do have a smudge on your face. Although I suppose it is a step forward that you actually care about your smudges.’
Rilla stiffened. Imogene was right. She usually didn’t care. She frowned. She was sitting on Imogene’s bedroom floor beside her churn and she ran her fingers along its smooth wood, twisting the waterwheel so that it moved with a clunk...clunk...
‘But,’ Imogene added with a nod towards this apparatus, ‘if you do now care about smudges, you’d best stay away from that contraption.’
‘It is a perfect reproduction of my churn made precisely to a quarter-scale. Besides you are quite right, I have never cared about dirt or oil before and I see no reason to start now.’
‘I didn’t mean—’
But Rilla was leaning over the churn as though in an embrace, absorbed in both altering the trough’s angle and moving the wheel with a continued rhythmic clunk.
* * *
Lord Wyburn had announced his return with an invitation to the British Museum.
‘Which is an odd choice for an excursion,’ Lady Wyburn stated after reading the missive. ‘Indeed, he is too fond of ancient things and is like to become as bad as your father.’
Despite these comments, Lady Wyburn quickly wrote back their acceptance and announced that the excursion would prove a pleasant change from drinking tea which was too often as weak as dishwater.
But even with warning of his return, Rilla found the sight of him standing within the entrance hall disconcerting. She jerked to an abrupt stop on the stairs, aware of a marked change in her equilibrium without any scientific cause, given that she was neither in a boat or on carriage.
Perhaps it was his size, seemingly huge as he stood within Lady Wyburn’s hall. Or maybe he reminded her too much of her father’s gambling ‘friends’.
Indeed, that must be it, Rilla decided, glad of this explanation.
Certainly, he looked every inch the Corinthian in a well-tailored jacket, beige pantaloons and polished Hessians.
Yet, as she studied him unseen, she was conscious of sadness. It was not, thank goodness, a feeling, but rather she was aware of a shadowed bleakness in his expression, a tightness in his jaw and the sense that unpleasant topics occupied his mind.
Moreover, she realised, with a second start of surprise, that she longed to change that. She wanted to see his expression lighten with wit and interest.
